Читать книгу Hot Intent - Cindy Dees - Страница 7
ОглавлениеKATIE MCCLOUD STARTED as the front door’s elaborate electronic locks buzzed to indicate they were disengaging. Her heart leaped in eager anticipation. He was home. Finally. After nearly a year away.
She’d been head over heels for Alex Peters when he was sucked into some supersecret CIA training program last year. He’d been yanked away from her just as they were really getting to know each other. But now he was back, and their life together could resume where it left off.
Their relationship had been forged in danger as they’d fled forces intent on killing them and the infant girl they’d rescued together. Alex, a trauma surgeon by training, had been in the remote central Asian country of Zaghastan illegally delivering babies, and she’d been there as his translator and babysitter. Although who’d watched whom was still open to debate.
His CIA handler, André Fortinay, had briefed her not to assume anything about her relationship with him when he got home. To let Alex set the tone and pace of the reunion. Almost as if they’d broken him in some way while he was gone. What exactly had they done to him in his training, anyway?
Alex stepped into the living room, and her heart gave a lurch. God, he was more beautiful than she remembered. Tall. Dark. And even more dangerous than before. His coffee-dark hair was a little lighter, his skin darkly bronzed. He was leaner through the waist and bigger across the shoulders. But those changes weren’t what really arrested her.
Something intangible had changed about him. His natural confidence had been replaced by something else, something more...powerful. Now it came across as utter belief in himself. He’d always had a lethal quality to him, but it had a new focus about it now, a cold reserve that oozed don’t-screw-with-me-in-a-dark-alley.
She realized she’d risen to her feet after the fact. Crud. She’d planned to stay seated, arranged sexily on his white leather sofa. Oh, well. So much for pretending to be calm, cool and sophisticated. She was a hot mess and would always be a hot mess. To heck with André Fortinay’s do’s and don’ts for Alex’s homecoming.
“Alex!” she cried joyfully. She started forward and managed to catch the edge of the flokati area rug with her heel, slam her shin into the glass coffee table and pitch headlong into Alex’s arms as he dived forward to catch her.
“Been working on your coordination in my absence?” he murmured as he drew her up against his body. His mouth closed on hers and the wild magic exploded between them like it always did. His lips slashed across hers as her mouth opened eagerly. Their tongues collided, and he inhaled her like he couldn’t get enough of her. At least that hadn’t changed about him. Relief crept through her nervousness.
Her arms slid around his waist. He was more muscular, harder, than before. But then, so was she. She’d been working out like crazy while he was gone. Some of it had been boredom, and some frankly had been a remedy for horniness. And a little of it had been insecurity over how a girl like her was ever going to hold the attention of a man like him. He was James Bond, and she was the girl next door.
He came up for air long enough to murmur, “Where’s Dawn?”
“Asleep. Would you like to peek into her room and see her, though?”
He smiled and the warmth reached all the way to his eyes. “Yes.”
Keeping her plastered against his side, he strode across the sleek living room of his penthouse condo and down the hall to the nursery where their adopted daughter, who recently turned one year old, slept.
He cracked the door open and crossed the floor to the crib. “My God, she’s grown so much,” he breathed.
A wedge of light from the doorway fell upon her blond curls and chubby cheeks. She slept on her tummy, her knees tucked up under herself and her diaper poking up under the pink blanket. Adorable didn’t begin to cover her angelic cuteness.
“I thought they taught you in medical school that growing is what babies do.”
He snorted without taking his gaze off the sleeping baby. “She’s gorgeous.”
“Did you ever get a good look at her birth mother before she died? The girl was stunning. Our Dawn’s going to keep you hopping in about thirteen years when the boys start sniffing around.”
“There will be no sniffing,” he said firmly.
She laughed under her breath. “Good luck with that.”
He backed out of the doorway and headed toward the white quartz bar in the corner of the living room. He poured himself a shot of expensive Russian vodka neat and tossed it down. He made a sound of appreciation.
“Missed the good stuff?” she asked.
“You have no idea.”
“Tell me about it. What was your training like?” André had told her not to ask any questions, but he could get over it. Alex would think something weird was up if she didn’t display at least a little curiosity.
His eyes shuttered instantly and completely. “Rough.” And that was obviously all he planned to say about it. Great. He was back to minimal communication punctuated by long silences.
“Fair enough. Glad to be home?”
He looked around the condo, his sharp gaze probing the corners carefully. “Thanks for house-sitting.”
She laughed. “It was a real hardship, living in all this luxury for free.” She added more seriously, “Actually, it helped me feel a little closer to you while you were gone. I missed you.”
He bit out grimly, “I missed you, too.”
She knew him well enough not to take it personally that he sounded supremely unhappy about that development. He’d been raised by his spy father to believe that all human emotions were weaknesses in need of expunging from his heart and mind.
“André said you might want some time by yourself to decompress after your training. I’ve talked with my parents, and they’ve invited Dawn and me to come hang out at their place for a while and give you some space.”
“No,” he replied sharply. “Stay.”
“Are you sure?”
“You’re safest here.”
He wasn’t kidding. She’d spent the past year learning the security features of his fortresslike home and they were daunting. Like him. The place was elegant and gorgeous on the inside, hard and impenetrable on the outside.
“You haven’t lived with a toddler before. Dawn will totally destroy your grand solitude. Chaos is the normal state of affairs around here,” she warned him in all seriousness. Not to mention, she was concerned about his reflexive responses to a baby. Who knew what knee-jerk reactions had been hardwired into him this year? Were she and Dawn even safe around him? After seeing the icy detachment in his eyes, she wasn’t a hundred percent sure.
“I insist.”
Big words. Still, she worried about how he would react to Dawn and her. He’d lived alone basically his entire life, and the transition to having an overnight family was not going to be easy for him. No way would she even consider staying here like this were it not for the threat his father posed to them all.
“I had an intercom system installed while you were away, Alex. I hope you don’t mind. It’s just that the apartment’s so big I can’t hear Dawn if she’s in her room and I’m in—” She broke off. How to describe the master bedroom? Was it still just his room? Their room? It had been her room for the past year.
“Good call on an intercom,” he remarked.
“Are you hungry? Tired? It’s late. Have you traveled a long way to get here? Oops. Strike that last one. But you do look tired.”
He actually looked more than tired. Up close, she spied lavender shadows beneath his eyes, and a certain haggard quality clung to him. He looked bone-deep exhausted. She could imagine the kind of stuff the CIA trained its field operatives to do, and he probably had good cause to look wiped out.
She murmured, “Let me check on Dawn, and then I’ll be back to welcome you home more thoroughly.”
His gray, intelligent gaze went alert and predatory. Her tummy fluttered excitedly in response. Who’d have guessed she was still such an adrenaline junkie after a year of sedate parenthood?
“I’ll be waiting,” he murmured.
Now why did that sound like a threat? Was it just his habitual economy of expression, or was it more? Either way, her heart leaped in anticipation.
Hah. And André had hinted broadly that Alex might not want to have a romantic relationship with her when he got home. He’d been home five minutes and already laid a smoking-hot kiss on her and was now moving things to the bedroom. Along with her triumph, a dose of abject gratitude flowed through her.
He was still hers. Brilliant, tortured Alex Peters—genius, surgeon and now spy—still wanted her. Part of her—okay, a scarily big part of her—worried that it was too good to be true. That he was going through the motions now because he thought she expected him to. That the past year’s worth of training had forced him to revert to form and shut down emotionally. That he would ultimately push her out of his life.
Worried, she leaned over the crib in the nursery. Sweet Dawn, the best baby ever, settled in under her blanket without waking up. If the way she kicked off blankets was any indication, she was on her way to being a great soccer player.
Li’l munchkin had been through a lot in her short life. She’d been born into a war zone and her mother had died in childbirth despite Alex’s heroic efforts to save the girl. Her entire village had been massacred and the three of them had barely made it out with their lives.
But thanks to the trust fund Alex had set up, the legalities his lawyer had sorted out to give Alex and her permanent custody of Dawn and, of course, the roof Alex had put over both of their heads, it was nothing but smooth sailing for Dawn now. For all of them. No more running around being chased by bad guys out to kill them. Katie tiptoed out of the nursery and down the hall to Alex’s bedroom.
* * *
ALEX STOOD IN the darkness of his bedroom absorbing the familiarity of its dark shapes, noting the differences Katie had brought to the space. He could do this. He could pretend to be a normal man. Living a normal life. He could experience pleasure. Family. Love. He would not break.
Nothing would break him.
They’d tortured him and screwed with his head and made him kill. But in spite of it all, he had not broken. And to think, he’d once believed his father a bastard for training him like a spy. If only he’d known just how easy his old man had taken it on him.
Alex pulled his shirt off over his head, not bothering to unbutton it. Cool air blew lightly across his skin causing goose bumps on his chest, back and arms. He kicked off his shoes and stripped off his pants and socks. Naked, he stood stock-still in the middle of his bedroom. Nothing but darkness clothed him.
Memories rolled over him then. Remembered tortures that made him tremble even now. They’d begun like this, too. Exposed skin, cool breath upon his flesh. Then pain. Exquisite, fiery pain.
And in his agony, all the demons from his past had come calling, singing to him like sirens, calling him home. It would have been so easy to lose himself in them. Then check out of the prolonged agony and go to that other place inside his soul.
But he’d chosen the pain. He’d stayed present. Suffered the agonies of hell. Only then had he been sure he was still alive.
Even now, especially now, he wondered if any of this was real. It was so mundane. His house. Katie. The baby.
Was this the cruelest torture of all? Were they going to let him get comfortable and then rip it all away from him? If he knew what was good for him, he would reject it all. He would find the pain and live there.
But that welcome-home kiss...
He swore violently. Kissing Katie might just be worth going to hell for.
* * *
KATIE STEPPED INTO the darkness of the master bedroom and screamed a little as strong arms came out of nowhere to sweep her up against a hard body. “Gotcha. I win,” Alex announced. “You are the worst spy ever.”
“Mmm, but I’m the softest and sexiest and love you the best.”
“True,” he agreed as his mouth closed over hers.
The explosive attraction that had simmered between them before erupted, crackling like chain lightning across her skin, striking further and further inside her as their kiss deepened. Craving twisted her innards into tight knots of desire. She could never seem to get enough of him.
Her clothes went every which way as the passion overtook them, and frantic urgency spurred them onward. Naked and devouring each other, they fell onto his bed. She’d have laughed, except he speared his hand into her hair and pulled her head back so he could plunder her neck and shoulder with teeth and tongue, and the laugh became a gasp of pleasure instead.
He took control tonight, demanding ever more response from her as he kissed and stroked and nipped his way across her flesh. Where she was cold, he was hot. Where she was soft, he was hard. And where she was hungry, he starved her for more.
With hands and mouth, he played her body, using his knowledge of her pleasures and desires to drive her into a frenzy of blind lust. She needed to have him crushing her into the mattress, to fill her body with his, to feel his power and desire as he pounded into her...oh, yes. She needed all of that in the worst way.
But frustratingly, he withheld it from her tonight. Instead, he kissed his way down her body until she gasped with need. His tongue circled her most sensitive bud, wet and hot and maddening until a climax started to claw its way out of her belly. And then his mouth withdrew.
“Tell me something, Katie. How bad do you want this?”
Oh, no. “Um, bad enough to beg?”
“Is that all?” he murmured in disappointment.
“Bad enough to do anything you want?” she tried.
“You’ll do that anyway,” he replied dismissively.
True. She never could say no to him. “Bad enough to cry?”
His thoughtful silence was encouraging. Although on second thought, she wasn’t sure she wanted to find out how he would make her cry. He’d warned her before that his sexual tastes could run pretty dark at times. And he’d just come off a year of pretty dark, violent training, if she had to guess.
Before he could act on her ill-considered offer, she added, “Bad enough to say ‘please’?”
He rose up over her on powerfully muscled arms. “Say it.”
“Please, Alex.” When he didn’t move, she continued. “Please give us both an orgasm. Or ten. I want you so much I can’t stand it. Now. Take me now. Please.”
In typical Alex fashion, he continued to stare down at her, letting her frustration and desperation build until she thought she might die.
“Will you beg me to stop, too?” he growled.
“Never.”
He made a skeptical sound. Cynical mood he was in tonight.
He waited until she all but sobbed with need. The pleasure she knew he could give her hovered just out of reach like a tantalizing piece of candy dangling on a string. Why did he insist on playing these wicked games with her? He knew how he made her feel. He knew how deeply she lusted after him. And still, he made her wait. And suffer. As if he was punishing her for making him feel the same way she did.
She knew why he did it, of course. He hated love. But it didn’t make this cruel game of his any easier to bear.
Her entire body throbbed with unfulfilled desire for the sex that was right there. So close, and yet so totally out of her control. If she could only get him to actually make love to her, his emotional barriers would crumble the way they always did. But for now, he fought it. So hard, he struggled to hold himself apart from her. From everyone.
Tonight his fight was worse than ever. His features pulled into a macabre rictus of suffering half-lost in shadows. It was hard for her to look at. What had they done to him?
She put her hands on either side of his face and tried silently to reach past the suffering to the man beneath. But he was lost. His eyes were black hollows. All she saw in them was pain, and more pain.
“Come back to me, Alex,” she whispered.
His hands went around her neck. They were big and capable and strong. He could snap her neck quickly or choke her to death slowly if he so chose. Soul-chilling terror flashed through her, along with instinctive knowing.
They’d turned him into a killer.
She spoke slowly and clearly into the hush while he debated ending her life. “Do it, Alex. If it will heal your soul, do it.”
“Gah!” He flung her back against the pillows and grabbed her hips, shoving her thighs wide. If he’d thought to scare her, he failed. She’d decided long ago that she trusted him with her life. Giving him her body was kid stuff by comparison. She arched her chest up toward him in invitation.
The fight played itself out on the beautiful, dark features of his face above her. He hated her for how she made him feel, and yet he craved those feelings with every ounce of his being. He wanted with his entire soul not to give in to her, to what she represented. Enough that he’d seriously considered killing her. He was physically shaking with the effort of withholding himself from her.
She truly wished love didn’t hurt him so much. But she also knew he needed it. Needed this. He’d been gone a year. That was a long time not to feel anything nor to let down his emotional walls. If she knew the CIA, his training had only reinforced his belief that feelings equaled weakness.
He plunged into her without warning, hard and deep, his capitulation not quite painful as her body stretched to accommodate him. It had been a year for her, too, and he was not a small man. Oh, how he wanted to hurt her. It was right there in his eyes. But he couldn’t quite bring himself to do it, and she trusted him not to.
He might hate the fact that he had feelings for another human being, but he did have them for her. Dawn and her—his Achilles’ heels and greatest weaknesses. The two of them had snuck past his guard and forced him to join the human race, like it or not. Most of the time, he did not like.
Tonight, he definitely did not like. Rage and self-loathing flashed across his face. Someone who knew him less well might not have seen them. But she’d greedily memorized every nuance of him in their brief time together last year. And she hadn’t forgotten anything. Sadness washed over her for the lonely child who had grown into this isolated, injured man.
He withdrew most of the way from her body. She braced herself, and sure enough, he slammed into her again. But this time, a faint shudder passed through him. Thank God. He was starting to crack. She opened her body and soul completely to him, allowing him to take whatever he needed. Offering herself up on the altar of his hatred and love.
He groaned his surrender and the terrible tension left his body. She exhaled in relief. One of these times, his walls would not break down. What then? She didn’t want to be around when that happened. She suspected his capacity for love would be exceeded only by his capacity for cruelty.
She wrapped her arms and heart around him, drawing him into her as his arms collapsed. His weight crushed her the way she’d wished for, and he pounded into her with all the desperation she could have hoped for. She locked her legs around his hips and rode the storm, meeting it with abandon, glorying in the power of it as the two of them flung themselves into the maelstrom and were swept away.
The sex was hot and slippery, with heavy breathing and hair stuck in the sweat on her face, and bite marks on her neck and scratches on his back, bodies straining urgently toward each other until where she stopped and he began blurred and disappeared. And through it all, he poured his soul into her and she refilled the empty places in his heart with her unconditional love.
Gradually, gradually, the sex changed. Grew more languid. Sensual. Personal. He propped himself on his elbows and pushed her hair back from her face. He found a slow, gliding stroke that her body matched with easy undulations born of exhaustion and relief. It was sultry and sexy and made her breath catch in her throat. He wasn’t entirely gone, after all, her Alex. The killer hadn’t quite won out. Not yet.
Finally, at long last, the massive, emotional orgasm that had been clawing for escape inside her broke free, ripping her apart with its power as she lurched up against Alex and cried out wordlessly. With a drawn-out groan of his own, he found his release, and she fell back to the bed panting.
His forehead rested on hers, and she lazily counted his heartbeats pulsing against her breast. He might win when it came to sneaking up on her in the dark, but she always won this battle of wills.
So far.
Normally she slept like a baby after making love with Alex. He demanded everything she had to give physically and emotionally, usually leaving her drained, but peaceful. Tonight, though, she found herself lying awake, staring at the flickering shadows on the ceiling from the swimming pool outside, worrying about him. About them.
He was fundamentally different than before. Changed.
What had they done to him? Was she an idiot to trust him? She knew in the depths of her soul that he would never do anything intentionally to hurt Dawn. But at the end of the day, could she say the same thing about herself? There’d been a moment there when she thought he’d slipped away from her into a very dark and violent place.
It was all well and good for him to insist that she and Dawn stay here with him and play house. But she didn’t kid herself that he was in an emotional place to let go of his past. If anything, the past year of training had driven him deeper into that locked-down part of himself. Sex with him—heck, life with him—had the potential to be very scary if she ever failed to break through his rage.
If only there was a way to exorcise the demons from his past. The biggest one of all being the one he never spoke of.
His mother. The woman who’d left when he was an infant, never to be seen or heard from again. She’d abandoned him with his father—a Russian spy who used Alex as a cover to infiltrate the United States and who brutally trained his son to be a spy just like him. Alex didn’t even know his mother’s name. No doubt, her abandonment was the source of his rage toward all women. If only she could find his mother for him—
Uncle Charlie, a deputy director of Plans at the CIA, did owe her a huge favor for getting Alex to agree to work for the agency. Oh, technically, he’d gone to work for Doctors Unlimited, but they all knew it was a CIA front.
With all the CIA resources her uncle could bring to bear on the problem, could Alex’s mother be found? Could she lay his demons to rest for him once and for all?
It was worth a shot. She had nothing to lose by trying, right?
Excited at the prospect of how surprised—and potentially healed—Alex would be if she could present his mother to him, she rolled over and went to sleep, eager for morning to come.
* * *
IT WAS NEARLY NOON, though, before showers, breakfast and playtime with Dawn wound down. Katie watched Alex like a hawk with the baby, but he showed no violent tendencies with the toddler. In fact, she thought she glimpsed moments of genuine pleasure on his face as he flew Dawn around the living room to the accompaniment of baby squeals of laughter.
Alex offered to take the baby out for a walk so Katie could run the errands she’d mentioned over breakfast. As Alex and Dawn headed for the local park, she went the other direction down the sidewalk toward a shopping area bound to have cabs loitering nearby.
Alex’s insurance company had delivered a new BMW to replace his wrecked one, but Katie was leery of driving the German sports car. She hadn’t gotten around to buying a car of her own yet. Alex had sent word to her to feel free to use his checking account for anything at all in his absence, but she’d felt hinky about buying something as expensive as a car with his money. Yes, the account had enough money to buy ten cars in it, but still. She was a McCloud, and McClouds had their pride.
Besides, Washington, D.C., had great public transportation, and a train ran daily from D.C. to her hometown in Pennsylvania.
She’d been home often in the past year to visit her folks. Dawn officially had all five of her uncles and both grandparents wrapped around her tiny pinkie finger. Katie shook her head. She hated to see how bad they were all going to spoil her as she got older.
After seeing the emotional condition Alex was in last night, she probably ought to consider making a quick trip with Dawn to Pennsylvania to let him decompress a little more by himself. But memory of the pain on his face as he fought his demons made Katie long to stay and comfort him. Grr. No one had warned her that the demands of being a parent and a lover could conflict so badly.
Her thoughts jerked back to the present as the taxi stopped at the guard shack in front of CIA headquarters. She climbed out and the vehicle pulled away quickly. She could relate to the driver’s nervousness. A sinister vibe did radiate off the sprawling building. After showing proper ID to the guard, she walked across the visitors’ parking lot and through the main entrance.
It was ballsy to show up unannounced at Charlie’s work like this, but she figured the man could stand a reminder of just how much he owed her.
She was duly checked out in the agency’s computers at the reception desk and given a visitor’s badge. An escort, a perky coed girl no older than Katie, took her up to see Charlie. Her uncle was a deputy director of Plans and had a plush office with a nice view of the woods outside.
“Katie! What brings you here today? Is everything okay?”
Which she supposed was spy-speak for Alex hasn’t gone off the reservation already, has he? “Yup. Everything’s great. Thanks again for sending in the cavalry to rescue us from that hit squad and for arranging Alex’s training.”
He leaned back in his chair and pursed his lips. When he spoke, his low-country Southern drawl was a little thicker than usual. “Oh, I don’t know that my crew did that much to help last year. You and Alex had things well under control by the time we arrived.”
It was a lie, but she wasn’t interested in arguing about it today. “I have a favor to ask of you, Uncle Charlie.” She cursed herself silently for using that little-girl tone of voice with him. She was done acting like the baby of the whole damned family. She’d grown up a lot in the past year, and her clan could just get used to it. Although she probably was the first person who had to get used to it.
“Do tell.” His expression went bland and unreadable, his blue eyes oddly opaque all of a sudden. He’d dropped into master spy mode. Alex did the exact same thing.
“You said you’d owe me one if I brought Alex to you. And I did. He’s completed his training, and he has agreed to work for Doctors Unlimited.”
“He’s been out of training for one day. And you’re already calling your chit in? So soon?”
“Yes,” she replied firmly. “I’ve had a year to think about it, and seeing Alex last night only confirmed my decision. I need to find out who Alex’s mother is. The circumstances of his conception, birth and her leaving. Not knowing anything tortures him. I figure it’s the least we all can do for him after what we’ve put him through.”
“Did he talk to you about his training?” Charlie asked quickly.
She frowned. “No. He didn’t.” But why did Charlie react that way after she used the phrase after what we’ve put him through? What on earth did they do to him during his year of training with them?
Charlie leaned back in his leather desk chair. “And what makes you think we know anything about his mother?” Obviously, he didn’t want her to ask any more questions about Alex’s training. She went along with the change of subject.
She shrugged. “You’re the CIA. You can find out anything.”
He steepled his fingers together thoughtfully but didn’t deny the truth of her words. “And then we’ll be even?” he asked.
“Correct. Give me Alex’s mother, and we’re good.”
He didn’t say yes or no exactly, but she got the impression that he was going to look into it. She supposed that was the most she could hope for out of a spy like him. She’d learned that much around Alex. Spies were hesitant to answer questions directly or commit themselves to anything.
As another intern walked her out of the CIA building, it belatedly occurred to Katie that her uncle hadn’t put up much of a fight at the notion of being able to find Alex’s mother. What did he know that he wasn’t telling? Had the CIA already found the woman? It would make sense that in vetting Alex to become an asset for them they’d looked into his mysterious, missing parent. Why, then, hadn’t they shared what they’d found with him out of general principles?
Suspicion blossomed in her gut that there was more to the story of Alex’s mother than Charlie was letting on. Why did it feel like she’d just cracked open the lid of Pandora’s box? Maybe she should slam the thing back shut and put a big, fat lock on it.
Memory of the rage and desperation in Alex’s eyes last night as he fought off his impulse to kill her flashed into her mind. Nope. Whatever evils hid in Pandora’s stupid box, it was high time to let them out and deal with them.
