Smoke and Shadows (21 page)

“Spare me—” Marissa paused, her eyes widening. “You’ve never told Maia you love her?”

Viktor shook his head. “Words, Marissa. Maia knows how I feel. She knows I’d kill for her, give my life for her in a heartbeat.” He raised his hand to cup her cheek. “I’d do the same for you.”

Marissa considered this for a minute. It still didn’t make up for the humiliation he’d caused her when he told Maia he didn’t love her. She threw what he said back at him. “Words, Viktor. Go home. I’m not doing this with you.”

She pushed past him to go into the house. Somehow, Marissa knew he wasn’t that easy to get rid of.

He grabbed her arm and whirled her around. “What do you want me to say? That I love you? Then hell, yes, I love you. Are you happy now?”

“You’re such an asshole,” she snarled and tried to yank her arm out of his grasp, but he grabbed her shoulders instead and hauled her against him.

“Tell me what you want from me,” Viktor said brusquely. “Because if you think I’m letting you go, you’re mistaken.”

“See? This is exactly why we shouldn’t have started this up,” Marissa said. “A relationship is a two-way street. But it always has to be your way.”

“I let you have your way sometimes.”

“I’m not talking about what to have for dinner.” Marissa stomped a foot. “Gah! Go home, Viktor. I’m not ready to get into this with you.”

“Not leaving you here with him,” Viktor growled. “And don’t ever fucking hide from me again. You have no idea what I want to do to you right now.” His nostrils flared. “You wouldn’t be able to goddamned sit or walk for week.”

Heat bloomed between her legs; a rush of moisture flooded her core. A memory of his head between her thighs—licking and eating her up—made her shudder.

Viktor stared down at her, his lips curving in a sly smile. “You’re trembling—”

“In case you haven’t noticed, Viktor, it’s like thirty-degrees out here,” Marissa retorted.

“Bullshit. You’re horny for me,” Viktor whispered into her ear. “You want my cock. Admit it, sweetheart.”

“It’s always sex to you, isn’t it?”

“Goddamn it. Why are you so stubborn?” Viktor released her shoulders, stepped away from her and raked his fingers through his hair. “Do you honestly believe that? Because if you do, then we’ve nothing else to discuss.”

Marissa arched an eyebrow.
Wily bastard. Is he bluffing?

“There’s nothing else to discuss,” she said flatly, turning around. “Go home,” she repeated for the third time.

A guttural sound of frustration exploded behind her. She found herself backed against her car, her body draped on top of the hood, legs shoved apart, with a very angry, obviously aroused male wedging his hips between them. Fingers yanked her hair down, tilting her face up, and his lips slammed down on hers in a brutal, penetrating kiss. Marissa fought her desire, but his probing tongue was relentless and she ended up kissing him back. There was no tenderness in his touch, and he ignored her muffled cry when his fingers dug into the side of her hip where the bullet had grazed her. His erection rocked against the soft layer of her sweat pants, rubbing her with erotic friction until she cried out and came violently.
 

Viktor shoved away from her, Marissa slid down the hood and was almost boneless after her orgasm. He was breathing hard, fists clenched at his sides, the night too dark to discern the expression on his face. And then he stepped forward, cupped her face and leaned his forehead on hers. “You—drive—me—crazy. I should stay away from you for how you make me feel, but I can’t, Iz. Don’t give up on me.” He slowly trailed his mouth along her jawline until it was by her ear, and he whispered, “Please.”

Please.
The word, so foreign to Viktor’s vocabulary, melted her resolve.

“Come on in.”

*****

“I didn’t mean to be so rough,” Viktor muttered. They were in the bedroom when he noticed the blood on her sweat pants.
 

“I’m made of sturdier stuff, Viktor,” Marissa said.

And to think he had actually leashed his urges earlier. If he had let go of the raging inferno within him, he could have seriously hurt her. He wasn’t kidding when he told Marissa she wouldn’t be able to walk for a week. Hard, long fucking that was bordering on violence was what he’d been harboring in his mind as her punishment for daring to disappear on him.

Marissa excused herself to go to the bathroom, which gave Viktor an opportunity to take a look around the place. There were two bedrooms. Stan Morgan was currently in the kitchen whipping up something to eat. When he and Marissa entered the house, the other man had the gall to smirk at him.
 

Viktor was already crazed from not being able to find her for the past five days. He didn’t need another man suggesting a three-way with his woman. Viktor had shared his women before, but the idea of another man touching Marissa made him want to commit bloody murder. She was
his
woman. She belonged to
him
. And he would kill anyone who would try to take her from him.
 

And that damning question came back to haunt him.
If it had been Marissa instead who had the gun to her head, would he have given up the codes?

Viktor groaned, sat on the bed, buried his face in his hands, and rested his forearms on his knees.

“Viktor? Are you all right?” Marissa asked. She was dressed in a fresh pair of sweats.

“No.”

“What’s wrong?”

“The reason Maia and I were having a conversation—”
 

Marissa tensed. Viktor cursed. “She was assuring me she understood what I did.”

“That you’d sacrifice her to protect the NOC database.”

“Yes.”

“You were in an untenable position, Viktor. It was lose-lose.”

“She said she would have done the same if our situations were reversed.”

“Do you hold it against her?”

“God, no.” Viktor said, horrified Marissa would even suggest it.

“So what’s the problem?”

“The problem, kitten, is I think I would’ve given up the codes if it’d been you with a gun to your head.”

Silence.

“Iz?”

“Ah . . . not sure how I feel about that.” Marissa had a deep frown etched on her face.

“But if it were me, Marissa, I’d understand.”

“No! We’re not having this conversation.”

“With our jobs, we have to, Iz.”

“What, like a living will? Fuck you, Viktor.” Marissa’s green eyes darkened with anguish. “You say it’s okay for me to let you die, but you’d let everyone else die, so I could live? Do you know how that makes me feel?”

“You are the crack in my armor, Marissa,” Viktor said quietly. “The one vulnerability the enemy can use to manipulate me.”

“That’s why you’re trying so hard to train me,” Marissa choked. She was rigid against him. “Sometimes I question if we should even be together.”

Viktor hauled her onto his lap and nuzzled her neck. “I’m keeping you,” he said fiercely. “God, help me, I’m too selfish to let you go. All my fucking life I gave up everything I cared for to benefit the greater good. But not this time. Not with you. I would damn the whole world for you.”

Marissa relaxed against him. “Then we better make sure it doesn’t come to that.”

*****

It was almost dawn, and none of them had had any sleep. But they’d managed to make headway in tracking down the chemical weapons. Starting with identifying Owen Reed. They’d pulled up video feeds from the Port of Murmansk, and though the resolution was grainy, they were able to match his features with Jonathan Owen Reed—ex-Army Ranger, dishonorably discharged after proven guilty via court-marshal. His squad leader was presently serving time at Leavenworth.

“His whole team was under fire for wiping out an entire Afghan village,” Marissa said. “Unfortunately, the CIA has reason to believe that they were political scapegoats. The village was harboring Al-Qaeda and were armed against the Rangers. The media circus presented only the pictures of dead babies and pregnant women. Not the kids toting AK-47s.”

“So the CIA keeps quiet and lets the men rot,” Viktor spat. He stood up and began pacing. “When will the agency learn?”

“You didn’t turn rogue, Viktor,” Marissa said. “You turned a bad situation around and continued serving the country, but on your terms. Reed’s doing the opposite. He’s bringing destruction on the people he had once sworn to protect.”

Viktor snorted. “The rules of engagement are set by people living their cushy lives thousands of miles away from the frontline. They have no idea of the horrors of war and what young soldiers go through. And we wonder why we produce sociopaths like Reed?”

“You’re not feeling sympathetic to the bastard, are you?” Morgan asked.

Viktor considered this before saying, “No. Reed has broken the code of the brotherhood—duty, honor, and country. That’s fucking forged in blood whether you’re serving or not.”

Marissa felt relief. Viktor was in too deep now to bail out. Not that he was the type of man to bail. Besides, she was still reeling from his last declaration.

I would damn the whole world for you
.

Couldn’t Viktor just say
I love you
in the traditional way by just saying the words? He’d had to go and say it in his alpha badass way because if that wasn’t a declaration of love, Marissa didn’t know what would be.

Was she ready for him now? He was larger than life and knowing how lethal he was, the intensity of what he felt for her, and what he would do to keep her—all thrilled and scared her.

“Marissa, you zoned off. Sleepy?” Viktor murmured as he reached out and caressed her cheek.

“Yes,” Marissa lied, her cheeks flushing. Viktor’s eyes widened fractionally in understanding, and then he grinned. A grin that made her skin tingle all over.

“Morgan and I were discussing what to do next,” Viktor explained. “It appears Reed left with just a few men, but in order to pull this off, he probably had people already in place in the U.S.”

“The logical place to start looking is for members of his unit that were dishonorably discharged with him.”

“Makes sense.” Marissa wasn’t able to keep the yawn from escaping. “I’ll shoot a request to Allison to have their dossiers ready. I dunno about you guys, but I’m catching some z’s.”

Marissa got up from her chair, logged out of the CIA database, and headed to the bedroom. Viktor took over her laptop and brought up the AGS website.
 

“I’m going for a run,” Morgan announced loudly as he caught up with Marissa in the hallway. He leaned in closely and whispered in her ear. “That was hot by the way.”

“What was hot?” Marissa asked.

“That little make out session last night,” he said, his eyes looked up and down her body in a playful leer.

“You watched us?” She was mortified.

“I heard you cry out,” Morgan said in his own defense. “I was just making sure he wasn’t hurting you.”

“Right.” She didn’t know whether to believe him or not.
 

Morgan added with a sly smile, “I suggest you both blow off a little steam while I’m gone.” He winked at her and walked off to his own bedroom.

Viktor materialized beside her. “What was that all about?”

She wanted to bang her head on the wall. God save her from cavemen.

“Chill. Morgan just wanted to congratulate us for putting on a good show for him last night.”

Viktor frowned.

“He watched you dry-hump me against the car,” Marissa clarified.

“I see,” her man replied, his face blank of emotion.
 

“I see? That’s all you have to say after acting like a Neanderthal the entire time you were here? You let another man see us go at it, and you’re okay with it?”

“I’m not one for public sex acts,” Viktor said carefully. “If you were naked, that would definitely be a problem. But I’m strangely pleased Morgan saw us.”

“Oh, and why is that?” Marissa snapped. Could Viktor be more contrary?

“Because, kitten, now there’s no question you belong to me,” Viktor said softly, gripping her chin and tilting it up to him. “I own every single one of your orgasms.” He ducked his head until he was nose to nose with her. “Every—single—fucking—one.”

*****

Oh no, she didn’t just fall asleep on him
. Viktor eyed the sleeping form of his woman buried under the thick comforter. He tossed the towel on the chair. Morgan left ten minutes ago for what he said was a ten-mile run. He would have gone with him, but Viktor had a better idea how to release his tension.

Naked, he prowled to the bed and carefully tried to peel back the blanket.

Marissa’s hands clutched the cover and mumbled, “Cold.”

“I’ll warm you up, sweetheart.” He decided to join her under the comforter and scooted close to her, and stroked her hips. She was wearing flannel pajamas. Did she think that would stop him?

It certainly helped that she was facing away from him, lying on her side with her left leg at an angle, knee resting on the mattress. He flushed his body to her back, his growing arousal rubbing against her ass.
 

“Viktor—”

“Wake up,” he coaxed. He lifted her thick mane of hair to one side and nuzzled her neck, pressing open-mouth kisses up and down the length of her jaw, tugging on her ear, and sliding his tongue on the sensitive skin of her lobe. His hand slipped under her top to cup a breast, flicking a nipple, and was satisfied when goose bumps bloomed on her skin. She moaned as she ground her ass into his erection, which had gotten hard enough to pound nails.

She slowly turned on her back, grabbed the hand that was on her breast, and shoved it under her pajama bottoms. Viktor nearly lost the tether on his control, which was tenuous to start. He pushed aside the crotch of her panties and stroked the seam of her sex. She was slippery, hot, and so ready for him. His fingers dipped inside. Viktor grunted, captured her lips, and kissed her ferociously, swallowing her little mewls of pleasure.
 

“There, I need you there,” she whispered, a hint of desperation in her voice.

Fuck foreplay
. He withdrew his fingers. She protested, but not for long for he straddled her, not quite giving her his weight. He caught himself before he ripped another one of her clothes, and patiently unbuttoned her top. He tore his lips away and took in her glowing skin, frowning slightly at the bruises on her abdomen.