Her legs were hot and trembling, and they couldn’t hold her up any longer. She gasped and caught at his shoulders as he ran his fingers along her inner thighs, teasing in the aftermath of his long fingers with tiny, burning touches of his tongue. Her fingers clawed unwittingly into his muscles; they moved and tugged upon his hair desperately.
He slowly came back up to face her, holding her securely with the power of his arms. He kissed her long and deeply, then nibbled against the soft flesh of her neck and shoulder blades. “I need you, Erin,” he murmured tensely. She nodded. She wasn’t really aware of anything—her desire had grown too ardent. She clung to him while she fulfilled her need to touch him, run her fingers with fascination across his shoulders, feeling the suppleness of his muscles. She touched his male nipples with her fingertips and leaned to touch one with her tongue, grazing it with her teeth as she allowed her hands to explore lower. His belly was like a drum. She wanted more. She began to run her fingers beneath the band of his jeans and when he inhaled sharply she became bolder, searching out the buckle of his belt and loosening it, sliding the zipper down with her trembling fingers. He groaned deeply as she slid her hands inside the material below his hips, forcing both jeans and briefs to give and slide down over the shapely columns of his legs. Like him she followed the material until it hit the floor, and spurred by the resonant and labored breathing that came from him, rising and falling in his sinewed chest, she taunted him in return, feathering her nails over his thighs, rendering tiny, nipping kisses all along them. She felt even their strength quiver. She knew fully what she did to him, and that power was a beautiful, soaring triumph. She knew, too, how he did need her, desire her; the throbbing evidence was hers, as was the guttural assurance he gave her in a throaty, deep rough velvet, as his fingers twined through the gold strands of her hair. A maelstrom swirled within her, a soaring of passion and need so deep it was all-consuming. Wantonly she continued to taunt him to a fury, boldly taking him, reveling in the feel of him, touching, feathering, teasing….
“Damn, woman, you’re driving me wild,” he suddenly exclaimed, catching her wrists and pulling her to her feet to sweep her into his powerful arms and carry her back to the bed. He had given her dominance; now he was taking it back. He pinioned her arms above her head as he came down over her, holding her as she writhed beneath him in protest. He held her firm. She had flinched only slightly as he gripped her wrists, but he firmly persisted. Even with him, her emotional scars would take time to heal. His gentle, firm persistence was rewarded. Although she struggled against him, it was not with panic, but with the desire to touch him in return.
“Tease me to insanity, would you?” he queried her, blue fire clashing with pure shimmering silver as he caught her eyes. And then he proceeded to inflict a series of alternately light and demanding kisses over her breasts with mouth and teeth and tongue all moving sensuously until she shrieked out a plea.
Jarod wedged a knee between her thighs and rubbed his body against hers, savoring the undulation of her burning flesh. “Oh, Lord, what you do to me,” he breathed, fitting his hand beneath her to raise her buttocks and hold her firm against him as he gave way to the rampant fever that riddled him and entered her with an explosion of burning hunger. They groaned out together with the deliciousness of that intimate contact, and he held still for a minute, cradling her against him, tenderly cherishing her hair as he buried his head against her neck. They both needed that split second to savor the instant of filling, and being filled.
And then the passion began to mount wildly, the maelstrom swirled full force. The world was dark and misty all at once, ethereal and primitively real. Spirit and the basic needs of flesh and blood made beautiful by the deepest hunger, the deepest giving.
Their passion mounted, tender and savage, slow, and then in tempestuous rhythm that seemed to soar above and defy even the stars that stretched across the heavens. The explosion was blinding white sunlight, so agonizingly good that it left Erin breathless, motionless, powerless, not sure if she were conscious or unconscious or even still alive. Time was at a standstill as she waited to drift back to reality.
She didn’t mind drifting back to reality because he was still beside her. She was held in the strong security of his arms. She would sleep beside him, able to wake and marvel at the length and breadth of his hands, explore the coarse dark curls that thrived over his chest and created new fields far below his waist.
His hand rested now just below her breast, his muscled thigh and knee cast haphazardly over hers.
She was still dizzy with the delight of having made love with him. As she drifted into a satiated and comfortable sleep, her head rested against his chest, her cheek touched by the pound of his heart and the steady rise and fall of his breathing, she didn’t care that her life was a shambles.
He stirred slightly and brushed a kiss against her temple. “You’ve bewitched me, my golden angel,” he murmured. “I am a man beguiled and bewitched.”
And I, Erin thought, am afraid that I am yours … purely your possession.
INTERLUDE
HE WHISTLED SOFTLY AS he walked down the long white hall. When he sat and gained admission to the computer, his fingers flew across the keys.
GOOD MORNING, CATHERINE. IT IS A BEAUTIFUL FIFTY DEGREES OUTSIDE. IT LOOKS AS IF THE SNOW IS ACTUALLY MELTING, AND THE SUN IS BLAZING ACROSS THE SKY LIKE A BANNER OF GOLD.
The computer whizzed for a moment, as if confused. Computers, Jarod assured himself, couldn’t be confused. But, he was about to discover, they could be wise-asses.
HAD A NICE NIGHT, HUH, JAROD STEELE?
“Pity that the guy who programmed you is in New York,” Jarod muttered aloud. “I’d like to throttle him.”
YES, I HAD A NICE NIGHT. BUT IT’S REAL SPRING NOW, CATHERINE, IT’S FINALLY BECOMING SPRING. YOU SHOULD SEE NEW YORK IN THE SPRING. THE HARBOR … CENTRAL PARK … GRASS JUST TURNING GREEN AND FLOWERS COMING OUT IN BRILLIANT COLORS.
“What the hell am I doing?” he groaned aloud. “Telling a damned computer about spring.” Catherine whirred and printed a line across the screen.
YOU ARE HOMESICK, JAROD STEELE.
He stared at the words pensively. Yes, he was homesick. He loved much of the land that had been his mother’s, he understood her problems as few as other men, he sometimes even understood the minds of the men that ran her. But she was an adopted land. And right now, with the mounting tension of petty problems that demanded his time while he sought the answer to a crucial dilemma that ridiculously eluded him, he couldn’t help but ache for a sight of his home, his land. The harbor. The World Trade towers, the beach out on Long Island with the wind and the salt spray and the eternal hot dog vendors….
He would be going home soon—to see Erin home. Strangely, that thought was giving him little comfort. In fact, it gave him a tearing pain in the gut. He was growing accustomed to her being there. And face it, he was eager for night to come again, and damned grateful to the friends who were coming and forcing them to maintain close living quarters.
He heard the sound of his teeth grating together before he realized he was grinding them. It was incredible how he wanted her, again and again and again. It was even more incredible how he enjoyed her in the house, her beautiful blond head lifting from a task that interested her to curiously meet his gaze with those fine, silver mercury eyes.
But she could hardly wait to leave. Return to New York, to the fascinating world that held her with the esteem due a queen. Her first trip once she stepped off a plane would probably be to a lawyer’s office to seek a divorce. Which was fine with him. He had no room for a wife, he didn’t want a wife. Still, sometimes, when he thought of the word, he would feel a cleansing pain and he would remember that “wife” had meant Cara.
But Erin was his wife, and he wanted her. Waking beside her had made the sun brilliant. The orb in the sky had streaked a flow of gold through the window and touched upon her tangled tendrils of hair to highlight them to spun filigree. H
er eyes had half opened with lazy contentment when he had kissed her good-bye, her lips had curled sweetly. He’d needed a great deal of control to force himself to walk out the door rather than start shedding clothes to crawl back in bed beside her and explore the fascinating prospect of teasing her fully awake.
A buzzing sound suddenly permeated his thoughts. He glanced back at the computer’s screen and scowled.
NICE NIGHT IS OVER, JAROD STEELE. COMMAND, COMMAND, COMMAND, COMMAND?
OKAY! COMMAND: INFORMATION FEED TO PROCEED CONVERSE, PROBABILITIES AND LOGIC.
Catherine whirred for a second, and Jarod shook himself. He had to get his personal life under control.
Jarod began to fill in all recent facts. Ivan had known nothing, but from his lack of knowledge they had still learned that none of the underlings ever knew with whom they dealt. One-strip messages—or sometimes just verbal numbers, ciphers that put together the halves of a code—passed from stranger to stranger—strangers who would never see one another again. Ivan didn’t know the key codes, or how they were passed.
And yet Ivan had given them a great deal of information that pointed strenuously toward the clearing of Erin McCabe, code name Mc. She had been an intended victim of complicity, a decoy. Ivan admitted suggesting that Erin be at Red Square at midnight, but nothing had been intended for her that night. With everyone watching Erin, they would be too involved to catch the real action.
Ivan hadn’t known whether anything involving Erin was still in the workings or not. But a celebrity such as Miss McCabe … well, it seemed logical that she would pass through customs easily, while her baggage could be handled without her ever knowing it, codes and secrets transferred with no one ever the wiser.
Except that Ivan had been caught and no one had been able to use Erin for anything except a shield. Which they had all fallen for!
The espionage had gone on. The U.S. had recently purchased information about a nuclear buildup in the Mongolian desert, luckily proven fictitious in time. Sergei had informed Jarod that equally agitating information had recently been sold to the Soviets about bombs being planted in the chambers of the Supreme Soviet. The chambers had been emptied, the rulers had waited anxiously, planning retaliatory action, and then nothing had happened. They had felt like fools. They had hastily and desperately called off reprisals.
And we both keep believing the information, Jarod thought with disgust. But he knew the information sold to both sides was taken because it always came to them with other little tidbits that were known to be true—things one diplomat might say to another. They all knew there were certain games to be played, and beyond the official, diplomatic barrier they admitted to themselves they were game players.
Jarod stopped typing and stared at the screen. Erin was innocent, and had always been innocent. Unless she were in with someone. He didn’t believe that, but his instincts had been correct. She had been involved. Long before he had seen her name on the visa list, someone else had been planning to keep a sharp eye on Erin McCabe.
At least he had thwarted the agitator thus far. Erin McCabe had become Erin Steele. Under his protection she was no use as a carrier—but possibly useful again as a source of information about his own whereabouts and movements.
Useful, Jarod thought. Useful only. She hadn’t given him away knowingly the night of the shots. He was sure of it; he wanted to be sure of it.
Several people might have known. After all, Sergei had found him. And an offhand word spoken in any company could have alerted any number of people who might have spoken another offhand word—until the word reached that one person who needed to know.
OKAY, CATHERINE. WE’RE NARROWING THE FIELD. I KNOW WE’RE STILL LOOKING WITHIN THE EMBASSY ITSELF. BROKEN CODE SHOWS INFORMATION HAD TO COME FROM INSIDER. THAT MAKES PRIME SUSPECT GIL SAYER. HE IS THE
Catherine interrupted.
NOT SO. JOE MAHONEY IS ALSO TOP EMBASSY. AND THERE ARE ALSO OTHERS. YOU MUST BEAR IN MIND THAT YOU DO NOT LIKE GIL SAYER.
Jarod narrowed his eyes and compressed his lips.
THAT MAY BE TRUE, BUT IRRELEVANT. JOE MAHONEY IS A CAREER DIPLOMAT. HE IS NEAR RETIREMENT. WHY WOULD HE …
YOU JUST HIT UPON IT, JAROD STEELE. NEAR RETIREMENT. A LIFE OF SERVICE AND MAYBE NOT ENOUGH REWARD.
Jarod typed stubbornly.
I STILL SAY GIL SAYER.
AND WHAT ABOUT YOUR WIFE? DID SHE, OR DID SHE NOT, WILLFULLY CARRY THE INFORMATION? SHE CALLS HIM: DATES AND TIMES ARE LISTED IF YOU WISH.
NO!
Could he be having an argument with Catherine the Great? Yes, of course, that was partially why he had come. Catherine would force him to face the facts he wanted to ignore.
He closed his eyes, remembering the night he had gone to the square, felt the bullets whiz by close enough to create a breeze that lifted his hair. She had known where he was going. She had been whispering to Gil in the kitchen, but she had denied talking to him.
He printed almost absently:
IT’S SAYER.
Catherine promptly responded:
OR MAHONEY.
They were running in circles.
CATHERINE, THANKS A LOT. IT WAS A BEAUTIFUL DAY.
SORRY, JAROD STEELE.
I WILL CATCH GIL SAYER IN THE ACT.
SURE.
CATHERINE, YOU’RE A PAIN …
He stopped printing and smiled dryly, remembering Erin’s face suddenly, the haughty tilt of her chin as she told him he could hardly expect tremendous loyalty from her when he spent all his time with Catherine. She had actually sounded jealous, and he had enjoyed the blazing shimmer of silver mercury in her eyes.
SCRATCH THAT, CATHERINE. I THINK I DO LOVE YOU!
YOU’RE INSANE, JAROD STEELE.
YEAH, CATHERINE, MAYBE.
He stared at the screen blankly for a minute, sighed, and started to check out, then paused as he saw Catherine printing out another message.
HAVE ANOTHER NICE NIGHT, JAROD STEELE.
Suddenly, he was laughing.
THANKS, CATHERINE. I INTEND TO.
XII
“YOUR NOSE IS GOING to permanently flatten against that pane if you stare out that window any longer!” Ted affectionately teased his wife.
Mary drew her head away from the window to make a face at her husband. The Aeroflot plane which had brought them in from Paris had just ceased the hum of its engines, and all around them the other passengers were busily gathering their belongings.
“We don’t even know that they’re meeting us,” Ted said gently. “I mean, after all, you didn’t even give Erin a chance to tell you that it might be an inconvenient time for us come.”
“Oh, Ted!” Mary whirled back to her husband. “I couldn’t give her a chance to say no! We need to be here! I can’t believe that Erin has married again—and so quickly! I have to be here in case something goes wrong. Ted, you didn’t see her the night she left Marc. If something goes wrong now, she’ll be shattered, she’ll need me.”
Ted caught his wife’s hand. “I think you’re wrong, Mary. I think Erin is much stronger than you realize.”
Mary turned back to the window. “And I know Erin—she will be here to meet us.” Mary’s voice trailed away as her eyes lit upon Erin and the man beside her.
They were easy to find, incredibly easy, both so tall and trim and magnificently handsome. Erin looked great; her golden hair was loose and waved over the shoulders of her trenchcoat. There was an anticipatory smile on her lips, and that sleek air of elegance and sophistication that she always wore.
She really looks just fine, Mary thought with a little surprise, and then her eyes were pulled and riveted to the man upon whose arm her friend’s delicately slender fingers rested.
He was tall, very tall, she noticed; he stood several inches above Erin. His physique was lean and trim, but she immediately noted the breadth of his shoulders and astutely ascertained that his trimness was all muscle, toned, as tightly as stretched canvas. Then she realized that she was no longer notic
ing his physique because her eyes had been riveted to his. Mary entertained a small shiver. She had never seen such eyes. Even from this distance she could tell that they were blue … the blue of the sky after a snowstorm … piercing, direct. She had the strange feeling that they could also sizzle with all the thunder and tempest that preceded a raging storm.
He bent his head suddenly to listen to something that Erin was saying, and in that small gesture Mary saw something that she liked: a natural courtesy, a protective quality. He straightened again, and she thought that the two of them together were as handsome as a king and queen from another time, larger than life, a little more elegant, taller, stronger, more royal, more lithe, more superbly formed and created … the ethereally lovely woman and the man who was not beautiful but rugged and alert and compelling.
If she were a psychic, Mary thought fleetingly, she would be seeing an aura of power and assurance about him that encircled him with the tenacious rays of a blinding sun.
George suddenly elbowed her arm lightly. “Think we might get off the plane?” he drawled with amusement.
“Oh, shush!” Mary wailed. “See—I told you Erin would be here to meet us!”
And they were well met. The dazzling smile which had made Erin famous streaked across her beautiful features, and she shouted and waved until she had crushed them both with bear hugs amazingly strong for one so slender.
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