“That’s pretty surprising as you said you were on your way there.”
She sniffs like the subject is closed. “So. Mister Drinkwater. Tell me where he is and we can all begin to move on.”
The door to the suite opens. A six-man SWAT team bursts in. Ms. McCleaver doesn’t move.
She says, “I expect he’s in the hotel somewhere. In a room with your confidante, no doubt. Your confederate.” She leans forward, “Your co-conspirator.” She’s quiet as she watches me. Studying my face. Watching my eyes and my hands. Looking for tells.
I say, “Supposing we were to keep him for a while. Extract some intelligence. Share what we can learn from him.”
“Who are you imagining is ‘we’ in this bizarre fantasy, Ms. Keene?”
“Supposing we shared what we can learn from him.”
“Why would we agree to that? And, if you imagine this is some sort of a swap-meet, what are you looking for in return?”
I stay relaxed and remain as still as I possibly can. After a few moments, she speaks, leaving long gaps between phrases, “They’re on this floor, no doubt. The usual thing would be one of the adjacent rooms. So,” she sits back, “Left? Or right?”
The SWAT team are all very still. Waiting. McCleaver keeps a relaxed look on her face but she hasn’t blinked once.
I’m not good at not blinking.
Finally, I can’t help it. I blink. When my eyes open, I’m looking out to the left.
McCleaver claps her hands, grinning. “That’s it, the suite on that side,” she points, “Go get them.” She sits all the way back with her fingers steepled and she lets a thin grin spread across her face.
“After we find our boy, we’ll see what’s to be done with you. I may be able to put in a good word. Some of your crimes are quite serious, though.” Her eyelids droop as she shakes her head. “Colluding with an enemy agency. Really. Tell me, Ms. Keene, did you fall for a beautiful Russian? I heard that it can happen.”
Arkady walks in through the door, in front of the SWAT team.
McCleaver turns to look. Then she turns back. Her eyebrows rise. “Really, Ms. Keene. He is quite beautiful.” She looks me up and down. “I wouldn’t have thought you had it in you.”
“No?” I raise an eyebrow back. “Goes to show, I guess.”
Her smile drops. “All right. Enough fooling around. Where’s Drinkwater?”
“The State Department spy?” I ask her, innocently.
“Just tell us where he is. When you’ve handed him over, I’ll see what leniency I can get you. No promises, though.”
Arkady says, “Drinkwater’s a bit tied up at the moment. Is that how you say it? Anyway, he’s not here. But we have a better proposal for you. We’ll keep him for a while. Debrief him.”
She drawls, “I suppose you are the other party in Ms. Keene’s fantasy team when she says ‘we.’ I so hate to disappoint you, Mr. Pasternak, but we don’t make deals with enemy agents. Anyway, I can’t imagine what you think you might have to offer for such a ridiculous trade.”
Arkady’s voice lowers. Becomes confidential. “Always bargaining, Ms. McCleaver. Always working the angles. It’s good. You shouldn’t think of me as an enemy, though.”
As she’s looking back, admiringly I have to say, at Arkady, I tell her, “We’ll give you his agent runner.”
Her head snaps back to look in my eyes. “I don’t care who his Chinese handler is. Bring him to me. Now.”
The door opens again. “Really, Donna?” my line manager, Harry Beck steps in through the door. As always, looking like a rumpled, kindly but confused uncle, he says, “I’m not sure you’re in the best of positions here. I’ve been listening from the next room. Nobody mentioned the Chinese.”
“Beck, just sit down and leave this to me.”
“Mm.” He says, “Thing is, Ms. Keene tells me you made an attempt on her life with an arson attack on her apartment.”
“Ridiculous.” she huffs.
“That’s what I thought, but she also said she has evidence that in fact you are Drinkwater’s handler for the Chinese.”
A final guest joins the party. A short, extremely elegant man in a silk suit with a primrose buttonhole and a loose tie sweeps into the room. Instantly I recognize Carson Hughburton, the Secretary of State.
McCleaver stands, “Mr. Secretary.” He waves his hand with a trace of irritation.
With a strong and cultured voice, he says, “Really, Donna. I had a perfectly excellent table for lunch waiting at the Capital Grille. Could you not have fallen on your sword a couple of hours earlier in the day?”
“Sir, I am in no way falling on my sword. You can’t believe any of this ridiculous charade.”
He stops and looks hard in her eye, “Donna, please. Have some decorum. You’ve been caught with your tongue stuck a long way up what is very much the wrong ass. I can put in a good word at Justice, but do not wear my patience too hard.”
His eyes swivel around to me. He peers hard at me for several moments. Then he says, “Miss Keene, is it? You have shown endless amounts of low cunning. It seems you have a flair for manipulation and deception. I don’t think you are above some very dirty dealings indeed.” He fixes me with his eye. “I believe that the State Department has found a great treasure in you. You will go far. Come with me and we’ll discuss it over drinks.”
He turns to Arkady and gives him a long, cool look.
“And you, sir, I believe that you are a Russian spy. So you will certainly have many interesting and amusing things to tell us over cocktails. So. Come along. Join us.”
Chapter Nineteen
Him
Richard Drinkwater is still in the safe house, but he’ll be okay there for a while longer. If we’d brought him along to the Watergate, there was a real risk he would have gotten found and killed. So might Saskia and I, of course. But we calculated that McCleaver wouldn’t risk any bloodshed before she’d gotten her little mole back safe and sound.
Since Saskia knew which drawer Drinkwater had been reading from, she was able to make a stab at the subject matter. From there it hadn’t been too tough for her to bluff him into spilling the broad outlines of his mission.
I knew she had gifts for spying.
It was all about high-tech contracts and bids. Telecoms and internet connectivity for the most part. I wasn’t surprised to learn that it was all industrial espionage and corruption at the highest level.
I had prepped her on how to handle the interview with Drinkwater. She had a legitimate personal grudge. She could start by letting him think she was there to exact some revenge for his trying to kill her.
As it was, she didn’t need much trickery. As soon as she walked into the cell, she sensed that he was afraid, and so she just came straight out with a bluff, telling him, “McCleaver’s going to go down. You know that, right?” He clammed up. That was enough of a clue. But when she said, “You know that she’ll throw you under the bus ahead of her, don’t you?” then he realized that there was a whole lot that he wanted to get cleared up and off of his chest.
We’ll tell all of it to Secretary Hughburton.
Donna has been led away by her own team of SWAT thugs. Henry Beck told Saskia that she had done a fantastic job, and he was going to do everything he could to get her a full-time position, in other words, a proper salary, for the rest of her internship.
After they all leave and we’re alone, I pull Saskia to me. “Before we join Secretary Hughburton for cocktails, I aim to make to use of this very suite in the Watergate that I still have for the rest of the day.”
“Do you now?” She’s backing away. Teasing.
I can’t wait to finally get her completely naked. Relaxed and ready, with all the time in the world.
“I have a surprise for you.”
“Really?” now she’s backed into the sheer drapes and she leans against the floor-to-ceiling window. Her eyes light up with suspicion.
I advance on her, “Did you look in the other ro
om?”
“No.…”
“The master bedroom?”
“Maybe I should look?”
“Maybe you should give me a kiss first.”
“Oh, should I?” Her hand presses on my chest.
I nod. She nods. “Come here, then.”
I bend my head to her. The taste of her mouth is a hair’s breadth from my lips.
“Finally, at last,” I murmur, “We can take our time. We have champagne, smoked salmon and cream cheese sandwiches, and little cakes. The king-size four-poster bed is covered in rose petals.”
Her eyebrows raise, “Oh?”
I hold her waist. “I can undress you properly. You can undress me if you’d like to.”
“Oh?”
“And we can start seriously making babies together. I want you to give me lots of babies.”
“It still seems kind of sudden.”
“Not as sudden as this is going to seem.”
“Oh, god, would you take me by force?”
“Would you like me to?”
She nods once, and her eyes flash as she wriggles free and runs. This is totally a game changer.
I chase after her. She runs around the huge lounge, with me pursuing after her. She runs into the bedroom. Then she stops. She stands, amazed. I arranged for the room to be covered in fairy lights. Two bottles of champagne stand in ice buckets on trolleys with salvers of delicious nibbles.
The enormous four-poster is draped with muslin and glows golden from the fairy lights inside. Soft layers of rose petals cover the inside of the magical chamber. Her eyes are wide and dewy.
As soon as I reach the doorway, she runs again, letting out peals of giggling laughter. She dashes out the other bedroom door, back into the lounge. When I chase after her, she doubles back toward me. I reach to catch her. She ducks and darts past me, giggling harder now.
I follow her back into the bedroom. She’s backed against the bed. Her lips are pressed together. She grins as her head shakes slowly from side to side. I lunge at her. She feints left then runs right. I land, sprawling on the high mattress.
“All right,” I growl, “Now you’re asking for it.” She squeals as she runs out of the room again.
I find her, back against the big windows. Biting her thumbnail. With an impish grin.
I stand close in front of her. Put my hands on the windows, either side of her. Blocking her.
She looks in my eye. Innocent. Then ducks to escape.
I’m ready for her this time. And I catch her. Lift her off the floor. Her feet kick. I hold her against the window. She’s breathing hard. So am I.
“Here, standing?” I ask her, “Or on the bed.”
She wriggles. Her feet kick. Her grin is the sexiest thing I ever saw. I could come right in her face just looking at her. Her head shakes. She lifts her elbows.
“Here, then.” I tell her. Running my hands over her body, I take a long, wet kiss. Her little fists beat against my chest. I stop, still. Just to check that she really is into it. She stops. Her eyes flash.
I tell her, “I won’t warn you again,” and her head shakes as she gives me one more flash of her minxy grin.
She shouts, “Oh!” as I turn her to face the window.
The sheer drape gives her a misty view of downtown DC, ten floors below.
I’m not looking at that. As I run my hands over her throat and her breasts, I’m looking at her fantastic ass.
Her knees sag as my hand slides up the inside of her thigh. Up to the top. She moans as I grab her ass, her mound, her pussy. I trace the tops of her thighs and rub her wet panties around her hood. Pulling the skin back in pulses like Morse code.
“Come on then, big boy,” she moans, wiggling her ass, pushing it back against my throbbing cock.
“Oh, I love you,” I tell her as I rip her panties.
She squeaks and says, “I love you, bad Russian man.”
I push my fingers along the wet velvet sinews of her delicious pussy. Over the lips and the hood. trilling the base of her clit. Then feeling the insides of her walls.
She reaches back to grab at my cock, straining in my pants.
I open my pants and let it spring out. Her knees bend and her thighs tremble as I rub the head of it along her lips, pressing up at the front.
I slip the bulb against the opening of her flower. She grabs it. Slides it back. And up. Pulls it against her tender little ass.
“You going to be gentle with me, big Russian?” I grunt. In a low snarl, she says, “Don’t. All right?”
“We’ll need lube.”
She pouts back over her shoulder, “Haven’t I got enough?”
“We’ll see.”
Turns out she has plenty. I get my fingers covered in her juices. Then use them to gently massage her little ass. She squirms and shimmies as I drag my cock against her lips, up and down under her dripping pussy.
Quickly, I roll a condom over my shaft, then I slip the bulb against her ass. And press. Her hands against the glass, her fingers clench. I know I’m going to have a hard time not coming too fast. She’s smooth but wonderfully tight. Her feet patter on the floor and her knees shake.
She pushes her fabulous ass back, into my pelvis. The soft warmth of her undulating flesh is almost more than I can take.
Holding her by her stomach and her pussy gives me the chance to massage her pussy and around her clit, circling her in sets of waves. I lift her off the floor to drive my cock deeper inside her. She shakes and beats her fingers and the heels of her hands against the window as she comes.
Her wetness gushes into my hand and runs down her thighs.
After she comes a third—or was it fourth?—time, I scoop her up and carry her to the bedroom. She gasps, panting, and her eyes roll. Tenderly I undress her, kissing and stroking every part of her. Telling her softly how much I love her.
“I love that you wanted to share that virginity with me also,” I whisper.
“I want you to take all of my virginities,” she tells me. “Rip them. Break them all in two.”
When she’s finally naked and pure, her smile shining in the soft light, I give her champagne.
“I love you,” I raise my glass, “Forever.”
“I love you, too, Arkady,” I kiss her, then worship every part of her body with my mouth and my fingers.
She kisses my hands.
At last, I lay her out across the big bed. I rise up between her wonderful golden thighs, and kneel with her thighs over mine.
Her eyes pop as I enter her. Fully, now, I take my time to move all the way around her and up into her wonderful pussy. As soon as my groin rubs on hers, she stretches out her arms, pleading me to lie with her.
I was so proud to have loved her up her ass and held back my orgasm.
I will come over her, in her, on her everywhere. But only after I know that she is pregnant. Until then, I won’t waste a single electric tadpole.
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