SLEEPER (Crossfire Series) (15 page)

He had always liked her fearlessness. She never backed away in the face of challenge, not in the middle of that mountain road six weeks earlier, not during a shoot-out, not here when she was in a locked suite with barely any clothes on. And each time, he’d wanted to reach out and hug her and shield her from danger. He gently stroked the thudding pulse. He knew he was making her remember he’d touched more than her neck in the shower earlier.

“We can discuss more in the morning, how about that? I’m too tired right now after having taken care of you all night.” As he’d known, reminding her that he’d saved her took some of the fight out of her. He suddenly scooped her up in his arms. He looked into her startled eyes and added, “You’re running a fever and you’re favoring that injured arm. It’s got to be throbbing like hell, but I’ve a feeling you’re going to stand here and argue all night if I don’t put you into that bed.”

He walked to the bed and climbed into it with her. “Now, I’m going to get the painkillers and you’ll damn well take them so you can have a good night’s rest. And if you argue, I’ll force them down your throat. You can kick my ass tomorrow.”

Her face was mutinous. “I—oh!”

Reed froze. The knot in Lily’s towel had loosened and the two sides fell open. With his body literally covering hers, she couldn’t cover herself. He didn’t move away, couldn’t take his eyes away from her body. This time it felt even more intimate than when he’d held her naked in his arms earlier. Then, he’d been concentrating on the task of cleaning her. Now, all his attention was on the woman.

He recalled wanting to kiss the tops of her breasts when they were dancing and he’d dipped her. Now he wanted to bury his face between the rounded softness and lick the creamy pink of her nipples till they reddened. As he watched, they hardened into small pebbles under his gaze. All he had to do was lean down and he would have one in his mouth.

“Stop looking at me like that,” she said, her voice very hushed.

He looked up from those tempting mounds. Her face was flushed—with desire or embarrassment, he couldn’t tell. She made a small movement, pulling at the towel. Part of it was trapped under his knee, and that was what had loosened the knot. He didn’t shift his weight.

Instead, locking her gaze with his, he slowly removed her hands and carefully, so as not to hurt her, he held them down on the bed. Her eyes widened, but she didn’t fight him. He bent down lower, blowing softly on her skin. She arched, a small gasp escaping her lips. “Take the painkillers,” he said softly.

“Are you…threatening me?” she whispered.

“It’s an ultimatum,” he said. “Take the painkillers and I won’t do this.”

He blew on her skin lightly again, this time moving lower toward her belly button. He wanted to taste that too. He wanted to explore the hidden parts he’d inadvertently touched in the shower. To press home the point that he intended to carry on, he trailed the tip of his tongue down the slope of her stomach. She gasped again.

“Oh…you win, you win. I’ll take the damn pills.” Her voice came out in a husky groan.

Because he knew he wouldn’t stop if he continued, Reed sat up. “Too bad. I’d hoped you would let me continue.”

Lily seemed at a loss for words as she lay there with her hands still imprisoned by his. Her expressive eyes spoke volumes, though. He released her. She lay there quietly as he tucked the sheets around her.

He went out and returned with the trolley and two pills. He sat beside her, and for a moment he thought she was going to refuse him again. Then she obediently took them with the glass of hot milk he gave her. He kept silent. She sighed when he adjusted her pillows, betraying how tired she really was.

She watched as he went in and out the bathroom and felt like laughing hysterically. The man looked so damned domestic, walking around the room. She heard him brushing his teeth and whistling softly as he flapped the towels. It was as if they were a couple used to each other. Not long after, he climbed into bed and turned off most of the lights using the control panel by the night table, plunging the room into semi-darkness. It would be several minutes before the pills took effect.

“I thought you were going to use the couch,” she said.

He had been going to, but Reed the gunrunner wouldn’t have done such a gentlemanly thing. At least, that was the excuse he was going to use. “I changed my mind,” he said, then turned on his side to look at her. “Sorry, but the bed looked more tempting.”

Especially with the woman in it. She must really be out of sorts or very comfortable being naked because she hadn’t once asked for the T-shirt he’d brought up. He thought about her sore shoulder. Maybe she couldn’t even put the shirt on herself but hadn’t wanted him to see how much pain she was in. She’d rather go naked than tell him.

He smiled wryly. Stubborn and always wanting the last word. He wondered whether she would have admitted that if the medication hadn’t loosened her tongue.

He listened as her breathing slowed. Tonight—last night, he amended, after glancing at the alarm clock—she’d revealed more of herself than she’d intended. He smiled wryly in the dark.

Keep your mind out of the gutter, Vincenzio.

He meant the passports. She’d given him an idea of how important they were to her. He couldn’t help but wonder about her desperate need to help those girls. She couldn’t be all bad if her sole desire was saving helpless women who had no one else to turn to.

But that was the problem. Lily Noretski wasn’t bad because she was someone’s victim, too. He just had to find out where she’d hidden the device before she became his victim.

Reed stared into the darkness. Never ever get emotionally involved with the target. It only made his job tougher to do. His eyes closed. His awareness of the naked woman sleeping beside him heightened.

Too damn late.

* * *

Dammit, Lily Noretski was just getting a bunch of passports, not trying to get a buyer for the device. Greta continued knitting furiously for a few minutes. She finished the row, changed hands, and started again. She dropped several stitches.

“
Scheiss!
”

She stopped, clicking the needles together, as she looked at the pattern. It was just a minor mistake, something she could fix in minutes, but she seemed unable to calm herself, which made her madder, since she loved knitting because it calmed her down whenever she was stressed.

This wasn’t stress. Stress was keeping up the pretense of being a secretary at the CIA for ten years when she was more than that. She had done that without a complaint, so this one tiny mistake—she looked at her knitting—wasn’t a problem.

Although Greta didn’t want to admit it, Lily hadn’t been that easy to find without her old sources. The CIA, with all its excellent monitors and paper trails, had truly spoilt her. That girl had seemingly disappeared from the face of the earth until Gunther had revealed his mole had received some information. Finally! Greta had almost given up.

It seemed Lily was actually here in town and had been seen making several withdrawals from banks. Then she’d contacted Johnny Chic, whom Greta had discovered was a well-known underground middleman who owned a club named The Beijing Bombshell.

Greta made a sound of disgust at the thought of the slight, mustachioed man. What a twisted mind, to have a business that actually made all women behave like sex kittens and dress up like his Marilyn Monroe fantasies. And people actually paid him to get into the club. He’d chided her for not having worn a wig. As if she was going to actually don one and parade around him in fishnet stockings. She didn’t cater to male fantasies; her forte had always been to kill, not seduce.

First, she had to straighten Gunther up. He’d started this. If he hadn’t misled her with certain details, she wouldn’t have concluded that Lily was making a sale. But the information had been deceptive—an illegal trade negotiator like Johnny Chic setting up what had looked like a meeting between a gunrunner and Lily. When her spotter had said she’d been carrying a bag with her while walking out of the club—a bag big enough for the device—she’d given the go-ahead signal to get rid of the gunrunner. The idea had been to isolate Lily so they could nab her and the bag.

Here was where everything had gone down the drain. Greta’s hitman had missed his target and those two had bolted out of the entrance. Then her other man hadn’t followed her exact orders.

She didn’t want Lily dead yet. Obviously Gunther was trying to sabotage her job. That sniveling, ambitious piece of garbage! Did he think she would allow that to happen? Her homecoming was more important to her than he’d ever know and she wasn’t going to let someone like him win.

Greta got up and walked to the kitchenette in her small
pensione
. A good cup of coffee. Maybe a good soak in the bathtub. She glanced at her watch and sighed. No time for the second option. Ah, for the good old days in the States, when she would spend hours relaxing in a tub of bubbles. It was something that she definitely missed now that she was back in the game.

She filled the small kettle with water and set it on the burner. Some habits were tough to get rid of, especially when she had cultivated them for a decade. She looked over at the small sofa where the knitting sat. She just couldn’t give up knitting, not yet anyway. Besides, after this final grand entrance, she would be officially retired, so she would have plenty of time to indulge in knitting and bubble baths.

She smiled indulgently as she waited for the water to boil. Funny how she, of all people, looked forward to retirement. Americans thought about it all the time and she’d somehow gotten that into her thinking, too. But she did want to meet some of her family and settle down in the
dacha
the government had promised her. Nieces and nephews to play with and spoil, wouldn’t that be nice? Shopping for teddy bears and electronic games….

She frowned. That big sum of money given to Johnny Chic had set back her wealth a bit, but what she’d found out had given her an entirely different picture of what was going on.

One thing was for sure. She couldn’t trust Gunther any longer.

Greta turned off the stove. She poured the hot water from the kettle into her cup. Really, what she needed to do was take a quick trip to see Gunther and make him talk to her. She smiled again. He thought she was too old to take him on. She would show him. Bullying an old lady.

She carried her cup back to the sofa and sat down comfortably. This whole place was too small. A few steps and there was the living room. A few steps and there was the bed. Disgusting. Her
dacha
would have a lot of space. She could knit in one and have coffee in another. She would have a dressing room as large as her bedroom.

She laughed. She was getting so silly. First, she had to get this job done, to show them she was still worth their respect. She didn’t just want to retire into anonymity. She wanted them to come to her for advice, maybe give her a small position in training some of the newer operatives.

Greta shuddered. Okay, maybe not. She hated the idea of competition. She was the best, and that was why they’d given her this monumental task that had lasted for so long. She’d delivered, time and time again, for them and their cause for ten long years. She hadn’t enjoyed the work—although the money they’d transferred into her account was nice—because she preferred a more active role than mere mole handler.

She thought of Gorman and the network she’d nurtured. “Oh, more than a mere mole handler, my darling Greta,” she murmured softly, bringing the cup to her lips. She took a long sip of coffee. “That network almost crippled the damn CIA.”

She laughed triumphantly and lifted the cup in a victory toast. She’d done a great job. She deserved everything that was coming to her. They were going to give her a nice
dacha
once she delivered the explosive trigger device.

After all, she was Greta, not some sniveling pencil pusher like Gunther. She was going to go home a legend. Of course she had to up the ante. She was going to show them how the device would work, perhaps with a timely assassination. She tapped her chin thoughtfully. Who in Europe wasn’t popular with her agency right now? Most important of all, she wanted to demonstrate that she hadn’t lost a step during all those years of absence from the scene.

Greta shrugged. Vanity was a strange thing. She was a woman, after all, and knew they might look at her as a washed-out has-been, if she wasn’t careful. She was way over the age of a regular assassin, but…She. Wasn’t. Regular. That was the point.

She could have kicked herself for not having anticipated certain problems, though. Like someone with an ambitious eye looking to use her brilliant idea to further his own position within her agency.

She hadn’t figured out all the details yet, but one fact stood out. Gunther had somehow managed to get Lily to help him out a few months ago. What did he have on her that had made her so willing to sacrifice her life? He’d gotten that woman to betray her friends, steal the device, and head for the summit almost without a hitch.

That was what pissed Greta off most—that she’d been so out of the loop. Wasn’t she the one who had arranged for the weapon to be dropped off in Macedonia? Wasn’t she the one who had successfully gotten her nephew to keep it hidden till she’d been able to get out of the States? Then why all those lies about using a decoy when Lily had been more than that? Perhaps Gunther was a double agent like her.

Greta had thought the target had been one person at the summit, not a whole group of international leaders. To have Lily walk into a roomful of political leaders during an art exhibit unveiling…it would have been a coup for Gunther if she’d finished her task. A whole group of very important people blown up in front of all those international news cameras.