“You. Me. In my quarters.”
Troy still didn’t understand, and he had a burning desire to see the satellite feed Barrett was referring to. Lucy’s behavior made him wonder if she was attempting to sideline that objective. “I have things to do.”
“Yes. We both do. We’re having sex until we’re out of each other’s systems.” She turned and headed back to her quarters. “Then maybe you’ll get out of my head.”
Chapter Five
Lucy was seething as she stormed down the hall to the elevators. She couldn’t even look at Troy when he followed her inside. She slammed the fifth-floor button as the elevator doors closed. Security cameras zoomed in on them, probably hoping for an encore of yesterday’s show. She gave the camera the finger and heard Troy chuckle next to her. She dropped her hand and scowled at him.
“Lucy—”
“Wait.” She wasn’t having this conversation here, with an audience. She heard the ding indicating they’d reached her floor. When the doors opened, she didn’t wait for him, confident he’d follow. Troy was right behind her when she opened the door to her quarters—smiling. The bastard. He closed the door and leaned on it, watching her, humoring her.
She kicked her shoes off and unzipped her skirt. He pulled out his scrambler, flipped it on, and tossed it nonchalantly in the air, his smile never faltering. She allowed her skirt to puddle around her ankles before peeling her sweater over her head, throwing it on a chair. Troy seemed in no hurry to participate.
It had to be a show, because she knew what she looked like, and she looked good. Her tiny black satin panties and bra contrasted sharply with her pale skin, and unlike Troy’s, her skin was flawless. Her scars were internal, her psyche flayed by the things she’d had to do to survive. They’d twisted her until she barely recognized herself. Yet the past had to remain in the past, or she couldn’t function. She’d be unable to work with him.
Their moment of insanity in the elevator had ruined their détente, and in its place was something else. Now when she saw him, the need to touch him overshadowed his many unforgivable betrayals. It confused her, and made it impossible to focus. She had to get Troy out of her system, and she his, and this was the only thing she could think to do. “What’s with the scrambler?”
He shrugged. “You didn’t hide why you brought me here, so the security guards are smart enough not to interrupt us, but a guy likes his privacy.”
She would have thanked him if she were feeling grateful. She wasn’t. She was pissed and wanted to get this over with.
“Take your clothes off,” she said. It didn’t worry her that her approach was less sex kitten than med tech. From the bulge in his trousers, it was working for him.
“Help a guy out.” He didn’t move an inch, other than tossing the scrambler up and catching it.
Lucy hurried to his side, whipped off his belt and unzipped his pants. Her lack of finesse embarrassed her and amused Troy. He remained uncooperative, though he watched her every expression. She wanted to wipe that smirk off his face and slap him around a bit to ease some tension, but she knew how thin the line between desire and hate ran with them. She wanted to exorcise him, not kill him.
She took the scrambler, put it on her side table and hurried back to him. She pulled his sweater over his head and felt a quiver of desire nudge aside her anger. He had the most amazing chest she’d ever seen. Even his scars were a turn-on. She ran her hands over his shoulders, down his biceps, and tasted the taut skin near his collarbone. She felt Troy unsnap her bra and the easing of tension on her breasts as the satin straps fell to her elbows. She tossed it on the chair before tugging his briefs and trousers to his ankles.
Troy inhaled quickly, and she felt a moment of triumph. He wasn’t smirking now.
Running her nails along the inside of his thighs, she slowly stood, finally cupping his arousal. “You don’t look nervous.” She wanted him nervous.
“Believe me,” he said. “You scare the hell out of me.”
Lucy released him and walked away. She heard him moving her chair, and watched as he propped it under the doorknob. She wondered if that was to prevent interruptions or make it difficult for her to leave. He’d kicked off his boots.
“It’s a deal then,” she said. “Yes?”
“Sex until you’re out of my system.” He shook his head. “What makes you think you’re in my system?”
He was naked, in her quarters, and looked ready to eat her alive. He was fooling himself if he thought otherwise.
She sat on the bed and leaned back, putting her weight on her palms. His gaze dropped to her breasts and lingered. She spread her thighs. His gaze dropped to her panties. She smiled and didn’t have to wait long for him to kneel between her legs. He wanted her as much as she wanted him, but she would fight it; she wouldn’t allow her desire to dictate her actions. Enjoying his touch helped no one.
Sex with Troy had to be about control. Control of her emotions, her weaknesses, but most of all, she needed to control her thoughts. A clear mind and the ability to focus kept her alive this long. All she had to do was stay the course.
He caressed her from knees to hips to the curved indent of her waist, then cupped both breasts. By the time he met her gaze, neither of them were smiling. He kissed her as though he was starving and she was nourishment while his thumbs played with the tips of her breasts. Lucy clutched the cool sheets, willing herself not to feel, berating herself for her weakness when she failed.
His arousal tickled her belly and made her want to scooch her hips forward and press against him. She forced herself to resist, to be passive in this interplay.
His hands wrapped her legs around his hips, and Troy effortlessly stood with her in his arms, taking her place on the bed, Lucy straddling his lap. He broke the kiss and roughly adjusted her hips, pulling her flush against his arousal. An unwanted spike of desire shot through her body.
“Maybe I’m just taking what’s offered,” he said. “Maybe I want to see how far you’re willing to take this experiment.”
Lucy nipped his lower lip. “Admit it—I’ve been an itch you couldn’t scratch since I walked out on you, and it pisses you off that I haven’t fallen at your feet like every other woman here. You have me now.” She wiggled her hips. “Have at it.”
She saw Troy’s lids lower, hiding his thoughts from her. He twisted his torso and threw her onto the mattress on her back. His weight landed on her, pushing the air from her lungs as his hand ripped her panties off. Before she could register what was happening, he’d buried himself deep and Lucy saw stars. Troy had her legs over both his shoulders and was arching his back.
He’d put her in a position where she couldn’t hide what she was feeling, where it was impossible to deny the truth, that Troy still had the power to lay waste to her heart. He held her gaze, his expression harsh and exacting, as if he was teaching her a lesson. Every thrust, every spike of pleasure fed her panic. The purpose of this was to kill her desire, to walk away from its lure. She understood she was challenging him, but if she was to flush him from her system, this was how it had to be. She had to find a way to deny herself this pleasure, to form a barrier between his touch and her feelings.
It was like fighting the tide. The more she resisted, the more power his touch held over her.
His rhythm was slow, relentless, his caresses more and more intimate, until Lucy broke into a sweat. She couldn’t think, only feel. He was the embodiment of triumph as he smiled down at her, and she couldn’t resent it. He’d earned that knowing smile. He had her at the brink of climax and though she fought it, biting her lip until she bled, there was no stopping it.
Then Troy saw her bleeding lip and dropped her legs, covering her mouth with a searing kiss. His tenderness undid her. She succumbed to the crest of pleasure, its waves confusing her enough to forget she hadn’t wanted it.
When she could see clearly again, she noticed Troy watching her, and that her breathing was loud even to her ears. Triumph was gone from his expression, and
in its place was curiosity.
“You’ve always been your worst enemy, Lucy.” He studied her face.
“You’ve always been a close second,” she said.
“Your choice. Not mine.”
She pushed him off, separating their bodies. He’d infuriated her again. “I never had a choice.” She tried to scramble away from him but got tangled in the sheets.
He looked weary as he watched her struggles. “You have to stop living in the past.”
“Because my life is so amazing now.” She got off the bed and turned on him, her hair flying in her face. She’d revealed too much. He was lying on his back now, staring at the ceiling. “Did you think you could admit you recruited me, knowing I was innocent, and the topic would never come back up?”
“Even if I’d let you go, the Colombian police would have had dibs on you.” He looked uncomfortable talking about the details, but he was talking, and that was more than she’d ever gotten out of him before. “You wouldn’t have survived long in their jails.”
She glared at him from across the room. “That wasn’t your choice to make.”
He stood, walking to her side. Angry, she realized Troy had denied himself sexual release. He was still hard, left wanting. It infuriated her, feeling like a slap to the face. Unlike Lucy, he’d controlled himself. She wanted to scream with frustration.
“You were helpless,” he said. “Didn’t know the language. In a Colombian jail you’d have been anyone’s whore, locked in a cage.” His pulled her into his arms, his quiet words holding a wealth of meaning she was too upset to interpret. She couldn’t get past her failure, that her plan to get him out of her blood had backfired.
“Instead, I was your whore.” Months of brutal training during the day and making desperate love at night. At the time, she’d been convinced he’d bend, find a way to get her out of the Agency, but too late she was told about the gene therapy and how there was no turning back once her body accommodated to their enhancements. She’d wanted to die. Instead, she’d cut herself off from Troy, from everyone. She hated and took her rage out on the other recruits, relishing the brutality of mat time, making her way up the pecking order, eventually finding solace in the small privileges found as an agent.
Troy wiped away a tear with his thumb. She hadn’t realized she’d been crying. She looked up and saw he was agitated.
“You’re nobody’s whore. Life would have been easier if you were.” He didn’t try to hide his sadness. “But we both know you don’t do easy.” He kissed her, licking her bloody lip.
The tips of her breasts brushed against his chest, making her tremble. Without breaking the kiss, Troy cradled her in his arms and then carefully laid her on the bed and kissed her until the pleasure was unbearable and she thought her heart would break. It was too much, she thought. She had to end this now.
She threw her leg over his hips, determined to end this wanting before she revealed more than she could bear. She took him inside her and clenched, rocking her hips back and forth, nipping at his neck, tasting the saltiness of his skin, trying to force his release so she could end this torture.
“I hate that I want you,” she said.
“I’m okay with that,” he replied harshly. She felt his hands grip her hips, forcing her to slow her rhythm. Lucy resisted and saw his lids lower, his mouth open, words failing him. He was struggling to manage his desire, as she had, and if she had her way, he’d fail epically, as she had. The corded muscles of his neck strained as he threw his head back and sucked in his breath. The stress of denying himself showed in the harsh lines of his face, but Lucy wasn’t through testing his resolve.
She rocked her hips on him, undulating, giving him a come-hither grin and then drawing the backs of her hands down her neck, to the tips of her breasts. She cupped them, offering herself to Troy. He reached for her.
She slapped his hands away.
In a flash, he pulled her to his chest and switched their positions, thrusting and retreating, his forcefulness overwhelming her, panicking her. He restrained her hands, ignored her kicking legs and refused to budge. He was in control, and wanted her to know that. He rode her until desire built to a frenzy inside her and her hands were clutching at him, her legs encircling him as she floated on the precipice of release. Almost there.
Troy stopped moving.
He forced her to meet his gaze. “Don’t challenge me, Lucy. I like to win.” He pinched her bum hard enough to shock her, stymieing her journey to climax. What she felt was more indignation than rage.
“There is nothing I like about you.” He looked as though he was enjoying her discomfiture, so she slapped his arm hard enough to sting her fingers. Troy didn’t even acknowledge the blow.
“We both know that’s not true.” He thrust his hips forward, burying himself deep, distracting her. She wanted to argue, continue to yell at him, but he’d triggered her orgasm and she was cresting again, gasping, her head thrown back. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she noticed Troy was swearing and finding his own release, but her body had taken control, and over she went, experiencing glorious pleasure. No anger, no self-pity, only peace.
She hadn’t seen that coming.
Peace.
She’d thought peace would only come when she got him out of her system. She didn’t know what to think now. He was lying on her, breathing heavily. She closed her eyes, inhaling his scent, her fingers biting into the skin of his back, testing its strength. She opened her mouth, pressed it to his chest and tasted him. She couldn’t get enough.
He put his forehead to her forehead. “We’ll figure this out.”
“We’re doomed.”
He laughed a bit and didn’t resist when Lucy pushed him off. Too much had happened in the last couple of days, and now this. She’d rekindled an affair with Troy. There was no denying it now. The tryst in the elevator could have been considered a descent into madness, but twice in two days was something else, and this particular something she’d initiated.
Lucy was using Troy like a drug. In his arms she could forget, but Troy wouldn’t understand that. To him, this was a booty call. So be it. It wasn’t her job to define for him what even she was having difficulty grasping. She hurried to the bathroom, desperate to hide from him.
She was already under the shower’s spray when Troy caught up with her. The sight of him dressed filled her with relief. “Good. You have to go.” She knew she sounded desperate and hated that.
“Your plan didn’t work,” he said.
No, she thought. It didn’t. “New plan. Cold turkey.”
He chuckled, leaning against the doorway. “You said something earlier that still bothers me. You said you never had a choice,” he said. “But you cut me off. You chose for both of us all those years ago.”
Lucy slammed her palm against the glass of the shower stall and shook her head sharply. He was so obtuse. “How do you do it? How do you ignore what you did to me?” She waited, oblivious to her nudity, to the water streaming over her body. She could see him shut down, rejecting her words.
“I don’t,” he said. “I accept it and move on.”
“I thought I had moved on,” she said, “but here we are.” Lucy wanted to cry, but refused to. “It’s time for you to leave.”
Troy seemed to have come to the same conclusion. “You have one hour. I’ll brief you on your next op at oh nine hundred.”
Feeling angry and petulant, she turned off the shower and stepped onto the floor, dripping wet. “Why are we still running ops if you and Barrett think someone’s out there orchestrating the Agency’s extinction? Hell, Barrett thinks I’m involved. Does she think you’ll catch me red-handed?”
“I have no idea what she thinks. That’s part of the problem. And we have no idea where this threat is coming from in large part because you sliced and diced our perp, so I wouldn’t complain too loudly.”
“This is not my fault.”
He threw a towel at her. Lucy caught it, wrapping it around her should
ers. “This problem isn’t going anywhere until we gather intel. We need the next shooter alive. Until then, all ops have a secondary objective—bait.”
“You and Barrett are barking up the wrong tree. I’m not involved.”
He turned away from her. “Even you know you screwed up.” It was a slap in the face, but one she’d earned. Point to Troy. “When we get back, I’m going to need the bug retrieved from Barrett’s office.”
Lucy’s stomach sank. “How?”
“I have a plan.” Troy paused at the door, his hand on the knob. Just when she thought he decided against saying what was on his mind, he spoke. “Have you ever asked yourself, Lucy, why you never hooked up with someone at the Agency?” It took all of her frayed self-control not to remind him they’d been lovers, and it hadn’t worked out well for her. “I mean, after us,” he said.
“You broke me of the habit.” She clutched the damp towel closer. His back was to her, so she couldn’t see if she’d hit a nerve. She hoped she had. Misery loved company.
When he left, quietly closing the door behind him, she collapsed on the bed and buried her face on the pillow he’d used. His smell covered it. She rolled until the sheets enfolded her and the scent of sex and soap filled the air. She should be disappointed by her continued desire for him but wasn’t. She was ashamed of her lack of control, but not of the pleasure she’d received. Was it too much to ask in this hellhole to have a moment of ecstasy? She wouldn’t categorize it as happiness, the Leave It to Beaver variety, because when he wasn’t driving her mad with passionate kisses and caresses, she really, really, really wanted to hurt him.
It was more like her dirty little secret.
Her love, so false and misguided when given to him all those years ago, was still there. It was just broken and barely recognizable, but alive enough to allow her to feel pleasure when he touched her. She would be playing a very dangerous mind game if she ignored who Troy really was, but she feared that was the only way she could keep him and live with herself. Lucy punched the pillow where his head had so recently lain.
The Seduction of Lucy Page 6