Secret Agent Seduction (20 page)

T
hat night, Lia and Armand ate dinner by a large campfire in the middle of the woods. It wasn't quite what Armand had in mind when he'd promised her a “romantic candlelight dinner,” but after the harrowing day they'd had, he figured she'd give him a pass.

“How was your steak?” he asked with a lazy smile, watching as she licked her fingers, tossed her clean bone into the fire, then set aside her paper plate.

“Delicious,” she pronounced with a deep sigh of satisfaction. “Best steak I've ever had. My compliments to the chef.”

Armand chuckled dryly. “As I mentioned before, I've had a lot of practice roasting meat over campfires. Nothing to it.”

She grinned at him. “You don't give yourself enough credit. The meat was tender and seasoned just right. If left to
me,
those steaks would have been nothing more than a charred mess.”

Armand nodded. “Yeah, you're probably right.”

“Hey!” Lia said indignantly, slapping him playfully on the shoulder.

Together they laughed, and it felt good. Really good. They'd had very little to laugh about over the past several hours.

After the close call on the highway, they'd ditched the bullet-riddled van in exchange for an old but serviceable sedan they bought at a used-car lot for two hundred dollars. By the time Lia had finished shamelessly flirting with the salesman, he'd been ready to hand over the keys for every vehicle on the lot. Armand empathized with the poor guy.

Back on the road, he and Lia had traveled for another two hours before reaching their new hideout, the site of an old underground bunker that had been used by Union soldiers during the Civil War. Located on a large tract of privately owned land in rural Virginia, the bunker did not belong to any historical society, Lia explained, but rather to an old friend of her father's. The owner, a retired widower who actually lived on the West Coast, had no intention of selling the land, which had been in his family for generations. Whenever he came to Virginia, he always invited Lia and her parents to join him for camping and fishing on the property. Because Lia had always been fascinated with the underground bunker, he'd laughingly given her a key to it should she ever need a “place to hide.”

Little did he know that years later, finding herself on the run, she would seek refuge in the same bunker she'd once explored and played in.

Armand, who wasn't too keen on spending the night in a dank, dusty underground hole haunted by the ghosts of dead soldiers, would much rather sleep under the stars, as he'd often done back home. But if Lia insisted that they take shelter in the bunker, he'd keep his promise to cooperate. As long as they were together, it didn't really matter where he slept.

The summer night was thick and sultry, and a steady chorus of nocturnal creatures' humming filled the air. Ribbons of moonlight streamed through the canopy of pine and fir trees surrounding their campsite.

Before arriving at their new destination, they'd stopped at a discount store and stocked up on food and camping supplies to get them through the next three days, if necessary. Lia had bought a prepaid phone and called to check up on Armand's family. He hadn't taken an easy breath until she had hung up and reported that his mother and siblings were doing just fine. When he had asked her why she was pouting, she had informed him that his mother was about to prepare
chictai
for Agent Rollins and the others. Even Armand had been jealous.

When Lia had checked her voice mail, there were no new messages. Just as she'd predicted.

Although she hadn't come out and said it, Armand knew how traumatized she was by the recent turn of events. She had devoted her life to the Secret Service. She'd sacrificed friendships, a love life, stability—hell, her own safety—in order to be the best agent she could be. To discover that someone within the agency had betrayed her trust, violated her privacy and was now trying to kill her had to be the most devastating thing she'd ever experienced in her life. Armand wanted to comfort her, hold her. Reassure her that everything would be all right.

Even if he didn't necessarily believe it.

“Do you want another beer?” Lia asked, interrupting his grim musings as she reached into the large cooler beside her.

He shook his head. “No, thanks. One is enough.”

Absently he watched as Lia opened a bottle of water and took a healthy swig. She was sublimely beautiful, even with the darkening purple bruise on her right cheek. She had braided her hair into a neat, thick plait that hung between her shoulder blades. At some point she had changed into tan cargo pants and a white tank top that drew his gaze to her sleekly toned arms and the enticing fullness of her firm, round breasts. He remembered sucking her dark nipples, stroking and caressing her breasts as he drove inside her exquisite heat. He remembered the feel of her long, slippery legs locked around his waist, the scrape of her nails against his back, the wild thrusting of her hips.

If the threat of dying had not diminished his hunger for this woman, he knew nothing ever would.

“There's something I've been meaning to ask you,” he blurted, reining in his imagination before he tackled her to the ground and mounted her with all the finesse of a caveman.

Lia glanced at him, and he wondered if he'd only imagined the wary look that crossed her face before she smiled inquisitively. “What is it?”

“You told me a few days ago that when you visited Muwaiti, you met an old Creole woman who reminded you of your grandmother. Does that mean you have Creole blood in your family?”

She nodded. “On my mother's side. She's from Louisiana. The Delahousses of Baton Rouge.”

“Do you speak Creole?”

She shook her head regretfully. “My mother speaks very little herself. After she married my father, she moved away from home and sort of lost track of her family, her culture.”

“That's too bad,” Armand murmured.

“It is. When I was growing up, on the few occasions we actually visited Baton Rouge, I used to feel like such an outcast among my aunts and uncles and cousins, who teased me mercilessly for not speaking or understanding Creole.” She grimaced at the memory. “For the longest time I blamed my mother, as well as my father, for alienating me from that part of my heritage. I swore, that if I ever got married, I would not do the same thing to my own children.”

Armand gazed at her, inwardly smiling at the stubborn defiance that glittered in her dark eyes. “I would teach you Muwaitian Creole,” he offered, “but I'm afraid it wouldn't help you much with your Louisiana relatives.”

“And that's the really weird thing,” Lia said, turning to him. “I actually understand more Muwaitian Creole than the Creole spoken by my mother's people! I understood just about everything you and your family were saying to one another yesterday. Isn't that amazing? I mean, considering that I was only in Muwaiti for two weeks—eight years ago, at that—I think it's pretty remarkable that I still remember the language.”

Because you belong there,
Armand thought.
With me.

“That
is
pretty amazing,” he said aloud. “But then you already told me that you've always been very proficient with languages. You speak French beautifully,” he added, shivering at the memory of the erotic promises they'd whispered to each other as they made love. Damn, that was one of the
hottest
things he'd ever experienced.

Lia met his gaze, and the banked heat in her eyes told him she remembered, as well. Glancing away, she took another sip of her water. “Considering the large Creole population in Muwaiti, I always wondered why Creole isn't one of the official languages.”

Armand scowled. “Because Alexandre Biassou believes in mass conformity, much like the French colonists who arrived on the island after the early African settlers. Biassou detests the Creole language. He's been known to refer to it as an uncouth, bastardized version of French, a dialect spoken only by the uncivilized and illiterate. It drives him crazy that there are different variations of Creole spoken throughout the country. He believes that in order for Muwaiti to compete on a global scale, we must all speak French, the language of the so-called noblemen who colonized and enslaved our ancestors.”

Lia shook her head in disgust. “A dictator through and through,” she pronounced with withering scorn. “It's rather hypocritical of Biassou to talk about competing globally when he has single-handedly destroyed the Muwaitian economy and damaged important free-trade agreements with so many countries. Furthermore, he has lowered workers' wages and—”

Seeing the way Armand was staring at her, and mistaking the cause, she broke off abruptly with a sheepish grin. “Er, sorry. Didn't mean to get carried away. I know I'm preaching to the choir.”

“No, I wanted you to continue,” Armand said huskily, his heart racing with excitement and something else, something he was afraid to identify. “Your passion was…inspiring.”

Lia chuckled self-consciously. “Like I warned you before, there are certain issues I feel very strongly about. Greedy, corrupt presidents who take from the people they're supposed to be serving is one of my hot-button issues.”

Armand smiled, still gazing intently at her. “My countrymen would be very fortunate to have such a strong, passionate advocate on their side.”

“They already have one—you. And when you become president,” Lia said with a sly smile, “you can reverse everything that horrible man has done over the last four years. And hey, you can even make Creole one of the official languages.”

Armand shook his head. “I'm not running for president,” he said, but his voice lacked the usual vehemence he expressed whenever his brother Henri broached this topic, which had been often.

“Why not?” Lia demanded. “Why wouldn't you consider running for president?”

He tossed a few chunks of wood onto the dying fire, watching as the flames leaped and danced to life. “I'm not a politician,” he said simply.

“Who says you have to be?” she challenged. “If I'm not mistaken, the current Muwaitian president is a politician, and look how
that
turned out.”

Armand's mouth twisted sardonically. “Good point.”

Lia studied him thoughtfully for several moments. “I know I've only known you less than a week, but I think the people of Muwaiti would be very lucky to have you as their new president. Who better to lead the country into the future than the man who fought to get it back for them?”

Armand smiled a little. “That's very good. Maybe I could use that as a campaign slogan. I don't suppose you'd be interested in becoming my speechwriter?”

She chuckled. “I already have a job, but if you decide to use that as your slogan, I'll let you take the credit. How does that sound?”

His smile softened. “You've got a deal.”

Inexplicably his throat felt tight, clogged with emotion. It had been a long day, he reminded himself. He was tired and edgy, and his nerves were frayed like hell. The raw emotion he suddenly felt was a delayed reaction to the harrowing events of the past eleven hours.

But deep down inside Armand knew it was much more than that. Time was running out. He had only a few more days to convince Lia to return to Muwaiti with him when this assignment was over. And even
that
depended on the outcome of the hearing. If Alexandre Biassou walked away a free man, Armand knew what he had to do, and nothing or no one—not even the woman he loved—would stop him. He knew that killing Biassou would put an end to his future, one way or another. But as far as Armand was concerned, a future under the continued dictatorship of Biassou was no future at all.

“Penny for your thoughts,” Lia said, watching him quietly.

He managed a half smile. “They're worth more than that,” he quipped. But her words had triggered a memory from earlier, an image that had been nagging at his conscience all day.

He looked at her. “There's something else I've been meaning to ask you about.”

“What's that?”

“Back at the cabin, when you were leaning over the mercenary's body—” This time there was no mistaking the wary gleam that filled her dark eyes. She bit her bottom lip and glanced away.

Intrigued, Armand continued, “You were asking him who had sent him there. At one point you screamed, ‘What does that mean?' as if you'd heard something. But he hadn't said anything. I know, because I was standing there the whole time. Why did you ask him that? It was almost like…” He trailed off for a moment, searching for the right words, knowing he would sound crazy no matter what.

Finally he just blurted, “It was like you were trying to read his mind.”

Lia was staring into the fire, not at him. So she didn't see the look of utter astonishment on his face when she said quietly, “I was.”

Lia was as shocked as Armand to hear those two words leave her mouth. She hadn't planned on sharing her secret with him—ever.