“Then you’ll have to do it.” She fumbled with his belt buckle.
His big hand covered hers to stop her. “Slow down. Nice and easy, remember, latrea mou?” He skimmed her sweater up over her head, her bra with it. “I want to see you. I love your skin, like fresh cream with dots of butter. I could lap you up like a cat.”
Latrea what? She remembered he’d called her that once before, during their hot encounter in the gym—another intimate situation. The notion that his falling into Greek meant he forgot himself buoyed her confidence in her appeal. “What did you call me? Latrea something?” Heat swept through her from the wet heat of his tongue on her nipples. Good thing she was lying down. Her legs could never hold her.
“Latrea mou. It means sweetheart or honey.” He started on her zipper.
She repeated the Greek endearment, savoring how the ending puckered the lips for more kisses. “Wait. I want to see you, too. I want to feel you against me.” She yanked at his silk T-shirt.
He laughed as he toed off his shoes and divested himself of his shirt and trousers, leaving on only low-cut silk briefs stretched even skimpier by his straining arousal. “Done with slow and easy?”
“There’s a time for everything.” She shimmied out of her slacks. Her slides joined his loafers on the thick carpet.
With a murmur of contentment and excitement, he burrowed onto her again, rubbing skin against skin, his crisp chest hairs tickling her sensitive nipples. “So sweet, so sexy, so much woman.”
At his whispered words, suddenly her doubts prodded her with icy needles. She didn’t want to make love with him as her undercover persona. The falseness of her mask closed over her nose, her mouth, and she struggled to breathe. She couldn’t let her sense of self burn to ashes in the fires of passion.
She pushed at the immovable wall of his shoulders. “Nick, say my name.”
Eyes glazed and mouth wet with passion, he levered up on his elbows. “What is it? What’s the matter?”
“Say my name. The real one.” Her breathing raced like her heartbeat, and she fought down tears. “Say it!”
“Vanessa.” Then again more softly, “Vanessa.” He held her chin between two fingers and gazed into her eyes.
He watched as her eyelids closed. Tears leaked out and trickled into the hair at her temples.
His heart thundered, and his blood was on fire. Never before had he ached so much to possess a woman. She’d flirted and flaunted her assets, sending steamy smoke signals. And then boom. “What’s this about?”
“I’m nearly naked with you.” Her voice was thick with emotion, raw and husky. “Just plain Vanessa. Not the glamorous model Diana. Not the cool sophisticate. Not the seductress I’ve been channeling. Just Vanessa.”
The light of comprehension clicked on in his dazed brain. The old insecurity monster had reared its ugly head. “Ah, you want to be certain I know who I hold in my arms.” He beetled his brows in a scowl. “I’m insulted.”
She sniffed to banish her tears. “Dammit, I hate crying. Other women look gorgeous even when they cry—” he knew she meant Diana “—but my eyes get puffy and my nose gets as red as Rudolph’s.”
“Red or not, you’re beautiful, not plain.” Her glorious hair tumbled around her head like a sunset cloud, curls and tendrils damp against her temples. Mussed, flushed and sultry, she was sure as hell not his buddy. “Your nose is a little pink. But so are your cheeks.” He lowered his head to kiss one budded rose-colored nipple, then the other. “And so are your breasts. Very sexy.”
She drew a deep breath. “Thank you for that. I’m sorry. It’s nothing you did. It’s me. It’s—”
He silenced her with the brush of his lips. “Shh, Vanessa. I’m insulted that given absolute proof—” he ground his hard and aching arousal against her “—you still don’t believe in your feminine appeal.”
“But you’re sure it’s me you want, not the identity I’ve assumed these past weeks? Not someone like Diana? Oh, I know that sounds juvenile, but I have to know.” Against his chest, he felt the tension knotting her stomach.
Feelings of protection and possession surged through him, constricting his chest. She made him want more than he’d thought possible. And she made him want yet more for her.
When he could breathe again, he said, “I know exactly whose soft curves are driving me nuts. And whose lush breasts are rosy from my attentions. I never got this…close to Diana, but I could never mistake you for her.” When she tried to speak, he stopped her with another kiss.
He had to find the right words, so she understood her unique worth. From the first moment they’d met, she’d seen into his soul. She saw the torment and offered comfort. She didn’t let him intimidate her in any way. Her warmth and sensitivity were lifting the heavy darkness inside him. With her, he didn’t feel so alone, so empty.
But how could he tell her? Insecure, she borrowed sophistication from her undercover role. No poet, he needed to borrow that damned Prince Amir’s glib tongue.
“Diana is model-perfect, granted,” he said, mental fingers crossed. “With the cool, remote blond beauty expected of a woman named for the goddess of the moon. A Greek goddess, of course.”
“Yes,” she said. “Yes, she is. And…” Her words died. Maybe she’d seen the heat and ferocious need in his eyes.
“You, Vanessa, are the sun.” He feathered a finger down the delicate arch of her neck and around the silk of each bountiful breast. “You are red and molten gold and life-giving warmth. You are fire and life. You’ve stoked hot coals in me since we met. I burn for you.”
“Oh, Nick.” She cradled his beard-rough jaw in her hands and tugged him to her seeking mouth. His awkward but heartfelt words seemed to be what she needed to hear.
And then his mouth and hands streaked over her body. He found her most sensitive spots and gave them his undivided attention. She writhed beneath him as he stroked and kissed.
He stripped off the white lace triangle that passed for panties to reveal the thatch of cognac curls he’d imagined. His seeking hand cupped this source of her fire and his intoxication. “Latrea mou, you burn.”
When his fingers found her sensitive nub, she arched beneath him. His body clenched with a fiery need bordering on pain that he longed to shout to the world.
Twisting beneath his body, she dipped inside the silk briefs to grip his aching flesh. He tore the garment away, giving her free access. Hot and hard and heavy, he leaned into the firm grip of her soft hand.
He groaned at the sensation, his eyes clamped shut. He arched up, his weight on his straightened arms. “No more!” he growled. “Vanessa. Now.”
When he flicked two fingers inside her, Vanessa’s body seemed to thrum with tension. “Yes, Nick. Now!”
He fumbled a foil packet from his trouser pocket. Sheathed, he slipped between her legs. Desire darkened her green eyes and fluttered her lashes. He stroked her again with his thumb, and took one nipple in his mouth, suckling to raise her to fever pitch.
Delirious anticipation thrashing him, he sank into her. She lifted her hips and took him deep. When she tightened convulsively around him, he went absolutely still for a heartbeat, his gaze lasered on her. Sensations rippled through him, sensations that surpassed the physical. Joy and fulfillment and contentment.
“Ah, Vanessa, I knew we’d burn each other up.”
Pleasure built as they found a rhythm together. Slow, silky and sinuous, with long, wet kisses, then intense and insistent, with panting urgency. Ecstasy hovered just out of reach. Sharp sensations exploded as he pistoned into her, his body bowing and arching as she shuddered around him and they clung together.
Slowly Vanessa became aware of the cool air on her damp arms and the heavy, sprawled weight on her body. She never wanted him to move. Aftershocks still rippled through her. The absolute power of their lovemaking made her feel that she glowed from the voltage they’d generated.
Nick’s face pressed into the curve of her neck and shoulder, and he kiss
ed her there before pushing up. The hint of wariness in his eyes tripped her heartbeat.
She smiled up at him to eliminate any awkwardness. “Whew, that was some powerful Greek beef!”
His rumble of laughter vibrated through her. “I suppose that’ll have to do for ‘honey, was it as good for you as it was for me?’” In one fluid motion, he rolled off her and to his feet. He held out a hand for her.
Standing flush against his heated body, she hugged him and pressed a kiss to his sternum. “I think I worked up an appetite. Are you still going to feed me?”
“The other Greek beef is coming right up. I hope it’s not too dried out.” His eyebrows shot up. A hint of embarrassment colored his cheeks. “Don’t touch that line.”
Sputtering with laughter, they cleaned up and dressed.
Dinner was not ruined. They sat side by side at the round glass breakfast table in the sunroom and ate cubed beef in a garlic-and-cinnamon-flavored tomato sauce over noodles. By candlelight and over coffee and baklava, they talked companionably.
“Tell me more about Sophie and your father,” Vanessa said, curious about his family.
“Not much to tell. They’re happy. Perhaps it was the right time in their lives for them when they met, his career at sea nearing an end, children nearly grown—until Mikela came along. Family’s always welcome at the villa—hers or us two.” His gaze turned contemplative. “No, only me now. Not Alexei. Funny, we never got along, but going there next time will seem strange without him.”
“Are you okay about tomorrow?” She placed her hand on his.
Monday was the funeral, a simple memorial service at a private chapel near Rock Creek Park. The ashes in their bronze urn would be flown to Greece for burial. Vanessa’d spent the afternoon helping to coordinate security arrangements.
He turned his hand, linking his fingers with hers. “Fine. It’ll bring closure and allow his employees and business colleagues to pay their respects. Perhaps our guy’ll show up.”
“Husam Al-Din?” She laughed. “Don’t hold your breath. But speaking of him, I talked to Grant Snow on the phone this afternoon.”
“What a rotten thing to happen,” he said, pushing away his half-eaten dessert. Anger darkened his eyes to cobalt and bunched the muscles in his jaw. “There should’ve been a way to prevent the ambush. To prevent his being shot. I should’ve seen it coming.”
There was his overdeveloped sense of responsibility again. “You? Like you should’ve seen a different ambush coming? No. In Somalia, you weren’t alone. I’m sure of that.”
His expression hardened. “It’s not the same thing.”
Close enough, but she wouldn’t argue until she had all the facts. “Maybe. But yesterday’s security definitely wasn’t your job. ATSA should’ve anticipated it, had better intel.”
With a slow shrug, he seemed to shake away the distancing mood. He brushed a hand along her jawline. “So how’s Snow?”
She smiled at the caress. He was still touching her even though he didn’t need to convince her of his desire. The notion fed her feminine ego and her all too vulnerable heart.
“Grant’s doing all right. His first question to the surgeon was about what the injury would do to his golf swing.”
They laughed together, the mood between them once again easy and intimate.
Later they walked upstairs, his arm around her shoulders and hers around his waist.
“Can I convince you to sleep in my bed again tonight?”
The tension radiating from his big body at the notion she might refuse didn’t come from his need to protect her. That he wanted her again cheered her heart and heated her blood. She could no more refuse him than she could take him in hand-to-hand combat.
At the door to the master suite, she paused, hands on hips. Tilting her head, she deepened her voice to what she figured was sexy. “I’ll sleep in your bed on one condition.”
“What’s that?” Worry furrowed his brow.
“That bed’s way too big for one. You have to join me.”
Chapter 13
Nick crouched beneath a stunted thorn tree beside the muddy stream. Around him in the stygian night, unseen creatures slithered through the arid grassland. He knew of at least ten varieties of poisonous snakes a man could step on.
No stars, no moon relieved the opaque blackness. Acacia smoke and the cloying stench of something rotting hung on the heavy air. The night pulsed with danger. The beat built to a strident throb like kettledrums.
The op was going down.
A figure hunched toward him, low, blending with the grass. Badger. A monster made of bunches of grass and leaves over a camouflage uniform. The man stopped short of Nick’s position.
Why didn’t he just use the radio?
“Yo, soldier. Sit rep,” Nick said. The throbbing accelerated, amplified. He strained to hear the soldier’s report over the pounding.
The man stood there without speaking, without moving.
A grenade or maybe a flash-bang exploded off to his right. The blast illuminated Nick’s position and the man with him. Dangerous. Nick flattened on the packed earth.
Badger just stood there.
Then Nick saw why Badger didn’t report in.
His chest was gone. Missing. Blown away. Blood and bones within a hollow shell. His eyes were blank.
Nick could only stare. He couldn’t move.
More explosions shattered the night. The pounding rose to a deafening pitch that filled his head.
Another soldier shuffled toward him. Slick. He held his head in his only hand. And another man and another, bloody and blackened and blown apart, came to stare sightlessly and silently at him. The four raised bony fingers and pointed their awful accusations at him.
The subtropical night wrapped around Nick’s mouth and nose like a hot blanket. He struggled to breathe. Flaming debris rained around him in a crimson wall. Only then did he realize that the frantic throbbing was his heartbeat.
He thrashed and clawed at the binding that smothered him.
“Nick, wake up. You’re dreaming. Nicolas!”
As the gentle voice parted the haze, he wrenched into a sitting position and peeled away the clammy sheets. He must’ve thrashed and nearly choked himself with the damn covers.
He gulped in great drafts of air. Swiping at the sweat running into his eyes, he blinked and tried to focus.
“Nick, are you all right?”
Her hand on his arm brought him back to reality. Vanessa. Sweet Vanessa. They’d made love a second time and fallen asleep in each other’s arms. As the present penetrated, his icy soul seemed to expand with warmth, and a shimmer of renewed sensation curled through him.
She sat beside him, the sheet tucked under her arms and over the high swell of her breasts. Her rust-gold hair formed a nimbus in the low light of the bedside lamp. An angel come to haul him from the depths of his personal hell.
“Just a dream. I’m okay.” He twisted to peer into her shadowed face. “I was fighting the sheets. Did I hurt you?”
She shook her head, tumbling curls around her shoulders. “You were fighting something, but it wasn’t the sheets.”
He scrubbed his knuckles over his beard-roughened jaw and wished he could scrub away the ugliness that still flashed in his mind.
“Nick, you were fighting what happened in Somalia. It haunts you. Does the nightmare come often?”
“Not in years. A couple of times a week recently.”
She didn’t comment. She probably knew as well as he did what had brought the horror back. Alexei, protecting her, this op, ATSA—all of it was too similar to a Special Forces op. He’d tried to avoid anything that brought back that part of his past, but the memories and guilt dogged him anyway.
Perhaps telling it to someone as caring and understanding as Vanessa would quell the ache in his chest, would lighten the darkness within him. She knew the basic story, but by spelling out his culpability, he risked losing her.
The irony and irrationali
ty of his fear punched him in the heart. Lose her? He’d never had her. The closeness they shared was temporary. He had nothing to offer. She wouldn’t want a man without honor.
Was she really different from other women? The ordinary sister-buddy issue, was that for real? Or was her enjoyment of affluence and her elegant portrayal of Danielle for real? Deception was her profession. He could trust her with his nightmare and his passion, but no more.
He refused to examine the erosion of his limits.
“I want to tell you about it, about the mission in Somalia.” As soon as he’d uttered the words, the dark weight in his chest eased.
“The more I know,” she said, “the more tools I can use to dig out all the facts.”
He shrugged. Facts? He had all the facts he needed to know that responsibility sat squarely on his shoulders. If she wanted to look under rocks, why the hell not? He tossed back the sheets and pushed to his feet.
Cross-legged in the middle of the bed, Vanessa watched as he paced in front of her. Unabashedly naked, a beautifully sculpted warrior, hard-eyed and savage, he girded himself to bare his pain. Strain stretched the skin of his face into a taut mask of tragedy. Her heart fissured at his suffering.
“We received humint—intelligence from locals—of a warlord and a cache of arms in the Karkaar foothills. Other sources bore out the intel, so the exec and the team sergeant had me coordinate the mission. We were to destroy the arms and arrest the guy. He was just a small-time gangster.”
“That was your job as assistant operations sergeant?”
“Collecting and analyzing intel, yes. And planning and executing small unit strikes.”
“Like that one.”
“The village was only a few huts by a stream. Remote. No town or road within miles. After the helo dropped us, we crawled on our bellies through tall grass to within a hundred yards. There were six of us. I was in the rear, on the radio, coordinating deployment. The others fanned out to make the assault. There were supposed to be only the warlord and two men in the target hut.”
Code Name: Fiancée Page 16