The Russian Seduction (13 page)

Now the husky pant of his breath slowed behind her, as they both recovered from their ill-considered romp. She wondered if the same misgivings were trickling into both their sex-stunned brains, if he felt the same mounting alarm over what they’d just done, and what it could cost them.

This is how it feels to be compromised.
And he should know, since the Russians were experts at the art.

“You’re squirming, Counselor,” he rumbled, rolling over and bracing himself on one elbow to peer down at her.

She shot him a quick glance, saw beads of sweat still glittering against suntanned skin. Saw the smolder of sensual satisfaction in his Slavic features, making all her blown-out circuits sputter back to life.

“We shouldn’t have done this,” she said hoarsely, turning away, putting distance between them. The full magnitude of what they’d done came roaring through her. “
Shit
.”

A pause while he registered her chagrin. His voice altered subtly, sharpened to a wary edge.

“I suppose I’m a bad influence on a good girl like you. But surely, it’s too early for the so-called buyer’s remorse.” His tone deepened, sent a shiver sliding over her skin. “Surely I didn’t…disappoint?”

My God, that’s one way of putting it.
The throb of possessiveness in that low-pitched query made her draw up her knees and hug herself, fighting to raise the barriers that would keep him out. She kept her tone light, as though this encounter that had probably derailed her life were entirely trivial.

“Do you want me to stroke your ego, captain?”

“Not my ego,” he murmured, with a trace of wicked humor that made her shiver again. “I’m just asking if you were satisfied, Alexis.”

And there it was again, the seductive lure he’d used to reel her in. She was in pretty big trouble here. It would be out of the question to wrap herself around him, show him how hot she still was for him—

“Hell,” she whispered. Pretty pointless lying about it now, when the train had left the station. “What just happened—it wasn’t exactly subtle. You have to know that I…liked it.”

“I’m gratified.” He stretched to snare a folded quilt from the couch and tossed it over them. Hastily she tucked it around her nudity. So keenly aware of him, even when she was carefully
not
looking at him, that she could feel those ice-blue eyes narrowing, assessing the barriers she was throwing up between them.

Yeah, she knew he wouldn’t like it. Knew it would irritate the totalitarian in him, the guy who’d always called the shots. As she stared at the wooden faces that watched them, willing Kostenko to keep his distance, he smoothed a hand over her tumbled hair—loose around her shoulders since he’d tugged it from its sleek knot.

This was the secret side of him, those surprising flashes of tenderness that surfaced so rarely beneath that Russian brusqueness. His renegade charm might make her nipples tighten, but it was these moments of gentleness that made her knees melt.

She risked a sideways glance at him. All that fire-bronzed skin stretched over muscle, sun-streaked hair falling over the focused intensity of his features, his guarded eyes brooding over her. Damn, she still wanted him. Far from exorcising her sexual demons with that little rite of passion, he’d made her even more crazy for him. As if that first explosive joining had only fanned the flames.

But there was no way in hell she could ever let anything like it happen again. Bad enough she’d have to report sleeping with him to the Embassy’s Regional Security Officer. Worse if she had to report they’d done it more than once. For the sake of her country and her own goddamned sanity, she needed to be able to report that she’d ended it.

She cleared her throat and put it out there. “You know I can’t stay here tonight. That would only make things worse.”

“Well, we wouldn’t want to ‘make things worse.’” Annoyance edged his voice, but she knew when he leashed it, when sensual purpose took over. His warm breath brushed her skin, teeth closing over the tender junction where neck curved into shoulder.

All that destructive power—held in reserve, for now. A spear of desire lanced through her like a missile.

“Don’t get excited, Counselor,” he whispered. “I’m going to drive you back. But not…quite…yet.”

Victor Kostenko was a bomb on a hairpin trigger, and she needed to handle him carefully. Instead, she’d challenged him, made him itch to prove what he could do. Provoked him into a tug-of-war for power.

“Captain Kostenko,” she said stiffly, and felt him snort against her skin. “Ah, Victor. I don’t want to give you the wrong impression—”

“You can’t deny you were dying to know what it would be like.” Beneath the quilt, a powerful arm slid around her waist as he launched another assault against her resolve. “That night we met in the German Ambassador’s residence, we were both imagining how it would be when we went to bed. You were more than tempted. You knew this would happen, yes?”

“Certainly not. You were extraordinarily difficult that night.”
And every night since.
Cautiously, she tried to slide away from him. “I might have felt somewhat—challenged by you, and my colleagues would tell you I never walk away from a challenge. But certainly I never intended—”

“You needed me to take the lead.” Muscle rippled as he tumbled her back into the danger zone of his body. His erection brushed her derriere. And just like that, arousal pulsed between her thighs. A gasp slipped from her lips.

“I never let anyone take the lead,” she countered, mouth quirking with reluctant humor. “You should know that’s
my
job.”

“Are you certain about that?” He chuckled. “In this case, you needed to be able to tell yourself—with all due sincerity—that I seduced you despite your dutiful protests. Since I was equally intrigued, our interests were fully in accord.”

Yeah, the fact that she’d wanted him to overwhelm her was definitely not something she wanted to pursue right now. What she needed to focus on were his motives for this little seduction. She knew too much about Russian methods to delude herself into thinking this was a simple case of
boy meets girl, boy wants girl, boy gets girl into bed.

“Even if I take your word for it,” she said warily, “that you weren’t already intending to cultivate me, that you were genuinely intrigued…”

“Am,” he corrected softly, hardened fingers skimming the tender curve of her breast, wringing another gasp from her. “Present tense. I’m still intrigued, Alexis.”

“Even so,” she hurried on, clutching fistfuls of quilt so she didn’t arch back into him and beg him to do whatever he wanted with her. “It’s every professional woman’s fear that her male colleagues don’t take her seriously. That while she’s doing her job to the best of her abilities, the guy across the table is thinking about undressing her. A smart woman downplays her sexual assets in the office. So…”

“Are you asking why you interest me?” he murmured, his breath stirring her hair. “Christ, do you need to hear the reasons? Aside from the obvious fact that you’re beautiful? Do you need me to say that I’m drawn to your intensity, your…determination to succeed, no matter how hard I make things for you? That your intellect and your frightening competence are a turn-on? That you make me wonder what stokes your fire, what drives and needs are locked away under that chilly diplomat’s demeanor.”

He seemed to think it over, and she knew he had to feel the way her heart was pounding against his hand. She felt like she could hardly breathe, felt suddenly afraid she was going to cry. As if for comfort, he sighed and rubbed his raspy jaw against her neck, sending pulses of pleasure through her nervous system.

“I told you before, we’re the same,” he breathed. “I see myself in you—the way I used to be. And the harder you push to hold me at bay, the closer I need to get.”

He sounded sincere about it—the irresistible lure that could draw a man already disgraced into a career-ending shipwreck of an affair, one that his government could not conceivably overlook.

Assuming he wasn’t lying next to her right now because his government had told him to do it.

His dangerous fingers were drawing circles around her breast, making her nipple contract and tingle with expectation. Damn, he made her want him, made her insides melt and run like butter. Made her so ready for him she really feared she might be tempted to give him another go. Though she maintained just enough grasp on reality to know all the reasons she shouldn’t.

She caught his wandering hand in hers—the hand that could unleash the massive offensive power of the most formidable weapon mankind had ever created, yet play a woman’s body like a vintage violin.

“I really
am
going to report this encounter,” she told him. “If I don’t, and they find out I didn’t, I’ll lose my job for sure.”

Not to mention making herself intolerably vulnerable to blackmail, an asset too valuable for the Russians not to exploit.

“Well,” he said tightly, “that will put your ex-husband’s boxers in a twist.”

Until today, the thought of pissing off her disgruntled ex would have seemed foolhardy, and far too risky. Now she almost wanted to let the man who’d regarded her so lightly know that Victor Kostenko had staked his claim. That whole alpha male aggression thing had always turned her off. Who would have thought it could morph into such a major turn-on?

Of course it didn’t help that he was rubbing her nipple against his roughened palm, building up an aching friction that found its echo between her thighs. That he was rock-hard against the seam of her legs. It was all she could manage not to rock back against him, let him slide into her slick heat.

Desperately she worked to head off this avalanche of arousal before it swept her over the edge.

“Geoff doesn’t like you very much, it’s true,” she breathed. “Fortunately, he’s not the one who needs to hear about our little adventure. It’s a personnel-sensitive matter, and the RSO is required to keep my report confidential.”

“You think Geoffrey Chase won’t know you’ve been with me the minute he lays eyes on you?” Kostenko eased his hand down her belly, setting her body on fire. “Beneath his veneer of courtesy, he was bristling with hostility toward me at your Embassy function. He knows all too well that he’s losing you. And he’s not going to like it.”

“He lost me a long time ago.” Alexis caught her breath as his exploratory journey stilled, just before the target she ached for him to reach. “You can’t seriously think I’d be with another man if I still loved him?”

“So you don’t still…love him?” With agonizing slowness, his fingers eased into her damp curls. She should be embarrassed, having him know just how much she wanted him.

Looking back on it now, I don’t think I ever truly loved Geoff.
She caught her breath as the realization struck.
I loved the idea of him, the concept of security I thought he represented. Dad’s death was such a blow, despite our dysfunctional dynamic. He’d always protected me, and that did me no favor. When Dad passed, I wasn’t certain I could succeed on my own.

She realized Victor was waiting for her answer, and spoke cautiously. “I knew I could manage Geoff. He was the safe choice, the smart choice, for a woman with my ambitions.”

“You married him because you thought you could control him.” So intimately enveloped by him, she couldn’t miss the satisfaction that pulsed through him. “Your money and connections may have kept him in line so far, but you need to be careful of your Mr. Chase. Obviously, he considers you a coveted trophy. I suspect you’ve become the way he proves his success and sexual prowess to your mutual colleagues. And he’ll do whatever it takes to keep you. Just like…”

Her heart squeezed in her chest as she waited for him to finish. Instead, one finger brushed her clit, and her focus shattered. A moan escaped as her body surged against his touch.

“Don’t forget what I said.” His voice was hoarse in her ear as he stroked her, rocking her back against him, her legs falling apart for him. But even through the pounding craving that convulsed her womb, she wondered what Kostenko knew about Geoff that he wouldn’t—maybe couldn’t—tell her.

Then he was drawing her up to kneel on hands and knees, facing away from him, the quilt falling away. A strong arm eased around her waist to tilt up her derriere, legs parted to expose all the slick wanting he’d stirred in her. And she let him, she wanted him to, her entire body arching back for him while he dealt swiftly with the matter of protection. Her breasts hanging full and heavy with longing, brushing the bearskin beneath them.

Her nails dug into the bearskin, too, when he came into her in a single stroke that wrenched a groan from his lips, even as she cried out herself. Then there was nothing but him—the man she was forbidden to have—above her, inside her. Surrounding her with his strength, his fierceness, his leashed control even in the crisis of passion.

Choreographing her climax like a symphony conductor, until she wanted to be no one and nothing except the woman who came beneath him.

CHAPTER SIX