My God, I’m in way over my head here. She gripped her elbows with shaking hands.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing, captain?” she whispered.
“The hell if I know,” he murmured against her skin, stirring tendrils of her hair. “Last night I concluded that you’ve been positioned by your government to compromise me—since it worked so well the last time, with my unfortunate predecessor. I’ve been cautioned that a prudent man would refrain from springing for the bait, no matter how… enticing it may appear.”
He paused. “But I’ve never been known for being prudent. As you’ve undoubtedly read in my dossier, Counselor.”
“According to your dossier,” she said huskily, striving to regain her footing, “you’re an adventure junkie. You’ve never met a risk you won’t take. Isn’t that right, captain?”
“While you’re a model diplomat whose conduct in country is invariably flawless,” he breathed. “However, I find continuing to address you as ‘Counselor’ while I’m inhaling your fragrance is something of a stretch, even for a man of my considerable talents. Alexis…may I call you this?”
“Do you really think I’m such an easy mark?” she countered softly, far too conscious of his breath teasing her skin. “This is about retaliation, isn’t it? A little diplomatic ‘tit-for-tat’ for the stunt we just pulled on you.”
“Don’t you think that would be a bit obvious, even for my government? You would be the very last woman I’d target, for precisely that reason,” he said calmly. “And you can believe I’m the last man they’d use. I’m in disgrace, or hadn’t you noticed?”
“Then why am I here?” she whispered.
Though she had to admit his arguments made a certain degree of sense. Russian ops usually were quite a bit more subtle. They were experts at the art of deception. Besides, Victor Kostenko didn’t strike her as the kind of guy who’d perform sexually on demand, for the Motherland or anyone else.
“If you require a justification you can cable back to Washington, tell them tonight was about dialogue.” His warm breath on her neck receded as he straightened. “Opening a back channel for communication between our countries, yes? If we…enjoy one another’s company in the process, this is not a crime.”
Tell that to her boss, who’d just been booted out. Or to his, who’d just been fired.
Sure and strong, his hands closed over her shoulders. “The performance is ending, Alexis. I’m going to take you someplace else now.”
“You know we can’t do that,” she said sharply, alarm flashing through her. “Besides, there’s really no point to prolonging this appointment. I believe we’ve each accomplished our meeting objectives.”
“Speak for yourself,” he murmured, accent thickening.
“In fact, we shouldn’t even be here—”
“Sshhh.” He sounded amused, damn the man, as he chided her for making noise in the theater.
“Captain,” she said firmly. “I have a cable to write.”
“Tsk, tsk. I really should be offended, Counselor. Evidently, you’d prefer an evening at your desk composing a reporting cable to another hour in my company, despite all my efforts to impress you.” He squeezed her shoulders, as if that would settle her right down. “Wait here.”
He wouldn’t wait for her assent—knew she wouldn’t accede to this clandestine ‘dialogue’ he claimed to want. He was breaking every rule in the book, though she could tell herself she’d been swept along by the moment, that he’d given her no choice. But that would be a cop-out, wouldn’t it? He couldn’t seize control if she refused to cede it. Yet she hated the thought of running from a challenge, giving him the satisfaction of knowing he’d rattled her.
Or was something else going on in her devious brain? She’d have to be pretty naïve not to acknowledge, at least to herself, the way her body reacted when he touched her. She was a healthy, thirty-two year old woman who’d been celibate a bit too long, but her sex drive had picked a pretty inconvenient moment to reassert itself.
While Kostenko retrieved her coat, Alexis recited in her mind the top ten list of reasons why she wouldn’t be going anywhere with him. Anyhow, if seduction was his strategy, where could he possibly take her?
To his place, wherever that was, past the security cameras and the all-knowing eyes of his concierge? To some thousand-bucks-a-night, Russian Mafia-run hotel where the staff knew him by name, where he’d taken countless other girls who were as intrigued by him as—admittedly—she was?
Or even worse, a guaranteed disaster, did he expect her to initiate the protracted administrative procedure necessary to clear him into the Embassy compound, where her townhouse was? God, her shiny Foreign Service career would be in shreds by sunrise if she tried that.
Given her rank and his, it would make the Washington Post, front page above the fold on a slow news day. She could already see the headlines: U.S. Embassy Official Compromised in Liaison with Senior Russian Officer. And then, in smaller print: Involvement of Moscow Intelligence Organs Suspected.
Subtle or not, he had to be planning to use sex to compromise her, making her ripe for blackmail by the Russian security services.
The rational part of her brain was still scrolling through a list of cautions when Kostenko slipped up behind her. She jumped up, alarmed by the way her body yearned toward him, every pleasure point thrumming with a symphony of desire.
Shit. She needed to get away from this guy, whether it dented her pride or not. Snatching her coat, she hustled into it under her own steam, then scooped up her briefcase and got the hell out of there.
After the darkened womb of the theater, the garishly lit corridor hurt her eyes and assaulted her senses, though the public setting was a reassurance. The captain prowled just behind her, gripping her arm to guide her—all quiet assurance and contained intensity. When the shrill pulse of his phone chimed out, Alexis slipped deftly free of him and hurried ahead, beyond his dangerous reach.
She’d better thank her lucky stars for whatever politico-military crisis was burning the midnight oil at MFA tonight. For it soon became clear, from his clipped and barely courteous replies to the caller, that this time the captain would be obliged to address it. Near the exit, she focused on projecting cool composure while he wrapped up and flipped the phone shut.
“It seems my presence is needed at the ministry,” he said in staccato Russian, clearly too irritated to speak English, and knowing she understood him perfectly well. “Damn bloody idiots in the dip corps are timid as field mice. Every time they see a shadow, they scamper for their holes.”
He paused. “But I should be able to dispatch the problem quickly. I suppose there is no possibility—?”
“None whatsoever, captain,” she said blithely, heels clicking as she swept before him. Did he actually think she was insane enough to wait for him to conclude his business, then pick up where they’d left off? How desperate for male companionship did he think she was?
“Won’t your capital reproach you for missing the opportunity?” he murmured. Despite her brisk pace, he reached the heavy outer door first and swung it open for her. “If you’re so determined to terminate our engagement, my driver will drop you at your Embassy along the way.”
“Thank you, but that won’t be necessary. I’ll flag down a gypsy cab or take the metro.”
“Not at this hour,” he said flatly, summoning his driver with a wave.
Her breath gusted white on the brittle air—already well below zero and dropping fast. She shivered and stuck to her guns. “I’ve been living in this city without an automobile for quite some time. I’m perfectly content taking public transport.”
“If you find my company so alarming, Ms. Castle, I’ll take the damn gypsy cab myself. Get in.” He swung open the Mercedes’ back door, leaving her no room to argue.
Alexis dug her stilettos into the icy pavement and made a last ditch effort to salvage something professionally from the unmitigated disaster this night threatened to become. “I’ll relay the con
tents of our discussion to Washington, Captain Kostenko, and notify you when I receive further guidance.”
The minute the words left her lips, the professional negotiator in her knew she’d pressed him too far. His features hardened into the remorseless mask of the Russian officer who’d confronted her in the German Ambassador’s residence. With one menacing step, he cornered her between his body and the wing of the open door. Behind her the vehicle’s warmth flowed out, soft as an eiderdown blanket wrapping around her legs, until it hit the icy air.
“This isn’t over, Alexis,” he growled softly, one hand curling around the back of her neck, beneath her hair, inside the collar of her half-fastened coat. Calloused fingers massaged the taut column of her neck. Her toes curled inside her designer boots.
Low and intense, he repeated it. “You know it’s not over.”
“No,” she murmured. Meaning God knew what. Yes, I know it’s not over? She’d better be meaning no, it’s over, this is too dangerous for me. You’re a drug I can’t get hooked on.
She held her ground while he peered into her eyes, as if he could read only there whatever message she meant to convey.
“OK,” he said gruffly, giving her neck a squeeze, so gentle it made her knees melt. Her breath rushed out as he leaned close, brushing a brief, European kiss on each cold cheek.
Hastily she turned away and climbed into the sedan, still half-certain he meant to climb after her into the intimate cocoon of the back seat. If he did, she was climbing right out the other end, and to hell with her dented pride. Tonight’s events had made it glaringly apparent—although hopefully not to him—that she had less control over her own body and its reactions than she’d fondly imagined.
Thankfully, he closed the door between them and thumped the roof twice to signal the driver. Then the car was purring away. She curled up in the heated seat and hugged her briefcase to her chest, damp palms leaving smudges on the expensive leather. Jesus.
Knowing she was in trouble big time, way over her head. Listing an entire catalog of reasons why she had to stay away from Captain Victor Kostenko—far away.
Knowing that if he chose to pursue her in earnest, she couldn’t be certain she trusted herself to run.
CHAPTER THREE
The next afternoon was a command performance for Alexis—a birthday fete for the Embassy’s Chief Admin Officer, a good-natured guy in his mid-fifties who’d done her a few good turns at post. Various colleagues from the expatriate community showed up, and Alexis did her part to make them feel welcome.
Not easy to do in the sterile confines of the Embassy’s Winter Garden, a stark glass-walled reception room “livened up” with a smattering of appalling examples of contemporary American art.
Even though she’d deliberately chosen a glass of sparkling water with lime in lieu of champagne, she found herself struggling to concentrate on these carefully-weighted conversations. In this environment, every casual exchange with another official needed to be microscopically screened for policy nuances from its capital. Usually, the exercise was second nature to her.
Today, she couldn’t stop thinking about her rendezvous with the Russian sub captain. After returning to the Embassy compound last night, she’d barely slept. When she finally managed to doze, she was treated to the debut appearance of a really erotic dream. Featuring Captain Victor Kostenko, in searing detail, doing things she’d been struggling all day not to think about.
She’d never had a dream in her life like that, a dream that dampened the bikini panties she was sleeping in, and stiffened her nipples until they chafed against her camisole. When those rough-skinned climber’s hands finished exploring her body, the hot wet rasp of his tongue took over. Then she’d convulsed awake, the pulse of pleasure arching her back and sending chills down her legs, her cry still echoing through the heated darkness of her townhouse.
Seduced by a dream, she thought wryly. A very wet dream. That was all Kostenko could ever be, if she wanted to keep her impressive new position. She’d hurried in early to log a terse readout on their encounter—minus the way he’d touched her, and the way she’d responded, and the dream—and determined to regain control of their bilateral “dialogue” before either of them received instructions on a follow-up.
The first time I saw you, I burned to discover how you would look and feel and taste in my bed. She couldn’t exactly report that to her male superiors. Instead she’d noted, blanketing the report in her blandest and most bureaucratic language, that the captain had expressed a desire to see her socially.
Of course, Geoff had taken one look at her censored version of events and read between the lines. Calling her into his office, he’d subjected her to a chilly lecture on “compromising entanglements” with her Russian counterparts, patronizing her as though she were some wide-eyed Third Secretary on her first tour of duty. Thank God he hadn’t been at the Bolshoi last night to witness how compromising her unorthodox entanglement with the captain had truly been.
Now, feeling her thoughts bounce around like the projectile in a pinball machine, Alexis sipped her sparkling water and strove to lock all stray thoughts of Victor Kostenko into their proper compartment: the one labeled security and disarmament engagement with Russia.
Gracefully, she wrapped up her conversation with the anxious Ukrainian Ambassador. The strain of recent events was showing on his good-natured features as the rotund older man pressed to know, in concrete terms, what actions his country could count upon its U.S. partner to undertake regarding the Russian aggression. But since her own Ambassador had been given no instructions from Washington, she could only prevaricate, despite her strong sympathy for the Ukrainian dilemma.
She was slipping through the crowd, nibbling at a salty triangle of black bread dabbed with caviar, when a silent alert pulsed through her like a telegraph message. Her skin tingling, she swiveled just in time to glimpse the broad-shouldered blond officer in the Russian naval uniform as he glided into the Winter Garden, with his distinctive prowling tread.
Alexis jerked to a halt as if her heels had engaged a parking brake, and felt her heart kick into overdrive. Blood rushed to her face—the curse of a fair complexion—as one thought pounded through her brain.
I’ve got to be hallucinating, since I can’t possibly be drunk. Because I haven’t touched a drop of alcohol all day.
As if he too had received the same silent broadcast, Captain Victor Kostenko stopped on cue and scanned the room. His electric-blue eyes swept the crowd like sonar pulsing through the ocean depths in search of a target. As if he were searching for her.
Don’t be obtuse. Of course he’s searching for you. The thought that he might have dropped by the U.S. Embassy for the benign purpose of wishing the CAO a happy birthday, never guessing she might be present, was patently absurd. She barely knew him, but she’d bet a week of vacation time that this was a guy who didn’t like surprises—unless he’d arranged them himself.
Determined to avoid another sex-charged encounter she couldn’t control in front of half the diplomatic community, Alexis veered away from the door. Ducking behind the tinsel-shrouded bulk of the Christmas tree, she plunged into the first conversation she could find.
Her bad luck that the group included her ex.
Now she must perform as the Political Counselor, commenting on the current status of a taxation debate in the Russian Duma, and feigning fascination with the anodyne topic. All the while, her ears were straining to discern the distinctive staccato of Victor Kostenko’s rapid-fire Russian behind her. Her nose was twitching like a rabbit’s, for God’s sake, trying to pick up the slightest whiff of Beckham. Firmly she resisted the temptation to sneak a peek behind her.
When the shifting crowd opened a path to the door, she confirmed the coast was clear, then abandoned ship with a murmured excuse about fetching another drink.
Typical of her luck today that Geoff cornered her at the bar, pouring her a glass of champagne without noticing her empty water glass.
“It’s unprofessional,” her ex muttered, darting a narrowed glance over the crowd. “We’re trying to defuse an international crisis, and that chap’s sniffing ’round you like a dog in heat.”
“I presume you’re referring to Captain Kostenko?” she said icily, unwilling to play stupid. “I’m certain he’s here for business, just like everyone else. As you may recall, my section is working several issues with his department, beyond the Ukraine crisis. He could be here to discuss the nuclear nonproliferation summit, the destruction of our chemical weapons stockpiles, implementation of the Biological Weapons Convention—”
“If Victor Kostenko has come to this birthday gala to talk about arms control,” Geoff murmured, “I’ll buy you dinner at Café Pushkin, Alexis. It’s the best restaurant in town, isn’t it?”
Alexis slanted him a wary glance. She recognized that smooth tone he used to charm the ladies, but she was no longer tempted to encourage him. She might be obliged to work with her ex-husband and live practically on top of him in the fishbowl Embassy compound, but she was determined to confine their relationship to strictly professional terms. Letting him into her heart had destroyed her the last time and, despite his frequent assertions to the contrary, she knew Geoff hadn’t changed. He was still a serial cheater and a serial liar about relationships, and Alexis was finished being played.
“Trust me on this one, Geoff. Kostenko’s here for business,” she said, as though she hadn’t heard his casual invite. “This is not a man who frequents tepid diplomatic functions when he’s in the mood to play.”
“He’s hunting you in your natural habitat.” Seemingly unaware of her discomfort, Geoff shadowed her as she made for the door. “The man’s entire career has been dedicated to stalking American assets. You’re simply the latest target he’s locked on to.”
“Even if that were true,” she pointed out, “it would be my problem to deal with.”
“The devil it would,” he muttered in her ear, clearly conscious of the crowd. “You’re my principal deputy, for God’s sake, and a damn good one. Sleep with a Russian naval officer, Alexis, and you can kiss your career goodbye. They’ll think you’ve been compromised—and perhaps they’d be right.”
The Russian Seduction Page 5
