Seduction in Session (39 page)

Connor led her through the door and out into the garden. There were several people in wheelchairs, a few caregivers. “Could be a couple of reasons.”

“She’s out by the pond.” The nurse pointed to a small duck pond where a woman sat on a bench.

“Thank you.” Connor nodded to the nurse.

Dax gave her a wink. “Hopefully I’ll see you on the way out.”

“Count on it.” The nurse sighed a little as she walked away.

Dax shrugged. “She could be helpful.”

Yes, she would likely be very helpful to his penis. She shook her head and started toward where Natalia Kuilikov sat. “Ms. Sava?”

The woman sitting on the bench turned slightly. “Yes? You have my tea?” She might have been in the States for a long time, but she still had a heavy Russian accent. “I hope it’s not cold this time. Tea should be hot. We’re not barbarians.”

“I’m sorry.” Lara moved to the seat beside her. “I don’t have any tea. May I sit with you?”

She turned her patrician nose up. “If you must. It would have been more polite if you had brought the tea.”

Lara studied the woman who seemed to be at the heart of the mystery that had upended her entire life. Her dark hair was now streaked with gray, but she kept it in a neat bun at the back of her head. While many of the other residents wore robes and pajamas, Natalia was dressed in slacks, a neat white shirt, and a tidy cardigan.

“Ms. Sava, I’m a reporter. I run a blog about politics. I came here
this afternoon to ask you a few questions. These are my friends.” Connor and Dax stepped from behind the bench.

Natalia’s eyes widened and she stood. For a moment, she thought the older woman was going to walk away, but then she stepped forward, and she wrapped her hands around Connor’s arms. “My Sergei, he send you.”

Lara went absolutely still, the sound of that one name bringing everything to a halt. Sergei.

Connor had gone still, too. He looked down at the small woman and nodded. “Yes. He sent me. I hope you know he sends you his regards.”

She smiled like the heavens had opened up. “I knew one day he would come for me. My sweet Sergei.”

Lara started to open her mouth to ask a question, but Dax shook his head and gestured for her to move away from Natalia.

Suddenly she felt as if the situation had gotten infinitely more dangerous.

Connor glanced over at her and gave her an almost imperceptible nod in Dax’s direction, silently telling her to leave this to him. She moved behind the bench and found herself in Dax’s grip. He pulled her close, whispering into her ear.

“Stay quiet. We don’t want anything to pull her out of the delusion. Let Connor do his thing. He’s good at this,” Dax whispered.

Connor sat down beside Natalia, easing her back down to the bench.

She started chatting away, patting his arm as though they were close friends. Unfortunately, she was speaking rapid-fire Russian.

He held a hand up. “Please, Natalia. You know Sergei would want us to keep our covers. In English, please.”

She nodded. “His English is very good, don’t you think? He is the smartest of men. It’s how he can do what he does.”

What does he do?
The question was right there on the tip of her
tongue. She wanted to shout it, to scream it out, but that would likely give away Connor’s game.

“Sergei can do anything,” Connor agreed. “But he’s concerned about you.”

Natalia’s skin flushed and she sniffled a bit. “I still love him. I never stopped. How could I? I also understand that we can’t be together again until he has finished the job he started so long ago. I miss him. Tell him I miss him every single day.”

“I will,” Connor replied, his eyes steady on Natalia. He practically radiated assurance. “He misses you as well. He wants to thank you for all the work you’ve put in. But we’re a bit worried.”

He was so subtle. He never said anything that might make the woman suspicious. He was good. He knew when to smile, when to pat her hand. He knew exactly how to play her, but then Lara had seen Connor at work before. He’d known exactly how to play her, too.

Except he wasn’t always smooth. Sometimes, he could even be obnoxious. He would have played her better if he’d kept up the Niall identity, said the pics he’d shared of himself online were from a few years back and he’d taken up a personal training regimen or something. Why hadn’t he approached her in that fashion? She would have fallen into his hands a lot quicker. She wouldn’t have been so distant in the beginning with him.

“What does he have to be worried about?” Natalia frowned. “Everyone who could have stopped us has been taken care of. We took care of the woman when we needed to. And that bitch. Yes. It was good to take care of her. What was her name? I should remember.”

Was she talking about Joy Hayes?

“This is the problem, Natalia. Your memory is fading and that could be bad for us.”

“I remember the important things.”

“That’s for me to decide. I’m going to ask you a few questions and I want you to answer them to the best of your ability. What is Sergei’s last name?”

Lara reached into her pocket and touched the button on her phone to record the conversation. She’d come prepared so they wouldn’t miss anything, but she’d forgotten about it until now. Connor glanced her way and nodded to let her know they were now being recorded.

Dax’s stared into the distance, scanning their surroundings. He was there to do what Connor couldn’t while he was so focused. Dax was searching for a threat, ready to defend them.

“Of course his last name is . . .” She stopped. “They change so many times. My Sergei’s name is always changing right in front of my face. Why do they hide him from me?” She sighed, then continued her rant in Russian.

Lara fought back disappointment. At least she could take the recording to a translator. They might not know what Natalia said now, but they would know at some point. Anything could be helpful.

“Natalia, I told you, in English,” Connor said with just a hint of sharpness.

It seemed to bring her out of whatever place she’d gone to in her head. “I’m sorry. It is so hard because I want to go home. It has been so long. So long. I am getting older now, but my Sergei will still bring them all down. He will destroy this country as he was meant to do. These new people are wrong. They seek to make money, but there is a greater purpose. He will fulfill his destiny because he is a great man. When he stands over the rubble, all will know him and they will understand what we sacrifice for our people. I will watch with pride.”

Natalia spoke with the fervency of a true believer. Destroy the country? It made Lara’s gut clench. Something terrible was going to happen. Something they had to stop.

“Are you going to kill me now?” Natalia asked the question with all the emotion of a woman asking about the weather.

“No. Why would you say that?” Connor asked.

“Because you always watch me. Because you’re never far from where I am. I do not know if you are here to protect me or to kill me.
Perhaps either, as need be. I have, how do you say, insurance policy. If I die, your secrets will not be safe.”

Connor’s head came up and he flashed a look Dax’s way.

That was the precise moment she heard the whirring ping and saw Natalia’s body buck. Connor dove to the side, and Lara found herself facedown in the grass. She tried to look around. Connor had been sitting right next to Natalia. Had he been hit? Her heart threatened to stop at the very thought. No. Connor couldn’t get hit. He was too smart, too good at his job. He couldn’t be hurt. She needed him too much.

“He’s across the pond,” Dax said, his voice eerily calm. “I saw the glint of his rifle. I think he’s on the move.”

“We don’t know that. He could be aiming for another target.”

Lara didn’t need an interpreter to know that Connor meant her. If that was the
Bratva
, they’d been after her, too. Maybe she was a loose end they wanted to tie up.

Connor crawled to her, his SIG in hand. She couldn’t see all of him. She needed to get her hands on him, make sure he was okay. What had she been thinking when she’d tried to keep her distance? Hadn’t she had enough proof that life was way too short?

“Keep down, Lara. I’m going to get you out of this,” he vowed.

“I think Natalia was the target,” Dax said. “I’ve got a decent line of sight and he’s moving west toward the parking lot.”

Reason punched through her anxiety. They’d just gotten a woman killed and the man who’d done it was getting away. The only person who might be able to tell them what Natalia had meant was fleeing the scene. “No. We have to get the shooter. We have to catch him. We don’t have enough information. We don’t know how she’s connected.”

“No.”

“Connor, please.” The guy was likely getting away right at that moment. “I’m fine.”

“I could go,” Dax offered.

“Don’t move, Dax. I’m calling in every favor you’ve ever owed me.”

“This is not a move they would have applauded at the Agency, brother.”

Connor cursed. “I know but she’s more important than anything.”

Dax stayed right where he was and Connor joined them, both men covering her.

“Don’t move. We’ve got some cover here in case he comes back to finish the job.” Dax moved his hand. She couldn’t see what he was doing but she heard him a moment later. “There’s been a shooting at the Serenity nursing home. Yes, you heard me right. We need police and at least one ambulance. Hurry.”

Lara raised her head up as much as she could. “Natalia?”

“She’s dead.” Connor gently forced her head back down. “It was professional. One between the eyes.”

Maybe the assassin wasn’t the only person who possibly could help them decipher what Natalia had said. The odd conversation she’d had with Mrs. Simms came back to her in a flash. “We have to get back to her room before the cops get here. They’ll take the evidence.”

“Evidence?”

“Natalia left a note with her roommate in the event of her death. That may have been the insurance policy she mentioned. Mrs. Simms thought that was why we’d come here in the first place.” Adrenaline flooded her system. “Please. We need to get it. I can convince her to give it to us.”

Connor cursed under his breath. “Dax, watch my back. If I go down, you protect her. Fuck the note.” He got to his knees and then lifted her up into his arms, turning immediately. He held her close and started to run.

He was offering himself as a target, his strong, broad back protecting her completely. Chaos was starting to erupt as one of the nurses realized something had gone terribly wrong. Shouts began and several residents were crying, but Connor plowed on. He simply sprinted
toward the building and inside. He didn’t put her down until they were in Natalia’s room, and then he stood guard alongside Dax.

Lara stepped inside. Mrs. Simms’s eyes widened as Lara threw back the curtain.

“I’m afraid I’m going to need that note now.”

C
onnor closed and locked the door, feeling safer than he had in days. Passing that damn note over to Roman had been a relief. It had taken hours to get the cops off his back, but he hadn’t wanted that note in his house. He didn’t want it anywhere near Lara.

“I can’t believe you handed it over to him,” Lara complained as she picked up a very hyperactive Lincoln and hustled him to the backyard. She let him out and closed the door behind him before frowning and turning Connor’s way.

If he didn’t smooth things over, he would be in the proverbial doghouse right next to Lincoln. “I explained why.”

“Because Roman can get a translator faster than you. You’re CIA, Connor. This kind of stuff should be your stock-in-trade.”

“Ex-CIA.” Now he could see that it would have been more helpful to quit after this case was over, but the damage had been done. “My security clearance has already been torched and I already called in favors for the INS paperwork. I’m sorry, princess. I’m afraid I’m a civilian now.”

“You’ll never be a civilian, Connor. You were born a warrior.”

And she was a woman who wanted peace for the world. “Unfortunately, I don’t speak Russian and that whole note was written in Cyrillic.”

She turned a little thoughtful. “It looked like a list to me.”

“You have to be prepared that note we risked our lives for might end up being a shopping list or a recipe for borscht. She wasn’t in her right head in the end.” Connor had gotten a little chill when she’d looked at him. Her eyes had lit up as though she’d known him. He’d seen recognition in those eyes.

“What do you think she meant about Sergei destroying the country?”

Again, something about that speech of hers had set off his radar. “I don’t know. We’ll know more after we get the translations back. That was awfully smart of you.”

“No, it wasn’t. You handed my phone over. Now I don’t have one, Connor.” She let Lincoln back in and locked the door before stalking his way, her flats slapping against his marbled floors in obvious irritation. “And we didn’t risk our lives to get that note. You risked
your
life. You made sure that if the assassin took another shot, he would have killed you.”

Connor shrugged. “I likely would have crushed you to death when I fell on you so your life was definitely at risk.”

“Don’t joke about that.” She stopped right in front of him. “Why did you do that? Why did you really give up the evidence to Roman?”

He’d known what he would do the minute she’d shown him that odd, handwritten note Mrs. Simms had given her. He hadn’t wanted her to hold on to it. He hadn’t wanted her to be the target. There was no way he would be able to keep her out of the investigation forever, but she didn’t have to be the person holding the evidence. When he’d dropped Dax off at Roman’s, he’d made the decision to put a couple of layers of protection around Lara. There was no way he could take her off the case completely. She would walk away from him and still be in danger. But he could make sure that she wasn’t the primary target.

Roman had been more than happy to take on the task.

“I did it so they won’t come after you. They can shift their focus now.”

“The
Bratva
?”

“Yes, the Russian mob who keeps sending assassins your way.” The minute he’d realized Natalia Kuilikov was dead, his one and only thought had been getting to Lara. It hadn’t been Natalia he’d seen in that moment. He’d seen Lara’s beautiful face with a bullet hole, her unique light snuffed out. He’d gone a little crazy. His first thought should have been finding the assassin and bringing him in for questioning, but nothing had mattered more than getting to her, putting his body over hers so he took any bullet coming her way. He’d been willing to die, to let Dax die, and now to put Roman in harm’s way all in order to protect one woman.

Having feelings sucked. It had been easier when he didn’t care.

“It begs the question . . .” Lara began, her eyes turning thoughtful.

He didn’t like how focused she was on this case. She’d been perfect with the police. She’d charmed them and gotten teary at exactly the right times. Her hand had been in his, but the minute the detectives released them, she’d pounced all over the case again. It was making him crazy. “What question?”

“They knew where she was.”

He’d thought about that, too. “It’s possible they followed us.”

“Do you really believe that? Even her roommate talked about the fact that she thought they were watching her. She said she knew they were always around her. Why would they know she was there but never act?”

“Until we showed up.” He’d thought about it on the drive home.

“Why not just kill her? Why wait until she could possibly talk?”

He knew why the Agency would do it. “Two reasons. First, her ‘insurance policy,’ whatever that turns out to be. Second, there’s a certain honor among thieves.”

“What does that mean?”

How to explain it to her? “I was in the same business, just an opposite
side of the coin. If an agent knew something so important that the country’s stability was at stake, one of two things would happen. Either the Agency would immediately and with all due care put the operative down, or they would watch and wait. It might be a sign of respect that they’ve hidden her. She talked about what she sacrificed. If that’s true and they respected what she did for the cause, they might let her be until such time as she threatened the operation. Me sitting beside her threatened the operation. They would have known about her mental condition. They would have understood the possibility that she could talk to someone she shouldn’t. She was dead the moment we struck up a conversation with her. They let her live until she became a liability. The other thought I had was that she was important to Sergei, whoever that is. Maybe her long-lost husband, maybe a lover? He was willing to let her live until he couldn’t afford it anymore. Hopefully, we’ll know more when we translate that tape and her note.” He took her hands. “Lara, we should sit down and talk for a while. Let me make us a drink.”

She stared at him warily. “About what?”

Was she really going to push him to the limit? “Us.”

She pulled away. “Talking doesn’t change anything.”

Did she think on any level that he would allow her to walk away without really talking about what had happened between them? “Sit down, Lara. We’re going to discuss what happens from here on out.”

“I don’t want to talk.” She moved into his space, her body slinking up to his. There was no other word to describe it. Her breasts pressed up, her legs tangled with his. “I want what I talked about earlier. It’s time for bed, Connor. It’s time to get what you promised me.”

“What I promised you?”

“You said I could be with you while I’m here.” She pressed her chest against his and met his stare. “I don’t want to sleep alone tonight. I want to forget everything from the last two days. I just want to feel for a while.”

She sank her fingers into his hair and leaned in, her mouth so close to his. He couldn’t wait. He kissed her long and slow. She might think
she didn’t care about him or could fuck him out of her system, but she was fooling herself. The minute she let him in, he would hold on to her so tight. The real Lara was underneath all the hurt and he intended to find her.

Pleasure. Intimacy. They were gifts he could give her. She wouldn’t be able to hold back. If she thought he would just throw her against the wall and fuck her hard, she was so wrong. He intended to show her just how good it could be between them. He intended to make it so good she would never want to leave him.

The minute her mouth softened, he invaded. He breached her with his tongue, sliding deep to find hers. She was tentative at first, almost shy. After a moment’s sweet coaxing, she moaned into the kiss and gave as good as she got.

Sex had always been a bodily function. Something Connor required, but still a pleasure to be had and forgotten. With her it was as necessary as breathing, something to sink into and savor, a pleasure to build on and protect. He let himself go, forgot about all the problems they still faced, and focused on the only thing of importance—comforting her.

She wanted to be out of her head. He could give her that.

“Show me your breasts,” he whispered along her lips. His cock was already hard and wanting, but he ignored it for the moment. The horny bastard wasn’t in charge yet.

She sat up on his lap and grabbed the hem of her shirt. She dragged it over her head and tossed it aside. A plain white bra covered her breasts. Odd that he’d seen some of the world’s most beautiful women in expensive lingerie, but Lara Armstrong in cotton called to him. It had nothing to do with the packaging and everything to do with the way she glowed. The day’s events had dimmed her light, but he was going to make damn sure to stoke it back to life.

He raised his hand to the silky skin of her neck, trailing down to just above her breast. “You are the most beautiful woman in the world.”

She shook her head. “Now I know you’re lying.”

He forced her to look at him. “No matter what else happens between
us, I’m going to make you believe this. You are the most beautiful thing I ever have or ever will see. I’m crazy about you.”

“Connor, my face is puffy. I know what I look like when I cry.”

“You look like a real woman.” He cupped her breast through the bra, her nipple already hard against his palm. It was good to know her nipples still liked him. “I know you’re confused about what happened yesterday and you want to lump me in with Kiki and Tom, but I’ve never hidden the real me from you. Yes, I didn’t tell you my real name or why I was there. But the man falling in love with you was absolutely real.”

Her lower lip came out in the sexiest pout. “And Niall?”

She was never going to forget that. Gabe had warned him . . . “That was the Internet. It doesn’t count. Even then I think I knew. That’s why I didn’t come to you as Niall. I wanted to come to you as me. I wanted you to like me, to need me.”

“You can be an asshole.” But her chest was rising, forcing her breast into his hand like a kitten begging for a stroke.

“Yes. See, no lies there. I would have had an easier time if I’d put on a mask, but I wanted you to see the real me in all my fucked-up glory. Take off the bra.”

She sat up in his lap, reaching to the back of her bra. “You’re very bossy.”

At least she was starting to relax. He could see it in the way her lips had begun to curl up when she spoke. “I like being the boss of you.”

She let the bra drop and almost immediately her back arched, offering up those gorgeous breasts to him. “You’re so not the boss of me.”

He reached and tweaked one of those perfect nipples. “I am here.”

“What if I want to be the boss?” Lara asked on a shaky breath.

Just the idea made his gut twist. There was emotional vulnerability and then there was the primal fear of being truly, physically vulnerable.

She cupped his face. “I was just joking, Connor.”

There was his Lara. She was looking at him with such openness. He took a breath to ease back into the moment. She’d talked to him.
Maybe it was time to really talk to her. “Take off your pants and I’ll tell you what happened to me.”

She was off his lap in a heartbeat, her eagerness a balm to the wounds of the day. “You said your last girlfriend hurt you.”

Oh, she was so good at making things sound better than they really were. “She wasn’t my girlfriend, princess. She was a coworker and she turned out to be a double agent.”

Her eyes were wide as she kicked off the rest of her clothes and stood naked in front of him. “Double agent?”

He adored how unselfconscious she was. Most women would be posing to their advantage or begging for compliments, but for Lara, nakedness was just another state of being. He intended to keep her naked as much as possible. Just being able to look at her, to know he was the only man in her life, soothed in ways he hadn’t thought possible. “Come here.”

He tugged her into his lap and breathed in her scent.

“Connor? Double agent? Like she was spying for someone else?”

“Oh, yes.” Now that she was naked in his arms, he didn’t want to talk about his idiocy. But he’d promised. “We were tracking down an urban terrorist cell in Europe. We posed as a couple for about six months.”

“So you had a relationship with her.”

He toyed with her nipples. Such pretty pink buds. Everything about her fascinated him. “Take your hair down for me. I like it down. And no, I didn’t have a relationship with her. We fucked. It was nothing but an itch to scratch. Nothing like what I feel for you.”

Her hair tumbled around her shoulders and down her back. “I’m not an itch?”

He gathered her close, her hair tangling them together. “You’re my everything.” He slid his hand between her legs. “So just before we busted the cell in Berlin, she seduced me. She said she wanted one more night and I didn’t notice the knife in her hand until she carved
up my chest with it. She was on top of me, riding away. I watched her climax. After she’d stabbed me.”

“Connor.” Gaping, Lara tried to sit up.