Читать книгу Shannon McKenna Bundle: Ultimate Weapon, Extreme Danger, Behind Closed Doors, Hot Night, & Return to Me - Shannon McKenna - Страница 23

If Val had not been so worried about Imre, so conscious of time, he would have actually been having fun with Tamar. He enjoyed her caustic wit, her sharp honesty. She stimulated him on every level.

They checked into the beautiful, baroque-era hotel in San Vito, and he hurried her up the grand staircase and down the high-ceilinged corridor to their room with unconcealed impatience. He had paid a ridiculous sum to reserve this particular room. It had a loggia, with three arches on the terrace, a spectacular view of the town rising steeply out of the azure sea and clinging to the mountain slopes, and of La Roccia, the huge rock formation that cut the town into two parts.

Not that he gave her time to look at it. He slammed the door shut and fell upon her, like a beast. True to form, she shoved him back, with a strength that still surprised him from such a slender woman.

“Do not take me for granted!”

He advanced on her. “I’m not,” he said. “I’m taking you, period.”

“The cave man game only goes so far, Val,” she warned.

Ah, sì. She was calling him Val, at last. Something inside him capered for joy. “Far enough for my purposes.” He grabbed her, heedless of her swatting hands, and flung her down onto the bed.

She struggled, but if she hadn’t been having a good time, he would be on his back, fighting for his very life. As it was, her eyes glowed, her color was high, she shoved, flailed, and slapped at him with high energy, but no lethal intentions. His body knew the difference.

He risked letting go of her wrists for long enough to unbutton her jeans, and got a couple of sharp slaps for his trouble. He snatched her hands and flung himself on top of her, his face red and tingling pleasantly from the blows. The bed rocked and bounced. He pinned her wrists and grinned into her furious face.

“Finally, a bed,” he said. “I thought it would never happen.”

“What makes you think it will happen now, porco?” she shot back. “After twenty-four hours of travel and no bath? Dream on!”

“Twenty-four hours of foreplay,” he countered, pulling down her jeans. “Fuck the bath. Bathe later. Trust me, you will need a bath later.”

They wrestled and writhed and struggled. He was on the verge of coming in his jeans, before he finally got her naked beneath him. He got a painful, two-fingered jab to his throat when he spared a hand to open his pants. The blow could have been lethal, had she cared to make it so. He wouldn’t take such a harmless version of it personally.

“We have a problem,” he told her. “I need my hands to get a condom on, but if I let go of you, you’ll rip out my throat.”

“Hah. Sounds like it’s your problem, not mine,” she informed him.

“Not at all. My solution to the problem is simple.” He grabbed his aching, throbbing cock, and nudged it inside her.

She was slick, swollen, and taut, with no latex to dull the amazing heat of her. He drove forward in one long, lunging thrust, and could have died from delight from this moment. It was worth every blow, every slap, every scratch. Every last insult.

She gasped and went still. “Wait! That’s no solution!”

“I have no diseases,” he assured her. “I am always careful, and I am tested regularly.”

“Me, too, but that’s not the problem,” she said. “I’m not using contraception.”

He was startled. “Ah. I see.”

“So get out of me. I do not want a baby from you.”

He tried to withdraw, but his body played tricks on him. He just found himself gliding deeper, rubbing, rocking. Just once…and then once more. “I won’t come inside you,” he promised. “Just a few strokes…in…and out, like this.” He lunged deep, twisting his rod.

Tamar caught her breath and arched, shoving her hips back to take more of him. She bit her flushed red lips and clutched his chest, her nails digging deep. “All it takes is one! And I don’t trust a man to have that kind of self-control. I don’t trust men for anything. So get out of me!”

He tilted his eyebrow. “You may be amazed to hear it, but I have noticed this lack of trust,” he said wryly.

“And? So?” Her bright eyes challenged him.

“So? I must prove you wrong. I will do as you ask.” He pulled out, regretting every clinging, caressing millimeter of sweet connection he was losing. “You cannot imagine what this galanterie is costing me.”

“Poor baby.” She sat up, coiling herself into a siren’s pose.

He rummaged for the condom, whipped the thing on and advanced on her, his erection jutting urgently before him.

“Do not tell me I must start from zero once again,” he begged.

The smile she gave him was razor sharp. “What makes you think you’ve racked up any points at all?”

Savage frustration flared inside him. He breathed it down with great difficulty “You will not give in to me for one single instant, no? No matter how much you want to.”

Her taunting smile faded, and for a brief, naked instant, he saw something in her eyes, something frantic and lost, like a trapped animal. “I can’t,” she said starkly. “I just…can’t.”

He was taken aback. The confession moved him, though it maddened him, too. He sensed her need, her frustration. The aching tension. Steel cables strung so tight they hummed from the strain.

He’d never wanted so badly to be tender to a woman, and he had never met a woman so desperately in need of tenderness. But it was unbearable to her. She simply could not tolerate it. Yet.

Until she could, he would just close his eyes, take a deep breath, and follow his instincts.

“Then don’t,” he said. He lunged for the bed.

She spun, trying to scramble away. She let out a startled grunt as he landed on top of her. All his weight. There would be no escape from the pleasure he meant to inflict upon her.

His hand slid down, caressing her trembling ass cheeks, sliding lower. Playing with her tender folds. Silken smooth, hairless, perfect. He tongued and kissed the back of her neck, her trembling spine as he pinned her flat, immobile, and played with her clit, her juicy cunt.

When her first climax wrenched through her, he savored the powerful, clutching pulses, her hitching, gasping breath, and then waited for the insults, the verbal slaps.

They did not come. She buried her face in the bedclothes, and shook. Wordless.

He forced his cock inside while tremors still rippled through her. When she caught her breath and raised her head, he was seated deep within, rocking slowly in that tight, gliding sheath. Waiting for a cue.

“Someday, you will let me be gentle with you,” he said.

Her hair swung as she shook her head in negation. “Don’t hold your breath,” she said jerkily. “I can’t even be gentle with myself.”

“I am patient,” he told her. “I can wait.”

“Shut up. Get to work, Val,” she snapped. “You talk too much.”

There was his signal. She rocked back to take in more of him.

He meant to give her everything he had to give, all the power and control, the technique, but something snapped, and they spun out of control together, heaving and bucking against each other, dripping with sweat. He held her in a grip that would leave bruises. She clutched handfuls of sheets with white-knuckled fingers. She did not fight him.

The danger zone, terrifying and wild and wonderful.

She looked over her shoulder. “Turn me over,” she demanded, panting. “I want to see your face. I want to see if you’re for real.”

“Of course I am.” He didn’t even question the truth of those words before they burst out. He pulled out, flipped her over, folding her legs wide to stare at the perfect pink flower of her pussy. She was so flexible, elastic as a dancer. Her skin, soft as a fine new leaf unfurling. Every curve and hollow astonished his eyes.

He mounted her again before she could change her mind, and they found their rhythm face to face. She stared into his eyes, undulating frantically, nails digging as the energy of her climax began to crest.

She panicked then and started slapping him, in a disordered, haphazard way, her eyes bright with furious tears. “Damn you,” she hissed. “Damn you, you son of a bitch.”

He tried to catch her hands, but she wrenched them away with a snarl. He just let go, let her pummel at him while their bodies slammed frantically together. She needed that violent struggle for dominance, and he sensed that she needed him to win it for her sake. But nothing she could do to him could hurt him now. He was riding a thundering crest of colossal pleasure.

Some time later, who knew how long, he found himself on his side, facing her. They were bathed in sweat, their arms still around each other, clutching. Her legs wound around his hips.

He tried to loosen his grip, but his shaking muscles would not immediately obey him. Their hearts thudded against each other.

He willed his arms to relax. Their bodies unglued with a little wet sound. He pulled his gleaming, softening cock out of her. They fell back onto their backs, shivering in the cool room as their sweat dried.

Someone knocked on the other side of the wall. “Ehi. Auguri, amico,” their neighbor called in a dry, amused voice. Hey. Congratulations, pal.

Neither of them had the energy even to react.

When he dared to look at her, she flinched away from his gaze and dragged herself up to the edge of the bed. He laid his hand against the elegant curve of her shoulder blade. She started away as if his hand had burned her and got to her feet. She stumbled, her legs buckling beneath her, and caught herself against the wall.

He jerked up, alarmed. “Are you—”

“Fine.” She spat the words out. “I’m fine.”

He stetched out a pleading hand. “Tamar—”

“Don’t,” she said. “Just don’t. I’m going to take a shower. I’ll be a while. Don’t bug me.”

He stared at her retreating back, flinched at the slam of the door. The brass key clicked and ground in the antique lock. The shower began to hiss against the marble. His heart still drummed. And beneath it, his belly was cold and heavy with guilt for what came next.

Now, damn it. This was his only chance. Still, he sat on the bed like a lump of lead. Miserable.

Imre. Novak’s game would continue, and tomorrow a fresh piece of erotic footage was due, to keep Imre in one piece. Val couldn’t be queasy and hesitant about getting it. After all, he was not literally hurting or betraying her by doing this. God knows, he was putting his whole heart into fucking her. He had never been so honest and forthright with any woman in his life—except about this. This one little detail.

The rationalizations didn’t work. He had to do what he’d learned to do as a boy, when Kustler sent him to certain apartments, certain houses. Special clients. Or when he had no appointments, and was sent out to work the streets. The cars would stop for him, and he would put the mechanism to work. Break off a piece of himself. Let it get into the car and do the job while his mind floated somewhere apart and safe. Numb.

He had survived it. It had gotten easier with time. But this, for some reason, did not.

He unfastened the cellophane that covered the plant he’d ordered via the Internet from a local florist. A voluminous fern. He rigged the little camera in the shadow of two gracefully draped fronds. Adjusted the angle to make sure he got the bed. Adjusted the leafy fronds, to conceal the camera but not block the view. He would make it right with her somehow. God grant, she never had to know at all.

A great deal to hope, the way his luck was going.

After an hour in the shower, Tam began to feel ridiculous, cowering in the billows of steam. She was appalled to be feeling this way. Emotions sprawled over her face. Truths she never meant to say, or even knew were true, bursting out with no warning. She couldn’t trust herself to act in her own best interests. And there was the humiliating phenomenon of morphing into a mindless, scratching cat in heat whenever he looked at her with those smoldering eyes.

And she would do it again. Right now. She would just march right out there buck naked and leap on him with all four paws. At the slightest provocation.

She shut off the water, toweled dry. The mirror was obscured by condensation, which was good, because she didn’t want to look at her own face. Not when she was this angry at herself.

Working a comb through her hair killed another twenty or so minutes. It was getting stupidly long, but she hadn’t wanted to bother with dying or styling it for so long, it had evolved into its own new super straight look that suited her austere mood these days. She considered slicking it back with styling gel into a tight, wet braid, and then rejected the idea. Let it dry, and hang wherever the hell it wanted. She was sick and tired of trying to control every last fucking tiny detail. Enough.

Same with her eyes. She stared into her travel-reddened topaz eyes in the mirror, hating the idea of inflicting colored contacts on them again, without even the benefit of a night’s sleep. What did she care if Val knew the real color? He knew every other significant fact about her. Why balk at this?

To hell with useless barriers. They were draining her energy.

She wrapped a huge bath towel around herself and flung open the door. Val sat naked on the bed, waiting for her. Or rather, waiting for his turn in the bathroom. The guy probably had to piss like a racehorse after all their traveling. She had no sympathy in the least. Served the presumptuous fucker right for not booking her a room of her own.

But the bitchy mental chatter faded as she took in that huge, sculpted golden body, his intense, somber face. His thick penis was impressive even when it was soft, dangling against a springy twist of curling hair. Her fingers curled with the urge to grab him and pet it.

He sensed the thought and his penis twitched, lengthened.

She turned away deliberately and went to rummage through the suitcase he’d ordered for her. She dabbed herself with expensive face cream, deodorized her pits with the ridiculously pricey bottle of deodorant. What a blast of naughty, fleeting fun she’d had with that online catalog. The criteria by which she’d chosen each item had been exquisitely simple. She’d just gone for whatever cost most.

It wasn’t as if he didn’t already know that she was a vengeful bitch. She’d made no effort to keep it a secret.

“I will take a shower, and we will get some dinner,” he said.

Right. Like it was a good idea for her peace of mind to have a romantic candlelit dinner with this man in San Vito, of all places. Pound the final nail into her coffin, why didn’t he.

“I’m not hungry,” she said. “You go on. I want to rest.”

“Stronzate.” His voice was curt. “You ate nothing at breakfast at the Huxley, nothing at the Portland airport, nothing on the plane but coffee and water, nothing at the Rome airport, nothing in the Autogrill. The last food that you ate were four bites of pasta at the wedding buffet. I counted them. You cannot continue to function like this. You are acting irresponsibly and unprofessionally. You will come with me, and get some fucking dinner.”

She bristled. “Do not order me.”

He sighed, and tilted his head to the side, as if praying for patience and inspiration. “Tamar. Bellissima,” he said wearily. “Please. Be reasonable. This is Italy. You need have no fear of the food here.”

“That’s not it,” she snapped.

He raised an eyebrow. “Ah. Fear of me, then?”

“Fuck, no!”

“Well, then? An eating disorder? A bid for control over your life? How sad. Let us discuss your feelings now, get to the bottom of this problem, so that you can eat before you collapse, no?”

She laughed at the thought in spite of herself. “Picture it. Thrashing through my emotional issues on the couch with Dr. Val. I can just imagine what you would prescribe as treatment.”

His eyes gleamed. The corners of his lips curled up. His penis lifted eagerly.

Tam rolled her eyes, and threw up her hands. “All right, fine,” she said. “Dinner. If it makes you happy.”

“It makes me ecstatic. Five minutes,” he said.

She yanked on her sweater, the jeans he’d bought for her at a boutique on the main drag of one of the little towns they’d passed through on the winding coastal highway of Amalfi. She slipped on the black suede half-boots from yesterday’s catalog adventure, her default earrings, the ones with the hypodermic and the soporific, and the multiblade ring, the one she had named for Liv Endicott, Sean’s wife.

It wasn’t much in terms of weaponry, but it was better than nothing. She decided not to bother with makeup. She didn’t have the energy to create illusions. Tonight was all about the truth. Being real.

Then she sat down facing the loggia that framed the sunset over the Mar Tirreno and put in a call on her cell phone to Connor and Erin.

Erin picked up. “Hello?”

Tam winced. Rachel was making noise—a lot of noise—in the background. “Hey, Erin, it’s me. We just arrived. How’s it going?”

Erin sounded resigned. “It’s going,” she said. “She’s a tough cookie, but she has to give in sometime.”

Hmmph. Tam had her doubts about that, knowing Rachel the way she did, but there was no point in saying so. Let Erin hope for the best. “Did she sleep? Or eat, at all?”

“No, and no. She’s on strike. Hold on, let me see if she’ll talk to you. She’s on a speech strike, too. Hey, sweetheart, calm down. You want to talk to Mamma?”

Rachel was startled into silence, and then gave a cry of heartbreaking rage and abandonment.

Aw, shit. Tam slumped, and put her face into her hands. She felt sorry for Rachel, for herself, and mostly for Erin and Con and Sveti, who had to be bug-eyed by now. No one knew better than Tam how stressful a wigged-out Rachel could be.

Erin came back on the line. “Looks like she’s not up for a chat.” She sounded exhausted. “We have had some good moments, though. She’s a sweet kid. But she misses you.”

“Erin, I’m sorry.” Tam felt helpless and guilty. She missed Rachel like crazy. It was hitting her hard.

“It’s not your fault. I understand, and we will all live.”

Conversation was impossible under the circumstances, so they signed off. Tam rested her face in her hands and wondered how long this depraved drama was going to take. And if Rachel could weather it.

She had to, she told herself. She had to.

Val touched her shoulder. She jumped. “Shit, you startled me!”

“Perdonami,” he murmured. “Bad news?”

She shrugged, feeling overwhelmed. “Rachel’s miserable,” she said bluntly. “So’s everyone around her. Big surprise.”

He was silent for a moment. “I’m sorry.”

She got up, and turned her back to him. “And thrilled to be thousands of miles away from it, right?”

He wisely left her alone to think and got dressed. She did not watch him clothe his spectacular nakedness. The bathed, shaved, combed, scented, designer-clothing-draped, mind-blowing finished product was enough for her nerves to take. Naked, he blew her circuits.

He took her to a restaurant that he knew well, judging from the authoritative way that he led her through the steep, twisting streets, and from the deferential way that they were treated once they arrived. The place was small and out of the way, but quietly beautiful. The food and wine were superb, although Val regarded her choice of green salad, roasted vegetables and grilled fish with dark disapproval.

“Not enough,” he growled. He tried to load her up with some of his tagliolini alla boscaiola, and a slice of his enormous, bloody tagliata di manzo.

Nice try, she thought, staring at the snarl of oily, garlicky fresh pasta and the hot pink slab of tender meat he had dumped on her plate. He couldn’t make her eat it, though. He had better luck with the wine, making it his business to keep her glass very full.

“Are you trying to get me drunk?” she asked.

He shrugged. “I am hoping to relax you. Would it work?”

“No,” she informed him. “I never relax. And by the way. I might as well tell you right now so you can wrap your mind around the concept. There will be no more sex tonight. Zero sex. So forget it. OK? Don’t even give me that look. I don’t want to see it on your face.”

But he didn’t obey. That sexy, devastating smile showed no signs of fading. He sawed off a chunk of his tagliata, chewed it as he studied her thoughtfully from beneath those hooded eyes, and wiped his mouth with the napkin. “Ah. No?”

“No,” she repeated firmly, fending off the urge to repeat herself. Bleating like a fluffy lamb, losing credibility with each repetition.

He sipped his wine. “You seemed to like it,” he observed.

“Whether I liked it or not is beside the point. I’m exhausted. I can’t face another blitzkrieg. I want sleep. Peace, quiet, and privacy.”

“It does not have to be that way,” he remarked, his voice bland. “I can be gentle. I can be playful. I can do it any way you want it.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” she blurted.

He gazed at her. “You’re afraid to find out what you really want?”

That suave, superior air irritated her. “Stop with the fucking psychoanalysis, Val. You’re a hit man. Not a shrink.”

“I am not a hit man,” he said mildly. “But all this talk of sex reminds me of something that I meant to ask you.”

She braced herself. “Ask,” she said.

“Why no contraception? I would have thought a woman like you would be prepared for anything.”

Her hackles rose. “A woman like me?” she repeated slowly. “And just what is that supposed to mean?”

He waved his arm in that eloquent way that only Latin men could without seeming effeminate. “Professional, pragmatic. A risk taker.”

She dangled her wineglass between her fingers and considered the novel concept of telling him the flat, unbeautiful truth. She was too tired, too wired, too jet-lagged to sidestep the question.

“I’ve been celibate for years,” she said. “I had every intention of staying that way for the rest of my life. And as such, I didn’t see the point in loading my body up with useless artificial hormones.”

He looked discreetly shocked. “Really? You? What a waste. It is criminal, the very idea. Why, for the love of God?”

She was about to tell him to piss off and mind his own goddamn business. The words stopped somewhere along the pipeline and petered out into a long silence. “Did you know Kurt Novak?” she asked.

His mouth tightened in disgust. “Unfortunately, yes,” he said. “He was vile.”

“Yes, he was. And Georg?”

“No better,” he said. “Kurt’s slobbering lap dog.”

“Exactly. I should never have gotten mixed up with them, but I did. I was trying to get revenge for someone Kurt had killed. It blew up in my face.”

“I see,” he murmured.”

She was unable to meet his eyes. “Those two clinched it for me. I was done with men. I thought they were both dead that day that Kurt got killed. I wish I’d checked Georg more closely. I would have been happy to do the honors myself after what he…well. Whatever.”

“I’m sorry.” Val’s voice was careful and neutral. “It is terrible.”

She stared down at the blank white tablecloth and forced herself to endure silence. If he had oozed practiced sympathy, she’d have thrown it back in his face, but his plain, matter-of-fact comprehension was bearable. She breathed and bore it. For a minute or so. Then the intense, significant silence started driving her mad.

Time to break it and introduce an extreme change of subject.

“My turn to ask the invasive questions,” she said crisply. “So tell me, Val. How did you get to be the way you are? I’m dying of curiosity.”

He slanted her an amused look. “And how am I?”

“Slick, urbane, charming, well spoken,” she said. “The languages, the crazy mind control. Your background doesn’t explain any of that. You don’t fit the profile of a punch drunk mafiya thug at all.”

He twirled tagliolini around his fork, his eyes averted. “I was given intensive training from PSS,” he said finally. “They invested a fortune in me. But the important things…that was all Imre’s doing.”

She was the one this time to use the silence to refill his glass and prod him to continue. “Your friend? The one who…” She stopped, unwilling to invoke the monster and let him take over the conversation.

“Yes,” Val said. “The one that I want to save. He welcomed me into his home. Che Cristo, he must have had nerves of steel. An illiterate, violent, thieving, louse-ridden, twelve-year-old rent boy. He fed me, played me music, let me sleep in his apartment. I would never risk it myself.”

“He must be an unusual person,” she said.

“Yes.” A faraway smile flashed over his face. “He taught me to use my mind. And about the world outside. He taught me that I might have some value, other than just a…” He stopped, shook his head sharply. “Something besides picking pockets, selling cigarettes, dealing drugs. Or sucking cocks in the backseat of a car under a bridge.”

Tam was startled. That was the first glimpse of bitterness about the past that he had ever let her see, but that one glimpse hinted at a hidden ocean of it. “So he was the reason that you didn’t go under.”

“Yes.” He stared intently into the bulb of his wineglass as if it were a crystal ball. “He was my refuge. He was…” His face contracted. He looked away from her, Adam’s apple bobbing.

Tam dropped her gaze to give him privacy. She gazed at the wobbling candle flame and waited for him to break the silence himself.

“I was fortunate to have Imre.” His voice sounded halting and forced, as if he was convincing himself. “But for all his efforts, I drag it behind me, like a ten-ton anchor. If he dies, because of me…”

And me, Tam thought, but she shoved the thought away. She could not carry Imre on her shoulders, too. She had enough burdens.

“I know what you mean about the anchor,” she said.

Val’s hand had been inches from hers on the snowy tablecloth, but it had drifted closer. The tip of his finger made contact with hers, the faintest touch possible, yet a shock ran through her. Without any conscious volition on her part, one finger after another made contact with his corresponding ones, lifting until they were palm to palm.

The delicate connection shimmered and glowed. Neither of them acknowledged it with word or glance. It was a tiny miracle that would hide its face in embarrassment if looked at too closely.

“And you?” His eyes met hers, full of somber challenge. “I could ask the same question of you, knowing what I know about your past. About Zetrinja. What made you the way you are?”

She laughed and echoed his own words back to him. “What am I? Besides being a monster pain in the ass, you mean?”

He ignored her teasing. “Brilliant, creative, rich, successful. And powerful. You didn’t go under, either.”

Not yet, she thought bleakly, thinking of Novak, Georg, Stengl. She shoved the thoughts away and gave his question the consideration it deserved after his own naked honesty.

“I got my strength from what I had before,” she said. “My family. Not perfect but…wonderful. I knew I had value because they had thought so, even if they were all gone. So I clung to that. And I survived.”

They weren’t looking at each other at all, now. It was too much. But his fingers slid down between hers and closed, clasping hers. A rush of heat. Exquisite, understated intimacy.

“You are fortunate,” he said.

She realized that it was true. Amazingly. Everything was relative. She’d once had something precious. Something he had never known.

“As for the rest of it…” She shook her head. “It was random. I didn’t care about the scams I ran, the banks I robbed, the men I slept with. I didn’t care about getting rich. It just happened. It was like a video game. Robot Bitch, looking for a thrill. So I’m bored? Fine. Depose a dictator or steal twenty million euro, just for laughs. It gets old, though. I got really bored. I just…didn’t care.”

“What do you care about?” he asked.

She thought about it. “Rachel,” she said. “My friends. My freedom. My privacy. And my work. I care very much about my work.”

“The jewelry? A strange craft for you to choose.”

“Not really,” she replied. “My father was a metalsmith. I was his apprentice. He was an artist. He should have been a world-renowned designer for the talent he had, but he didn’t care about being famous. He just loved the craft. He didn’t even care about being paid. Which drove my mother crazy.” She smiled at the memory.

“Beauty for beauty’s sake alone?” Val offered gently.

“I suppose so,” she said.

Val leaned over their clasped hands and dropped a kiss on her knuckle. “Your family was Muslim, then?”

She shrugged. “A mixed marriage. My mother was an Orthodox Christian from Ukraina. She was the one who cared about religion. We celebrated Easter, Christmas. My father just worshipped beauty. And his wife. He adored her.”

He kissed her hand again and waited patiently for more.

“They met in Paris.” She found herself continuing, for some unknown reason. “He was an adventurer, a wandering rebel. She was an illegal immigrant, working in a garment sweatshop, dreaming of studying someday at the Sorbonne. He was twenty-two, she was nineteen. He was beautiful, she was beautiful—”

“I do not wonder at it,” he said.

“They fell madly in love,” she continued. “I was born. They had no money. Then my grandfather got sick and called my father home. We went to Zetrinja to see him, and we never left the place. Until Colonel Drago Stengl of the JNA and his secret death squad came marching in.”

His hand tightened over hers. She clung to it.

“It was so ironic,” she whispered. “He was the gentlest man I ever knew. I hardly ever heard him raise his voice, for my whole childhood. And they executed him. Just stood him up and shot him for being a paramilitary. Can you believe it? Him, a fucking paramilitary. God.”

Her heart started to race, stomach rolling as she stared down at the oil on her plate, the flecks of chopped parsley. The red, juicy chunk of Val’s steak. Her blood pressure was dropping.

Enough. She had already told him more than she’d ever told any other living person.

She jerked her hand out from under his, breaking the spell. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore,” she said tightly. “Let’s get back to business. Do you know where we can get some decent firepower around here? I don’t like being on the same continent with that filthy scum without a gun. Or two, or three.”

“I agree completely. A friend of mine is in Salerno, arranging it for us,” he said. “We will meet with him tomorrow.”

“Good. Get me a Glock 9mm or a SIG .357, with a good supply of ammo and spare cartridges. I want a Ruger for backup. A shoulder holster, an ankle holster and a hip strap, if he can find one. I also want some plastique for the bomblets. I don’t need much.”

He nodded, sipping his wine. “I will see what I can do.”

“You do that.” Their conversation about the past had killed what appetite she’d had. She pushed her half-finished plate away. “I’m done.”

They were silent as they walked back to the hotel. Tam prepared herself psychologically should he try to take her hand again. She couldn’t quite tell if she was relieved or disappointed when he did not.

Back at the room, she wasted no time getting ready for sleep, and slid beneath the rumpled covers. “What’s the plan for tomorrow?”

“We have an appointment with Donatella Amato and Ana Santarini, at ten thirty tomorrow morning,” he told her. “At Ana’s house near Positano. Then, we make our plan, based on what Henry tells us tomorrow, and our own observations.”

A shiver racked her, the chill touch of the past. Like an animated corpse’s finger on the back of her neck. Then he began to strip off his clothing, and every coherent thought fled from her head.

“Hey!” she said. “Janos!”

He wrenched off his shirt, peeling the sleeves off his thick muscled arms. “Call me Val, for the love of God. Sì?”

“I want to sleep alone,” she said pointedly. “I told you that.”

He looked around the room in mock dismay. “But there is only one bed.”

“Whose fault is that? I didn’t book the room, bozo.”

He stripped off his pants, leaving only black briefs that outlined his manly package. She wrenched her gaze away.

“But I wanted this room. I wanted the beautiful view and the loggia for you.” He gave her a brazen, deal-with-it grin and slid into bed with her. “Rest easy. I will not come on to you.” He stretched out his long body, folding his arms back behind his head. “Relax and sleep,” he urged. “Tomorrow you must be sharp to meet this Santarini woman.”

Tam hunched up against the headboard, hugging her knees to her chest. “I already have met her.”

Val sat bolt upright. “Met her?” He sounded outraged. “Che cazzo dici? This is terrible! You did not tell me that!”

“You didn’t ask,” Tam said.

“But will she recognize you?” he demanded. “We cannot risk—”

“No. She won’t recognize me. It was sixteen years ago. I had puppy fat, shorter hair, a different nose. I’ve had cosmetic surgery, more than once. My eye color will be different. My energy is different. And Ana is so self-absorbed, she’ll never make the connection.”

He leaned back, mollified. “Hmmph. How do you know her?”

This subject was on her short list of the last things on earth that she wanted to talk about, but it seemed stupid to refuse. She’d already shared details from the past in the restaurant, without breaking down, or triggering a stress flashback. Thank God.

She composed herself. She could do this. Cool, methodical. A list of events as they occurred, no digressing, no expanding.

“I was Stengl’s mistress for a few months,” she said.

Val went rigid. He slowly turned, staring down at her. Shocked.

“His mistress?” he said. “After what he—after your family—”

“My father was shot with the rest of the men and boys that day.” She recited the facts in a leaden voice. “My mother and little sister and I were taken to Sremska Mitrovica. The concentration camp. It was a filthy shithole. Irina died first. A flu of some kind. The diarrhea carried her off. Then my mother, though I’m not sure it was flu that killed her. I think she’d just had enough.”

“Ah, Tamar,” he whispered. “I did not know. I am sorry.”

“I caught his eye, somehow,” Tam continued grimly. “I don’t know how I could have attracted anyone, as filthy as I was. They never let us bathe in that place. But he noticed me. He pulled me out, took me to Titograd. Installed me in a hotel room to play with in his off-hours. There was no one left to notice or care what happened to me. They were all dead.” She stared down at her hands, twisting the sheet. “I was locked in that room for weeks. Months, maybe. In limbo. I lost track of time.”

Val rolled back onto his side, propping his head on his hand. “Go on,” he prompted quietly.

“When he was done with what he’d come to accomplish, he still wasn’t quite done with me,” she said. “He brought me back to his house in Belgrade. Ana was living there. She was nineteen. She loathed me. She acted like a jealous wife. I think he’d probably had his sick fun with her, too. She had the vibe of a girl who had been used in that way. His wife had been dead for years, and he was just that kind of man.”

“Che schifo,” Val murmured.

She looked away. “I was all right. In fact, I have Ana to thank for the concept of wearable weaponry. She put the idea into my head.”

The look on his face was almost dread. “Oh? How is that?”

“She cooked up a stupid plot to get rid of me,” Tam said. “Persuaded one of her boyfriends to come in and have sex with me while she took pictures. She wanted to show them to her father, to show him what a nasty tart I was, I suppose. Lame, in terms of a plan. She wasn’t what I would call creative. But it backfired on her.”

He shifted on the bed, his eyes intent and fascinated. “Sì? How?”

“I had a pin brooch that had belonged to my mother,” she said. “A cheap thing, cubic zirconium. When I was locked in, I would just sit and hold it in my hand. I was holding it when Ana and her friend came in. When he tried to rape me, I fought back. I got in a lucky jab. Pierced his scrotum. You cannot even imagine the sounds that he made.”

Val’s horrified flinch could be felt through the bed frame.

“He got blood poisoning,” Tam said, with dark satisfaction.

Val hissed through his teeth. “Did he…lose his…?”

“I never found out. I hope so,” Tam said. “He deserved to. Ana didn’t bother me again. And Stengl got tired of me soon after that.”

“What happened then?”

“Aren’t you just full of questions?” she grumbled. “Shut up and let me sleep, why don’t you? We’ve got a big day tomorrow.”

“Please tell me, Tamar,” he said softly.

She sighed. “He passed me on to one of his subordinates. It was all sort of a blur to me. Up to that point. That was when I started to sharpen up. I realized that I had to start choosing my lovers. Trading up, instead of down. Or I’d get passed lower and lower in the pecking order every time until I lost all my status as a sex object. That’s bad. That’s when you get used up and tossed onto the scrap heap.”

He nodded, with perfect understanding. “So you did? Start choosing?”

“Of course. It’s all in the attitude. I learned fast. Men are simple, basic creatures. Not that hard to manage.” She paused, eyed him for a moment and amended her statement. “For the most part, anyway. Now shut up. My throat hurts from talking so much.”

She clicked off her bedside lamp. A moment of silence in the dark, and Val scooted toward her. To her horror, he gathered her into his arms. She stiffened, in spite of how good he felt. How hot and strong.

“Damnit, Janos,” she growled. “You’re pushing me. I told you—”

“You did,” he agreed. “And call me Val.”

“I do not want to—”

“I know. I heard you the first time. I am not trying to seduce you. I just want to embrace you after what you told me. I cannot help it.”

“Thanks for the thought, but I’m not comfortable with—”

“Give it a chance,” he coaxed. “I know you can. I’ve seen you do it. Just pretend that I am Rachel.”

That made her laugh. “Ah, Val? There are a couple of really noticeable differences between you and Rachel. They’re hard to miss.”

“Perhaps, but the basic principles are the same.” He tugged her closer, massaging her shoulder. “Just hold me,” he wheedled, his voice a teasing caress. “Put my head under your chin, rub my back. Say sweet tender things to me when I wake in the night and feel frightened.”

Her laughter was nervous this time. “You wish. I’ve had a long day, and my sense of humor wasn’t great to begin with. Being mauled by a naked spy who smells like a French whore is not my idea of—”

“Shhh. Just let me hold you. Think about Rachel. It is not so hard to hold her, no?”

“That’s different,” she snapped. “I love her.”

A hole yawned in her insides. As if her sudden revelation could somehow endanger Rachel. She winced inwardly. Ah, God. She was so fucked up, it was embarrassing.

“That’s the trick, then,” he encouraged her. “Just pretend that you love me.”

Those words hit her someplace deep, like an ice pick sinking in. She stiffened, bracing against the awful pain of it.

“Fuck, no,” she whispered. “No tricks. No pretending. That’s worse than nothing, and you ought to goddamn well know it, you flip son of a bitch.” Her voice quavered off. It was happening again.

She buried her face in the pillow and tried in vain to stop it. It was like trying to stop a landslide.

Val curled himself around her like a big, warm animal, patting her back and kissing her nape as she gave in to the storm of silent sobbing. “Forgive me,” he murmured. “I spoke without thinking. I am sorry. For all of it.”

“I’m not crying because of that,” she snarled, but the soggy words became garbled. She was dismayed to realize that she was. She really was. And that was not good news. That was a lot of unshed tears. Way more than they had time to cope with. They had too much work to do.

Ah, hell. Maybe it would scare him out of her bed, she thought with a spark of vindictive amusement. Served him right for dragging up the past. Getting her all whipped up into a frenzy. Invasive jerk.

But he did not leave. He just cuddled her. He tucked her head under his chin, stroked her back, and murmured sweet, senseless, tender things in a jumbled soup of languages.

When the deluge finally moved through her and passed on, it left her beaten to the ground. Too exhausted to object to the fact that even after all the tears, the drama, the sneaky bastard still dared to pretend that he loved her.