Abruptly Grachev broke off, and the light bulb of a new connection fired behind his eyes.
“Victor Tarasovich, there is one thing,” he said slowly, sliding a glance left and right, “though you understand this information is restricted, and I cannot divulge the source. In recent weeks, our observers have reported a sharply increased U.S. naval presence in the Black Sea. So far, the Americans appear to have remained strictly within international waters, so we’ve had little justification to protest.
“However, we’ve also observed an increased traffic by certain ‘commercial vessels’sailing under various flags, lingering without purpose in the direct vicinity of the accident. Since commercial vessels as a rule do not linger, but steam about their business as efficiently as possible, one might conjecture…”
The admiral hesitated, and Victor finished the thought.
“One might conjecture that the American navy has used its own methods to discover the final resting place of the V.I. Lenin. They may be hoping to raise her. Or, more likely, to salvage at least one of her nuclear-tipped missiles or other sensitive systems. Such precise knowledge of our nuclear deterrent could tip the strategic balance well away from the Motherland.”
“If this is true,” Grachev murmured, “Moscow will do almost anything to prevent it—even at the risk of triggering a war with our old adversary.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
After their five-star dinner, Victor left with the admiral to pay a late-night visit to the naval academy. There, the two would listen to the last transmissions broadcast by his father’s sub before it went down for the last time.
Tough job for anyone, Alexis figured, but she should be relieved to have the suite—and the bed—to herself. No way she could have managed to conceal how upset she still was, not when Victor was already suspicious. Before he left with Grachev, he’d shot her a searching look that made her heart miss a beat.
As if he actually cared.
She’d made a diligent effort to find another room, but in the peak season that proved to be impossible. And she’d already told the Consular General she’d be sleeping here tonight. So it would seem pretty strange if suddenly—an emotional wreck—she rang her colleague, frantic for a place to crash.
In the end, she tossed and turned for hours in the king-sized bed with its thousand thread-count sheets. Finally she managed to drop off.
Now she was dreaming, and it was oh so good.
Of course she dreamed of Victor, tucked up against her back, those powerful sun-bronzed arms wrapped around her, his breath raising goosebumps on the back of her neck. Dreamed those rough-skinned palms were cupping her breasts, teasing her nipples until they tingled and her toes curled with pleasure.
She dreamed of his hand easing down her belly, and leaned into his questing touch. Dreamed his growl of satisfaction in her ear when he found her already wet for him.
This had to be the best, most intense wet dream she’d ever had. Though of course, she’d figured out by now that it wasn’t a dream.
Alexis pried open her eyes to find the bedroom still dark, and the illuminated clock flashing 4:15 a.m. Beside the clock, a cream-colored candle flickered, unfurling a tendril of patchouli-scented smoke. And mingling just beautifully with the woody spice of Beckham.
Victor was stretched behind her, half covering her, like a predator claiming its kill. His lips grazed her neck, sending tingles down her spine. His clever fingers explored her slick secrets, but somehow avoided the spot she most needed him to touch.
He’d lied to her, set her up and compromised her. She couldn’t do this anymore.
“Stop,” she whispered, though her body was on fire for him.
“Not likely.” His breath in her ear made her shiver. “I’ve been imagining doing this to you all night. While you sipped your champagne in your sexy dress and ignored me at dinner. Tell me, do you like this?”
“No.” She forced out the lie. But he only deepened the foreplay, one finger easing inside her. A moan slipped out as she clenched around him, feeling her resolve spin away like leaves in an autumn wind.
“How about this?” His voice deepened as he worked in a second finger, his breath quickening in her ear.
God, she loved that she turned him on. Couldn’t help it, even while she hated what he’d done. He played symphonies on her body like one of the maestros he loved, even when she wanted to kill him. Though she knew this had to be the last time. She was walking away from him in the morning and she’d never look back.
A whimper of surrender spilled out as she rolled on her back, arms stretching overhead as she arched into his touch. She snuck a look at the way the candlelight caressed his naked body, every muscle defined under that burnished skin—fully aroused and focused on her. His eyes intense as lasers under his tousled, sun-streaked hair.
He’d sported the same expression in their photo close-up. Now she knew it meant nothing to him, just sex. She closed her eyes against the sting of tears.
But she let him ease her out of the silky slip she’d been wearing. His hands closed over hers, drew her arms overhead, curled her fingers around the wrought-iron headboard.
“Don’t let go,” he murmured.
Her eyes flashed open, caught him with a look of brooding tenderness as he crouched over her. Maybe he read something in her eyes, because the furrow between his brows deepened.
“On second thought.” He coiled the slip into a rope of fabric, and wound it around her wrists. “I think I’m going to tie you.”
As usual, he didn’t ask, though she knew he’d stop if she resisted. But the predatory gleam in his electric-blue eyes, the sensual slide of silk around her wrists—the foreplay gripped her with a pang of desire so powerful she couldn’t even breathe, much less speak.
Obviously he felt the shiver work through her, since his mouth quirked up as he knotted the silk. “I’ll take that for a ‘yes’, shall I?”
Then he showed her the truth about her body and its needs, secrets about what turned her on that she’d always kept so carefully hidden, even from herself. Showed her how yielding to him so completely gave her power over both of them. No matter what he was hiding, her body trusted his, even if her brain couldn’t.
Somehow, the kinky set-up liberated her from the constant need to show a diplomat’s restraint—the need to guard herself, her heart, and its deepest secrets. Freed by the very ties that bound her, she writhed under his teasing fingers…sobbed when his tongue played against her pulsing clit…begged in both languages for his cock inside her. When he finally gave in, his cries were as hoarse as hers, his breathing as ragged, his body as driven when he thrust against her. He needed them to be together as much as she did for that brief moment, when he released hard and deep inside her.
Afterward he tugged her bonds loose and tumbled her against his chest, kissed the tears that had spilled when she climaxed. Murmured in her hair words of endearment she could almost believe he meant.
“Next time,” he rumbled, pressing her face against his neck, “I’m going to blindfold you as well. I promise you’re going to like it.”
Next time. She shivered at the sensual promise in his tone, even while she knew she couldn’t let it happen. Tonight had been their swan song—the end of their disastrous little liaison.
She gathered her resolve. “Why did you decide to tie me?”
His arms crossed behind her head, hugging her against him, so she couldn’t read his face.
“I didn’t want you to leave,” he said lightly. But something deeper lurked in his tone.
“You don’t have to tie me up for that, Victor,” she said, past the lump in her throat. “You only need to tell me the truth.”
A current of awareness ran through his body. Now he released her, his eyes probing her features.
“You spoke to Mr. Chase,” he said shrewdly. “Before dinner, yes? And what lovely little secrets did he tell you?”
That you’re an SVR agent and a liar—just like I feared. Tha
t you’re in bed with the Mafia.
That I can never trust you, so I need to get away from you.
Faced with her silence, his eyes narrowed. “He told you how I made my money, didn’t he. I thought he might.”
“Yeah.” Alexis rolled away from him and sat, dragging the sheets up and hugging her knees. “He told me about your six casinos.”
“In point of fact, I own five of them. And I didn’t acquire them the way you believe.” He pushed upright, raking a hand through his hair. “Alexis, I’m not in the Mafia.”
“No?” Though she tried to control it, hot anger sizzled up. She’d just given herself to him in every way a woman could, and he was still lying to her.
“No.” Impatiently he fumbled for his cigarettes and lighter. “Is there any point in explaining the situation, or has the American jury already reached its verdict?”
“You told me yourself about your ‘few well-timed investments.’” She shot him an appalled glance as he clamped a cigarette between his teeth and lit up. “I do hope you’re not going to smoke in bed, captain.”
He sliced her a speaking look, but thrust up and prowled naked to the window. And wasn’t that a prime view—if she’d been in the market for a Mafia kingpin. He cracked open the window, and fine needles of icy cold slashed through the steamy bedroom.
He took a long drag before he spoke, his stern profile stamped against the night.
“When I invested in these casinos, they were a legitimate business,” he muttered, scowling through the smoke. “Moscow in the ’90s was like your Chicago in the so-called Prohibition Era. You know this.”
“Yeah, I know it was violent and corrupt. Just like it is now.”
“Recall also, if you will, that I was often at sea. I needed an investment that would earn sound returns with minimal tending from me.”
“Maybe so.” She eyed him warily. He could still be lying and she’d have no way to tell. Seemed like, with him, she never could.
“And then the Lenin sank.” He exhaled a coil of smoke. “Frankly, my business investments were the last item on my mind. In fact, I became aware quite recently that when my ex-wife sold her shares, she sold them to a Mafia boss.”
She wanted to give him a chance to explain it all away. But making it easy would just make her his dupe—and that was too pathetic.
“When you realized you were co-investing with the mob,” she said, with deliberate sarcasm, “why didn’t you sell out?”
“I tried,” he said shortly. “But the Ministry of Internal Affairs was already investigating. I discovered this when an inquiry regarding my activities was launched, and I was called in to the militsia for questioning.”
“But they froze the inquiry,” she pointed out.
“Ah, Mr. Chase’s sources are truly impressive. I must remember to compliment him for this.” He frowned into the night. She could almost feel that clever brain working, deciding how much to tell her.
Tell me all of it, she yearned to say. Please. It’s the only way.
When, in fact, it was already far too late.
“Ultimately, I cut a deal,” he said abruptly. “It was entirely legal, an arrangement whose details are no longer important. As agreed, the militsia halted its investigation. I’m immersed now in the process of liquidating these troublesome investments.”
“That’s very convenient,” she said tightly, determined not to be an easy mark. “So now you’re clean, just like that?”
“Shortly I will be.” He ground out his cigarette and tossed it. Then pivoted to face her, his ice-blue eyes locking on hers. “You don’t believe me.”
“Victor—” Appalled to hear her voice break, she turned her back to him and swung her legs out of bed, reaching for her discarded slip. “I’d like to believe you. But I can’t do that anymore.”
Tears choked her throat, and she fumbled into the slip with shaking hands.
“Christ, Alexis,” he said low, the bed sinking as he climbed in behind her. His warm hands closed around her shoulders, and angrily she shrugged him off.
“It’s not a good idea to touch me right now.”
“Don’t do this.” His body engulfed her, arms folding across her breasts, hugging her hard against him. His words came out muffled in her hair. “Damn it, I know it’s a bloody mess. I know you have every reason in the world not to trust me.”
“You’ve got that right.” She stayed rigid in his arms, desperately shoring up her crumbling defenses. “Victor, this has to stop. It’s making me crazy. I can’t keep doing this, over and over….”
“Give me a chance to make it right,” he breathed against her hair, as if he wanted no one else to hear. “One chance, Alexis. I’m asking you to trust me just once more, the way you did on the train, in the forest, when I took care of you. I’m going to make it right.”
Bitterly she wondered how he planned to pull off that little stunt. They still hadn’t touched the photos, and she definitely noticed he wasn’t bringing that up. That meant he was still hiding things from her, and probably more than she thought.
“I have to go to work,” she mumbled, fighting to hold back the tears until she made it into the shower.
“It’s 0500 hours,” he pointed out, a trace of amusement lightening his grim tone. “No consulate in the world opens this early, Counselor.”
“I have a ton to do today,” she said firmly. “With only two weeks to go until the presidential visit, we’re all pulling double shifts.”
“I’m asking you for one more hour.” Holding her against him with one strong arm, he smoothed a hand over her tousled hair. “Don’t you want to hear what Pavel Germanovich and I discovered?”
The man possessed a positive talent for saying or doing the one thing that would keep her around. The U.S. still needed to avert a war with Russia, and the struggling democracy of Ukraine still needed their help to survive. She needed more than last night’s dinner chat to bring to the Ambassador.
Despite the fact that the hard muscled heat of his body was threatening to distract her all over again.
“OK,” she whispered, swiping a hand over her tears. “But I just want to talk.”
“Anything you like.” She felt his tension ease by degrees as he pulled her back into bed, and she let him. He tugged the plush duvet over them, and she burrowed into its cloud-soft depths.
Meanwhile Alexis gathered her reserves and turned her thoughts to political matters. Not easy to do at 5 a.m. when she was exhausted and upset, and planning how to leave the guy she’d fallen in love with.
_____________________________________
“So that’s the story on the Lenin.” Wearily Alexis reached for her third cup of coffee. Her eyes flinched away from the holocaust glare of morning sun blazing behind the desk in the Consular General’s elegant office.
ConGen Alison Chang tapped a sharpened pencil against the gleaming mahogany surface. A career Foreign Service Officer who’d earned her Number One slot in the consulate the hard way—by working for it—she was a stylish woman in her fifties whose bobbed silver hair swung against a delicate jaw. Though Alexis had never known her well, the woman seemed to live up to her reputation for being approachable and the consummate professional.
Now, the ConGen’s tilted brown eyes were guarded. “That’s quite a lot to take in, Alexis, much of it on faith. We’re thirteen days and counting until President Cartwright touches down in Moscow. I certainly don’t have to tell you how much is riding on this visit.”
“I know,” Alexis grimaced, but stood her ground. “Our bilateral partnership has gone down the toilet. I know the entire U.S.-Russian relationship, from trade to the war against terror, stands in the balance. And I’ve already sent a secure message to the Defense Attaché, asking him to look into U.S. naval activity in the Black Sea, both before the Lenin sank and now. He should have that for us by close-of-business.”
While the ConGen absorbed this, Alexis touched her throbbing temples. After her sleepless night, she’d ind
ulged a five-minute crying fit in the shower before reporting in. Now, in addition to a whopping headache, her lids felt like sandpaper grating against her eyes. But this was no time to wallow in self-indulgence.
“If we’ve been sniffing around the Lenin’s final resting place, General Baker will know,” she finished. “And the Ambassador is reviewing my classified report as we speak.”
Chang nodded, still fiddling with her pencil. “Tell me again about the sub’s last transmissions. That was quite a lot to absorb.”
Firmly Alexis suppressed a stab of discomfort—dangerously close to guilt—for betraying Victor’s trust. But that was crazy thinking. He had to know she’d pass it all on to Washington, which was the reason she’d gotten involved with him in the first place, right?
Yeah, right. She grimaced. If she started lying to herself or anyone else on her side, she’d be in even more trouble. She’d better not let her priorities get mixed up here. Her full loyalty belonged with the country she’d pledged when she joined the Foreign Service, not with the Russian agent she’d been screwing.
“The first transmission,” she said neutrally, “was sent by Taras Kostenko to the nearest Russian surface ship, the Moskva, at 0600—when the naval exercise was in full swing. The captain reported a technical problem on board, and asked for permission to surface for repairs.”
“Right.” The older woman nodded. “You said this Ivashov guy denied the request, and the Lenin was ordered to continue the exercise.”
Compassion twisted her heart as Alexis pushed back the memory of Victor’s iron control while he gritted out the story. Had to be rough—listening to his father’s final hours, knowing what was coming and helpless to prevent it.
“The second transmission was logged at 0630.” Carefully she stripped the emotion from her voice. “This time, the caller was Mikhail Mishkin, the sub’s executive officer, who seemed to be audibly under stress.”
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