Her Spy to Hold (Spy Games Book 2) (7 page)

Her current situation wasn’t going to help.

“Now I’m making you breakfast?” she asked, drawing his thoughts back to the matter at hand. “If you’re supposed to be my boyfriend, why shouldn’t you be making breakfast for me?”

She was arguing for the sake of it and he couldn’t let that one pass. She made it too easy. “You’d have to earn one of mine, Dr. Babe.”

“Maybe you’d have to earn one of mine too.”

He raised an eyebrow, bringing pink to her cheeks. The light above the door caught the clear, guileless green of her eyes. She sucked at this game, and although the wine could take part of the blame, it was mostly because she was the furthest thing from a casual hookup he could imagine. Dr. Glasov was all business. Irina was…sweet.

The kind of girl a guy married.

And that was the problem. He really wanted to kiss her but couldn’t come up with an excuse to do so. If he did anyway, he’d be raising expectations. She deserved better from him. He wasn’t a player.

He tossed the keys in the flat of his palm. “Why don’t we flip a coin in the morning to see which one of us has to make breakfast?”

“That’s probably best.”

It sounded like disappointment he heard, buried beneath her speedy agreement, but that might be ego on his part.

He fitted the key in the lock and hustled her into the kitchen. Even before he had time to find the light switch, she’d kicked off her shoes in the soft, murky gloom.

“If I ever take up a second career, it’s going to be designing women’s shoes,” she sighed, peering down at her bare, slender feet and wiggling her toes. “How come we can put people into space but no one has come up with comfortable heels that are both fashionable and affordable?”

“You could try wearing shoes that don’t have three-inch heels instead.”

He liked them though. They drew the eye up the length of her legs, which were no hardship to stare at, to the prim hemline of her narrow skirt. From there, his imagination took over. The red skirt cupped a very fine ass. The white T-shirt cradled more curves. The jacket that matched her skirt was in the backseat of her car, he recalled. He’d have to remember to get that for her tomorrow.

“Spoken like a man who isn’t vertically challenged.” She pulled the elastic from her hair. With a ruffle of her fingers and a shake of her head, a thick mass of caramel tresses cascaded around her shoulders.

Like that wasn’t hot. His brain drifted south.

He located the switch on the wall and the light fixture over the kitchen table blinked on.

Irina walked to the fridge. Would you like something to eat?” She glanced at him in dismay, her hand on the latch. “I never thought. Did you get any dinner? Or did you wait in the car the whole evening?”

“I ate.” He’d had a bag of potato chips and a bottle of soda. “But I won’t say no if you’re offering to make me another one of those smoked meat sandwiches. You aren’t off the hook over breakfast though. We’re still flipping that coin.”

“Duly noted.”

She got the ingredients from the fridge and the cupboard and piled them on the island while he sat at the table and watched her work. She had a way of focusing all her attention on a task, and attacking it with precision, that he enjoyed. He could well imagine what it would be like to have all that concentration leveled on him. He’d bet she was worth making breakfast for. Probably more than once, too.

She stifled a yawn with the heel of her hand. He checked his watch under the table. Barely ten o’clock on a Friday night. Irina Glasov was no party girl. Not by a long stretch of the imagination. Meanwhile, he was wide awake.

She reached to take a plate off a shelf, stretching on her bare toes, exposing a midriff that had him licking his lips as the hem of her T-shirt parted ways with the waistband of her skirt. She loaded the plate with two neatly-cut triangles and set the thick sandwich before him.

“I must seem so boring to you,” she said.

“Why would you think that?” That wasn’t at all the impression she gave him.

She shrugged, a seemingly casual motion on the surface that in reality was anything but. “I sit at a computer all day. I’m ready for bed by ten o’clock.”

Now he felt like a jerk. She’d seen him checking his watch. “Being ready for bed doesn’t make a woman boring. In fact, it makes her a whole lot more interesting to a man.”

Her eyes lost some of the haziness brought on by stress, fatigue, and too much wine with her dinner. “You like to bait me too. I’m glad I can provide entertainment on what’s got to be a very dull assignment for you.”

If there was one thing he’d figured out about her already it was that Irina had her fair share of pride. The trouble was that it was threaded through with thin veins of feminine insecurity, and without meaning to, he’d managed to offend her. She thought her intelligence was her most appealing feature. It certainly wasn’t the least of them. But even brainy women liked to know men found them attractive. Joking with her right now was the wrong path for him to be taking.

“You aren’t boring, Irina. Far from it. I enjoy teasing you because you’re so fascinating.”

Her brow furrowed as she processed his words.

She ran her fingertips along the edge of the tabletop before turning abruptly away. “You don’t have to sleep on the sofa. You can use the spare room at the end of the hall. The bed’s already made. I’ll see you in the morning. Good night.”

She didn’t believe him. Suddenly, it became very important to him that she did.

“Hang on a second.”

The chair legs sputtered against the floor as he pushed away from the table. His head hit the light fixture, sending it swinging. He steadied it with one hand. She’d left the kitchen and entered the hall that led to the back of the house by the time he caught up with her.

“Irina. Wait.”

She stopped in front of her open bedroom door, her reluctance to continue the conversation etched on her pretty features. He could tell the second Dr. Glasov took charge. Her eyebrows rose and those intriguing green eyes widened in the dim light to form an unspoken question that exuded irritation.
What is it now?

He had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from saying exactly what it was that he had on his mind. With her feet and legs bare, her hair tumbled around her shoulders, and her skirt slightly askew, she couldn’t look any sexier if she tried.

Or less like a world famous computer scientist who designed nuclear weapons systems placements in aircraft. The contradictions suckered him in. How many women like this could there possibly be in the world?

So much for that plausible excuse he was lacking. He was going to kiss her without one.

They were alone in her house though, right outside her bedroom, and she didn’t know him very well. He was a lot bigger than she was and he hadn’t forgotten how nervous of him she’d been, or that alcohol played a significant part in her bravery tonight. It might be best if he kept his hands to himself.

But she made it so hard.

“You have a bit of mustard on your chin,” he lied. She lifted her fingers to her face, trying to feel where it might be. “Not there. Here.”

He bent his head and pressed his lips to the corner of her mouth, offering a soft, gentle caress. A breath of a sigh—a tiny exhalation of air—brushed his cheek in response. She shifted ever so slightly, whether by accident or design he couldn’t be sure, but either way, her mouth glided beneath his until full contact was made. She tugged on his lower lip, the tip of her tongue stroking against it.

Fireworks exploded inside his brain. He’d meant to come across as nonthreatening. To let her set the pace. Dr. Glasov, however, could kiss.

She was as attracted to him as he was to her. Of that much he was certain. While the timing wasn’t the best, and he’d never coax her into doing anything she might regret in the morning, he wasn’t about to pass up an opportunity he might regret missing either. But they each needed to be clear on what they were willing to offer. There had to be boundaries.

He planted his palms on the wall behind her, backing her up against it, not in order to pin her in place, but to keep his hands off her. He teased her lips farther open, dipping his tongue between them. Her fingers found his hips, her thumbs cuddling too close to his pelvis for comfort. In an instant, an erection strained at the fly of his jeans, begging for freedom. All his good intentions drifted away on the wave of heat flooding his groin.

He broke off the kiss. Wow. Things were moving a lot faster than he’d expected. His lungs bellowed like he’d just run ten kilometers. He couldn’t quite catch his breath. His ability to form complete sentences also seemed somewhat impaired.

He flicked one thumb across the corner of her mouth, swiping at the imaginary mustard stain. “Think I got it.”

“Thank you. I can’t imagine how it got there.”

His mouth crooked into a grin at her prim, thinly-veiled sarcasm. She was an open book. Not a simple one, granted. More a thick Russian literature translation complete with footnotes and an annotated bibliography. He liked that about her. He liked it a lot. “You’re the brains in the room. Try making an educated guess.”

She tilted her head to one side, casting him a quizzical look. “My guess is that there never was any mustard.”

“Really? Why would I lie about something like that?”

“You tell me. You’re the one who lies for a living.”

She ducked under his arm and into the bedroom, shutting the door in his face before he had a chance to respond.

He had not seen that coming.

He stared at the closed door for a long, incredulous moment, listening to her light steps as she moved around the room. Another door closed. A tap opened wide in the ensuite bathroom inside. He had no difficulty imagining her bedtime routine—the glide of a damp cloth over her skin, a brush stroking those long, silky tresses of hair.

He rapped his forehead against the door frame a few times, summoning his brain back from its southern migration.

She didn’t suck at this game quite as much as he’d thought.

Chapter Five

Irina awoke with a mouth that tasted like garbage and a brain attempting to drill its way free through her eyeballs.

It took a few seconds of staring at the bedroom ceiling fan above the bed for her to figure out the cause of the overwhelming mortification she felt. He was clanging pots in the kitchen, singing a truly horrible rendition of a popular song favored by pre-teenage girls. She’d find his taste in music funny if she wasn’t so hung over.

Or feeling so foolish. She’d told him he was beautiful. She’d let him kiss her. She’d kissed him back. Then she’d shut the bedroom door in his face.

Her friend Beverley gave terrible advice. If last night had proven anything, it was that Kale Martin was the last man she should go for. He was far too much…everything.

He was also lying to her.

She examined the facts. Her professional biography—out there for the entire world to see—clearly stated she’d graduated from high school at the age of fourteen. If he’d done any research on her at all, that was a fact he couldn’t possibly have missed. To her, that suggested his investigation wasn’t official.

But Detective Buchanan had confirmed Kale was with CSIS. And he hadn’t faked speaking Urdu. She’d been to Pakistan and he had the inflections down pat. He
knew
people too. He understood what motivated them. From the moment he first stepped into her kitchen he’d done his best to put her at ease.

And then to knock her off balance.

The thought of the kiss—kisses—they’d shared left her awash in a full-body blush that prickled to the roots of her hair. Those certainly had nothing to do with any official investigation. Not that she had a right to complain. She’d been an active and enthusiastic participant last night, and if he hadn’t stopped, she wouldn’t have either. That was another mark in his favor, although she gave it up grudgingly. She might not have initiated the kiss, but she wished she’d been the one to show some restraint.

OK. She believed he was legitimate when it came to his work. So what was his game? If CSIS wasn’t actively investigating her complaint, then why was he here?

That was the problem with spies. One could never be sure what they were really after. He was never going to tell her the truth so there was no point in demanding an explanation from him. Bottom line, she felt better about having him here. Safer.

But only up to a point.

She rolled to her side, tangling her legs in the cotton sheet she’d thrown off in the night. A tall glass of water sat on the bedside table, along with a roll of antacids. The gesture was thoughtful. The fact that he’d been in her room while she was asleep?

Disconcerting. She’d skipped pajamas and slept in a tank top and panties. He must have gotten an eyeful.

A glance at the clock said it was quarter to nine. She sat up and chewed four of the antacids before chugging the whole glass of water. Under-hydrating had been her biggest mistake of the night, but at least her stomach had settled. It rumbled at the smell of bacon wafting through the cracks around her door.

Footsteps in the hall, then a light knock on the door, made her sit up straighter in bed. The quiet sound of her name had her clutching the sheet to her chest.