Close Pursuit

by Cindy Dees

  When that failed to satisfy him, however, he picked her up again without pulling out of her. This time he backed her up against a heavy, soft drape. She grabbed the fabric high over her head and hung on for dear life as he drove up and into her with powerful, flexing thrusts of his buttocks beneath her calves. He used her weight against her, to drive her down onto him without recourse. This must be what plundering was. She was completely defenseless against him, and he took whatever he wanted from her body. And, God help her, she was glad to let him. Complete surrender roared through her, and she handed herself over to it. To him.

  “Never stop,” she groaned in an excess of pleasure.

  “Sing for me, Katie. This room is soundproof.”

  Sing she did. She moaned and sobbed and even screamed as Alex drove her completely out of her mind. When her arms trembled with fatigue, he spun her away from the window and they bounced down onto his bed. Her body lifted wildly to his, matching his urgent rhythm, joining in the chase for whatever demons drove him.

  He grabbed her hips and pulled her to him hard. She rose willingly in his hands, giving herself to him without reservation. She literally sobbed in gratitude as he filled her over and over, harder and harder, faster and faster. She lost herself in an alternate universe where nothing existed but Alex and the raging inferno between the two of them. If this was war, let it never end. Time ceased to have meaning as the conflagration roared around them, consuming everything she’d ever been before this moment.

  And somewhere in the glorious madness, something shifted between them. Changed. It was as if he didn’t know quite what to make of her unconditional surrender. Like it was unexpected. Reluctantly, at first, he absorbed it into himself. And as he did so, the violent edge left their sex. It was still hard and fast and he pounded deep inside her. But they both wanted it, strained together toward wherever it was heading. They drove each other higher in mutual wildness.

  She urged him on, praising him and pleading with him. Finally, when all words failed her, and she was crying out in continuous, endless release, her body exploded and kept on exploding like the climax of a mighty fireworks display around him.

  Alex’s shout joined hers and he slammed into her one last time, staying buried deep within her for an eternity while his body pulsed within hers. For her part, she accepted everything he had to give her, pulling it deep into her soul.

  She went limp beneath him, physically and emotionally drained, but she kept holding him tightly in her arms. Thankfully, he made no immediate effort to move away from her.

  Gradually, her breathing slowed and his did the same. She registered that his bedroom was spacious and dark and cold. After a lovely eternity with his reassuring weight on top of her, pressing her deep into the mattress, he rolled away and got to his feet to stand beside the bed. He yanked the bed covers out from under her and then tossed them back up over her.

  “Sleep,” Alex ordered.

  Ahh, chalk up another point for her. He was feeling his loss of control keenly enough to order her around now. Smiling into the darkness, she asked, “Aren’t you going to join me?”

  His shadow moved toward another doorway, not the one they’d come in earlier. “Maybe later.”

  Which, in Alex-speak, was a big, fat no. He slipped out of the room. She felt bereft all of a sudden. Abandoned. Why hadn’t he stayed with her to cuddle? He had eventually let go of the terrible tension making him vibrate in explicable fury earlier. Or was this all part of his larger plan to convince her of what a twisted, unlovable bastard he was?

  Thing was, he’d given her nothing but pleasure and more pleasure tonight. He talked a big game about not being a nice guy, but she had yet to see any real evidence of it.

  She got that his life was complicated. That his father was an SOB. That both the CIA and the FSB made a hobby of harassing him, and that neither agency trusted him. But a little at a time, he seemed to be carving out a life for himself. He’d broken with his father when Peter went back to Russia. He’d gone to medical school. He’d landed a job with a humanitarian aid outfit. And now, he’d taken in a woman and a baby, for crying out loud. Where was the many-colored bastard he claimed to be?

  He’d been tense and angry tonight, but she would eventually get him to talk about what had made him so uptight. Yeah, he’d been pretty aggressive with her at the start of their sex tonight, but it wasn’t like she hadn’t been goading him for days. And he’d changed his tune before they were done making love. For a minute there, they’d shared a real emotional connection. He could deny it all he liked, but she knew what she’d felt from him. And he knew it, too, or he wouldn’t have bolted out of here the second he could walk. Yup, all in all, tonight had been a definite win for her.

  But next time she wasn’t letting him go when he tried to walk away from her.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  ALEX POURED HIMSELF another glass of whiskey and stared down into its amber depths in search of answers. How in the hell had she done that to him? She’d stripped away every single urge from him to do anything but make her scream with pleasure. His M.O. was to relish deprivation of pleasure. He didn’t get off on causing pain, but he always made sure the women he had sex with didn’t enjoy it particularly. He took his pleasure alone. The shrinks all said it was a subconscious desire to punish his mother for leaving him.

  But Katie, lamb-for-the-slaughter Katie, had smashed the mold to smithereens. Katie, the CIA plant trying to trap him into working for the agency. Katie, the superb actress and damned liar. Except he’d watched her body flush with pleasure, watched her shudder with orgasm after orgasm, heard the cries torn from her throat. Nobody—nobody—could fake all of that. And he’d been completely, fucking totally unable to resist her.

  He’d had sex with some seriously accomplished high-dollar whores. Some had tried to fake enjoying themselves with him over the years because they thought that was what he wanted. They hadn’t understood it was the one thing he didn’t want from them. They’d been professional fakers, and they couldn’t have pulled off faking what had just happened between him and Katie half so well. No, Katie’s reactions had been real.

  What the hell does it mean?

  Was it possible that she was actually who she said she was? A kindergarten teacher who’d been thrown in his path by sheer chance? And she just happened to have an uncle who was a high-ranking CIA official?

  No way. Hell, he should be complimented that the CIA had sent its very best whore to seduce him.

  He tossed down the whiskey in a single angry gulp. It burned its way to his gut like acid. He glared at the cell phone on its desk, now full of damning photographs of Katie in the most compromising possible positions. Why did she let him take the pictures in the first place? Shouldn’t she have been the one trying to get damning photographs of him? She’d probably gone along with it to gain his trust. Yeah, that made sense.

  There was no chance she was an innocent. Which left him with one logical course of action. He had to turn the woman who was trying to turn him. He had to addict her to him so completely that she served him over all others, that she abandoned any previous loyalties and clung only to him. And if that didn’t work, he always had the pictures.

  But something deep within him rebelled at the notion of brainwashing or blackmailing her. Tonight, her reaction to him had been entirely voluntary. Whore though she might be, she seemed genuinely attracted to him. No question she had truly enjoyed having sex with him. It was a first for him. And it was addictive, dammit.

  He could not afford to indulge in any addictions right now. The FSB and the CIA were breathing down his throat, both trying hard to rope him into working for them. Someone had hired that American in Zaghastan to kill him. At any minute, that person would send a more accomplished assassin after him, assuming it hadn’t been done already.

  God knew what game his father was playing now, but he dreaded what Peter would do to Katie and Dawn if Alex let either of them out of his sight.

  He defi
nitely could not afford to have feelings for sweet Katie McCloud. She might be by far the best sex he’d ever had, but he could not fall for her. Not now. Not ever. His head said to get rid of her immediately, but his lust shouted in no uncertain terms that he was not done with her yet. Did he dare continue sleeping with her? Was he strong enough to hold himself emotionally apart from her while he sated his bodily needs with her? Hell. It wasn’t only his bodily needs she fulfilled, and he was a fool to pretend otherwise. He loved being loved a little.

  He swore violently and tossed back another whiskey before stretching out on the couch in his office. He might have given her his bed tonight, but he wasn’t about to give her his soul. Or at least what tiny piece of it he clung to precariously.

  * * *

  KATIE WOKE UP slowly. Soft cotton beneath her cheek and an insanely comfortable mattress lulled her back to sleep several times before she finally roused for good. The sheets were black. She frowned. Where was she—

  Memory flooded back all at once of the D.U. party with Alex. Him cutting her dress off her. Everything that followed. She’d given herself over to him completely, and he’d made her scream like he’d said he would. Even now, a shudder of delight passed through her to remember the things he’d done to her and with her.

  She sat up in the gigantic bed, stretching out the kinks, and looked around the big bedroom. The room was trashed. Their sex had apparently been as rambunctious as she remembered. But the far side of the comforter was still neatly tucked in.

  He hadn’t joined her last night, after she’d fallen asleep, then. No surprise. She seemed to freak him out more than a little. Which she chose to take as a good sign that she was getting through those emotional walls of his.

  Naked, she climbed out of bed. There was no sign of her ruined dress anywhere. She peeked through a closed door and found a perfectly organized walk-in closet. Did Alex keep the thing that neat, or did he have a butler stashed around here somewhere?

  She tried another door. This one led to the master bath. It retained a faint trace of humidity as if Alex had been in there since last night to shower. She did the same now. Funny how, ever since Zaghastan, she relished hot showers and the act of washing her hair so much more than before.

  The hot water pounded away most of her soreness from last night. She dried off, wrapped the biggest towel she could find around herself and prayed for luck. All her clothes were in the guest bedroom, and there might still be a nun in the condo somewhere.

  She sneaked into the hallway and crept down the hall to her room, freezing guiltily when she heard the nun’s voice in the kitchen, talking to Dawn. Katie dived into the guest room and eased the door shut quickly. Breathing a sigh of relief, she blow-dried her hair, put on a little eye makeup and dressed.

  Pasting on a bright smile, she stepped into the kitchen and called a cheery hello to Sister Mary Harris. Chicken that she was, Katie stuck her head in the refrigerator immediately and went hunting for orange juice rather than look the nun in the eye.

  The nun looked up from a skillet of scrambled eggs loaded with chopped ham and minced vegetables. It looked insanely tasty. “I figured you’d be hungry after your big night last night,” the nun announced.

  Katie choked on the orange juice she was downing but managed not to spew it all over the counter. “Where’s Alex?” she asked when she recovered her breath.

  “He left a while ago. Said he’d be back later this morning.”

  Hmm. She didn’t know whether to be worried by that or not. She supposed it was all part of his secretive personality not to share where he was going with her. “How’s Dawn?”

  “A perfect angel. Slept six hours last night between feedings. Eats well. Digestion regular.”

  Katie moved over to the baby, who was wriggling happily in a car seat strapped securely to a kitchen chair. Clever improvisation of a high chair. “Good morning, sweetie.”

  The baby gurgled almost as if answering her.

  Sister Mary Harris commented, “She reacts to you like you’re her mother. And yet Alex says she’s not your biological child?”

  “Alex delivered Dawn, but her mother died in childbirth. We were in the middle of a battle and had to flee, so we took Dawn with us.”

  “What does Alex think of her?” the nun asked carefully.

  “He’s great with her. He feeds her and changes her and spoils her.”

  “Does he hold her?”

  Katie turned her full attention on the nun, who suddenly was very busy plating up the scrambled eggs and slices of bacon she pulled out of a warming drawer. “He does hold her. Quite often, in fact. Why do you ask?”

  The nun sat down at the table, murmured a blessing and deliberately unfolded a napkin in her lap before answering. “Alex has never been one to show much affection. He never liked to touch others or be touched.”

  Katie frowned. “He held me a bunch during our escape from Zaghastan. I was scared a lot. And he cuddles with Dawn all the time.”

  “Indeed?” the nun blurted. She eyed Katie with renewed interest, while Katie eyed her back in surprise.

  She was first to look down, diving with gusto into her eggs. They ate in silence for several minutes before Sister Mary Harris spoke up again. “I always believed Alex was trying to punish himself by denying himself physical contact with others.”

  Katie looked up quickly. “Punish himself for what?”

  The nun shrugged. “Maybe for driving his mother away. Later, he took the sins of the father upon himself. No matter how often priests absolved him, he never seemed to believe them.”

  “How did he drive his mother away? He told me she left when he was a baby.”

  “She did. And he didn’t. But he always had a tendency to take responsibility for everyone around him. He’s a very protective person.”

  Interesting. “Tell me something, Sister. Has he always struggled to let people love him?”

  The nun laughed merrily. “Struggled is not the word I would use. Flatly refusing to let people love him would be more accurate.”

  “Why’s that?”

  The nun leaned forward and said intently, “Where, in his past, did anyone give him the idea that he’s lovable? His mother abandoned him. His father ignored him. He bounced from school to school as his father moved around the country. His only parent treated him like a spy recruit in need of constant correction and training. Where was the love?”

  “Can you tell me more about his father?”

  “Not really. We only saw him when he dropped off Alex at the beginning of each school year. And then, after his arrest, Alex was practically one of our orphans. To our knowledge, he has no other living family whatsoever. As I recall, a lawyer did an extensive search for someone to whom Alex could be given to raise.”

  “And there was no one?”

  The nun shrugged. “No one came forward to claim him.”

  And didn’t that comment just shed all kinds of light on Alex claiming Dawn the way he had? He knew what it was like to have no one at all. Katie stood and carried her plate and the nun’s over to the sink. She rinsed them thoughtfully and put them into the dishwasher.

  “I’ll finish cleaning up here,” the nun murmured.

  Katie was drying her hands when her cell phone vibrated in her jeans pocket. She pulled it out quickly, hoping it was Alex.

  It was not. Instead, the text read, I need to speak with you this morning. It’s urgent. Has to do with your friend. My office, one hour. Say nothing to him about it.

  She recognized the phone number and turned to ask the nun, “Do you need to be somewhere this morning, or could I duck out for a little while to take care of some business and leave you with Dawn?”

  “I’m retired, dear. I don’t have to be anywhere until I join my Maker. You go on. Dawn and I will have a stroll around Mr. Alex’s lovely garden and then maybe take a little nap.”

  “Thank you,” Katie said gratefully. On impulse she hugged the elderly nun. “For everything.”

/>   Sister Mary Harris patted Katie’s cheek. “God bless you, child. And may you bless Alex. He needs you more than you know.”

  Stunned, Katie stared down at the small woman. “From your mouth to God’s ear,” she muttered.

  The nun laughed gaily. “I’ll see what I can do about that. Now go on. Dawn and I will be fine.”

  Katie hurried outside and walked down the block to the nearest Metro stop. She pulled out her Metro card, which had managed to survive a war zone and her wild escape from it. Her mind whirling from what the nun had revealed about Alex, she rode to the Langley stop.

  After passing through the security checkpoint outside, she stopped at the visitor’s desk at CIA headquarters. “I’m here to see Charles McCloud. He’s expecting me.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  ALEX STRODE UP to the receptionist’s high counter at the expensive law firm in downtown Washington.

  “Good morning, sir. May I help you?”

  New girl. Didn’t know him. And, furthermore, she was flirting with him. Today it irritated him, which irritated him even more. He ought to at least mentally size her up. But instead he had no desire at all to check her out. Dammit. He had it worse for Katie than he’d realized in his whiskey-induced fog last night.

  Swearing to himself, he bit out, “Please tell Chester Morton that Alex Peters is here to see him. He’s not expecting me.”

  “If y’all will take a seat, sir, I’ll ring him right up. And if there’s anything I can do to make y’all comfortable, just lemme know,” the girl drawled in a thick Southern accent.

  He took the farthest chair away from the aggressively interested girl in the waiting area and opened the Wall Street Journal on his tablet computer. But he didn’t read the news in front of him. Instead, his brain churned. Since when didn’t he check out attractive young females? He wasn’t a sexual predator by any means, but neither was he dead. He knew he was handsome. He knew the dark, dangerous aura that clung to him attracted a certain kind of woman. He was accustomed to women making overtures to him, and he generally returned the interest.