Lying and Kissing

by Helena Newbury

  He knocked back his drink—some sort of expensive whiskey, I noticed, not vodka. And then he looked at me as if expecting me to do the same, so I did. The vodka seemed to expand in my mouth, sending burning fumes straight up my nose and down into my lungs. But when it hit my belly, its heat melted a little of the fear.

  He sat down across from me. He was black and I was white. He moved a pawn and said, “You are very beautiful.”

  I sort of coughed on the tail-end of the vodka fumes and looked up at him in amazement. Did he really—”Th—Thank you.” I groped for one of my pawns and moved it.

  Vasiliy moved another pawn, quick and precise. “I can see why he likes you. You are everything he’s not.”

  I reddened and stared at the board, playing for time. I moved a knight, not even thinking about strategy. The mood was completing its shift, now, slotting into a place that was definitely familiar and definitely wrong. Very wrong.

  “His other girlfriends have been…”—he shook his head dismissively—“vacuous whores. But you. You are intelligent. You know your own mind.” He reached behind him and, as he twisted, I saw how broad his shoulders were, how his chest still had the same powerful swell as Luka’s. His hair was shot through with silver, but most of it was still black.

  He picked up the bottle of whiskey and poured himself another glass, as if to reassure me that he was drinking, too. And then he grabbed the vodka bottle and went to pour me some more.

  I instinctively put my hand over my glass.

  He grinned at me, took my hand and lifted it off and down onto the tabletop. Then he poured me another vodka. He kept smiling at me the whole time and I found myself shyly smiling, too, even though alarm bells were ringing in my head. What the hell is going on?!

  “And you are American,” he said. “Most American women do not like Russian men. They find us too…” He paused. “What is the word? Too chill?”

  “Too cold,” I said quietly. I had an awful suspicion that he’d known the right word damn well. He was just trying to appear klutzy to put me at ease.

  “Cold. And, if the men are like Luka and me, from the Brotherhood, then we are cold and dark, yes?” He indicated me. “And you, you are warmth and light.” He wagged his finger. “You should not be attracted to this.”

  His eyes. His eyes were gleaming just like Luka’s.

  And, suddenly, I knew what the mood had shifted to. Seduction. He was seducing me.

  No! That’s crazy!

  I knocked back my second vodka, feeling the pleasant warmth throughout my body, now. When I was brave enough to meet Vasiliy’s eyes again, there was no mistaking the look there. He wanted me. I could see it as clearly as if his thoughts were projected onto the wall behind him. He wanted to pull me up out of my chair and hurl me down on the table, chess pieces scattering across the floor. Pull up my dress, rip off my panties and—

  I drew in a labored breath and stood up, staring at him. The mood shattered in an instant.

  He smiled. “Interesting. For a moment there, I thought I was going to get to fuck you.”

  And the truth washed over me, scarcely less disturbing than what I’d been imagining. It had been a test. One I’d passed.

  He looked at me and then at my chair, indicating that I should sit back down for whatever round two would bring. I stood there indecisively for a moment...and then sat down. Whatever happened, I needed to get on Vasiliy’s good side. If he had a good side.

  He smiled, as if glad I’d decided to play. “You suit the dress,” he said, waving his hand vaguely at the bodice. “You suit beautiful things. Some of the other girls, they only like my son because he can give them nice things. But you, I think...you want something more.” He moved his rook and then smiled at me again. “I think you want to get inside his head.”

  Shit—

  He leaned forward, the muscles in his forearms bulging as he braced his hands on the table. “You are an American and you are getting close to my son. So either you are in love with him or—”

  SHIT—

  “You are a spy for the C. I. A.” He said each letter very clearly and precisely.

  I stared at him in horror.

  “Are you a spy?” asked Vasiliy.

  “No!”

  “Are you in love with my son?”

  “I—”

  He suddenly leaned across the table, our faces almost touching. “What is it?!” he snarled. “What’s between the two of you?”

  “I—I really like him! He likes me! He’s helping me—”

  “It can’t have started like that! How did it start?” When I didn’t answer, he slammed his fist down on the table, the chess pieces jumping and falling. “HOW?”

  “Sex!” I said, my voice high and tight. “It started with sex. He—” I flushed. “He—” I couldn’t meet his eyes.

  “WHAT?! What does he do?”

  “He...he’s rough with me,” I croaked, squeezing my eyes shut in humiliation. “He holds me down!”

  “And I bet that makes you drip right down your thighs,” said Vasiliy.

  I opened my eyes and my hand flashed out before I knew what I was doing. It cracked across Vasiliy’s cheek, leaving a red handprint. My eyes widened and I froze there, waiting for the inevitable retribution.

  “Good,” said Vasiliy, and sat back in his chair. He rubbed his cheek. “You hit well, for a little American thing. Make sure you do that to him, if he steps out of line.”

  I stared at him, utterly confused.

  “I had to see if you were telling the truth,” said Vasiliy. “If you really had feelings for him. I’m sorry.”

  I drew in a long breath. It had been another test. And in the shaky aftermath of the adrenaline, I realized it was my out-of-control feelings for Luka that had saved me. If I’d just been acting, he would have known it. “How can you live like this?” I asked in a ragged voice. “Suspecting everyone. Searching your own son for bombs. Interrogating everyone in case they’re a spy?”

  He sat back in his chair and stared at me. “It’s no life,” he said. “No life at all. And that is why you should leave my son.”

  I swallowed. Now, we’d come full circle. This was the conversation I’d been expecting to have when we first walked into this room. Only now, things were much more complicated. Now, I knew that he had his suspicions about me, even if they’d been allayed for the time being.

  He lifted his hands and indicated the house. “Look at my beautiful, expensive prison. When I die, Luka will become the main target. And he and you will live like this, too.” He nodded at my stomach. “When you give him a child, you’ll have to drive him around in a car with bulletproof windows. Until he’s old enough to go to boarding school—then you’ll send him to England and see him every few months. Are you ready for that?”

  I felt as if I wanted to be sick. I didn’t know which was worse: the future he was painting or the knowledge that it was all impossible because I was going to betray the family before any of it happened.

  “We have enemies, Arianna. The CIA—they’re a corrupt bunch of bastards. The Russian authorities want us behind bars. The rival gangs want our business.” He looked me right in the eye. “They’d kill and gut Luka, if they ever got their hands on him. But you, they’d do worse to.”

  I nodded slowly.

  “This is not a game. This is not exciting or dangerous or just like in the movies. This is real. If you stay with my son, I worry that you will be killed. And that you will get him killed.”

  I opened my mouth to tell him that I would never hurt Luka. And then realized that that would be a lie. I was going to hurt him in the worst way possible.

  “If I have learned anything, since his mother died,” said Vasiliy, “it is that trying to get Luka to do something is impossible.” He gave me a look that was almost friendly. “Boy has head like a bull.”

  “Just like his dad,” I said softly.

  He smiled at me. “As you say. So. You will have to be the smart one. You will have
to break up with him.”

  The sick feeling I got in the pit of my stomach wasn’t horror at what he was saying. It was the creeping knowledge that he was right. I wasn’t cut out for this life. Even if I could survive it, I couldn’t be sure I could change Luka and save him from the darkness that had made his father into this coldly calculating machine. And even if there could in theory be some happy ending for the two of us, the whole thing was impossible. In days—maybe as soon as tomorrow—I’d betray him.

  I nodded my assent to Vasiliy. He refilled my glass for a sad farewell toast.

  “What did he want?” asked Luka as soon as we were back in the car.

  “Nothing.”

  Luka looked at me skeptically. “It’s never nothing.”

  What would sound convincing? “He asked me about myself. Lots of questions.”

  “Oh.” He nodded slowly to himself. “Okay. That makes sense.”

  I pretended to be oblivious. “Why?”

  Luka sighed. “He was checking you out. Making sure you weren’t a spy.”

  “A spy?!” Sounding incredulous wasn’t too hard. I still felt so unlike a proper agent that it sounded ridiculous. “For one of the other gangs?”

  “Or for the CIA. You are an American.”

  “I thought the CIA were all...assassinations and politics.”

  Luka shook his head. “Drugs and guns. They’re meant to stop it, but really they control it. They’re corrupt.”

  I blinked. His dad had said the same thing. It was weird, seeing how we were viewed from the other side, hearing the ridiculous propaganda they believed.

  I nestled into his side. His dad’s words were going round and round in my head. I was going to have to break up with Luka. I’d known it all along—it was the only possible outcome, ever since I’d agreed to take the mission. But back then, sitting in Adam’s office at Langley, I hadn’t figured on feeling this way about him.

  How did I feel about him, exactly? Aside from the obvious lust, there was definitely something deeper. I could feel it tugging at me, whenever we were apart. I felt the sick fear when I thought he might be in danger, like when he’d run into the brothel. And, when we were together, I felt...complete. Like there’d been something missing, before. Was that love? I didn’t have much to compare it to. The few relationships I’d had before the crash had been teenage fumblings and then college awkwardness. No one had ever made me feel the way Luka had. But it had only been a handful of days. Way too soon to call it love.

  “What’s the matter?” asked Luka. “Cold?”

  I’d been staring determinedly out of the window. Now I looked round at him in surprise. “What?”

  He glanced down at my chest. I realized I’d wrapped my arms around myself.

  “You always do that in cars,” he said. “Unless I’m holding you.”

  I stared at him. I hadn’t realized I’d been doing it...but just as importantly, I hadn’t realized he’d been noticing little things like that. I knew he’d been looking at my body, stripping me with his eyes. But I didn’t know he’d been studying me like that, discovering all my little quirks.

  “Are you going to tell me what it is?” he asked. That accent of his made the words like huge, stone slabs, ones that could shatter my fragile defenses if he wanted to. But he didn’t use them in that way. He spoke gently, nudging at my layers of ice instead. It was like having a massive, powerful bear nuzzling your ear.

  I might not be having flashbacks anymore, but the memories were still there, affecting me on an instinctual level. Of course I couldn’t tell him about the crash. Thinking about it meant reliving it, every little detail preserved by my goddamn photographic memory. The only way to survive was to push it way down inside and cover it with enough layers of ice that the pain was muted...and everything was frozen.

  Funny how that didn’t seem to be working so well, anymore.

  But, even if I could tell him, and if that could somehow help me...did I deserve that? I was about to betray him in the worst way possible.

  “Soon,” I said. “For now....” I nestled into him and he folded his strong arms around me, wrapping me in warmth and security.

  ***

  By the time we reached his apartment block, I’d unwound. Luka’s arms around me started to have a different effect. I began to notice the press of his forearms against the undersides of my breasts and the feel of his muscles against my back. My whole body began to come to life, woken by his closeness.

  I knew it was wrong. I knew it would soon be over between us and he’d hate me forever. But however much I told myself that, my body didn’t listen. I kept looking into the rear view mirror and catching glimpses of us, his big body wrapped around my much smaller one, and the combination of his gentleness and his immense power, of how I was both protected and somehow captured by him, sent a slow, deep throb echoing through me.

  In the elevator on the way up I twisted around in his arms and kissed him, soft and slow at first and then with quickly rising ferocity. By the time the doors opened, I had his shirt unfastened and my hands inside, sliding over the smooth slabs of his pecs. He gave a low growl and swept me up, one arm under my ass, and carried me inside. Then I was dumped back onto my feet on the polished wood floor and, as I stumbled in my heels—

  My dress came up over my head, blocking my vision and trapping my arms for a second. Then it was gone and I was gasping and panting...and virtually naked. I’d gone for black underwear, this time, a half cup bra and a thong, both of them secured with thin ribbons. The va-va-voom option, not the sweet virginal option. Appropriate, I thought bitterly, given that I was going to behave like a real femme fatale and stab him in the back.

  But my guilt didn’t do anything to slow the building heat inside me. I saw him rake his eyes down and then up my body, taking in my heels and stockings and the skimpy, glossy underwear. “Different,” he rumbled after a second. “Not you. Someone else.”

  I nodded. I did kind of feel like someone else. Someone evil.

  He stepped closer to me and put his fingers under my chin, lifting my head so that I met his eyes. “I know game we can play,” he growled, his English fracturing in his eagerness. His hand cupped my breast, almost covering it completely. “Do you want to play game, Arianna?” he hissed.

  This was new—he was turned on in a different, darker way than I’d seen him before. But I was panting, now, actually rubbing my thighs together to get friction. I wanted his hands all over me. I wanted his cock inside me. “Yes,” I whispered.

  He grabbed me and pulled me close, one hand squeezing my ass and one fondling my breast. I moaned.

  Luka put his mouth close to my ear and whispered, “I know you’re CIA.”

  It was like falling into water that was colder than any ice, a chill that soaked straight through skin and flesh to freeze your bones. I became a lifeless doll in his arms, limp and staring.

  He scooped me up and started to carry me towards the bedroom.

  I wasted precious seconds thinking this is not happening, this can’t be happening. When I finally started to kick and struggle, we were almost at the door. I flung myself sideways, trying to launch myself from his grip, legs kicking and arms grabbing for the door frame.

  He laughed.

  I twisted around and tried to claw for his face and he trapped my wrists easily, pulling my arms behind my back until my shoulders burned. Then we were through the door and he threw me on the bed.

  I didn’t have time to get my arms in front of me to break my fall, so I landed with my hair in my face and the air knocked out of me. I twisted over onto my side, groaning, watching him approach. I saw his eyes track over my nearly-naked body. I was disgusted to find that there was still a dark tendril of excitement wrapped around my rising fear.

  Then he was on me, using his weight to pin my legs and his hands to pin my shoulders, pushing me over onto my back. I began to fight again, thrashing and bucking under him, and that only made him grin. He reached into a drawer bes
ide the bed and brought out something that made me freeze. A pair of shining steel handcuffs.

  He wrestled my arms above my head and snapped the cuffs onto my wrists with practiced ease, hooking them around the iron bestead. A horrible, sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach as I realized I really couldn’t get free. I heaved with my arms, using all my strength, but the handcuff chain just clinked and jingled against the iron. It was like a parody of all the times I’d pushed against his hands during sex, wanting to feel helpless. Except now I actually was. And my body, my traitorous fucking body, refused to acknowledge the difference. Seeing him hulking over me, still fully dressed, feeling myself bound and powerless beneath him in skimpy underwear, it responded. I could feel myself getting wet.

  Enraged with myself, with him, with Adam for sending me on the mission in the first place, I lost it. I kicked him as hard as I could, but this wasn’t like the woman at the club. My heel hit him in the stomach but it just glanced off the hard muscle there and he caught my ankle easily and pressed it to the bed. Then he did the same with my other leg and used his weight to pin them. Now I was held fast, stretched out on the bed with my arms above my head.

  I stared up at him, my breath coming in panting heaves.

  “Did you think I wouldn’t guess?” he asked, his voice low and dangerous. “An American, all pretty and sweet, suddenly in my life. She acts innocent, so I’m tempted to corrupt her. But really, she’s the one who’s dark inside.”

  “I—I’m not CIA,” I panted. “I swear, Luka.” It didn’t sound convincing even to me.

  He suddenly lunged down and kissed me, forcing his tongue into my mouth. It was so unexpected I didn’t have time to close my lips. His tongue brutally sought mine out and danced with it and, though I tried to twist my head away, I could feel the hot throb of pleasure go straight down to my groin. What was wrong with me?! Even now, I couldn’t resist him.

  He lifted his head and stared down at me. His words were like carefully sculpted weapons. “Don’t lie to me, Arianna. I know you are.”