Hot Intent (Hqn)

by Dees, Cindy

  She replied tartly, “I’m not a sparrow, and you, of all people, know it. You know how little sexual experience I had before I met you. No sparrow would be sent out in the field to use sex as a weapon with barely any knowledge of it.”

  He examined her logic as calmly as he could with her hands on his zipper. Reluctantly, he had to admit she had a point. He asked desperately, “Why is the CIA trying to kill you, but not the slightest bit interested in questioning you? Do you know something they don’t want revealed?”

  She sat back on his thighs, staring at him thoughtfully. “I do know you better than anyone else.”

  “Why would that alarm the CIA?” he asked reflexively.

  “Is somebody trying to hide your real motives for joining Doctors Unlimited?” she asked slowly. “Or is this internal CIA politics? I’ve heard Charlie gripe about those before. Is someone engaging in a slam campaign against you that you’re not aware of? Maybe someone’s spreading lies about you and doesn’t want me to tell the truth?”

  “The CIA is not a high school lunchroom.”

  “No, but it is made up of human beings subject to human flaws and weaknesses,” she retorted.

  He knew he’d become a source of controversy in the agency after his training had finished. Some people saw him as a threat, and others saw him as an exciting weapon. Was all of this the two factions infighting over him? He mumbled under his breath, “How in hell am I supposed to know who’s my friend and who’s my enemy?”

  “I am not the enemy, Alex.” His zipper slid down and his fly melted back under her hands.

  He ought to stop her.

  “I’m not out to hurt you in any way,” she murmured. “I only want to help you. I’m loyal to you. Only you.”

  If only. At least she was a known enemy. He could deal with that.

  Her clever fingers dipped inside the waistband of his underwear and grasped his member in a warm fist. Blood rushed to the site and his hips flexed of their own volition. Dammit.

  “Do you hear me?” she demanded. “I’m on your side.”

  He had to keep his head clear. He couldn’t afford to get lost in her body or sucked into the emotional vortex she always managed to create around him when they had sex.

  “They gave you drugs to make you suspicious of me. But you know, don’t you, that I would never hurt you.” Her fingers tightened around his rapidly hardening erection, and a groan escaped his throat before he could pull it back. His mental swearing grew more violent as her fist slid up and down his shaft. Damn, that felt good.

  “Say it, Alex. Tell me you know I would never hurt you.”

  He surged up beneath her, capturing her around the waist with his arm while he used his free hand to yank her hand off him. He ground out, “You think you can use sex as a weapon against me?”

  “Go ahead, Alex. Show me how you really feel.”

  She was courageous to taunt him like that. With a growl, he sprawled on his back, carrying her down on top of him, then rolled over, until she splayed beneath him. He pinned her to the lumpy mattress with his bigger, stronger body, and she didn’t struggle. He shoved the T-shirt up her naked body, not stopping until the gray cotton completely covered her face. She wouldn’t have any trouble breathing through it, but he had to shut her up. She was pushing him beyond his ability to control himself.

  He ought to kill her. Any spy worth his salt would eliminate the threat she posed without a second thought.

  He only kicked partially free of his jeans before he rammed into her. She bucked against him, driving him deeper inside her. He groaned in spite of himself, and just like that, her body softened and opened, welcoming him home. Dammit, she made it impossible to use sex as a weapon against her when she surrendered unconditionally to him like this!

  Swearing violently inside his head, he paused to strip off his clothes. And then he sank into her again. As always, her complete welcome and acceptance undid him, unraveling his rage as easily as a piece of knitting.

  The probability that this was the last time he would ever have sex with her slammed into his awareness and he involuntarily slowed down to savor the moment and imprint it upon his memory forever.

  He couldn’t look her in the face. It would be too painful for him to see the deceit there. This one last time, lost in the depths of his desperation, he needed to pretend she really loved him. He planted his hands on either side of the T-shirt fabric and pinned it lightly over her face in place in hopes that it would help distance her from him, but it didn’t. Everything he’d loved about her—her generosity, honesty, innocence and joy in life—wrapped around him, embracing his heart and bathing him in love until he couldn’t fight it off anymore.

  She was better at her job than he could have ever imagined any sparrow being. Was it possible she was telling the truth—

  No. Impossible. She was in on the conspiracy. She had to be.

  As an orgasm built fast in his belly, a mirroring explosion of emotion built in his chest. She arched up into him, her body sucking him down effortlessly into the whirlpool of everything he’d tried so hard to avoid. Feelings broke over him, drowning him in gratitude and regret, affection and reluctant acceptance. Of being lovable and loved.

  For just a breath of time, he didn’t care if she was working against him or not. She owned his heart. He could not believe he was going to have to turn his back on this. On her. It was going to feel like ripping his heart out of his chest to leave her and Dawn behind forever.

  Their lovemaking reached an exquisite peak and his body clenched around his release. He couldn’t hold back a muffled shout as the orgasm tore free of his control and exploded from the depth of his being.

  Stunned at the power of it, he stared down at the sweet contours of Katie’s covered face. As he watched, a small circle of wetness appeared in the center of Katie’s forehead, darkening the gray cotton. Swearing, he pushed away from her and rolled out of bed, swiping at his eyes. He did not cry. Not for her. Not for himself. Not ever.

  He stormed into the bathroom and ran himself a steaming hot shower. It pounded his flesh into gelatin but did nothing to soothe the fury tearing apart his heart. Nothing could soothe it.

  When he came out of the bathroom, Katie was dressed and curled up in a chair, going through the motions of reading a book on her cell phone.

  Devastated at how easily she’d apparently disengaged from the overwhelming emotional power of their lovemaking, he pulled out his laptop and read up some more on the drug he’d been given. So much about the end of his Cuba mission made sense now. The fog of terror, the extreme measures he’d taken to hide and to escape Katie—he’d been flailing in an artificially induced paranoid state. He hadn’t been losing his mind, after all.

  Small comfort, that.

  Thing was, the CCRE was well clear of his system by now. Any paranoia or suspicion he was experiencing currently was wholly his own. His doubts about Katie were not drug induced. None of it was drug induced.

  Absently, he fiddled with the flash drive he’d brought out of Cuba. The one holding all the evidence of the chemical weapons secretly stored in Cuba.

  “Oh, my God!” Katie exclaimed without warning. “Is that what I think it is?”

  He jammed the drive back in his pocket. “Depends on what you think it is.”

  “Is that your pictures from Cuba? Did you manage to run the samples we got from that bunker? Are the results on that drive, too?”

  “It’s nothing,” he lied. “Just some personal information I’ll need to set up a new identity.”

  “Bull,” she retorted bluntly. “That’s the evidence of the sarin.”

  He didn’t bother denying it. She knew him too well for him to successfully lie to her.

  She demanded, “Why do you still have it? Weren’t you going to hand that over to André?” She paused, but then continued in a breathless rush, “Are you using that as insurance to make your escape?” She didn’t even stop for him to answer. “How could you? We were supposed to
give that to André. It’s vitally important to America’s national security that he get it!”

  “Are you done?” he snapped.

  “No, I’m not. No wonder everyone and their uncle is running around trying to catch or kill us. You need to send that to André immediately. He can clear up this whole mess if you let him. Do your job. Show you’re a good agent and can be relied upon. I’m sure that’s all it will take for the dogs to be called off.”

  “Hah,” he retorted. “For all we know, the only reason the dogs haven’t already killed us is because of this flash drive. If I hand it over, they may blow us to smithereens.”

  “You told André you’d get him the proof,” she accused.

  “No, you told him that.”

  She opened her mouth, but shut it again as it obviously dawned on her that he was right.

  “There’s actually a good argument to be made for destroying this evidence,” he said thoughtfully.

  “That sounds like your father talking.”

  “I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. My father is not always wrong. If what’s on this drive were to come to light, a massive international crisis on the scale of the Cuban Missile Crisis would follow. Do you trust your government to do the reasonable thing and save the world this time around?”

  She got a stubborn look on her face.

  He added, “Even if you do trust your own government, do you trust the Russian government to get it right? Do you see the current regime backing down meekly and removing the chemicals from Cuba?”

  That made her wince.

  “My point exactly. I think the best thing to do is destroy the drive.”

  She tilted her head questioningly. “Then why haven’t you already destroyed it? I think part of you does want to hand it over to the Americans. I think you do want to prove to the CIA that they can trust you and that you’ll be a good operative for them.”

  “Bah!” he scoffed.

  “You accuse me of lying to you, but don’t lie to yourself, Alex. I know you.”

  Damn her, she did.

  She pressed her own point home. “If you truly were the rogue agent you claim to be, you’d have let me bleed to death on that sidewalk. Even if you didn’t have a single feeling for me, and even if you weren’t first and foremost a doctor at heart, you’d have looked out for yourself first. But you didn’t. You’re not a bad person, no matter what you try to tell yourself.”

  “Lord, you’re such a Goody Two-shoes.”

  “Yup, and I wear rose-colored glasses, too,” she replied cheerfully. “I’m not apologetic for having a positive outlook on life. You could use a little more of that, by the way.”

  He rolled his eyes and didn’t deign to answer. She seemed to think she’d gotten the last word and buried her nose in her book once more.

  Irritated, he stared down at his computer screen. Thanks to Blondie, who’d given her life for him without knowing that was what she’d done, he had the means to get into the CIA’s mainframe. And thanks to Katie and whatever political games her uncle was playing, he now had both a name and an operation to investigate. His father said Claudia Kane was running Operation Cold Intent. What in the hell was she doing with it?

  Did he dare break into the CIA’s secure server to search for an answer? Alex put his hands on the keyboard. He would have to move fast. He might have two, maybe three minutes once he got in. Better to stick with a two-minute time limit. He set up a stopwatch on his cell phone and started typing.

  Blondie’s algorithm was subtle. It did not take a sledgehammer approach to getting past the CIA’s firewalls. Rather it wormed its way in through tiny code gaps and by taking a massively circuitous, randomized route into the mainframe. Each time the hacking program was used, it would take a different route into its target, which meant it would be nearly impossible to create countermeasures to stop it. It was reusable, in other words.

  The algorithm ran for nearly a half hour, but his patience was rewarded when a CIA search screen popped up. He started the timer and typed in his mother’s name and the Cold Intent name.

  A minute passed.

  A minute and a half. Crap. The information was buried too deep. He would never find it in the limited amount of time he could afford to stick around waiting.

  All of a sudden, his screen lit up. A list of file names associated with the search parameters “Cold Intent and Claudia Kane” scrolled down his screen.

  Startled, he typed as fast as he could, attempting to download them, wholesale. No go. They were write-protected. It would take a whole other decryption algorithm to bust the protections preventing them from being copied.

  In desperation, he clicked on the most recently dated file.

  It opened to reveal an innocuous-looking document. He scanned it fast. An intel report on... His jaw dropped.

  On Peter Koronov and his father’s odds of becoming the next director of the FSB. The analysis deemed Peter far too effective a spy and charismatic a leader to be allowed into the position. The report speculated that, under his capable direction, the FSB could be rejuvenated into a formidable intelligence apparatus.

  His phone beeped that his two minutes were up. He swore and clicked to the end of the report quickly. The conclusion was too damned wordy to read in its entirety, but he scanned it fast. The report concluded with verbiage having to do with agreeing with the director on the optimal plan for taking Koronov out of the running for the post of FSB chief.

  His computer beeped an incoming query warning, and he slammed the escape key. He powered the computer completely off and unplugged it from the wall.

  Operation Cold Intent was an op to take down his father? He could see his mother being involved with that. It certainly answered the question of how Mommy Dearest had felt about his father. Why would a working group with that goal go after Katie, then? What key piece to the puzzle was he missing? How did Katie McCloud, kindergarten teacher extraordinaire, fit into all of this? He’d seen her reflex reactions in life-threatening situations before; he knew without a shadow of a doubt that Katie was not a trained field operative. A sparrow, maybe. But not a spy.

  He turned over possibilities in his head for some time. He eventually noticed her nodding off in her chair and he muttered, “Go to bed.”

  She jolted upright. “That’s okay. I’ll stay up.”

  It hit him suddenly what she was doing. She was standing a flight watch on him. Terrified he was going to sneak out and leave her again, was she? Katie was trying to stay awake and keep an eagle eye on him. It would be cute if he could trust her even a little.

  “I’m not going to leave until I figure out why the Cold Intent team is trying to kill you, Katie.”

  She stared at him long and hard. “Promise?”

  “I give you my word of honor.” She sagged abruptly in the chair, and he smiled sardonically. “Go to bed. I’ll be here when you wake up. Or, if I’ve stepped out, I’ll be back momentarily.”

  She stood up, but instead of climbing into bed, she came over to stand in front of him. “You do know that I would never betray you, right?”

  He stared up at her. He might accept that the drug they’d fed him had messed with his head, but his heart was another matter. He’d been betrayed so badly in his past it was hard for him to trust anyone the way she was asking him to. It was as if the cannabis extract had flipped on a paranoia switch in his brain, and he had no idea how to turn it off.

  Maybe the paranoia had been there all along. And now that it was exposed to his conscious mind, he couldn’t put it back in the unconscious box it had come from.

  Paranoia or no, his gut was telling him to stay in spy mode. Not to let her seduce him out of that cold, detached place in his mind where life and death were merely two decisions among many.

  She sighed. “I’ll find a way to prove to you that I wouldn’t turn on you, Alex. That’s my promise to you.”

  He had no frame of reference to know how to answer a statement like that. Everybody turned o
n everyone else eventually. It was why relationships were so dangerous.

  He picked up the pad of notebook paper lying on the room’s desk and started writing notes and drawing lines between them, looking for connections he’d missed before. And when he gave up for the night, he burned the entire pad and flushed the ashes down the toilet.

  One thing he knew for sure. He was being used by somebody. And whether it was Katie or his parents or someone else altogether, he didn’t like it. He was not going to play ball and be a good little spy. Not by a long shot.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  KATIE WOKE WITH a jolt. Crap. There was some reason she wasn’t supposed to sleep. No, wait. Alex had promised he wouldn’t run out on her and abandon her again. She sagged back to the mattress in relief. Except something was still wrong. But what?

  Alex was curled on his side facing her, sleeping quietly. Lord, he was handsome with his hair tousled and his face mashed against a pillow. Even in sleep, though, he radiated pain. She’d give anything to lift it away from him. For his mother to be a lovely woman who had desperately missed her son over the years and adored him in absentia. But Alex seemed to think she was somehow tied in to their current predicament. He was so suspicious of everyone and everything. She thought she’d gotten past that with him, but at the moment, she seemed to be included in his lengthy list of people not to be trusted.

  It was dark outside. She checked her cell phone. A little after 4:00 a.m. Restless, she slid out of bed and padded over to the window. She lurked beside the curtains like she’d seen Alex do before and peeked sideways around them without disturbing the hanging drapery.

  A car was just pulling into the motel parking lot. Weird hour for that. Even weirder as it turned the corner that its headlights were off. It parked beside another car of identical make. It must have been the noise of the first car pulling in that woke her up. A warning vibration erupted in her gut.

  “Alex,” she called low.