Lying and Kissing (36 page)

And then, as I glanced around the room in frustration, I saw what was different. Like many places around the city, they’d brought in portable heaters to keep the place warm despite the blizzard outside. But last time I’d been here....I shut my eyes to make sure, going back to that day we’d had lunch. Yes...there’d been two heaters, one in each corner of the room, pumping out hot air.

Now there were three.

Luka still had the gun on me but I forced myself to turn away and shout to a waiter. “When did the extra heater arrive?” I asked in English.

He looked blank.

Well, I guess it didn’t matter anymore. “
When did that extra heater show up?”
I demanded in Russian.

The waiter stared at me as if I was crazy and then shrugged. “A few minutes ago. Some guys in overalls.”

When I looked back at Luka, his face was thunderous.
Yes, I could understand all your Russian. Sorry.
Just another lie I’d told him.

I took a step towards the heater. Luka raised the gun a little.

I took a shuddering breath. “I think it might be a bomb,” I said, saying it in English so I didn’t panic a hundred jumpy Russians. “If you’re going to shoot me, then shoot me.”

And I walked over to the heater. Luka tracked me with the gun the whole time.

There was no hot air coming out of the heater and the surface was stone cold. I didn’t dare try to open it, but I looked through the vents.

There were wires and bricks of gray stuff even I recognized as plastic explosive.

I stood up. “Tell them all to get out!” I yelled.

Luka stood there, the gun still pointing at my head. And now I could see the hurt in his eyes, the anger that came from a deeper place.

“You can kill me later,” I told him. “Just get everyone out.”

He held my gaze a second longer and then lowered the gun. Then he shouted, full volume, for everyone to get out, shooting into the ceiling a few times for good measure. The diners and waiters stampeded for the door. Luka, Vasiliy, Yuri and I were left standing there until the end. Then Vasiliy and Yuri grabbed Luka and pulled him and he pulled me, and we all stumbled down the steps and onto the street.

When we came to a stop, I found myself right up against Luka, as close to him as I had been that time at the party, back in New York. He was breathing deep and hard and he suddenly grabbed me by the upper arms. I tensed, staring up into his furious face.

One of the diners tried to run past us, back inside. Yuri grabbed her arm.

“
My son!”
she screamed. “I think he’s in the bathroom!”

I took a step towards the restaurant, but Luka shoved me back against Yuri and ran up the steps. Yuri tried to follow his master, loyal to the end, but Vasiliy pulled him back.

We watched as Luka disappeared into the restaurant. Seconds passed. Vasiliy put his hand on my shoulder and it was comforting, even with the knowledge that he probably wanted to kill me.

The restaurant exploded. I had to close my eyes as a hot wind blew fragments of glass and china and wood right at us. I felt one slash my cheek. But I was focused on the image behind my eyelids, the snapshot my perfect fucking memory had burned into my brain forever: the windows of the restaurant caved outward by orange fire.

I’d killed him. My heart collapsed down like a black hole, sucking everything else that I was down with it. I didn’t dare open my eyes because, when I did, he would truly be gone.

I heard the mother’s hopeful sob. My eyes flew open. As the smoke cleared, I saw Luka lying flat on the ground just in front of the restaurant doorway, where he must have hurled himself as the bomb went off. His body was hunched protectively over something and the back of his suit was smoldering.

I ran over to him and slapped out the flames. He lifted himself from the young boy he’d shielded and the boy staggered off towards his mother.

“I thought you were dead!” I croaked.

Luka got slowly to his feet, wincing a little.

“We Malakovs are not so easy to kill,” said Vasiliy. “Come. Get in car.”

Yuri grabbed my shoulder and started walking me towards a car, where more of Vasiliy’s men were waiting.

“You want me to go with you?” I looked at Luka, but his face was unreadable. “For what?
Luka?!
” He didn’t answer.

I looked at Vasiliy. “What’s he going to do with me?” I asked.

Strong hands pushed me into the car.

“Whatever he wants,” Vasiliy said grimly.

By the time we arrived back at Vasiliy’s house, the blizzard had slowed traffic to a crawl and the guards outside were wrapped up in thick coats. There were more of them, standing at the gates and watching from balconies. They knew the threat to their masters was real, now. And they all knew it was somehow connected with me, that I’d betrayed Luka. I could feel their anger blasting down at me in hot waves as we walked the short distance from the car to the front door. Out of all of them, only Yuri didn’t seem to hate me.

Inside, Luka grabbed my forearm and pulled me upstairs to the room he was using. As soon as the heavy oak door was closed behind us, he shoved me away from him, making me stagger, as if he couldn’t bear to touch me anymore.

I looked at him. Swallowed. Opened my mouth to defend myself but couldn’t come up with the words.

“I should kill you,” said Luka, his voice shaking with anger. “
Sooka.
”

Which can mean
traitor
or
bitch
or
whore.
All of which were sort of accurate. Handy of the Russian language to combine all three in one word.

“You betrayed me,” he snapped. “You slept with me. You made me think—” He broke off and glared at me.

“What?” I asked, my voice weak. “What did I make you think?”

He shook his head and muttered
Wed’ma
under his breath.
It meant
witch.
Crazy, because I’m the last person who’d ever be able to cast a spell on anyone.

“I’m sorry,” I said. I knew it wasn’t enough, but it was all I had. “I was wrong. I thought I could…” I closed my eyes. “...
be
with you and not feel it and—I couldn’t.” I shook my head.

He let out a disbelieving snort. “I think you good person,” he said, his rage making his English slip. “You seem like an innocent.”

“I
am!
I am an innocent. I’ve never done anything like this before! This is my first mission!” I opened my eyes and shook my head, blinking back tears. “I’m not even a real agent! I’m just a languages geek!”

He took a step towards me. “Then why would you agree to do this?”

I let out a long groan of self-hatred. “I thought I was working for the good guys.”

He shook his head, but gently, as if he understood. “There are no good guys, Arianna. Only different bad men.”

I nodded. I got that, now.

He stepped right up against me. That big, strong hand came up and settled on my throat. I knew he could throttle me without even breaking a sweat. “So tell me. Why did you spill his drink? Why did you change your mind?”

“Because I’m in love with you,” I whispered.

He stared into my eyes. I’ve never felt so connected with anyone my entire life. There were no secrets, no doubts. Everything I was, was exposed to him.

And he knew I was telling the truth.

Has hand stayed on my throat but his mouth came down on mine, tasting my lips, then devouring me completely, taking control of me.

I melted into him, clinging to his back. The heat was raging inside him, throbbing through his skin, that dangerous energy that had scared me so much, at first. Now, I gave myself up to it. I let it soak into me, right to my very soul, and thaw the parts of me that had been encased in ice for so long.

We kissed for a long time, exploring each other, turning slowly, our hearts thumping gradually faster and faster, in rhythm with one another. We twisted so that he was the one with his back to the wall, and it was almost as if we were a couple of normal, regular lovers. His hands traced down my back to my ass, pulling me in close, and I let out a long, slow breath at the touch of those big palms there.

Then he suddenly twisted us again and slammed me up against the wall. The mood shifted to a more primitive need.

We stared at each other, neither of us daring to move. His eyes, burning into me. Telling me what he wanted to do to me. Every filthy way he wanted to corrupt my innocence.

And me, for the first time, daring to meet his gaze full-on and telling him that I wanted it.

He grabbed my waist and lifted me straight up, my feet kicking in the air. He pinned me against the wall like that, my ass pushing against the cool plaster, my chest heaving with fear and heady arousal. Then he mashed his body against mine, pressing his legs between mine, holding me there with the pressure of his flat, taut stomach against my groin. I felt myself go squishy inside, my sensitive flesh rubbing over those firm ridges of muscle as I struggled.

Why am I struggling?

I flushed.
Because it’s more fun.

His hands bunched in the neck of my dress. It was funny because I almost had a vision of him ripping the thing in two, but it was quite strong fabric and—

His muscles bunched and the material screamed and gave, seams popping and stitching wrenching loose. It ripped straight down the front, baring my bra-clad breasts. He got it all the way down to my navel and then, with three savage tugs, he ripped it right down to the hem and it fell apart. Air made furnace-hot by his presence wafted against my exposed stomach and thighs. I could feel myself throbbing—God,
moistening
under my panties.

He kissed me again, gripping my hips to lift me a little more, his mouth hungry and fierce at my lips. His tongue plunged deep, meeting mine. I was being plundered, ravished. Fantasies I hadn’t even known I had, fulfilled.

I could feel him panting through the kiss. His hands ran up and down my body in long strokes, lifting and fondling my breasts through my bra, then sliding down to the softness of my inner thighs, then back up in a rhythm that had me writhing.

He broke the kiss. “You understood all the things I said in Russian?” he asked in Russian.

I nodded. “
Da
.”
Yes
.

The tiniest hint of a blush as he remembered some of the things he’d said. But a deeper gleam of lust in his eyes as he realized that I’d understood them...and I’d come back for more. “
All
of them?” he asked.

“Even when you said you were going to make me beg you to stop,”
I whispered. “And then make me beg you for more.”

He growled low in his throat. And then picked me up by the waist and threw me onto the bed.

The shreds of my dress flopped around me, half-hiding my body, but he was on me in a second, rolling me onto my face and stripping it off me. A second later, I was back on my back, drawing in shuddering gulps of air.

He looked down at my chest. Then he folded his thick fingers around the front of my bra and pulled, hard. It stretched away from my body for a second, the straps pulling painfully tight, and then they snapped and my breasts were naked beneath his eyes. He stared down at them for a second, feasting his eyes, and the feel of him looking at me sent a hot wave soaking through me. Then he lowered his head and began to lick in long strokes, covering all of my breast but each lick crossing my nipple. I moaned and kicked and writhed beneath him and reached for his head, intending to pull him down against me harder.

He grabbed my wrists in one big hand and pinned them to the bed above my head. A moment later, his other hand bunched in the thin fabric of my panties and ripped them away. I groaned and tossed my head, feeling the heat rising up inside me, filling me. It was too much. My legs opened and wound around him but, at the same time, I shook my head and said, “I don’t understand this.”