Roxie was asleep on top of the quilt. Her limbs outspread as if completely relaxed. Her satiny skin was the same color as daybreak, and the blue quilt echoed the sky.
Just looking at her made him hard.
He wanted her again. Wanted her one last time.
Mac removed his jacket before stripping off his two remaining layers of clothing and lying down on the bed beside her.
Easing closer, he ran the palm of one hand over the arm next to him. Her skin felt cold, icy, in fact, and she instinctively turned into his warmth without waking.
He pulled her close. She said his name, “Mac.” And a sigh as soft as butter brushed his neck.
He placed a kiss on her forehead, then whispered, “I’m sorry for doubting you, chérie. You’re a great Internal Security agent.”
The reply was so quiet he almost didn’t catch it as she sleepily mumbled, “I didn’t want to fail” into the hollow of his shoulder.
It was all the confirmation he needed, and Roxie would probably never remember telling him.
His hands swept up under her lace camisole in a swift movement that left only one of them wearing a stitch of clothing as he tugged the lace over her head.
She clung to him as his mouth did a taste exploration of her skin from neck and shoulders, traveling down to breasts and navel. Mac worked his way down, savoring every part, enjoying the smooth softness inside her thighs as she assisted him to remove the tangle of panties from her suddenly restless legs.
And while she might still be in that state between sleep and reality, her fingers tunneled through his hair as he took one long, last intimate kiss and heard her cry out his name in pleasure.
Chapter 12
To begin with, Roxie’s dream was familiar. Rushing onto an empty platform at Gare du Nord, the train ready to depart, and Mac at the far end about to board.
Leaving her behind.
She ran. All at once the platform was crowded. People left and right, everywhere, holding her back while she fought her way through the tight crush.
For a change, though, the train didn’t leave her standing alone and bereft on the platform. She rushed into Mac’s arms and they embraced, their clothes melting away as he sank to his knees before her, worshiping her body.
But Roxie was very much awake now, her heart pounding like a mad thing under breasts that had surrendered to Mac’s hands.
She lay gasping for air, fingers tangled in his hair unable to move in the aftermath of the climax Mac had wrought with his mouth and tongue.
Shivering, she came back into her body, her skin hot and damp while the air around it was chill by comparison.
Before her heart could finish its race, Mac’s big body covered hers, sharing his heat. She’d have to be dead not to be aware that his needs hadn’t been fulfilled and the simple act of reflecting on them made her womb spasm with aftershocks.
He was so large, she should have felt suffocated, but neither his body nor his intensely male personality intimidated her anymore. This man had saved her life twice in three days.
In a way, they were the stereotypical couple, which drove the plots of romantic movies, the offspring of feuding families, or the lovers on opposing sides in a war.
She slipped her arms around his neck confident he would never hurt her, even if his stubborn streak prevented him separating truth from fiction.
Mac took one of her hands in his, placing a kiss in the heart of her palm. He circled it with the tip of his tongue as if to remind her how skillful he had been.
“I was dreaming,” she told him.
“About me?” he laughed, as if at the obvious.
The sound of his laughter echoed through her chest and rocked against her heart. “How did you guess?” she asked once her lungs released the breath she’d been holding.
“Chérie, you might have been dreaming but you weren’t asleep.
“Shall I tell you how many ways you called my name?”
“Don’t bother, I have a good imagination.”
Too good for her peace of mind.
There was never any need to fake it with Mac, no need to repeat her efforts of their first night in this old bed when her moans had been for the benefit of their concealed audience.
Mac’s fingers trailed down her cheeks, a caress that made her want to cry for some reason.
Mac put it into words. “You realize this may be our last night together. After Sevarin turns up to complete the deal, we’ll both be going our separate ways.”
His words reverberated in her mind.
“Separate ways” meaning her going back to Paris and Mac traveling to Chechnya.
“I know,” she agreed, but not for the obvious reason.
If he was intent on buying Green Shield, she had no option but to stop him even if it killed her. “I don’t want to think about never seeing you again, not yet.”
Although he stood for everything her grandparents had put their lives on the line to fight against, she couldn’t wish Mac dead.
But, unlike Mac, she didn’t trust Sevarin to let him walk away with Green Shield, unless it was in a lead-lined coffin. She knew it killed plants, but what did it do to people? Agent Orange had been responsible for hordes of genetic defects.
Mac nuzzled under her chin. The brush of his beard felt softer than that first time he kissed her. When she’d been certain she was about to die. What a little coward she’d been.
Some things were worth dying for.
Did he remember the moment he’d claimed her as his lover in front of Zukah and the Frenchmen? Who could have known that his words would come true?
“We should make the most of the time we have left, then.” He sighed the words against her neck, then went on. “The sky is getting lighter, dawn can’t be far away, and who knows when Sevarin will arrive with Green Shield?”
She dragged her fingers through his hair, lighter now that he wasn’t incessantly wetting it to slick it back. It made him look younger. She tilted his face up so he couldn’t hide the truth.
The look in his eyes was as old as time. His irises burned a deep gold, and behind them she read the knowledge that he wasn’t taking the dangers of their situation lightly.
His was the expression of a man eager to do battle, yet reluctant to say goodbye to his woman. A look that made her want to cling and press all she had, all that she was, in her heart and mind, against him and say, “Take me one last time.”
Her sigh spanned time, whispering the answer women always gave in the circumstances, “We’d be foolish to waste it, then.”
He pulled her closer, tighter, heart to heart, breast to breast, and the groan he made sounded as if something inside him had broken. “In this at least, we are of one mind, chérie.”
She felt as if he poured everything into his kiss.
Tasting pure emotion, her head spun with the sheer wonder of what he said with his touch that he didn’t dare voice.
His hands were everywhere, as were hers. Skimming his back, shaping the muscles of his arms as they took the strain.
Dawn coated his skin with pale apricot, glancing off the planes of his face and deepening the shadows in the hollows till the dimple centering his chin was pronounced.
He slipped his fingers through hers, holding her hands above her head while he feasted on her breasts as she writhed under him. Legs wrapped around his back, she centered his hard length between her thighs.
Inside, it felt as if she were expanding. Creating a hollow only Mac could fill, and the pressure only made her need stronger. “Chéri, I’m empty without you. Fill me, fill me up now.”
He could give her all the climaxes in the world with hands or mouth; they meant nothing without feeling him inside her.
“There’s nothing I want more, chérie.”
He tilted his hips until she felt the tip of his sex brush her swollen folds and, holding her breath, she waited for his first thrust.
It never came.
Instead, he eased inside slowly,
cautiously, as if it was the first time for both of them.
Roxie’s temperature rose. Her breath came fast until she thought her heart and lungs would explode from an experience that was exhilarating and frustrating at once. She closed her eyes.
Mac stopped, as did her breathing as the tension became too much to bear.
“Open your eyes.” The command was gruff round the edges. “I want to see them darken as passion overtakes you.”
She did as he said, but thought she ought to mention, “Mac…you’re killing me here.”
“Not yet, but soon. I want that small sweet death to find us at the same moment. I want it to be something you never forget,” he said, inching forward a little more, then he drew back.
“No!” She wrapped him in the tight bands of her limbs, but he was too strong and drew back all the way.
His next thrust took her deeper before he drew back. He repeated the action over and over, gaining speed and depth till she felt a quivering mass of nerves about to die of pleasure.
Eyes open as he’d asked, she held his gaze, his intense concentration almost as arousing as the building rhythm, deep, fast. Roxie had no experience to compare it with.
Every movement of his gleaming muscles worked to a sensual rhythm. Beads of sweat gleamed on his forehead as the sun rose, and the colors of daybreak highlighted their erotic dance.
The first ripple tugged inside her.
Mac’s eyes glittered topaz in the light, and his pleased grin acknowledged his expertise. But at the very second she came apart, Roxie realized he’d never smile at her just that way again….
Then all thought was lost as a powerful spasm rocked her, amplifying the quivers rippling across her skin.
Her head rolled back and forth on the pillow, her lower lip aching as she bit back the scream building in her throat.
“Look at me,” he demanded in a tone that brooked no refusal.
She did.
It was the last thing she remembered, the last thing she could put a name to as Mac’s thrusts lifted her off the mattress and her vision went black.
His mouth clamped over hers, swallowing the noise of her climax as if to keep it private, personal, secret.
Then as the waves rolled over her, his big body froze, muscles rigid, as he spilled his seed.
Filling her with the matter that all life springs from, he called out her name.
Later that morning, Roxie was just ahead of Mac on the stairs, when he heard the crunch of tires ripping the red-gravel driveway. Though the vehicle hadn’t yet come in sight, he took hold of her shoulders and turned her round. “Quickly now, back upstairs.”
Patting her derriere to make her climb faster, he reminded her, “Once you’re inside lock the attic, then go down the backstairs. You’ll be able to watch what’s happening on the monitor. But if you hear anyone coming, duck back and hide on the stairs.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll be okay. They want money and nothing is likely to happen to me until they have that.”
She halted, her feet one step from the second landing. “Mac, you shouldn’t have to do this alone.”
“Damn it, Roxie, keep moving. Don’t you realize having you there increases the threat to me? I can’t chance it.”
Her lips trembled and her tears added brilliance to her eyes as she asked, “Because you’re not indestructible after all? Because this time you’d have to let them shoot me?”
God, had he done a number on her when he’d conned her into believing he was a Chechen rebel.
Instead of her remembering how he’d poured his heart and soul into their lovemaking, she couldn’t forget the lies he’d told.
He experienced a sudden urge to get out of the spy business.
It had already taken part of his honor, and if he left it too late the secrets and lies would eat up the man he’d once believed himself to be.
“No matter what I told you in the beginning, the danger to me will come from not being able to let them shoot you. Did you ever think maybe I’m not as bad as I painted myself?”
She swallowed hard and brushed away the tears with her hands. “I’ve always been an optimistic kind of woman.”
He took her hand away from her eyes and kissed it, tasted the salty residue of her sorrow. “Good. Maybe later we’ll discover your optimism wasn’t in vain.”
Mac pressed the coil of wire he’d attached to two small metal bars into her hand. He’d had it stuck in his pocket for more than a day.
“What’s this?” Roxie stared hard at the weapon in her hand.
“A weapon of last resort.”
She pushed it away, her expression distasteful. “I don’t think it’s necessary”
“Look, I’ll need my knife if they confiscate my gun. At least this will slightly adjust the odds in your favor.”
He heard heavy footsteps on the flagstones below. “Scoot, now. I want to be at the foot of the stairs when Sevarin arrives.”
Before he could move away, Roxie flung an arm around his neck and kissed him hard on the lips. “Take care,” she said, “Extreme care. I’ve an awful feeling I’ll never see you again.”
Mac kissed her hard. Tongue and teeth coming into play as he realized he never wanted to let her go. “You’ll see me again. We’re meant to be together, trust me.”
Trust me. Easy to say, not so easy to carry through.
Roxie hurried to the attic. She wanted to be able to trust him, and she would, with her life. But the men he was dealing with? Never. And if Sevarin kept his word for once, how could she let Mac walk away with Green Shield?
She would have to turn him in.
Roxie felt that Mac now knew to be on his guard with Sevarin. But nothing she’d said had persuaded him to escape with her while they had a chance.
Voices drifted up from below as she dived across the landing. Once she’d turned the key in the lock, she breathed easier.
As she leaned her back on the door, her eyes darted around the attic. She hadn’t brought much, but she intended taking it all with her when she left.
The euros in her purse would probably come in handy.
Hurrying, she thrust her arms into her coatsleeves and dashed over to the armoire. It would take every bit of her strength to swivel it out from the wall.
She turned and looked back at the unmade bed, at the tangle of quilts and covers. Her life had changed in that bed.
Not when Mac had made love to her, momentous and earth-shattering as it had been. No, it was that first night when he’d thrown himself into the pretence of having sex with her.
She’d known then that no matter which cause he followed, Mac wasn’t a bad guy at heart.
Attraction had already been simmering between them, and a look or a sigh then could have set the sexual time bomb off.
But he hadn’t taken advantage of knowing her protests for what they were. Words. Hot air.
Conversation had been glaring by its absence this morning, as if the lack of a condom wasn’t worth mentioning. The fact would loom large in the next couple of weeks.
Not because she was frightened that she’d become pregnant.
Deep in her mind where her greatest fears lived, the thought of never seeing Mac again haunted her. But, if he’d left her with one small piece of himself…
She turned and fled down the stairs, oblivious to the spider-webs floating in the darkness, as she finally admitted she’d fallen in love with a man determined to stand in harm’s way.
Sevarin didn’t look nearly as large as the publicity he’d always courted suggested. The long pearl-gray coat hanging from the older man’s shoulders, as well as the white scarf and tan leather gloves, gave him a foppish air at odds with the liquid death he was selling.
Silver-haired Sevarin had been playing elder statesman in French politics for many years, but always on the fringes, never quite reaching the heights he aspired to.
Just as well, decided Mac.
What he, as well as most French
citizens, had taken for polish came off as oiliness this morning. It dripped from the smile Sevarin assumed as he offered to shake Mac’s hand.
The Makarov Mac clutched in his right fist was as good an excuse as any to refuse contact, considering both Zukah and Yves were armed. Sevarin turned away with typical French nonchalance.
Mac on the other hand went straight for the throat. “You’ve taken your own good time about getting here, Sevarin. I’d just made up my mind to leave, today.”
Victoire Sevarin parried, “Without what you came for, I think not, Monsieur Makjzajev.”
“Some things come at too high a price,” quipped Mac.
And so the verbal cut and thrust went on in the foyer without a winner until Mac asked, “I hope you came here prepared to give me a demonstration.”
“Since you insisted, yes. That’s what took the extra time, but I trust you’ll be satisfied by the efforts I’ve gone to.” Sevarin abruptly swung around to face the entrance. The hem of his coat sliced the air in a semicircle.
As Mac watched, a man wearing a chauffeur’s cap assisted Jean-Luc to carry what looked like a large glass aquarium up the broad outside steps.
Sevarin looked at the Algerian. “Ahmed, there’s a tray of plants in the trunk, be so good as to bring them in.”
Zukah hesitated and threw a glance at Yves, who was still showing signs of the beating Mac had given him. “But…”
A look passed between Sevarin and Yves that boded ill for Zukah. The old order changeth, thought Mac as the hairs on the back of his neck rose, a warning of what was to come.
“Take that through to the kitchen. We’ll retire there for the demonstration,” instructed Sevarin.
Mac had a feeling if Sevarin said, “Jump,” the others would say, “How high?”
The only mistake Mac made was entering the kitchen before discovering the chauffeur hadn’t been the only other person in the car with Sevarin.
The new guy announced his presence by pushing the muzzle of a pistol between Mac’s ribs around heart level.
The gun felt big enough to make a good-size hole in the back of Mac’s leather jacket.
Concerned as he was for his own safety, he felt a certain reluctance to be shot down with Roxie watching on the monitor. “This isn’t in the manual on good business practices.”
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