“It did hurt,” he said, and he caught her arm, bringing her to a halt in the hall next to the elevators. “It hurt a lot. But not my wound. It was my heart that hurt.”
“Join the club,” she muttered, and to her mortification she started to cry. Again.
Damn
.
“Liesha.
Dorogaya
,” he murmured and pulled her into his arms. His hat fell to the floor. She tried to push him away, but he wouldn’t let her. He pressed his cheek to the top of her head and held her as she cried, whispering all the things she needed to hear.
“You have no idea how much I wanted to go with you. And when you offered to come with me . . . Ah, Liesha, my heart nearly shattered with joy.”
She swiped at her cheeks. “Then why? Why did you turn me away?”
“What you told me,” he murmured softly, “about my mother, you surprised me. I had suspected it for a long time, but had never expected to hear the truth. When I did . . .” He put his lips to hers. “Forgive me, my love. There was no time to explain. And there was no way I could let you come with me. Because I knew there was something I must do, or it would haunt me for the rest of my life.”
She sniffed. “What was it?”
“Kill a man.”
She sucked in a breath. “Nikolai!”
He kissed her again. “I didn’t do it. I couldn’t. Because I realized that if I did, I could never see you again. But, oh, I was sorely tempted.”
“Who? Who was it?” she asked.
He shook his head. “He’s not important. Not anymore. The only thing that’s important is you and me, Liesha. And your forgiveness. I love you, Julie. Please. Give me a chance to show you how much.”
She stood there in his arms, feeling her heart slowly swell to bursting. Was it true? Was it really true that he loved her? That he wanted her?
“But how?” she asked. “I’m still with CIA and you’re still a Russian officer.”
“Yes, but as of Monday morning, I’m a Russian officer who’s a guest senior lecturer at the U.S. Naval Submarine School. I’ve been transferred to the States.”
Stunned, she peered up at him. “Really? They can do that?”
“A new exchange program, in the spirit of friendship and transparency between our nations. They offered it to me last week when I went in to resign.”
Her heart melted even more. “You resigned?”
“How could you doubt it? My only thought was to settle my affairs and come to you. When I handed in my papers, my commander tore them up. He said that, considering my background and experience, I’d be perfect for this job. Frankly, I just think Naval Command would rather have me sinking American subs than any more Russian ones,” he said dryly.
She hiccuped and risked a small smile. “Their new secret weapon. Diabolical.”
He skimmed his knuckles down her cheek, gathering the moisture there and gently wiping it away. “As for CIA, that’s up to you to arrange. If you want to. But my mother did work for them. That should count for something.”
“They still might not approve,” she said.
But in her heart she knew it didn’t matter. If they didn’t approve of her relationship with Nikolai, she’d quit the Agency. She could always go back to being a journalist.
He
was what she wanted. More than anything else in the world.
He cupped her chin. “So you want to?” he asked, and she didn’t miss the hope mirrored in his eyes. “You want to give us a try?”
She wound her arms around him, holding him tight. “Yes. Oh, yes, Nikolai. I do.”
He kissed her. A long, warm, adoring kiss, filled with the promise of sweet, loving days and sizzling hot nights. “Then come with me,” he murmured. “Up to my room. And fill my life with joy. I don’t ever want to let you go again.”
She melted into his embrace as he led her into the elevator after swiping up his hat, and she whispered, “I’ll hold you to that,” as she kissed him again.
“God, I hope so,” he returned.
They tumbled into his room and shut the door behind them, touching and kissing and falling into an endless sea of passion. She slid off his uniform jacket and tossed it onto a chair as they stumbled past.
Lights glowed brightly in the room. “Wait,” he said, unbuttoning his shirt and going for the lamps, throwing her heated looks as he switched them off one by one.
She watched him, as she had done so many times on
Ostrov
. Her heart was so full of love it made her dizzy. The sight of him made her limp in the knees. But there was something she needed to know.
“How long?” she asked.
“How long what?” The last lamp dimmed, leaving the room bathed in a soft, romantic glow.
“The lectureship? How long do we have to be together this time?”
He turned to face her. His expression was dark and intensely sensual, filled with emotion . . . and something else she’d never seen in him before. Uncertainty?
“How long do you want?” he asked, pausing with a hand on his belt.
She took him in, the man she loved with every breath in her body. The man who saw her for who she was, and believed in her as no other person on earth had ever done. And she knew the answer in her heart.
“Forever,” she said. “I want forever.”
The uncertain slant of his lips slowly curved into a smile. “Forever sounds good. Not that I was ever going to let you go again.”
She took a step toward him. “No?”
“Not a chance. There’s a ring in my jacket pocket. I was going to propose later. After we make love.”
She smiled back. She didn’t think it was possible to be this happy. “Yeah? You mean, as in marriage?”
“As in Mr. and Mrs. Nikolai Romanov.” He started to tug off his belt, a devilish look of temptation filling his eyes. “So you might want to prepare your answer.”
She nodded, oh, so tempted to run to his jacket and get the ring right now, put it on and never take it off. But no, she wanted the words, the bended knee, the whole nine yards. “Oh, I think I know what my answer will be. But . . . is it really possible? What will our bosses say?”
He gave her a look that said he didn’t give a damn, she was
his
. She shivered with the thrilling knowledge that he wanted to be with her that badly. Because she did, too.
His pants hit the floor. “Do you really care what they say?” He cocked a brow.
He was still wearing his hat. But nothing else.
“Hell, no,” she said.
He was tall and broad and muscled masculine perfection, standing next to the biggest bed she’d ever seen.
And he was all hers. Forever.
Turn the page for a sneak peek at the next novel in Nina Bruhns’s Men in Uniform series
WHITE HOT
Available winter 2012 from Berkley Sensation!
DUTCH HARBOR, AMAKNAK ISLAND,
THE ALEUTIANS, ALASKA
JULY
For a man on the run, the fog was both a blessing and a curse.
For the past week, U.S. Navy Lieutenant Commander Clint Walker had been grateful for the recurring blanket of mist as he’d scrambled to stay two steps ahead of his pursuers, island-hopping his way along the Aleutians toward mainland Alaska. So far he’d managed to evade the enemy hot on his trail—Chinese operatives determined to retrieve the stolen military plans in his possession . . . and no doubt kill him for their trouble.
It was after midnight. A severe storm had left a thick shroud of gray that blotted out the pale midsummer sun lingering on the horizon, and cast the surrounding landscape in an eerie, impenetrable glow.
The hair on the back of Clint’s neck prickled, every sense attuned to the danger lurking in the mist. The enemy was out there. Close by.
Stalking him.
He could feel their presence down to his marrow.
It wouldn’t take a rocket scientist to guess where he was heading. The biggest airport in the Aleutians was in Dutch Harbor. The agents tracking him might already be hiding there, lying in wait for him to show up. But he’d have to risk it. He needed to get the microdisc containing the stolen plans back to D.C. ASAP.
If he could find the damned airport.
It seemed like he’d been jogging for miles. After four days of hell on a fishing trawler working his passage to get this far—hell, it had seemed like a good idea at the time, but
damn
, that job was a backbreaker—Clint was dead on his feet. All he wanted was to find a way back to D.C. and his apartment, grab a steaming hot shower, and sleep for twenty-four hours straight.
But that wasn’t going to happen unless he made it to the airport and onto a plane. Preferably alive.
He stopped jogging long enough to catch his breath. And listen. He could hear the shallow waves of Iliuliuk Bay sucking at the nearby shore, so he knew he was still on the right road. In the distance, a foghorn’s low, mournful moan did a duet with the distinct metallic clank of chains from a dozen or more ships moored in the harbor. The sharp smell of raw fish filled the air, but gave no clue as to whether he was closer to the airport or to cannery row. Of course, with just one change of clothes it might be himself he was smelling.
Hell.
He couldn’t see a goddamn thing in this fucking pea soup. He must have missed the turnoff for the airport.
Being the middle of the night, the runway lights had been turned off, and there were no other visual or auditory clues. The entire island seemed to be closed up tight as a clam. Rather than risk running into the bad guys, he’d hunker down for the night, and first thing in the morning scout out a plane to hitch a ride on to Anchorage or Seattle.
Unless they found him first . . .
Was that footsteps behind him?
No. Just the rustle of leaves.
He’d spotted his pursuers back on Adak Island. There’d been three of them, moving in concert to hunt him down, a stealthy, efficient killing unit. The Chinese
really
wanted those plans back. That was when Clint had decided he’d rather face the wrath of a fishing trawler captain as a stowaway and work off his unplanned passage. He couldn’t lose that disc.
Pulling down a deep breath, he started to jog again.
Hell. He was getting too old for this shit. If he managed to make it back to D.C. in one piece, maybe he’d actually accept that Pentagon job the commander had been dangling in front of his nose for a few years now.
Suddenly the faint whisper of hushed human voices floated out from the fog.
Again Clint halted in his tracks and listened.
One, two, three speakers.
He couldn’t hear the language they were speaking, but it didn’t sound English. It sounded Chinese. And they didn’t sound happy.
Clint swore silently and veered off the road. Folding himself into a patch of low juniper, he waited. Moments later, three soundless black silhouettes glided stealthily past.
He swore again.
So much for the airport.
He assessed his options. There was only one road off Amaknak Island. The sea lapped at one side of it, and when the fog lifted, the stunted tundra shrubs on the other wouldn’t hide a large cat. In front of him, an ambush awaited.
Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide.
Fucking hell.
There was only one thing left to do.
He turned and started to sprint, heading back the way he’d come.
Time for plan B.
Captain Samantha Richardson heaved the last insanely heavy box into place on top of the endless rows of crates and cartons. She and most of her ship’s crew had spent the past three hours restacking. Who knew biscuits weighed so damn much?
A freak summer storm had swept across the Bering Sea yesterday, pounding
Île de Cœur
with fifteen-foot waves and wreaking havoc in three of the seven cargo holds of the old tramp freighter, which were only three-quarters full. Anything not nailed down had been tossed about like confetti.
Samantha had already fired and booted off the chief mate, the officer who’d been responsible for overseeing the loading and securing of the cargo in Japan. Or rather,
not
securing it. The crew was now a man down, but she’d manage. She’d actually been glad for the excuse. The guy’d had a real attitude problem. Especially about serving under a woman.
And if this was a sample of his work, good riddance.
“Finally,” she muttered, surveying the evenly distributed stacks of boxes that she and the crew were standing on top of. She wiped the sweat from her brow with a sleeve. “I thought we’d
never
finish.”
Luckily, she’d spent three years as a chief mate en route to her captain’s license, and her second mate was taking the captain’s exam this fall, so together they’d known how to expertly redistribute the load so it wouldn’t shift again.
A chorus of amens came back at her from the five men and one woman heading for the ladder up to the lower deck. Lars Bolun was second mate, Carin Tornarsuk was the oiler, there were four able seamen: Johnny Dorn, Frank Tennyson, Jeeter Pond, and old salt Spiros Tsanaka. If they all managed to climb out of the cargo hold, grab a bite to eat, and fall into their bunks without losing consciousness from exhaustion first, it would be a pure damn miracle.
They had to shove off by oh-six-hundred. Sam absolutely, unequivocally, had to get this cargo to Nome before noon on the Fourth of July. In hold two was the precious order of special fireworks she’d managed by hook, crook, and more than a few shady side deals to scrounge together last week for the new mayor of Nome and his self-aggrandizing election celebration. The new mayor was founder and owner of Bravo Logging Corp, Richardson Shipping’s biggest client, with eyes on the Alaska governor’s mansion. Her father had promised the mayor his fireworks even though at this late date every firework in Japan and China had been spoken for and shipped out long ago. Then he’d given Sam the assignment of fulfilling the order, knowing she’d fail.
But failure wasn’t in Sam’s vocabulary. Bringing in this cargo, on time, would ensure that her father would have to end her infuriating “trial contract” and hire her on permanently. Effectively robbing those who wanted her gone from the family business of the ammunition they needed to convince her father to fire her.
And she knew better than to think he wouldn’t.
Seaman Johnny Dorn’s expressive moan brought her out of her frustrating thoughts. “I am never, ever,
ever
going to eat another White Lover as long as I live,” Johnny declared, collapsing back against the steel bulkhead to wait for her. “Even after drinking a
hundred
gallons of beer.”
Everyone was too wiped out to laugh. The inevitable ribald jokes about the unfortunately named Japanese biscuits had kept them amused for the first fifteen minutes. After that the humor had fizzled under the weight of the task.
She started up the ladder. The cargo holds were below the lower deck where the roll-on roll-off cargo was tied down. Above that was the main deck, where the big containers and the deck crane were out in the weather.
“Hey, how ’bout someone up there giving me a hand up?” she called, reaching for the rim of the hatch.
Second Mate Lars Bolun knelt and reached down, trying to slip his arm around her torso as she popped her head up. “Relax, Skipper,” he said with a grin. “I’ll pull you the rest of the way up.”
She snorted, and batted him away. “In your dreams, Mate.” She did, however, grab his hand to steady herself as she hauled herself up onto the lower deck. She wobbled a bit and he put a hand to her waist to keep her from toppling.
She straightened away from him, forcing her rubbery legs to carry her weight whether they wanted to or not. “Thanks. I’m good.”
He gave her an amused look. “One of these days, Captain, you’ll fall willingly into my arms.”
At that, everyone else snorted.
She rolled her eyes. “Wouldn’t hold my breath, Mr. Bolun.” They all knew he didn’t stand a chance.
Not that he wasn’t a good-looking guy. Tall and muscular, with silver blond hair, and smart to boot. But she was his boss. It just wasn’t going to happen.
Besides, he was steady, earnest, and determined. In other words, the kind of man who’d be looking for a commitment from a woman. And Samantha Richardson didn’t do commitment. Not anymore.
Suddenly, there was a shout from the top of the narrow metal stairway leading up to the main deck. “Captain Richardson! You need to come up here!”
It was Smitty, the wiper—the young greenhorn seaman who got all the dirty maintenance and gofer jobs on board.
“What’s going on, Mr. Shijagurumayum?” she called back. The others called him Smitty for obvious reasons. She’d had to practice for a half hour before she’d gotten her tongue wrapped around his ridiculously long name.
“Ginger saw a guy climbing up the aft mooring line!” he said excitedly. “He must be trying to stow away!”
“What?” She stared for a second in surprise. Then she whirled and made a beeline for the stairs. A
stowaway
?
Hell
, no. That was not going to happen either. “You didn’t let him get on board, did you?”
“No, ma’am. Shandy’s waiting at the top of the line to grab him.”
“Good.” She bounded up the stairs two at a time. She hadn’t thought to post a guard on the dock. She hadn’t thought she needed one. With the threat of terrorism and piracy, port security was tight as a drum. No unauthorized persons should be able to get in.
How had this guy gotten past?
She burst up onto the main deck, followed closely by the others. They all ran aft across the mist-shrouded deck where Shandy stood at the rail peering down at the dock twenty feet below. His gaze swept from side to side searching the thick black void between the ship and the cement dock, where the mooring line cut through the fog up to the hull. But no one was clinging to it.
“Where is he? Did you get him?” Sam asked breathlessly, scanning the dockside. It was impossible to see anything but the ghostly silhouettes of buildings and equipment in the fog. Even the streetlights were just glowing spheres of yellow in a shroud of shimmering gray.
Shandy looked up disgustedly. “Gone. He must have heard Ginger shout to me and taken off.”
Sam’s shoulders and anxiety notched down a fraction. “You’re sure?”
“Trust me, Captain, nobody got past me.” Shandy lifted a hand. It was clutching an oily wrench. A big one.
Sam winced a little, but was grateful for his vigilance. “Okay. Good. But let’s set up a watch tonight, yeah? I’ll call the harbor cops and report an intruder.”
“I’ll take the watch,” Lars Bolun volunteered. “I can sleep tomorrow.”
“Thanks,” she said with a smile. She could always count on the second mate to step up. “I’ll send Ginger out with a plate of food and some coffee.” Sam turned to the others. “Hit the hay, everyone. We sail at high tide.” Which was at six a.m.
They all groaned as she started for the bridge.
“Maybe we should just let the fucker come on board and work him like a dog,” Frank grumbled. “We
are
a man short . . .”
She laughed and kept walking. “Right. Because we really want a desperate criminal or a terrorist working side-by-side with us.”
She made her way to the wheelhouse and placed the call, then retired to her stateroom for a quick shower. At last she sank onto her bunk and closed her eyes with a tired sigh. She was so exhausted her head was spinning.
Despite that, sleep refused to come. She just couldn’t put the intruder out of her mind. Who was he? An escaped prisoner? A terrorist? Or just some poor schmuck who didn’t have money for passage to Seattle? Was he still out there? She shivered and pulled her blanket up tight under her chin. Of all the ships in Dutch Harbor, why had he chosen
Île de Cœur
to try and stow away on?
She pushed out a breath. And thought about her side arm. A brand-new Glock 23. It was stored in the safe in her wall and, thank goodness, had so far only come out for cleanings.
Finally she gave up, slid out of bed, and got the Glock out of the safe. She even loaded the clip. But she drew the line at racking it. Setting the gun on the tiny nightstand next to her bunk, she got back into bed and firmly closed her eyes. She was going to get some sleep if it killed her.
She’d just sunk into that floaty twilight zone between waking and sleeping, her body relaxed and her lids heavy as lead, when there was a soft knock at her stateroom door.
She forced her eyelids up and frowned. “Who is it?”
No one answered.
“Who is it?” she repeated, alarm creeping through her muzzy mind. She sat up and reached for the Glock.
“It—It’s me,” a deep voice said softly.