The Spy With the Silver Lining (12 page)

T
he kiss lasted too long and he enjoyed it too much. But that was no surprise. Cass’s lips were as sweet and warm as Louisiana sunshine.

He lifted her into his arms and carried her into the bedroom.

“Another kiss, or is this the part I’m not going to like?”

“You liked the kiss?”

“I can tell a lot about a man from his kiss. It’s one of my specialties.”

“And what did you learn about me just now?”

“That you like me. Like me more than you want me to know.”

He laid her on the bed. “Maybe I was just taking advantage of the situation.”

“You’re not a trifler.”

“Is that a word? I think you’re very drunk. And that means it’s time for me to go to work.”

He left her and backtracked into the living room for the backpack Frog had brought him with the surgical supplies from Lazie’s infirmary below the Glitterbug. When he stepped back into the bedroom, he couldn’t ignore how beautiful she looked. Her eyes were closed and she was breathing slowly, her lovely breasts rising and falling with each lazy breath.

His eyes locked on her flat stomach, lower…

He shook off the image of lying down beside her and pulling her close, of stripping her naked and enjoying her inch by inch.

He opened the backpack, then sat down next to her on the bed. She opened her eyes, looked up at him.

“You know, Pierce Fourtier, you’re a very sexy man. And you have a great ass.”

“That’s my line.”

She giggled. “I didn’t like you in Austria. You pissed me off. You really can be an asshole, you know.”

“I know. But you can rub a man wrong without half trying.”

“And what’s the secret to rubbing you right? Give me a hint.” She giggled again, reached out and laid her hand on his crouch. “Hmm… I think I’m too late. You feel—”

He took her hand away from his pulsing cock. “That’s enough talk.”

“I agree.” She sat up and nuzzled his chin, then trailed her mouth over his warm lips. “What else do you want to do? Do you want to touch me?” She took his hand and laid it on one of her lovely breasts. “It’s okay, you can.”

She covered his hand with hers and guided him on a tour of her chest. First one breast, then the other.

She would pass out soon. Dammit, she better.

“Make love to me?”

He pulled his hand away. “You don’t mean that.”

“Why? Because I’m drunk? Maybe this is the real me. Maybe I’ve been waiting for an excuse to stuff the actress in a drawer. Maybe I’m dying to have you, but I’ve been afraid to say anything.”

“You’re not afraid of me.”

“If you say so.”

God, he hoped she didn’t remember any of this in the morning. She would hate him for sure.

“I think I’m going to have to mix you another drink.”

He urged her to lie back down. She sank into the mattress stretched out like a cat waiting to be stroked.

God, she was beautiful.

He left the room, mixed her the drink.

The idea of cutting into her porcelain skin had him looking down at her as he came back with another drink.

He held the glass and made her take a healthy swig. Then another and another. When the drink was gone, he opened the bag, laid out the surgical knife on the end table.

He’d wasted enough time debating the situation. She was right; if they were going to go forward with the mission, he was going to have to make damn sure that he could find her once she was out of his sight.

He turned her head to examine the soft skin just behind her ear. She was breathing slowly, her eyes open, but glassy. The booze was taking over, but not enough to shield her from the pain he was about to inflict.

He opened a bottle of pain pills, strong enough to put her out for several hours. Mixing drugs and liquor was a no-no, but he had done it more than once and he’d survived.

She was a survivor. They would get through this together.

He fed her two pills, chased them down with more liquor. A straight shot of whiskey. She didn’t like it. She screwed up her face and tried to sit up again.

“Relax,” he said softly. “I’m here with you. You know I won’t leave you.”

“I’m hot.”

He leaned over her. “It’s okay,
amant.
”

“
Amant
…we’re not lovers. Are we ever going to be?”

“Not like this,” he said, stroking her hair away from her face.

But he couldn’t help wondering what it would be like to feel her wrap those lovely long legs around him. What kind of lover was she? Did she moan for it? Fight it? Want it hard and fast? Slow and deep?

What was Casmir Balasi’s M.O. in bed? What had made Yurii Petrov fall in love with her? Was it her body, or her beautiful smile?

He shook off the thought, pulled on the surgical gloves and picked up the scalpel. Swabbed her neck with alcohol.

He made the incision seconds after she passed out—a little less than a half inch long. Carefully, he set the tracking device, then slid the flat round disk beneath the skin. After he’d finished making a dozen small stitches to close the incision, he made two superficial cuts next to the scratches adjacent to the incision, as if something had raked the side of her neck in the accident.

He was sweating by the time he finished. He stood and left the room. Peeled off the bloody gloves and tossed them as he headed for the bar and snagged a bottle of Lazie’s best whiskey.

When he went back into the bedroom, he opened the doors leading out onto the balcony and stepped out into the warm dark night.

He wasn’t afraid she’d wake up. She would easily be out until morning. He spent an hour drinking and smoking, and when he’d drained the bottle, he went back inside and stripped off his jeans and T-shirt, then lay down on the bed beside her and pulled the gold satin sheet over both of them.

He lay there wishing he was drunk enough to pass out, but it never happened. And while he waited for sleep to end his torture, her soft breath teased his cheek and kept his body stone hard.

Casmir woke up with a headache and a warm body pressed against her. She lay still until she came awake fully.

She was in Lazie’s bedroom and someone was in bed with her. She turned her head slightly, and felt a tightness in her neck. She raised her hand and brushed her fingers over a small bandage high on the side of her neck.

It was done. Pierce had planted the tracker, and now he was in bed with her.

She rolled to her side so she could look at him. He was sleeping hard and she studied his handsome face, then his tanned bare chest. He wasn’t the sort of man she was used to. She’d spent most of her life dancing around rich men with jowls and bellies that had gone to fat. Men accustomed to enjoying the fruits of their political and financial excess. Men with criminal minds, white bodies and soft muscles.

Excluding Yurii. He had taken pride in keeping himself fit.

She’d never taken the time to enjoy her youth, or the attentions of men her own age—the “wild bucks,” as her mother had called them, with only one thing on their minds.

She’d been a virgin when she’d been recruited by Quest. And from that moment sex had become a game of survival. It hadn’t been real—two bodies tangled in equal passion.

She’d faked her desire countless times, and even though she’d had orgasms, they had been of the flesh, not of the heart.

That was until she’d met Yurii. He’d pulled her out of her safe box. He’d changed the way she’d responded to sex. The way she’d always reacted to a man’s touch.

Still, her time with Yurii had all been centered around a single purpose—to deceive him. And that had brought her an enormous amount of guilt.

What would it be like to make love just because she wanted to? Because she wanted the man in bed with her? Because she desired him?

She raised her hand and stroked Pierce’s chest, sent her fingers experimentally over his hard body. His chest was lightly dusted with hair and it was as solid as granite. It was also scarred. She recognized the scars for what they were—Pierce had been shot numerous times in the line of duty. It was amazing that a man could survive so many bullets.

She leaned forward and kissed his chest, kissed the scars one by one, then circled one of his nipples with her tongue. The act left her hungry for him. Hungry for what had been missing in her life.

“What are you doing?”

She looked up to see Pierce’s eyes locked on her. “I could ask you the same question. Why are you in bed with me? What happened last night?”

“It’s the only bed in Lazie’s flat. Like you, I drank too much.”

“Before or after you cut me?”

“After.”

“So the tracker is in place?”

“Oui.”

“What about the couch in the living room?”

“Too short.”

“I didn’t do anything stupid before I passed out last night, did I? Sometimes when I drink too much I get a little crazy.”

“
Oui,
you did something crazy.”

“What?”

“You asked me to kiss you.”

Casmir hesitated, then asked, “And did you?”

“Oui.”

“And then what happened?”

“You asked me to make love to you.”

“And did you?”

“No.”

Feeling foolish, she struggled for something witty to say. “I guess I used the wrong word.”

“Say again?”

“Never mind.”

There was an odd silence.

She sat up, started off the bed.

“Where are you going?”

She turned back. “Shouldn’t we be getting back to the cabin?”

“It’s still early. What did you mean, you must have used the wrong word?”

“I should have asked you to fuck me, right? For a man like you, the word love must have—” She stopped. “Never mind. I have a headache. It hurts to talk.”

“Come here. I’ll rub your temples.”

He sat up and pushed himself against the headboard, then parted his legs. “Right here. Lie down. Put your back into me.”

She studied the open space between his legs, then lay back down, fitting her spine against his bare chest. She closed her eyes, and when he started to massage her temples, she moaned.

“That feels wonderful.”

“How’s the neck? Hurt?”

“Just a little stiff. What I said before…last night. I was drunk. I—”

“Shh…”

“I really don’t expect you to—”

“Fuck you?” He leaned forward, whispered in her ear, “How about if I make love to you? Last night you wouldn’t have remembered any of it. This morning it would be a different story.”

A shiver washed over Casmir’s entire body. A real shiver—an emotional and physical shiver. The kind that made a woman question her sanity.

She sat up and turned slowly. When he kissed her she wasn’t expecting so much heat, or the explosion of passion that erupted between them. She responded with another moan, a moan from deep inside.

When he broke the kiss, she said, “It would be nice if you wanted me as much as I want you, but it’s all right if—”

“You don’t think I want you?”

“I…”

“I want you,
amant.
I think it’s time we stopped kidding ourselves and just went with it,
oui?
”

Then he was kissing her again and she wrapped her arms around his neck as he pulled her on top of him.

“Equals,” she whispered. “No toys or games. Just you wanting me, and me wanting you.”

Her intimate request was followed by silence. Then he sat up and slowly stripped off her camisole to expose her breasts. “Equals,” he murmured, then buried his head and kissed her breasts.

More shivers attacked her. She was breathing hard when she said, “It’s your turn to lose something.”

She watched as he removed his shorts, then slid next to her and settled his warm body around her. Cupping her ass, he pressed her into him.

“God, you feel good,” he said.

He was hard as stone, and she inhaled sharply as he began to stroke her, his touch unhurried and full of desire.

His mouth trailed kisses over her cheek toward her mouth. She captured his lower lip and sucked hard on it. The next thing she heard convinced her that it was true—Pierce desired her.

The groan was gut deep, and she moved her mouth over his jaw, then down his neck, wanting to hear it again.

“Don’t stop,” he groaned. “Keep going.”

He let her take control of the moment for a little while, and in that time he surrendered to her. Suddenly he rolled her to her back and stripped off her thong. Slowly, he caressed her breasts, sucked on her nipples, then slid his hand between her thighs.

“You’re beautiful to look at,” he murmured, his lips moving lower over her neatly trimmed mons.

His fingers parted her and slipped inside her. She inhaled, felt herself melt around his fingers.

She knew he was watching her, watching her response, maybe even gauging it to see if it was real. In truth, it was like nothing she’d ever experienced before. Pierce on his way to making love to her felt like her first time.

It must have shown on her face, because he groaned, then buried his face against her breasts as he took possession of her body.

The moment was pure magic, each one sharing and giving, offering up their vulnerable side to the other.

She pushed him onto his back and began kissing him and touching him. Without reservation, she closed her hand around his thick cock and felt him pulse and grow.

She took her time stroking him and loving him. She suddenly wanted to know everything about him—the Sleeper who kept his emotions in a box.

For once she didn’t have to worry about what she was saying, or how she was feeling. There was nothing false about this moment.

She moved her head lower, captured him in her mouth. He groaned, arched his hips.

He was so big. So hard.

In a matter of seconds she was on her back, and he was fitting himself between her legs. She welcomed the torture of his body moving hard against her, arousing her center. Seeking entry.

She could feel her own wetness, and she arched into him, kissed him hard, telling him she was ready. Oh, so ready.

Everything was going so well until he said, “No condom.”