Even if she hadn’t been the seducer in their brief liaison.
With a shaking hand, she swept tendrils of hair behind her ear.
“Don’t—don’t talk about him. I don’t want to—”
“Out of sight, out of mind. Is that it? All water under the bridge? How convenient that must be for you.”
Now, finally, he was angry: nostrils flared, a hint of color rising against those aristocratic cheekbones. In the ruddy darkness, his pupils seemed to swallow his eyes, cold and remorseless as a shark’s.
Why was he angry now, so suddenly, about aspects of her personal life that could hardly matter to him? Was it all just a ploy to yank her chain?
“That’s ancient history!” she fired back, meeting him stare for stare. “And none of your damn business.”
He barked out a harsh laugh.
“You might be surprised.”
Slender hands, tensile as steel, closed around her hips as he stepped right into her. The hard graceful lines of his body seared into her, the lean sinewed heat of a killing machine, trapping her between the window and his dangerous strength.
Fear and a potent excitement arced through her. Gasping, she got her hands between them, palms spreading across his hard chest to hold him off. But that was concime—horse manure. If he really meant to kill her, she’d be helpless to stop him.
But she would bloody well make him work for it.
They were nearly the same height, only inches apart, chocolate hair falling over his brow in disarray. He was beautiful and deadly, and she needed to stay the hell away from him.
“Let go of me.” She glared straight into his smoldering gaze. “And keep away!”
“That would certainly seem the optimal play,” he muttered.
Right before he kissed her.
Shock riveted her in place as molten heat seared through her. His mouth was hard and hungry, lips slanting across hers relentless as any predator. She gripped the expensive wool of his jacket in both fists and moaned into him—a muffled sound of surprise and protest.
In response he stepped into her, pushed her off balance until she sat hard on the sill. Smoothly he stepped between her thighs, one arm sliding around her waist, hand cradling her scalp to hold her. Liquid heat flared and pulsed between her legs, far too powerful to deny.
Skylar moaned harder and opened for him, welcomed the hot butterscotch thrust of his tongue, the acrid perfume of high-end coffee and cigarettes flooding her senses. Despite the layers of fabric between them, the hard bulge of his cock burned into her.
He rocked against her as though they were already fucking—though that would never happen, could never be allowed to happen. Yet the sudden dampness of her own arousal made her panties cling. The musk of passion mingled with the scent of amber spice rising from his skin.
“God, yes,” he whispered into her mouth, voice thick with desire.
Senses reeling, she released his coat and did what she’d wanted to do all day—slid her hands into the silken smoothness of his hair and kissed him back. Her tongue met his in the thrust and glide of shared hunger.
His hands slid down her back, spread across her derriere, tilted her against him and held her as they rocked together. Sharp and urgent, need spiraled through her.
She had to stop this…knew she had to stop it. In a minute, he’d be unbuttoning her trousers—
Where he’d find the VX purchase order. And the game would be up.
Cold reality dashed over her like a splash of icy water. What the hell was she doing, kissing a Russian security agent—quite possibly a spook no matter what he said? Lives and careers hung in the balance, starting with her own. She’d risked way too much for that damn document to throw it all away because she was incurably hot for someone she shouldn’t be.
Skylar dragged in a ragged breath and broke the kiss.
She opened her eyes to find him staring at her, breathing harsh and hair in disarray, lashes long and thick as a woman’s hooding the dark heat of his gaze. Fully aroused and thoroughly dangerous. And still lodged firmly between her thighs, where her body still ached for him.
“Damn it,” he muttered.
“Quite.” Face burning, she slid back on the sill until the icy glass froze her spine through her cashmere sweater. “All this life-and-death tension…people are bound to get their wires crossed, psychologically speaking. I’m sure this sort of thing happens to you all the time.”
“Hardly.” Under his breath, he voiced a grim chuckle. “Psychological confusion. Is that what you think this is?”
“What do you think it is?” she countered, oddly riveted on his answer.
“I never mix business with pleasure.”
“That’s not exactly an answer.”
He swept a hand through his hair, which she’d thoroughly tousled. “A man in my line of business can’t afford to get carried away.”
His evasiveness annoyed her.
“Then what do you call this? You’re still standing way too close, by the way.”
“Am I distracting you?” The dark look he shot her was suddenly molten with promise, making her far too aware that he was still standing between her thighs. And she was still wet for him.
“To answer your question, Dr. Rossi, I don’t know what the hell to call this, except a momentary aberration. Whatever it was, it won’t happen again.”
Smoothly he stepped back, giving her the space she needed. Swallowing an absurd pang of disappointment, Skylar slid down from the sill and smoothed her sweater over her hips. Nikolai glided away with his soundless step, heading toward the window near the door.
Time to get back to business—the deadly grim business of survival. She cleared her throat.
“About the train, I’ve been thinking. What if I purchased another ticket using a different name? We could use your name and passport, just to get me into the cabin. Then you could simply step off and leave me to my fate.”
“I’m afraid not. The attendant checks every cabin to match the passenger and her passport with her ticket. You’d be detained and helpless, which would merely delay the inevitable—”
He broke off. Sudden tension crackled through his slender frame. He stood beside the window, one hand on the curtain, peering through an inch of space at the circular driveway.
Skylar’s mouth went dry. But she didn’t wait for him to tell her what to do. Squeezed against the wall, she crouched to minimize the target she offered, eyes sweeping the room for a weapon.
As he pressed against the wall, Nikolai’s pistol materialized in his hand. Anxiety spiked through her at the sight of the sleek snub-nosed firearm. In instinctive response, the muscles in her throat contracted.
Desperately she fought to keep her airway open. She couldn’t afford to pamper an asthma attack. Not now. Her life was on the line.
She’d taken a self-defense class in college, and her heavy coffee mug stood nearby. Wielded with sufficient motivation—which she definitely had—it would break someone’s nose. And she mustn’t forget the pot of piping hot coffee in the kitchen.
The problem with those makeshift weapons, of course, was how close she’d have to get to use them.
Nikolai crouched beside the window like a stalking panther, unmoving, barely even breathing as far as she could tell. Through the narrow gap in the curtain, the pale beam of headlights sliced into the dacha.
Tires crunched on snow as the unseen vehicle rolled to a stop. The motor kept idling. A minute crawled past, while she waited for slam of a car door, the tramp of footsteps.
Nothing.
Fortunately, the dacha had only a single door. But she’d seen a window in the downstairs bathroom, and there were two in this room. Too many weak spots to defend with one pistol and a coffee mug.
She could no longer endure the screaming tension. She pitched her voice so low it barely stirred the air.
“Is it the militsia?”
“No. It’s the Volga.” Nikolai straightened and let the curtain fall. But
she noticed that he didn’t holster his pistol. “I think it’s Sasha. He and Ilya are the only associates who know the location of this safe house.”
Thank God it’s not Ilya.
She recalled his second-in-command, the hulking thug with the concealing muffler and eyes like dirty ice. Associate or no, a chill scudded over her skin at the thought that he knew where to find her.
“What is Sasha doing here?” She worked to keep her cool.
“Undoubtedly he’s come to explain a number of…mistakes…that were made today. An explanation that is several hours overdue.”
Nikolai prowled to the door, hand dropping to his side. The pistol vanished among the folds of his jacket—but she knew he was still holding it.
“Stay here,” he said briefly, “and keep away from the windows.”
Before she could voice her objections to that plan, he slipped out, easing the door closed behind him.
“Merda!” she cursed.
When she didn’t immediately hear the stutter of gunfire mowing him down, she raced across the floor. Staying low and quiet, she snatched up the heavy mug—a poor weapon but better than nothing. Heart racing, she plastered herself against the wall.
Whatever Nikolai’s orders, she couldn’t stand the thought of waiting, blind and helpless, for whatever came through that door.
Another minute crawled past, the silence deafening, before she mustered the nerve to ease the curtain aside and peer cautiously through the gap.
Still nothing.
Just the dark bulk of the bullet-riddled Volga, the driver’s door hanging open, headlights spearing through the falling snow. The snowfall had slowed, and she thought the storm was probably passing.
Beyond the blinding headlights, she could see nothing in the stygian blackness.
By rights, the two associates ought to be standing in plain sight for their little conversation, or sitting in the car for warmth. So where the hell were they?
“Merda!” she whispered. Maybe she should switch off the gas fireplace, plunge the room into total darkness. Maybe she should hide…
Her panicked eyes fell on the graceful sweep of Nikolai’s overcoat, draped neatly over the counter. In a flash, she recalled his mobile phone. The last time he used it, he’d slipped it into his coat pocket.
Her own phone was still locked away at the hotel, and likely to stay there forever. The communications office at ICSI would have to deactivate it. Fortunately, she stored nothing in its memory that was sensitive.
A few heartbeats later Skylar was crouched behind the protective wall of the kitchen island, Nikolai Markov’s smart phone in her grip. A quick rummage through his luxury Peruvian wool overcoat turned up a spare magazine for his pistol and a neatly clipped roll of rust-colored five thousand ruble notes.
The size of his hidden stash gave her pause. She wondered how many Russian bodyguards made a habit of carrying twenty thousand dollars in foreign currency in their pockets.
He’s no ordinary bodyguard, and you know it. Stop wasting time.
The butter-soft slide of the burgundy silk lining and the rich aroma of cedar clinging to the coat proved a minor distraction, like everything else about Nikolai. But at least it was warm across her legs. The dacha was almost freezing, despite the gas fireplace’s heroic efforts.
She peeked cautiously over the island at the shadowy room before sliding to her rump on the kitchen floor. Back against the counter, one hand cupped over the glowing screen to shield her location, she toggled rapidly past rows of glowing icons.
She paused over his email icon—so tempting, but she had no time—then clicked on the telephone.
Hurry hurry hurry. Urgency squeezed her chest and clamored in her ear as she tapped out the number for the Embassy switchboard.
Middle of the night in Moscow, of course, several time zones to the west across the vast Eurasian landmass. But the gruff voice with the Texas drawl of the young Marine on duty nearly made her cry with relief.
“Thank God,” she whispered, hand cupped around the phone. “This is Skylar Rossi from ICSI. I need to speak with the Ambassador at once.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am. Ambassador Malvaux isn’t here. He’s in Washington for consultations.”
Being raked over the coals about that business with Alexis Castle and her steamy Russian liaison, Skylar remembered in a rush. She would never have forgotten—Alexis was a friend of hers, after all—if she weren’t fighting tooth and nail for her life.
“Is Geoffrey Chase still Acting?” she whispered, the standard shorthand for someone acting in the Ambassador’s capacity when he was out of country.
Cautiously she rose to a crouch to sweep the room again. Still nothing, but Nikolai had been gone for what felt like decades to her overhyped senses. By now, he must either be prowling back toward the dacha with his soundless step—or dead.
Madonna mia, don’t let him be dead. Don’t fall to pieces! You’ve heard no shots fired.
But they could be using silencers. He could be lying out there in the snow, bleeding to death—
“Yes, ma’am. Geoff Chase is Acting for Ambassador Malvaux,” the Texas Marine reported, while she sweated through her cashmere sweater. “It’s pretty late here, ma’am…”
“Listen, this is an emergency. I need you to phone over to his townhouse and wake him up. Please hurry.”
Whatever the Marine might have thought of her curt, dead-of-night instructions, he was too well trained to show it. Instead he put her on hold while he called Geoffrey Chase, a career diplomat (read bureaucrat) with a slew of messy personal problems who wouldn’t have been her first choice for a rescue mission.
Beggars can’t be choosers.
She fought for patience, condensing the entire crisis into salient points she could convey quickly. She ought to have given the critical facts—her location, the danger, and a plea for extradition—to the Marine in case she was interrupted. She wasn’t really thinking clearly…needed to do better than that if she wanted to survive…
“Ambassador Rossi?”
The male voice with its clipped, upper-crust Oxford accent nearly made her jump out of her skin, until she realized it was issuing from the smart phone gripped in her sweating fingers.
“Yes!” She curled her body around the phone. “Is this Geoffrey Chase?”
Seconds crawled past, though she heard him breathing.
“Hello?” she said at last. “Mr. Chase? I’m calling from the closed city of Khimgorod and, listen, I’m in a real pickle—”
The click of the disconnect didn’t register until the staticky silence was shattered by the high, irritating whine of a Russian dial tone.
Merda. She stared at the phone in disbelief. Of all possible times for the unreliable Russian telephone system to fail her. Satellite, tower or land line, it made no difference. The connectivity between twenty-first century Siberia and the rest of the world still sucked.
Battling a rising tide of panic, she punched the redial button—and listened with mounting disbelief as the Embassy’s eternally reliable 24/7 switchboard rang, and rang, and rang.
Nothing.
When at last a recorded message clicked on, she ended the call, tears of frustration stinging her eyes.
What the hell just happened?
Swiftly she ran through her dwindling list of options. She really should find Nikolai—needed to find Nikolai. He’d been gone way too long. Mio Dio, she prayed nothing had happened to him, her lone protector. If something had, she was a sitting duck.
Would she be any better off blundering blind through the snow, with a trained assassin gunning for her?
Or maybe it was Nikolai who’d be gunning for her. Maybe he’d just received new orders from his government client. Or maybe he’d been playing a deeper game than he claimed. Even if he’d saved her life, he was hired muscle, and she wasn’t the one who’d paid him the twenty thousand dollars burning a hole in the pocket of his expensive overcoat.
She’d be a fool to tru
st him.
No, the best thing to do was call someone else for help. Huddled in the dark, freezing dacha, with every looming shadow offering cover for an assassin’s bullet, she hastily tapped in the number for Alain Devereux. As her second-in-command at ICSI, he had full access to the organization’s limited security resources.
Of course, all ICSI communications were monitored by the FSB.
Cursing, she disconnected at the first ring. Alain’s house phone was wired, just like hers. The Russians were convinced ICSI provided a convenient cover for espionage in the former Soviet Union.
And somehow, she’d never entirely learned to trust Alain. Never mind the fact that she’d succumbed to his sophisticated French seduction campaign and slept with him.
Forcing back her rising hysteria, the sense she was trapped in a nightmare with her desperate pleas falling on deaf ears, she cleared her head and thought. Most of the numbers she needed were locked away in her cell phone. Since her father’s death, she had no family—unless she counted the shadowy figures of Dane Rossi’s brothers in Sicily, both known Mafiosi.
Distant figures at best, she’d severed all contact with them when her father died.
If she hadn’t, she would never have gotten her sensitive position at ICSI.
Well, she still had friends, didn’t she? A few people she’d cautiously allowed past her closely guarded barriers into her private life? But her friends in the dance world, who valued her cachet as the daughter of prima ballerina Sabrina Rossi, would be of limited utility in this crisis. She’d never felt so alone.
And that was her own fault, wasn’t it? She guarded her personal life and privacy as though they were state secrets. Her father had taught her never to let anyone close. It was a lesson she’d learned all too well—
Alexis.
The name surfaced in the sea of her turbulent thoughts like a flashing buoy. She’d just been thinking about her, after all. Alexis Castle had been Political Counselor at the Embassy, one of Skylar’s few local friends, until the rising star American diplomat fell in love and eloped with a renegade Russian submarine captain—one Victor Kostenko.
The Russian Temptation (Book Two) (Foreign Affairs 2) Page 12
