Codename: Nightshade (Deadly Seven Strike Force) (7 page)

“Have you been a bad boy?”

Marko moans into the gag I’ve tied between his lips. He nods vigorously.

I’m standing in the sparsely furnished bedroom of his extravagant suite. My hair is tied into a tight braid that falls just between my shoulder blades. My hands and forearms are covered by red leather gloves that match the red leather bra that pushes my breasts up nearly to my chin. My shiny black heels force me to lean back to keep my balance as I walk. The rest of my outfit is nothing but a pair of thigh-high fishnets and a red garter belt.

Marko’s ultimate fantasy.

“I couldn’t hear you, pet,” I say, unfastening the gag and freeing his mouth.

“
Da
.”
Yes.
The word is a tortured moan. He’s locked down to the bed with handcuffs on his wrists and ropes on his ankles. His struggles have already formed welts on his flesh.

“Oh dear,” I say, running the tip of a riding crop along his abs, making his muscles jerk. “You’ve hurt yourself.” I click my tongue against the roof of my mouth. “What if someone notices tonight? Are you going to tell them it was me?”

He shakes his head. “No, mistress.”

I slap the crop down on his stomach so hard my arm throbs from the contact. “I don’t believe you.”

His jaw hangs slack, his breathing accelerated as he squirms. “No, mistress.”

The words are still barely a whisper—he’s egging me on. He wants more. I give it to him. I slap him twice on his side, once across his chest, and work my way down his body to whack his thighs. I can tell it hurts. His pale skin is so red I can practically hear it throbbing with pain. I run the tip of the crop along his erection. He’s so hard he pulses against the leather.

God, he loves pain.

“What did you say, pet? I didn’t hear you. Don’t disappoint me. Will you tell them I’m the one who hurt you?”

“No, mistress,” he says with more force. He’s shaking with need.

I feel so detached but so right in the moment. It’s like I’m lying on my stomach in the raft again. The gun is poised in my hands, and I control a man’s life.

This isn’t something I ever thought I’d enjoy. Honestly, it’s more Marko’s thing than mine. It’s an even exchange. I give him this, and he repays me in a way only he can, too. The first time he asked me to do it I think I surprised him with how easily I consented. Maybe I don’t see the point in the costumes and the lingo, but I know a thing or two about finding pleasure in pain.

Other people, the ones who aren’t like us, call this wrong. Maybe it is. Real pain happens outside these walls. I deal in real pain every day with my job. There has to be something wrong with us if it gets us off, right?

Thing is, pain’s a fact of life. You can live as perfectly as possible, and yet somehow, someway, pain will find you. Controlling the time and place, controlling the
pain,
is a high that so few are willing to accept. I get why they can’t. It takes torn soul to really want to exist in enough hurt to make it feel good.

Guess that’s why Marko and I get along so well. Our souls have been fractured for a long time.

I look at the clock beside his bed. The party starts in twenty minutes.

We’re going to be late.

I climb onto the bed, straddling his waist. My bare sex is hot and wet, and he tries to move when he feels it touch his skin.

“Tell me, pet,” I say, running my fingers through his hair. “What have you missed the most? My lips.” I lean in, brushing my lips against his just enough to tease him. “My tongue.” I flick my tongue into his mouth and pull away before he can taste me. “Or my maybe my hands.” I run my nails down his chest, scratching darker welts into his already bruised skin.

He moans, pulling against his restraints.

“All of it,” he says. “I’ve missed all of you.”

“
All
of me,” I echo, smiling when he whimpers. “Well… you’ve been a good boy. So I guess you’ve earned
all
of me.”

I pull his blindfold off, plunging my tongue into his mouth as I kiss him. He responds with enthusiasm, bruising my lips with the force of his.

I trail kisses along his jaw, down his throat, and across his body. I feel his erection pressing against me. I rub my ass along his shaft, eliciting a groan from him that warns he’s close to ending this.

“What do you want, pet?” I ask, flicking his nipple with my tongue.

“Fuck me.” He shouts it so loud I’m glad we have five floors to ourselves.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to tease you some more—?”

He’s panting, sweat curling down his brow. His eyes are dark, angry. “Fuck me, Penelope.”

I get some twisted thrill out of making him break character. I’m not one for the rules. I don’t get off on ritual—my life is ritual. I just get off on making him break his own rules.

I grab a condom from the nightstand and scoot back, clutching him. I unroll it slowly, much to his frustration, and then I slide down on him with the help of gravity. It doesn’t take long. He’s so worked up I only have to roll my hips a few times before he’s full-steaming towards the end. I’m not feeling it like he is. Sure, I’m wet. He’s hitting a spot inside me I can’t reach on my own. But this isn’t what gets me off. I’m not going to come with him here like this.

“
Blin
…
yebat’… blin… bog chertovski blin…”

I know he’s about to blow. He’s crossed over into Russian so thick he doesn’t know he’s not in Siberia anymore. I squeeze my inner muscles, rocking harder, and he locks up. He shouts more curses in Russian before he sags against the bed—
spent
.

Once I’ve calmed my heart, I release his ankles, caressing the bruised skin. I move to his hands, kissing the welts that ring his wrists.

He frames my face with his hands, kissing me deeply and whispering, “
spasibo
.”
Thanks.

“You’re welcome.” I sigh, resting my head on his chest. “I don’t have anything to wear to this shindig.”

He nudges me and points to the closet. We both climb off the bed and I eye him speculatively before stepping to the closet to inspect what’s inside.

A dress—dark blue, fitted bodice of silver beads woven into layers of silk that cascades down to just below my knees. I stare at the thing. Amazed.

“It’s your size,” he says, brushing the hair from my shoulder and planting a kiss on my skin.

“How do you do that?”

“We all have our talents, Penelope. You are good at torture and I,” he says with a shrug, “I am good at spoiling you.”

He slaps my ass and heads into the bathroom. I run my fingers over the intricate beads. The man has me at casual, kinky sex. He really doesn’t have to try so hard to win me over.

The party is in full swing when we stroll through the door. I’m a tad on edge, my eyes constantly scanning the room as I try to find my balance. I don’t have pockets in this dress so I was forced to leave my burner phone back at the hotel. Marko assured me that he has his phone if I need to use one. I shouldn’t need one. This is just a simple dignitary function. Worrying over not having a phone is begging for trouble.

Even so I have a bad feeling
.

Marko is the picture of ease and confidence. He’s flirting with the female bartender while, smiling at a guy at the end of the bar. He bounces back from play easily. The man is in a constant state of horny and doing something about it.
Of course
he bounces back easily.

He hands me a flute of champagne when he returns to my side.

“I don’t drink on the job.”

“You’re not working tonight,” he argues.

The orders I received from my CO say differently, but Marko gives me a smile that disarms me. No one is going to try to kill him. Why would someone try to kill
him
?

“You specifically asked for me, didn’t you?” I guess.

“Guilty, but I’ve missed you. So I’m forgiven,
da
?”

I don’t respond. I don’t have to. I met Marko five years ago. And though I would never call us an item, or a couple, I would say I’ve trusted him with some of the darkest parts of my soul. And if the past four hours in his hotel room proves anything, he trusts me, too.

He makes his way across the room, talking to fellow dignitaries and occasionally putting his arm around me. He whispers things in my ear, words that are meant to make me blush. It’s a farce. Marko is good at what he does. He’s good at talking, good at fucking, he’s even good at fabricating emotions, but underneath it all he’s a lot like me.

He’s empty.

“I have to drain the snake,” he says non sequitur an hour after we’ve arrived.

I glare at him over the rim of my third champagne glass. I know what he’s saying, what he’s
asking
. I can tell him I’ll wait here and he’ll actually strut to the bathroom and pee. Or I can follow him. Protocol states that I never let him out of my sight, so technically my job requires I follow him.

Yeah, that’s why I’m doing this… because it’s part of the job.

I set my glass down on the closest table and wordlessly lead us to the men’s room.

I lean against the door as he checks to make sure we’re alone once we’re inside. He motions me over with a finger, and I lock the door before I join him.

“Have I told you how gorgeous you look tonight, Penelope?”

I roll my eyes. “Flattery doesn’t get you anywhere with me. You bought the damn dress.”

He laughs. It’s a canned sound, like what TV shows use to deliver punch lines.

My hand slips into his easily, and he kisses the back of it. “Well then, have I told you how much you pleased me earlier,
Poppy
?”

That word, mixed with a heavy dose of his accent, sends a thrill cascading from the top of my head down my spine. My fingertips tingle as he presses his lips to each.

“How can I repay you for the pleasure you have given me? Hmm?”

His thumb strokes my cheek and my lips part. “Well… I don’t accept cashier checks or American Express.”

His lips twitch. “Oh, I have something better than money that I can give you, my dear.”

I moan when his lips bypass mine and go straight for my jugular. His teeth are sharp as he nips at my skin. Already I’m unwinding, melting, opening myself for him. Only for him. It’s just sex, like it was at his hotel, but this time it’s
my
game,
my
play, and Marko knows all the right moves to make me come unhinged.

“You know, I’m not sure if exhibitionism is your fetish or mine,” he says, trailing his fingers up my arms as his tongue traces my collarbones.

“Yours, you goddamn peacock,” I say, my words catching in a gasp as he bites extra hard on my shoulder.

That’s going to leave a mark.

Marko pins me, face-first against the bathroom stall, and I wonder if I’m sick. I have to be, right? Normal people don’t do this. Not the fucking in the bathroom thing. Normal people do that all the time. And if they don’t, they should start. It’s fun.

I mean I’m sick because I don’t feel a damn thing for him. He’s tall. He’s Russian—Siberian in fact. He wears cologne made from the flowers of his home. He’s
him
. He’s Nikolai. He rolls his Rs like him. He holds me like him.

He parts his lips and whispers warmly in my ear, “
Poppy
.”

His accent sounds the same.

I’ve never told anyone else the nickname. It feels sacrilegious to have it in anyone’s mouth except for Nikolai’s. But I’ll burn in Hell if I have to just to pretend I’m hearing him say it again.

I close my eyes and revel in it. For a second, I’m not standing next to a toilet with a Russian aristocrat playboy. I’m in a modest General’s bunk on base. Nikolai is standing behind me, telling me I’m too young to do this, but promising me he’ll be gentle if it's what I want.

I was barely nineteen. Old enough to vote, but not yet old enough to drink. He was five years my senior. He’d been drinking since he was fourteen in his homeland. Somehow I did screwy math to make my argument, and he gave me a gold star.

That night he actually gave me
three
, but who’s counting?

Marko pulls my dress up, bunching the silky fabric around my waist. I didn’t bother putting on underwear. I wanted this to happen the minute I unlocked his handcuffs in the hotel room.

I’m sick.

But we all have our kinks, don’t we? Marko likes to be tied up and beat so hard that he has bruises for weeks. I just like to pretend he’s my dead lover. Either way, we’re just fooling ourselves long enough to escape. To
feel
again.

He slips his smooth fingers along my entrance, and I gasp. It’s wrong, all wrong. Marko has never toughened his hands. He wears gloves when the snow starts to fall. He has servants to scrub his floors. Nikolai used his hands for everything. Nikolai’s fingers were calloused. So rough I used to tease him by leaving bottles of girly-scented lotions in his office. I can imagine his fingers touching me. The texture, just the memory of it, sends me into a frenzy.

He teases me until I’m soaking, rolling my hips forward to ride his hand. I need more, so much more than he’s about to give me. But I’ll take what I can and make the rest up as I go along.