The Russian Seduction (21 page)

She snuck a hand between them to unzip his jeans—like she’d been aching to do all night. Finally wrapped her fingers around his pulsing length, his tight skin hot enough to sizzle. Loving the way he pushed into her touch, the stifled groan that broke through his clenched teeth, the words of encouragement he panted against her hair. Thrilling to be the woman who made him respond.

Until his hand clamped over hers, stopping her just in time, before they both went over the edge.

And the crimson silk vee of her thong definitely got his attention. In fact, he had to crawl down for a closer look, his unshaven jaw scraping against her navel, fingers dipping under the sleek scrap of fabric to stroke the soaked curls beneath.

Shit
, she was going to come, though she hadn’t wanted to make herself that vulnerable. Well, she’d wanted an adventure, hadn’t she? Way too late to hold back, when she was bucking against his fingers, crying his name—

“Sshhh,” he reproached her, teasing, easing the thong aside, his harsh breath electric against all that damp flesh. “You’ll get us thrown off the train.”

Somehow, even the knowledge that they needed to be quiet aroused her. She shoved the heel of her palm into her mouth and bit down on another cry as his tongue dragged down her sex with a curl of wet heat. Beneath her back, the train rumbled over steel tracks at 70 mph, the rhythmic sway of the carriage rocking her against him.

Finally that was what hurled her over the brink, even as their entwined bodies hurtled through the Russian night, roaring into danger like an avalanche.

Alexis was still writhing with the aftershock when he slid inside her, hitting her g-spot with the first powerful thrust, making her climax all over again. She squeezed her face against his shoulder to muffle her own frantic sounds.

He ground his face against the bunk when he went rigid, mingled curses and endearments in two languages spilling out. As though he were as lost in the moment as she was, and as powerless to stop it.

Unless she was just another risk for a thrill-seeker like him, one more way to screw the system he held in such obvious contempt.

Or unless it was a ploy by his government to compromise the new U.S. Political Counselor, so well and so deeply she’d never dig herself out. And if that’s what it was, Victor Kostenko had her right where he wanted her.

_____________________________________

Afterward they sprawled across the bunk, bedding flung across the floor and tangled around their legs, looking like a hurricane had swept through the cabin. Panting, Alexis lay against the broad plane of Victor’s chest as the train rocked and clattered beneath them, her eyes squeezed closed, the thud of his heartbeat slowing against her cheek.

She could have drifted to sleep like this, safe and sheltered as a kitten in a friendly lap. But she needed to resist that dangerous impulse. Victor might be dynamite in the sack, but he still wasn’t a man she could trust.

In fact, if she’d wanted to indulge some repressed craving for danger that she’d only now acknowledged, she couldn’t have chosen a better way to do it.

When he cupped her head, stroking the fallen hair away from her eyes, she steeled herself to push away.

“Has it ever occurred to you,” he said pointedly, “that every time we make love, your immediate reaction is to push me away? Because it has certainly occurred to me.”

Guilty as charged
. Deferring her stealthy effort to impose distance between them, she subsided against him. At least in that position, he couldn’t read her face, still flushed with the residue of pleasure.

“What else can you possibly expect?” she murmured, lips brushing the taut silk of his chest. Tremors of warmth rippled through her. “My predecessor and yours just played this game, remember? We both know how it has to end.”

“You’re not Oliver Grey,” he muttered, “the career bumbler whose regular promotions continue to mystify the entire diplomatic community. And I’m certainly not Natalia Petrova—so eager to humiliate the husband who abandoned her that she orchestrated an affair with the goal of making front-page news in
Pravda
. If you insist on comparing us to them, you’re going to give me some kind of damn complex.”

Despite the qualms creeping through her brain, dispelling the fog of sexual fulfillment, Alexis couldn’t stifle a chuckle. “Of all the men in the world, Victor, you strike me as the one least likely to develop a complex.”

“Can that possibly be a compliment?” he countered. “Because it may be the first one you’ve ever given me. In fact, despite your many statements to the contrary, I’m tempted to conclude that you actually appreciate a confident man.”

A twinge of guilt tightened her chest, because she had to agree she’d been sending mixed signals. It was an accurate reflection of the turmoil that churned through her whenever she thought about him. Of course, he probably just wanted to avoid having his Kremlin-sanctioned seduction terminated before his government finished with her.

“There’s a difference between confidence and arrogance,” she pointed out, hating that coil of tension in her chest. And avoiding his allusion to mixed signals the way she would avoid walking barefoot through a minefield.

“I’m meant to conclude I’m the latter, yes?” Now he sounded irritable, which she told herself was for the best. “Although I’m certain it will displease you to be reminded, Alexis, you respond quite favorably to my arrogant commands in bed.”

Now
that
was a road she definitely had no intention of taking. Because it
had
occurred to her, and caused her a fair degree of self-directed frustration. Had she been lying to herself all these years, claiming she didn’t want a man who behaved like her autocratic father?

“OK, captain—”

“Here we go again, damn it.” A current of annoyance pulsed from his body. “You’ll trust me enough to sleep with me—repeatedly, I might add. Yet you can’t bring yourself to say my name.” His voice deepened. “Except when I’m inside you.”

Even after the planet-rocking sexual adventure they’d just shared, her body flared to life at the visual. Her leg was still flung across his, making her burningly aware of his cock nudging her thigh. Clearly, he too was getting turned on by the idea.

I have to stop this. For all I know, they’re listening right now from the cabin next door.
She didn’t need to give the Russians any more of a show.

“How’s this for an unambiguous message?” she said grimly, untwining her body from his. Sitting, she pulled the plush warmth of her coat around her. “I think we should get some sleep before we reach St. Pete—you in your bunk, and me in mine.”

A muscle flexed in his jaw, beneath the gold dust of late-night stubble. Crossing his arms behind his head, he observed her through hooded eyes. “After which, I presume, we’ll both busily pretend once more that nothing unusual is happening between us. Is this your plan?”

The ugly echo of their exchange filled the cabin, and remorse arrowed through her. She hadn’t meant to sound so abrupt, just wanted to raise a few walls to protect herself from getting hurt, when and if he betrayed her. Now, with him on full alert, bristling beyond his armor, she hadn’t a clue what the hell he was thinking.

“We both know this can’t go on.” She hugged her knees to her chest. “My God, you know you can’t trust me.”

“Kindly refrain from telling me,” he said icily, “what you presume I know. The issue here is not my alleged lack of trust, but yours. If you truly believe FSB agents are going to come spilling through that door, snapping photographs as you climax in my arms, then certainly you should not be lying naked in my bed. Do whatever strikes you as appropriate under the circumstances, Counselor.”

His accent was sharpening, a sure sign of his agitation. Why the hell had she said anything? Struggling to defend her suspicions without sounding paranoid, she swept back her hair into a knot at her neck. Her coat slipped down, cool air nipping at her breasts and tightening her nipples. Sharp with annoyance though his eyes were, they flickered over her exposed body, illuminated by the gray artificial light spilling through the window as the train clattered past a vacant platform. Gaslight heat flared beneath his lids.

Alexis found herself torn between the protective instinct to hug the coat closer, and the wholly inappropriate desire to arch her back and give him a better view. But he was still scowling over what she’d said. As if even he—the ice-cold hunter, licensed and trained to kill—could be damaged by something she said or did. As though he were vulnerable, damn it, in a way her cheating husband had never been.

A sigh slipped out as she slid forward, straddling his hips, her coat falling away. Goosebumps from the winter night marched down her arms. Sitting on her heels, she laid a hand on the muscled plane of his abdomen. All that strength, his sub captain’s cunning, fueled by that frightening force of will—he seemed impossible to hurt. Yet she found herself wanting to protect him.

“God, Victor,” she breathed, “cut me some slack here. I don’t know what to do with this attraction. No matter what their initial motives might have been, Oliver and Natalia fell in love, and it destroyed them! Our countries are on the brink of war, so the stakes for us are even higher.” She hesitated. “I’m scared to death of making another mistake.”

As she spoke, some of the tension eased from his features. His big hands unclenched at his sides and came to rest on her thighs, steadying her as the train rocked them gently.

“You’re afraid of making a mistake, as you did with the lamentable Mr. Chase,” he murmured. “Afraid to trust the wrong man once more.”

“Yes,” she whispered, swallowing hard. She’d already crossed that line with Victor. Even if she hadn’t made the mistake of trusting him fully, it would hurt like hell if he betrayed her now. When she’d yielded her body to him, she’d given him the power to hurt her.

But what if he’d given the same power to her?

Those thoughts were too dangerous to explore here, now, under his too-perceptive gaze. Still, something must have flickered in her face, because he looked suddenly thoughtful.

“All right.” He pushed out a breath. A pattern of silver moonlight spilled over him, through the lace curtains, as the
Red Arrow
sliced through the arctic night. “Here’s what we’re going to do. If you’re wary of being here with me, like this—I’ll give
you
the power to decide what happens next.”

“What do you mean?” He’d caught her flat-footed with that one. Captain First Rank Victor Kostenko was going to turn over the helm to
her?
That didn’t sound like the cold-blooded tyrant she’d thought she knew.

“I meant what I said,” he replied, husky, his powerful body still trapped between her thighs. “If you don’t want me to seduce you again…slowly this time…to explore your body one inch at a time, to find all the places that make you tingle and all the ways I can make you come….If you want none of that from me, Alexis, you can put on your Political Counselor’s armor and barricade yourself in the other bunk. I promise to leave you untroubled.”

His voice deepened, sending shivers down her spine without laying a finger on her, just with the erotic promise of his tone. “But if you want something more from me…if you want me inside you again…if you want to know how far I can take you, how much unexplored terrain still lies between us—all the ways I can make you feel, all the ways you can make me respond—then
you’ll
show
me
how far you’re willing to go.”

Alexis had thought she’d corralled her unruly arousal, shored up her resolve, but the images and feelings he was sparking made the deep slow pulse of desire throb between her thighs. She was already getting damp, her body melting around him. Whenever he revealed one of those surprising flashes of tenderness, he made her want to weep.

Since she couldn’t do that—couldn’t let herself become quite so susceptible, lay her soul quite so bare—she expressed her feelings another way. She leaned forward until her tingling breasts brushed his chest, and smoothed her fingers over the furrow between his blond brows. Smoothed away the lines of caution she’d put there tonight.

She eased her fingers down the stern line of his jaw, the velvet rasp of stubble against her skin. Brushed the firm press of his lips, his warm breath tickling her fingers. Heard his breath hitch when she leaned forward to nuzzle his ear, that butter-soft hair caressing her cheek.

“I know what I should want, Victor,” she whispered. “But I’m…”
Really afraid of losing myself in you. You could become someone who matters to me, even the person who matters most. And I can never permit that to happen.

No, she couldn’t go there, couldn’t lead him where she herself was terrified of going. Instead, she rubbed her face against his sinewed throat, tasting salt, smelling the faded spice of Beckham. She’d never breathe that scent again without thinking of the man beneath her.

Closing her eyes, she curled one hand gently against the hard plane of his cheek.

“Christ, Alexis,” he groaned. “I promised to give you the lead, but—touch me.”

So much for not giving me commands in bed.
She smiled wryly against his skin. He was incorrigible, but she wanted the same thing. Her hands slid over the bulging power of those athlete’s shoulders, the knotted strength of his biceps, the tight ripple of deltoid muscle that flexed under her touch.