“That’s not what worries me.” The vodka loosened her tongue, eased the cork out of her bottled-up inhibitions. Why not just come out and say it? Let him know she knew what he was up to. “Not that I don’t appreciate this little seduction scene you’ve arranged, but we can’t….”
The words dried up, her Dutch courage failing before she could specify that-which-should-not-be-named. Swallowing hard, she repeated, “We can’t.”
His voice deepened, making her knees go weak. “Can’t we?”
CHAPTER FIVE
Alexis tingled with anticipation as Kostenko uncoiled to his feet and prowled toward her. The same fight-or-flight instinct he always roused in her, except this time a different ‘f’ word suggested itself to her flustered body. Damn it, she had to pull herself together.
Tough to do when the sensual promise in his hard-hewn features made her ache with wanting. When every foot of space he closed between them made it tougher to remember why she needed to stay away.
His cobalt eyes held hers, never letting go for a second. One step closer, and he stood close enough to touch. She wanted to back away, but doggedly held her ground. If she ceded an inch of territory, he’d think she was afraid of him.
“Don’t you ever break the rules, Alexis?”
“Don’t you ever keep them?” Her voice came out shaky, but she didn’t look away.
“I’ll keep the rules when the system rewards me for doing it,” he growled, his accent deepening. “No one on my side’s going to know.”
Yeah, that was what she should be questioning. He might be able to break the rules and get away with it, but she sure as hell couldn’t—
Her mouth went dry when he reached for her, those cocksure hands closing around her waist, easing her up against lean hips and a mountaineer’s rock-hard thighs. She struggled for breath as his erection nudged her belly, setting off tremors of longing between her thighs stronger than an 8.5 earthquake on the Richter scale.
“So,” he breathed, the tang of Davidoffs and danger enough to make her sweat. “What shall we do, hmmm?”
Here was the point of no return, the moment when she absolutely must stop this. Unless she planned to give in, just give her body what it wanted after a two-year dry spell. Just scratch the itch, then perform the necessary damage control with the Embassy to cover her ass for this one-night stand. She moistened her lips and steeled herself to say We can’t.
But she whispered instead, “I’d have to report it.”
“Well then,” he murmured, one hand easing up her spine with leisurely purpose, like he had all the time in the world to seduce her. “I’ll just have to make it worth your while.”
He cradled her head as his mouth found hers. The slide of hot wet friction seared through her like a comet of pleasure, promising a galaxy of sensual gratification to come. She moaned and opened for him, the burn of vodka on his tongue going straight to her head. God, that had to be it, she was crazy drunk, out of her head after two shots of vodka. Delirious with sexual craving for the first good-looking guy who’d mounted a serious pursuit since her divorce was finalized.
But even that didn’t stop her.
Arousal throbbed between her legs as she leaned into his predator’s body, so dangerous but so good. Her palms drank him in, sliding across the solid muscle of his shoulders—Olympic-gymnast-on-the-pommel-horse material—to do what she’d secretly wanted since the night they’d met. Thread her fingers through the lush burnished gold of that not-quite-regulation hair.
The raspy velvet of his jaw made her shiver and arch her throat into his teeth. He growled with satisfaction and caught her behind the thighs, lifting her off the ground.
“This is completely inappropriate,” she whispered, head spinning, as he carried her toward the fire’s blazing heat. “We’ll both lose our jobs. Captain—”
“Call me Victor, damn it,” he muttered, lowering them to kneel on the black bearskin. “Do you want me to call you Counselor when I’m inside you?”
“No! I mean—Victor—” She couldn’t resist drowning in him, just for a minute, turning her face into his throat and breathing deep, that spine-tingling aroma of Beckham that she couldn’t get enough of. Tongue darting out to taste his salty skin.
God, it would be so damn good between them…but she couldn’t let it happen. She’d be handing her career to him on a silver platter.
So what? Ruthlessly suppressed for ten years, her inner rebel spoke up. You don’t have to be in control every second. Let go for an hour.
“Victor. I can’t do this.” She tried another obligatory protest, but the rebel in her had taken over, and didn’t resist when he eased her back on the lush fur.
“Do you really want me to stop?” Disheveled blond tendrils fell over his forehead as he unbuttoned her blazer and stripped it away, like he couldn’t wait to be inside her.
“Not really,” she admitted, staring up at him, thinking this had to be some kind of fantasy. Except that no dream had ever looked and felt this good. Crystal beads of perspiration glistening on his suntanned skin. Gold-tipped lashes hooding his ice-blue eyes, doing nothing to hide the naked hunger she stirred in him.
When he peeled off her silk camisole, she didn’t even voice a protest. But she stirred, self-conscious, too aware of how long it’d been since she’d slept with someone.
“Christ,” he said thickly, his face tightening, as if the sight of her damaged him. “You’re bloody gorgeous.”
He said it in both languages, his husky words easing her moment of insecurity. She snuck a peek to remind herself which lingerie she’d fumbled into in the pitch-black Moscow predawn. Not the demure, hand-crafted House of Cadolle confections she usually favored. Tonight it was turquoise lace, since lingerie was one of the few avenues of expression she’d found that allowed her to feel both sexy and “safe.” And how pathetic was that?
Then his hands and mouth were claiming her, unhooking her bra, driving every rational thought she’d ever had straight into oblivion. The rough calluses on his fingers making her nipples hard as pomegranate seeds when he touched her. No way was she stopping now, not while the wet heat of his mouth was suckling her, teeth grazing her just the way she liked it. Like he’d gotten into the bedside diary she’d kept in college, and figured out exactly what turned her on.
She fumbled at his tie and jacket, aching to get him naked. His chest and shoulders were a wet dream, like she’d known they would be, tight-defined muscles rolling under sun-gold skin, six-pack abs hard and hot against her fingers.
They were both sweating by the time he encountered the bikini-cut panties she’d struggled into that morning. And found out firsthand just how much he turned her on.
He took his time getting her out of them, fingers teasing and rubbing through the damp lace. Bringing her right to the edge, until she was moaning and squirming against his fingers. By the time he eased her out of her panties…with his teeth…one excruciating inch at a time…Alexis couldn’t remember why she’d wanted to stop him.
When he finally slid one finger into her slick heat, she almost came right there, so ready he had her pleading. Sometime during the thrash and slide of their sweat-soaked limbs, he broke out a condom, and she was grateful he’d thought about protection, though she’d been on the Pill for convenience since college.
But when his cock eased into her in a long slow slide, when he braced above her on his elbows, and the friction teased her clit—that was when she climaxed. The shocks of pleasure blew her mind, rolling through her one after another, until she thought she’d never stop coming.
_____________________________________
Afterward Alexis lay sprawled on the bearskin, limbs languid and sated, damp with the residue of her own climax as the aftershocks eased. In the end, he’d pinned her arms overhead, bringing her again to the peak just when she’d thought the last tremors must be wrung out of her.
You ought to be ashamed, she rebuked her inner rebel. There’s a reason I’ve kept you lo
cked up since I joined the government. Look what you’ve gone and done now. She’d simply had no idea her body could react that way, never cared to make herself vulnerable enough to find out. Never dreamed she’d respond so intensely to being dominated, of all things, a feeling she’d hated and fought against all her life.
She—whose professional success had always hinged on how decisively she took charge herself.
Damn it, where was her judgment? She’d just royally screwed herself, hadn’t she?
Uncomfortable, she rolled on her side, away from Kostenko, and stared into the blazing fire. On the walls all around, the eyes of those carved wooden faces followed her.
Now the husky pant of his breath slowed behind her, as they both recovered from their ill-considered romp. She wondered if the same misgivings were trickling into both their sex-stunned brains, if he felt the same mounting alarm over what they’d just done, and what it could cost them.
This is how it feels to be compromised. And he should know, since the Russians were experts at the art.
“You’re squirming, Counselor,” he rumbled, rolling over and bracing himself on one elbow to peer down at her.
She shot him a quick glance, saw beads of sweat still glittering against suntanned skin. Saw the smolder of sensual satisfaction in his Slavic features, making all her blown-out circuits sputter back to life.
“We shouldn’t have done this,” she said hoarsely, turning away, putting distance between them. The full magnitude of what they’d done came roaring through her. “Shit.”
A pause while he registered her chagrin. His voice altered subtly, sharpened to a wary edge.
“I suppose I’m a bad influence on a good girl like you. But surely, it’s too early for the so-called buyer’s remorse.” His tone deepened, sent a shiver sliding over her skin. “Surely I didn’t…disappoint?”
My God, that’s one way of putting it. The throb of possessiveness in that low-pitched query made her draw up her knees and hug herself, fighting to raise the barriers that would keep him out. She kept her tone light, as though this encounter that had probably derailed her life were entirely trivial.
“Do you want me to stroke your ego, captain?”
“Not my ego,” he murmured, with a trace of wicked humor that made her shiver again. “I’m just asking if you were satisfied, Alexis.”
And there it was again, the seductive lure he’d used to reel her in. She was in pretty big trouble here. It would be out of the question to wrap herself around him, show him how hot she still was for him—
“Hell,” she whispered. Pretty pointless lying about it now, when the train had left the station. “What just happened—it wasn’t exactly subtle. You have to know that I…liked it.”
“I’m gratified.” He stretched to snare a folded quilt from the couch and tossed it over them. Hastily she tucked it around her nudity. So keenly aware of him, even when she was carefully not looking at him, that she could feel those ice-blue eyes narrowing, assessing the barriers she was throwing up between them.
Yeah, she knew he wouldn’t like it. Knew it would irritate the totalitarian in him, the guy who’d always called the shots. As she stared at the wooden faces that watched them, willing Kostenko to keep his distance, he smoothed a hand over her tumbled hair—loose around her shoulders since he’d tugged it from its sleek knot.
This was the secret side of him, those surprising flashes of tenderness that surfaced so rarely beneath that Russian brusqueness. His renegade charm might make her nipples tighten, but it was these moments of gentleness that made her knees melt.
She risked a sideways glance at him. All that fire-bronzed skin stretched over muscle, sun-streaked hair falling over the focused intensity of his features, his guarded eyes brooding over her. Damn, she still wanted him. Far from exorcising her sexual demons with that little rite of passion, he’d made her even more crazy for him. As if that first explosive joining had only fanned the flames.
But there was no way in hell she could ever let anything like it happen again. Bad enough she’d have to report sleeping with him to the Embassy’s Regional Security Officer. Worse if she had to report they’d done it more than once. For the sake of her country and her own goddamned sanity, she needed to be able to report that she’d ended it.
She cleared her throat and put it out there. “You know I can’t stay here tonight. That would only make things worse.”
“Well, we wouldn’t want to ‘make things worse.’” Annoyance edged his voice, but she knew when he leashed it, when sensual purpose took over. His warm breath brushed her skin, teeth closing over the tender junction where neck curved into shoulder.
All that destructive power—held in reserve, for now. A spear of desire lanced through her like a missile.
“Don’t get excited, Counselor,” he whispered. “I’m going to drive you back. But not…quite…yet.”
Victor Kostenko was a bomb on a hairpin trigger, and she needed to handle him carefully. Instead, she’d challenged him, made him itch to prove what he could do. Provoked him into a tug-of-war for power.
“Captain Kostenko,” she said stiffly, and felt him snort against her skin. “Ah, Victor. I don’t want to give you the wrong impression—”
“You can’t deny you were dying to know what it would be like.” Beneath the quilt, a powerful arm slid around her waist as he launched another assault against her resolve. “That night we met in the German Ambassador’s residence, we were both imagining how it would be when we went to bed. You were more than tempted. You knew this would happen, yes?”
“Certainly not. You were extraordinarily difficult that night.” And every night since. Cautiously, she tried to slide away from him. “I might have felt somewhat—challenged by you, and my colleagues would tell you I never walk away from a challenge. But certainly I never intended—”
“You needed me to take the lead.” Muscle rippled as he tumbled her back into the danger zone of his body. His erection brushed her derriere. And just like that, arousal pulsed between her thighs. A gasp slipped from her lips.
“I never let anyone take the lead,” she countered, mouth quirking with reluctant humor. “You should know that’s my job.”
“Are you certain about that?” He chuckled. “In this case, you needed to be able to tell yourself—with all due sincerity—that I seduced you despite your dutiful protests. Since I was equally intrigued, our interests were fully in accord.”
Yeah, the fact that she’d wanted him to overwhelm her was definitely not something she wanted to pursue right now. What she needed to focus on were his motives for this little seduction. She knew too much about Russian methods to delude herself into thinking this was a simple case of boy meets girl, boy wants girl, boy gets girl into bed.
“Even if I take your word for it,” she said warily, “that you weren’t already intending to cultivate me, that you were genuinely intrigued…”
“Am,” he corrected softly, hardened fingers skimming the tender curve of her breast, wringing another gasp from her. “Present tense. I’m still intrigued, Alexis.”
“Even so,” she hurried on, clutching fistfuls of quilt so she didn’t arch back into him and beg him to do whatever he wanted with her. “It’s every professional woman’s fear that her male colleagues don’t take her seriously. That while she’s doing her job to the best of her abilities, the guy across the table is thinking about undressing her. A smart woman downplays her sexual assets in the office. So…”
“Are you asking why you interest me?” he murmured, his breath stirring her hair. “Christ, do you need to hear the reasons? Aside from the obvious fact that you’re beautiful? Do you need me to say that I’m drawn to your intensity, your…determination to succeed, no matter how hard I make things for you? That your intellect and your frightening competence are a turn-on? That you make me wonder what stokes your fire, what drives and needs are locked away under that chilly diplomat’s demeanor.”
He seemed to think it over, and she
knew he had to feel the way her heart was pounding against his hand. She felt like she could hardly breathe, felt suddenly afraid she was going to cry. As if for comfort, he sighed and rubbed his raspy jaw against her neck, sending pulses of pleasure through her nervous system.
“I told you before, we’re the same,” he breathed. “I see myself in you—the way I used to be. And the harder you push to hold me at bay, the closer I need to get.”
He sounded sincere about it—the irresistible lure that could draw a man already disgraced into a career-ending shipwreck of an affair, one that his government could not conceivably overlook.
Assuming he wasn’t lying next to her right now because his government had told him to do it.
His dangerous fingers were drawing circles around her breast, making her nipple contract and tingle with expectation. Damn, he made her want him, made her insides melt and run like butter. Made her so ready for him she really feared she might be tempted to give him another go. Though she maintained just enough grasp on reality to know all the reasons she shouldn’t.
She caught his wandering hand in hers—the hand that could unleash the massive offensive power of the most formidable weapon mankind had ever created, yet play a woman’s body like a vintage violin.
“I really am going to report this encounter,” she told him. “If I don’t, and they find out I didn’t, I’ll lose my job for sure.”
Not to mention making herself intolerably vulnerable to blackmail, an asset too valuable for the Russians not to exploit.
“Well,” he said tightly, “that will put your ex-husband’s boxers in a twist.”
Until today, the thought of pissing off her disgruntled ex would have seemed foolhardy, and far too risky. Now she almost wanted to let the man who’d regarded her so lightly know that Victor Kostenko had staked his claim. That whole alpha male aggression thing had always turned her off. Who would have thought it could morph into such a major turn-on?
The Russian Seduction Page 9
