Risk of Exposure (Alpha Ops Book 6) (8 page)

Mal’s only reply was a shrug.

She could see what looked like flashlights sweeping the snow. Were the Russians already there? She ran forward as far as she could without being caught in the beams.

Voices called, “Dmitri! Lana! Dmitri! Lana!”

Her blood ran cold. The kids were missing? “Oh my God. The children are out in this?”

She made a split-second decision. She pulled off her snowsuit and handed it to him. “I’m going to distract them while you go to the barn on the right-hand side there. It’s unlocked, and there’s hay in there. Stay there until I come and get you.”

“Roger that.” He took her snowsuit without questioning her, which was strangely gratifying, and took her order like a…a squaddie.

She ran along the road, shouting for Tanoff’s attention. “What’s happened?” she called. The flashlights rested on her as she ran for the main house.

“What are you doing here? Dressed like that?” Tanoff demanded.

“I left my car on the road. I was coming tonight because I didn’t think I would make it tomorrow. What’s happened?” She rubbed her arms and tried to stop her teeth from chattering, avoiding his skeptical stare.

“We can’t find Dmitri and Lana. They were so excited to see the snow, so I’m worried they could be out here. Go get a coat on and help us search. There’s an electric lantern in the kitchen.”

She couldn’t imagine how the kids got out of the locked-up house even to play in the snow. But if they had, they needed to be found quickly. And, shit, she needed to be the one to check the barn. Her heart beat fast, and she tried to tamp down the fear she felt for the tiny children. Who could survive in this? She and Malone almost hadn’t. She shivered at the thought.

She wrapped herself in one of Tanoff’s coats and grabbed the portable light from the pantry. Running outside, she found Brigda searching the woodpile that extended from the house to the chicken coop. “Have you checked the barn?” she asked.

“Da. First look,” she said, for once not pulling a face at the prospect of talking to Abby.

Thank God.

“Where do you want me to look?” she asked, wondering how far they’d gotten before she’d arrived. “Where do you want me?” she said louder, and faster, anxious to be given a task to help find them.

Tanoff came into view, and before Brigda could answer, he shouted, “Check the meadow.”

She took one long look at the barn, hoping Malone would manage to stay warm, and ran down the pathway that she’d taken that very day to check the sensors. Her heart clenched at the idea that she might find them in the snow. There was no way they could dress themselves warmly enough to bear being out in this weather.

She halted in her tracks. There were no footprints anywhere between her and the meadow. She wondered if they’d gone missing before or after the blizzard. Or even if the blizzard had reached the farm.

She continued kicking herself for not asking before. She ran down to the field, which, although hidden by the topography from the main house, existed on a slope. She couldn’t see any footprints, any—she gulped—child-shaped lumps in the snow. Just an even spreading of whiteness as far as the eye could see. She held up her lantern one last time and hoped that if there were in fact Russians gathering on the border, they wouldn’t see her.

A shout came from behind her. It sounded triumphant. She ran back.

“All is good, all is good,” Tanoff said, over and over. As she rounded the corner, she saw the two children in his arms as he rushed to the kitchen door. She ran to catch up.

“What happened? Are they all right?” she asked.

“Da. I think,” Tanoff said. “In the chicken house. Making sure the chickens were warm.”

Relief flooded through her. “Oh my God.” She sank into one of the chairs around the kitchen table as Brigda opened the furnace door on her farmhouse oven. She stoked the ashes and added more wood. “Here. Help me,” she said, holding blankets she’d taken out of the top oven. They were blissfully warm.

Abby grabbed the blankets and wrapped them around Lana while Tanoff did the same to Dmitri. She sat Lana on her knees in front of the open fire and rubbed the small of her back. A lot of blood rushed through veins that were close to the skin there. It was a good place to warm her up.

Tanoff watched her and did the same with Dmitri. Both children were awake but sleepy in a way that indicated the onset of hypothermia.

“It seems they had gone to check on the chickens and then were too cold to come back. The chicken house was a little warmer than outside, though, so I hope no danger to them,” he said, his English getting worse under the tension of losing the kids.

“They’ll be fine now,” she reassured him.

Brigda was making warm milk for them to drink and was heating up a big brass bed-warming pan in the open fire. “They sleep with us now,” Brigda said to Tanoff in Ukrainian. “We keep them warm.”

“Da,” Tanoff said, holding a mug to Dmitri’s lips. The little boy slurped the milk.

Brigda, now bereft of things to do, held her arms out for Lana. “You go now,” she said to Abby in English.

“You can stay, Abby. Use the upstairs room.” He nodded to her. He knew that she kept a computer and other equipment up there in the wardrobe, but presumably Brigda didn’t.

“Thank you. I’m glad you found them.”

As she left the kitchen, Tanoff stood with Dmitri still in his arms and told Brigda to bring Lana. They were going to bed too. Relief poured through her. The upstairs room meant that she could go and get Malone, and they could probably get upstairs without the couple knowing anything about it.

She waited until ten minutes had passed since their lights went off, then donned Tanoff’s coat again and silently opened the kitchen door. She crept out into the night.

M
alone knew he was in trouble as soon as he got inside the barn. His wet legs had gone past pain and were completely numb. He took off his snow pants and rolled up his jeans. His legs were mottled and couldn’t feel his touch. He rubbed them gently, trying to urge blood through them again. He’d also stopped shivering. He recognized all the signs.

Things were not looking good. But he’d had no alternative other than going on after he’d fallen into the stream. It wasn’t as if he could have taken off his wet clothes.

There wasn’t anything in the barn to keep him warm without setting fire to things, and that probably wouldn’t be a good idea. He could hear voices calling but couldn’t tell what they were saying.

He wondered what his sister was doing, but he couldn’t quite figure out the time difference between Greece and the West Coast. But he wasn’t in Greece now. He was in Ukraine with Baston’s daughter. Abby. Lovely, bitchy Abby. He wondered how much trouble he’d be in at work if he married her. Or if he died and left her to deal with the Russians herself.

He tried to dig his legs under some hay, but there wasn’t enough of it. Then he pictured Abby, concern etched on her face, talking to him. Probably talking
at
him. Thank God his imagination had her on mute. He was sure she’d have little to say that was comforting. Not that he minded; he’d been trained to put the mission before his own comfort. They all had. The whole regiment.

Country first. Country first. Country…

He awoke to a pounding in his head and extremities. He felt like he was trapped under something heavy that was cutting off supply to his arms and legs and hands, and…

He half opened his eyes. Where was he? He lay perfectly still, eyes still closed, in case he’d been captured. Moments during which they thought you were still unconscious were valuable in ascertaining your surroundings. He breathed in slowly. Coconut scent invaded his nostrils as hair was inhaled into his mouth. He coughed and spat the hair out.

“Charming,” the weight on top of him said groggily.

He opened his eyes. Abby’s peered back at him from inches away. She blinked and yawned. “How do you feel?” she asked, rubbing her foot down one of his legs. Her hands touched his sides. “You don’t feel as cold as you did when I found you.”

“You found me? Wait, back up. What happened?” As he said the words, the night’s activities became clearer. “Did you find the kids?”

She huffed out a laugh. “They were keeping the chickens warm, apparently.”

“Good.” His memory touched on the little boy who’d grinned at him when he’d been watching Abby in the fields. He wondered if it had been him.

He suddenly became aware that he was naked, and she was two small garments short of being naked. “Did you undress me?”

“Shhhh,” she whispered. “They don’t know you’re here. I brought you in after they went to sleep. And, yes, I did undress you. You didn’t tell me how wet you were last night.”

He whispered right next to her ear. “To be fair, you never tell me when you’re wet, either.” The thought of her wetness, the two times he’d been close enough to touch her, made his dick stiffen.

She wriggled. “It feels like you’re feeling better, soldier.”

He stroked his fingertips down her sides, making her squirm against him. He was fighting a losing battle if he didn’t want her to know how aroused he was. “So tell me what you did when you found me.”

He felt her smile against his shoulder. She pulled away and rested her chin on the hand that was draped over his chest. “Well, when I came back to the barn for you, you were muttering, totally incoherently, about I don’t know what. I managed to get you upstairs without anyone hearing, or at least coming out of their rooms to investigate.”

She stroked his arm. “And then I sat you on this bed and undressed you. Rubbing parts of your body to try to get them warm. Like this.” She took his hand in hers and she massaged it, rubbing the palm and the back of his hand until he was feeling the heat elsewhere. She blew on his fingers, holding them close to her mouth. Her tongue flicked out and licked the tip of his middle finger so quickly that he wondered if he’d imagined it. His body hadn’t, though.

He knew she’d felt the twitch of his dick next to her leg when she repeated the lick. And then as he looked down at her lips, she sucked his whole finger into her mouth.

Heat flashed around his body in a way that he knew he’d escaped any serious cold-related injury. Hell, with Abby this close, how could he possibly be cold again?

He turned onto his side so they were facing each other. “You’re a terrible person,” he said in a very solemn, low voice.

She sighed. “Why, this time?”

He slid his hand beneath the covers and pulled her knee up, so it was propping up the covers, and then stroked down her thigh until he reached her panties. “Because your first thought when you woke up was to take advantage of a recovering man,” he said, slipping his fingers beneath her panties. “You see? I told you that you never tell me when you’re wet.” He tut-tutted and shook his head as she arched into his hand, pushing for even more contact.

She slipped her leg over his hip and moaned softly when he stroked her clitoris through her wetness. He played lightly with it, reveling in its softness and her responsiveness.

“Do you want me?” he whispered.

She nodded, biting her lip in a way that made him need to lose himself in her. She took his dick in her hand and guided it against her.

With one motion, he was inside her. He put his mouth on hers to muffle a moan that shuddered out of her.

The bed was so small that all he could do was hold her against him as he thrust into her. Her tightness and heat wrapped around him made his world collapse into just him and Abby, fastened together, mouths together, swallowing each other’s gasps. His fingers found her clit again, and as desperate as he was to taste her again, he wasn’t leaving where he was right then. Buried deep inside of her, owning her, breathing her oxygen, and feeling her yield to his fingers…and his will.

She bit down on his neck as she rocked against him, dragging him closer to her with her leg still hooked over his hip. He was so close to coming, he thrust and held as his fingers slipped around her clit. Her gasps got louder, and as if she realized, she bit down again on his shoulder, and when she came, spasming around his dick, he rocked his pelvis against hers and came, deep, deep inside her, the pain of her teeth jagging heat along his spine with his climax.

He held her tight against him, not saying anything—not able to say anything that wouldn’t ruin everything. He wanted her in his life. Well, in his house at least, and that was a big shift in his reality. And he intended to keep that to himself until death did them part.

Damn him and his fingers, and his dick, and his smart mouth. She snuggled next to him for a short moment, wondering for a second if this was what normal people felt. The warmth in a man’s arms. A certain vulnerability that she’d never allowed herself to feel.

The irony that she was exploring these feelings with a man who was categorically the least likely candidate for comfort and security didn’t escape her. Or maybe that was why she could explore her own vulnerability with him—because she knew it couldn’t be real, that she couldn’t rely on him. Although that was on her.

She rolled onto her back, with one leg out of the covers and off the side of the bed. There was nothing like blackmailing someone to help her with a mission and then wondering why she couldn’t trust him. Yup, that was
all
on her. Why couldn’t she have just been nice to him and politely asked for help? She was certain that’s what normal people would have done. But normal had never really entered her world after high school.

She’d been petrified that she’d lost him when she’d gone to get him from the barn. He’d been alive but not coherent. It took the mother of all efforts to get him inside the house without making a noise. Her heart had hurt—she’d literally had chest pains, knowing that she’d put him back in the same position he’d suffered through in Afghanistan. Luckily he hadn’t been able to speak as she’d taken off his clothes and tried to warm him with her body and the blankets.

Had she felt something for him? Or had it been a normal response to nearly losing a fellow human being? And a reluctant co-conspirator. One who made her laugh inside, even though she seemed to be perpetually rolling her eyes at him. He’d rescued her from falling in the stream. Put her well-being above his. What did that mean? Did he like her, even though she’d blackmailed him? It was all too much to take in.

Mentally shrugging, she jumped up and stretched. “Now if you could only produce a full breakfast and coffee from your snowsuit, you’d be the perfect way to wake up.”

“Sorry, all my eggs broke when I fell into the stream trying to protect you. Eggshell everywhere, let me tell you.”

She stopped. Maybe subconsciously she didn’t want to owe him anything—but clearly she did. “That was very…” She dragged out the last word because she couldn’t think of the right one.
Brave? Kind? Protective?
“…clumsy of you. But thank you nonetheless.”
Why had she said that?

He didn’t seem at all bothered by her flippancy. He grinned. “Is there a shower around here?”

She pointed at a door. “The loft here is all set up for live-in help. But my boss didn’t want me to live with them. I had information to dead-drop, and if I were living in, I wouldn’t have the freedom of movement I do now. Well not
now
, now, obviously. Now we’re stuck here until tonight. But we have a bird’s-eye view of our target area.”

Although the field adjacent to the house was hidden in a small dell, the border could be seen, marked by a row of hedges in the distance. She could see roughly twenty kilometers of border. The unmanned, largely unpopulated border. She sighed and turned back to him.

“You want to go first?” she asked.

“We could save water,” he said with a cock of his eyebrow.

“Not really. Go see.” She found a towel in a drawer and threw it at him. He strode naked from the bed to the tiny bathroom.

He poked his head back around the door. “I don’t get it. Am I supposed to kneel down or crouch? I mean, this is for humans, right?”

She rolled her eyes. “I’m sure you’ll cope.”

While he got clean, she took out her binoculars and computer. The PC wasn’t linked to anything. When she’d mentioned Wi-Fi to the couple downstairs, they’d just looked blankly at her. But still, the binoculars recorded everything she saw, and after scanning the border, she hooked them up to the computer and downloaded what was there. Which was nothing so far.

When she eventually got back to her apartment, and if the snow gods were in her favor, she’d be able to upload it to the server. Then the analysts could…analyze it? She had no idea really, but she was sure that if she couldn’t see anything, they wouldn’t be able to either. Maybe it was just busywork designed to make them feel useful after months of being decidedly
un
useful.

Malone came out wearing a towel. He looked so damn masculine. Tanned, hair flecking his chest, and wet from the shower.

She swallowed and looked back out the turret window.

He slapped her ass. “Your turn. I left the water running in case they wondered what you were doing taking two showers.”

“Thoughtful of you.” She grabbed a towel from the same drawer and went to rinse off. When she reemerged, wearing the towel, he was already dressed. She’d hung his cold wet clothes on the antiquated radiator that was driven by the stove in the kitchen. She noticed that he’d put her clothes on there after he’d taken his.

“You look…clean,” he said with a frown.

“Clean?” she said perplexed. Had he been about to say something else?

“I meant…warmer. You look warmer.”

He was making zero sense. “What are you talking about? Did the cold get to your brain last night?” She turned to release her hair from the towel she’d wrapped it in to keep it dry.

He stood and wrapped his hand in her hair, suddenly standing so close that she had to take a step back. “Yes. It did. Or something did.”

He leaned down and gently kissed her. At least his mouth was gentle, but his tongue was intent on its mission. Her knees suddenly felt as if she’d had too much vodka, and she had to lean on the edge of the small vanity next to the window.

He let go of her hair and took a step back. His attention seemed to have been grabbed by something outside, and he closed the curtains, taking most of the light from the room.

Deliberately he pulled the front of her towel and let it drop to the floor. The cooler air hit her skin with a rush of excitement.
She should complain, shouldn’t she?

But she didn’t. Her gaze followed him as he touched the very tip of her nipple. “No, look at
me
,” he said.

Her eyes met his as his finger swirled around first one nipple and then the other. He was still at arm’s length. It was as if he was examining her. Like she was a project or a specimen. He took her arms and held them to her sides as he slowly dipped his head to take one of her nipples in his mouth. He sucked and then bit until she writhed against him. Then he simply stopped and lavished his attention on the other one.

Perched on the vanity, she felt more and more like an exhibit that he was experimenting on. She couldn’t help herself, but she was so turned on by this…examination.

He nudged her legs open and pressed her back against the wooden top, which moved her pelvis forward. He hadn’t said a word. He sat on the chair in front of the mirror and kissed her stomach. She clenched with desire. What was he going to do next?

He trailed a finger down from her navel to her open folds, his gaze fixed between her legs. “What are you doing?” she asked on a deep breath.

“Seeing you. The other times we’ve been together, you’ve insisted on turning your back or pretending to be angry, and now I want to see what you were hiding from me.” He slid two fingers inside her and she instinctively opened her legs farther. With his other hand, he held her open. The touch of his hot tongue undid her. She all but whimpered under this…whatever this was. He licked her clitoris until she could barely stay perched on the furniture. And then he pulled away and stood.