The Makeover Mission (28 page)

He rubbed his cheek against the top of her head, another tender
gesture so at odds with the strained lines of his expression that she wanted to
ask what had happened, but before she could he'd slipped his arms beneath her
legs and swung her into his arms.

"Let's try it slow this time." He gave her a smile that
could topple mountains and walked to the bed, settling her atop the covers as
if she was rare and precious.

If she hadn't already lost her heart, she knew it would have taken
flight right then and there.

He slipped his jacket from his shoulders, tossing it on a nearby
chair and removed his shoulder harness, his gaze never leaving hers. Yet, when
his fingers began to unfasten the buttons of his shirt, for some reason she
felt unaccountably shy. A silly feeling given their lovemaking of only moments
ago.

Hardly being aware of it, she let her gaze slip, finding respite
in smoothing the folds of her blouse while she tried to still the erratic
beating of her heart, the sudden dryness in her mouth. Even then she was aware
of his movements just beyond the line of her sight, of his steady breathing, of
his gaze studying her.

"I haven't frightened you." He leaned forward until his
fingers curled beneath her chin, raising it until her gaze locked with his. She
could read the concern in his eyes. Those eyes she'd once had thought were hard
and cold, without feeling, devoid of passion. Boy, when she was wrong, she was
really wrong.

Since no words would come she mutely shook her head instead.

He knelt beside her, his splendidly naked body heavily aroused and
yet his voice soothing, his gaze steady on hers.

"There have been times I would have given a fortune to have
you keep quiet." She knew he was trying to make her smile with his teasing
tone, so why did she feel like crying? Especially when he added, "This
isn't one of them."

She swallowed, but still couldn't force words past the lump in her
throat.

He removed his fingers from her chin and slipped them lower, to
the top button of her shirt.

"I'll stop any time you want me to."

She knew he would, though that was the last thing in the world she
wanted right then. Her head shook in negation and his finger slid a button from
its hole.

"You deserve courtship, with red roses and candlelight
dinners. I don't have any of that to offer you. Not here and now."

She wondered if there were more to his words but lost the thought
as the last button gave and she felt his fingers slip between the open folds of
silk.

Her breath caught and held as callused fingertips slid ever so
gently across her skin. There was no pattern to the movement, no heat to the
touch. Nothing but an exquisite gentleness at odds with the driven, determined
man she thought she understood. Through eyes growing heavy with pleasure she
could see the cost of his control.

She wanted to give him something, anything, in return for the
sensations racing through her.

"We don't have to go slow."

"She speaks at last." His lips ever so tenderly brushed
her forehead. "But you're wrong. We do need to go slow. This time."

"Why?"

"Because I want you to know, to feel what you've put me
through all day. Away from you, thinking about the taste of your lips."

He kissed her deeply.

"About the feel of your skin when I do this."

He squeezed one nipple ever so gently.

"About the sounds you make deep in your throat when I touch
you here."

One finger slid between her thighs, rubbing softly, then more
urgently. She arched beneath him.

"I've wanted you until I couldn't see straight."

The pressure increased, building to an ache.

"Until I could think of nothing but getting back to
you."

He slid two fingers into her, teasing her until she wanted to
scream. Or beg.

"Of burying myself so deep within you I'd never find my way
out."

And he did. In one sure, strong stroke he entered her, finishing
with his body what he had started with his hands. They slipped over the edge
together and she knew there'd be no going back. Not for either of them.

Chapter 12

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L
ater, when the shadows of the night
had lengthened and she lay across the bed, Lucius's head pillowed between her
naked breasts, his breathing deep and even, she asked a question that had been
bothering her ever since her unpleasant dinner with Tarkioff days ago.

"Lucius?"

"Ummm." She knew he wasn't asleep, just relaxed. Rare
enough for him that she should have felt guilt for wanting to know something
perhaps better left alone.

"How well do you know Elena? The real Elena I mean."

"Elena Rostov?"

He was hedging and she knew it. "No, I'm talking about Elena
Dela Santos, the opera singer." She tugged a lock of his hair.

"Ow."

"You deserve worse than that. Of course I'm talking about
Elena Rostov."

He rubbed his forehead, but she heard the wariness in his voice.
"What do you want to know about her?"

"I want to know how well you know her."

"That's an open-ended question."

She'd gone this far, no time to back down now.

"I was wondering if…" This was harder than she'd
thought. "If … you know."

"If we were lovers?"

The way he said it made her feel petty and nosy instead of just a
new lover seeking some reassurance.

"Yeah, something like that."

"We weren't."

The words dropped like splattered grease in the quiet of the room.

"Because you didn't want to or because she didn't want
to?"

She wondered where she got the guts even to think of asking such
personal questions, and then, when one silver-tinted eye slitted open, wondered
why she could not have left well enough alone.

With a smooth move startling her in its suddenness, she felt
Lucius's hand snake up to cup her head and pull her lips to his. Only after he
thoroughly kissed her did he answer.

"Elena, like you, is a very beautiful woman. But that's where
the similarities end."

"Meaning?"

He stretched. A great delaying tactic, she realized as she watched
the play of muscles in his chest and arms.

"Meaning Elena assumes the world is made to notice her."

"Meaning men."

"Yes, men in particular."

"And you didn't?"

"I'm here as Tarkioff's advisor, not Elena's plaything."

She knew he'd never be any woman's plaything, but the image made
her smile. At least, she told herself it was the image and not the fact that he
was doing with her exactly what he wasn't willing to do with Elena.

"I see."

"I don't think you do." He rose to one elbow, all
relaxation gone from his expression. "There never was, never would be, nor
ever will be anything between Elena Rostov and myself."

"But we look exactly alike." Why would Lucius be
attracted to her and not Elena?

"Anybody who was with either one of you for longer than ten
minutes would know you're nothing alike."

"But I thought I was doing a good job impersonating
her?"

He didn't have to grin at her tone.

"You are. Almost too good."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Jane, you're the most real person I've ever met," he
said, really throwing her for a loop.

"You're losing me here."

Instead of answering right away he gave her a kiss. A soft, gentle
kiss she felt all the way to her toes.

If he was trying to distract her he was doing a fine job of it. A
darn fine job.

"You're real and Elena is all smoke and mirrors."

"Meaning?"

"You see people, with their hopes and dreams and lives and
treat them as if they're important."

"Of course they're important."

"Not everybody sees life that way."

"Like Elena."

"Like Elena."

He glanced away, as if gathering his thoughts before he spoke.
"You're the kind of woman that a man wants to protect and defend and
ravish all at the same time."

Her?

"You tie up a man's thoughts until they're in knots." He
sounded frustrated. "And at the same time make everything perfectly
clear."

As mud, she thought, wondering what he was really trying to say?
Did he care about her? More than he wanted? Less than he thought he should?

He pulled her back into his arms, confusing her even more. "I
know I got you into this mess and I sure as hell am going to get you out, but
only if you help. You could try the patience of a saint."

Her?
He
was the one not making any sense.

"I want you to keep your eyes open. Be aware of every
situation. If it doesn't feel right, back away. Trust no one."

He'd said that to her before if she recalled. Very emphatically,
but she figured now was not the time to point it out. Nor his just as emphatic
follow-up sentence—the one that told her to trust him least of all.

Over the next several days Jane replayed Lucius's words over and
over again, trying to capture their urgency, their shadow of fear, but it was
hard, really hard, when everything else in her was smiling. No, make that
grinning.

She thought he had said something very important, even if he
couldn't say the words out loud. He loved her. Or cared for her very much. She
could wait for the L-word. For a while. And in the meantime every day gave her
another twenty-four hours to spend with him, by his side, sometimes in his
arms, many times near enough that she could simply look at him. Look and absorb
as if she could capture rays of sunlight to warm her future when they'd go
their separate ways. If they did.

But she wouldn't think such gloomy thoughts. The old Jane might
have dwelled on them, allowed them to taint the present with the reality that
nothing this wonderful could possibly last. But the new Jane intended to savor.

Late at night, when Lucius would come to her after long,
frustrating meetings with Tarkioff, when his need for her was urgent and
desperate, she'd want to pull him into her arms and tell him it'd be all right.
But those times would slip past, lost in the intensity of his loving, swept
aside by passion so strong she felt like kindling before its fire.

But it was hard to ignore the worry she'd catch in his eyes, the
way he'd look at her as if trying to figure out a particularly difficult
puzzle. So she did what she could to help. She kept things light between them.
At any moment he could be snatched from her, their impossible paradise in the
middle of tension destroyed, her own life snuffed out, but it didn't touch that
inner part of her that felt sure, somehow, that things were going to be all
right.

Maybe not peachy-keen kind of all right. How could they be when
she would be heading back to midsummer in Sioux Falls in a matter of days and
he—who knew where his next mission would send him, or with whom?

But she refused to think of such things. Instead she found delight
in touching him, in sneaking her hand into his right before their limo would
pull up to another function, of catching the surprised, then wary look he'd
shoot her. He made her laugh. He made her ache. He made her want a tomorrow,
while aware that every moment together was also bringing the time they'd be
apart that much closer. No one had warned her that love could feel so poignant
and so painful.

Lucius glanced at the memo clenched in his fist, then at his
watch. They were running out of time. Now he understood who was behind what was
going on, but not why. Tarkioff's wedding was less than three days away and
they were no closer to finding out the why behind the threats on Jane's
life—Elena's life—than they were before. And without the why they were never
going to fix the problem.

Funny that he didn't give a tinker's damn right then what it meant
to relations between his country and Vendari. Or what it meant to his career or
the careers of his team.

None of it mattered. Not when it was Jane caught in the vortex.
Something was going to break open, and soon, Lucius's gut told him as much and
his experience reinforced the warnings. But he was in the dark as to the why,
what, how and when. In other words, if he'd been blindfolded in a dark cave, he
couldn't have felt any more out of touch.

And then there was Jane. Sweet, wonderful,
trying-her-hardest-to-keep-a-smile-on-her-face Jane, and she was breaking his
heart. He, who should have been protecting her, was being protected by her.
Every time she took him into her arms, accepted him into her body, soothed when
he felt the most frustrated, she showed him in a hundred ways the depth of her
emotions, the strength of her commitment to him He didn't deserve it, any of
it, yet she kept giving, kept her smiles bright for him and right on the mark.