The Russian Seduction (12 page)

“It’s Friday evening,” he pointed out. “Your capital will do nothing until the relevant experts can obtain your Ambassador’s perspective, which he will doubtless instruct you to convey via the State Department’s duty officer on Saturday. And nothing is going to happen in Ukraine until the elections occur in two weeks.”

He aimed a sardonic glance at her untouched glass. “Drink your vodka.”

Alexis wrestled with the impulse to launch a barbed comment on his detailed knowledge of internal U.S. government procedures. Although he was right about the next steps, that was the hell of it.

Still, she vibrated with the need to take action. If Russia was going to play the ethnic minority card, and cite human rights as the justification for its blockade, Washington would want to give the issue immediate airplay at the United Nations. And that would take time to arrange.

In short, she couldn’t afford to sit on her ass and do nothing.

“I’m going to call this in.” She thumbed open her Motorola. “At a minimum, the Deputy Chief of Mission should know.”

“You’ll observe that your mobile telephone is receiving no signal from this
dacha
, since we’re well outside the city limits. I repeat, Ms. Castle: at the moment, there is nothing you can do. Drink your vodka.”

She mastered an irritated impulse to toss the damn vodka in his lap, the more so because—once again—he was right. Her bloody phone was getting no signal.

Even if Kostenko’s own phone was working, by some technological miracle, she could hardly discuss sensitive matters with Geoff or anyone else in the USG on a Russian officer’s mobile phone. It would be equivalent to speaking directly into a tape recorder for the Federal Security Bureau, Moscow’s equivalent to the FBI.

“It must be tiresome, captain, to be always right,” she muttered. Just to show him she could handle it, to remind him she was his equal, she tossed back the vodka. Immediate tears rose in her eyes, and her throat burned like she’d pounded a shot of battery acid.

“
Jesus
.” She choked down a pickle to chase it, Russian style, and struggled not to cough. “I really need to get back to the Embassy.”

“You will,” he reassured her, leaning to pour her another potent dose. She was opening her mouth to decline—but was distracted when he loosened the black tie knotted at his throat, and tugged his collar open.

Alexis’s mouth went dry. The stark contrast between that starched linen and the sinewed, sun-bronzed column of his throat made her spine tingle. And the rough texture of golden stubble against his hard jaw made her palms itch to touch him.

So far, she’d stayed in control, kept the discussion focused on their work. But that glimpse of skin reminded her that she was very much alone with him, a man for whom she could no longer deny…at least to herself…feeling a certain attraction.

Hell. She’d better be honest with herself. She’d never in her life wanted to climb inside a guy’s trousers this badly. Even though he had to be the most inappropriate and downright dangerous guy on the entire planet for her to screw. She had to stop imagining herself unzipping his fly and straddling him—
stop it.

Nervously she tossed back the vodka, hard and fast, and fought not to sputter as it seared her lungs. Standing her glass on the table firmly, she rose to her feet. “You have to take me back, captain.”

“Don’t worry, Alexis,” he murmured, lids dropping over his electric blue eyes as they slid slowly down her body. “I’m not going to abandon you to catch a bus.”

“That’s not what worries me.” The vodka loosened her tongue, eased the cork out of her bottled-up inhibitions. Why not just come out and say it? Let him know
she
knew what he was up to. “Not that I don’t appreciate this little seduction scene you’ve arranged, but we can’t….”

The words dried up, her Dutch courage failing before she could specify that-which-should-not-be-named. Swallowing hard, she repeated, “We can’t.”

His voice deepened, making her knees go weak. “Can’t we?”

CHAPTER FIVE

Alexis tingled with anticipation as Kostenko uncoiled to his feet and prowled toward her. The same fight-or-flight instinct he always roused in her, except this time a different ‘f’ word suggested itself to her flustered body. Damn it, she had to pull herself together.

Tough to do when the sensual promise in his hard-hewn features made her ache with wanting. When every foot of space he closed between them made it tougher to remember why she needed to stay away.

His cobalt eyes held hers, never letting go for a second. One step closer, and he stood close enough to touch. She wanted to back away, but doggedly held her ground. If she ceded an inch of territory, he’d think she was afraid of him.

“Don’t you ever break the rules, Alexis?”

“Don’t you ever keep them?” Her voice came out shaky, but she didn’t look away.

“I’ll keep the rules when the system rewards me for doing it,” he growled, his accent deepening. “No one on my side’s going to know.”

Yeah, that was what she should be questioning. He might be able to break the rules and get away with it, but she sure as hell couldn’t—

Her mouth went dry when he reached for her, those cocksure hands closing around her waist, easing her up against lean hips and a mountaineer’s rock-hard thighs. She struggled for breath as his erection nudged her belly, setting off tremors of longing between her thighs stronger than an 8.5 earthquake on the Richter scale.

“So,” he breathed, the tang of Davidoffs and danger enough to make her sweat. “What shall we do, hmmm?”

Here was the point of no return, the moment when she absolutely must stop this. Unless she planned to give in, just give her body what it wanted after a two-year dry spell. Just scratch the itch, then perform the necessary damage control with the Embassy to cover her ass for this one-night stand. She moistened her lips and steeled herself to say
We can’t.

But she whispered instead, “I’d have to report it.”

“Well then,” he murmured, one hand easing up her spine with leisurely purpose, like he had all the time in the world to seduce her. “I’ll just have to make it worth your while.”

He cradled her head as his mouth found hers. The slide of hot wet friction seared through her like a comet of pleasure, promising a galaxy of sensual gratification to come. She moaned and opened for him, the burn of vodka on his tongue going straight to her head. God, that had to be it, she was crazy drunk, out of her head after two shots of vodka. Delirious with sexual craving for the first good-looking guy who’d mounted a serious pursuit since her divorce was finalized.

But even that didn’t stop her.

Arousal throbbed between her legs as she leaned into his predator’s body, so dangerous but so good. Her palms drank him in, sliding across the solid muscle of his shoulders—Olympic-gymnast-on-the-pommel-horse material—to do what she’d secretly wanted since the night they’d met. Thread her fingers through the lush burnished gold of that not-quite-regulation hair.

The raspy velvet of his jaw made her shiver and arch her throat into his teeth. He growled with satisfaction and caught her behind the thighs, lifting her off the ground.

“This is completely inappropriate,” she whispered, head spinning, as he carried her toward the fire’s blazing heat. “We’ll both lose our jobs. Captain—”

“Call me Victor, damn it,” he muttered, lowering them to kneel on the black bearskin. “Do you want me to call you Counselor when I’m inside you?”

“No! I mean—Victor—” She couldn’t resist drowning in him, just for a minute, turning her face into his throat and breathing deep, that spine-tingling aroma of Beckham that she couldn’t get enough of. Tongue darting out to taste his salty skin.

God, it would be so damn good between them…but she couldn’t let it happen. She’d be handing her career to him on a silver platter.

So what?
Ruthlessly suppressed for ten years, her inner rebel spoke up.
You don’t have to be in control every second. Let go for an hour.

“Victor. I can’t do this.” She tried another obligatory protest, but the rebel in her had taken over, and didn’t resist when he eased her back on the lush fur.

“Do you really want me to stop?” Disheveled blond tendrils fell over his forehead as he unbuttoned her blazer and stripped it away, like he couldn’t wait to be inside her.

“Not really,” she admitted, staring up at him, thinking this had to be some kind of fantasy. Except that no dream had ever looked and felt this good. Crystal beads of perspiration glistening on his suntanned skin. Gold-tipped lashes hooding his ice-blue eyes, doing nothing to hide the naked hunger she stirred in him.

When he peeled off her silk camisole, she didn’t even voice a protest. But she stirred, self-conscious, too aware of how long it’d been since she’d slept with someone.

“Christ,” he said thickly, his face tightening, as if the sight of her damaged him. “You’re bloody gorgeous.”

He said it in both languages, his husky words easing her moment of insecurity. She snuck a peek to remind herself which lingerie she’d fumbled into in the pitch-black Moscow predawn. Not the demure, hand-crafted House of Cadolle confections she usually favored. Tonight it was turquoise lace, since lingerie was one of the few avenues of expression she’d found that allowed her to feel both sexy and “safe.” And how pathetic was that?

Then his hands and mouth were claiming her, unhooking her bra, driving every rational thought she’d ever had straight into oblivion. The rough calluses on his fingers making her nipples hard as pomegranate seeds when he touched her. No way was she stopping now, not while the wet heat of his mouth was suckling her, teeth grazing her just the way she liked it. Like he’d gotten into the bedside diary she’d kept in college, and figured out exactly what turned her on.

She fumbled at his tie and jacket, aching to get him naked. His chest and shoulders were a wet dream, like she’d known they would be, tight-defined muscles rolling under sun-gold skin, six-pack abs hard and hot against her fingers.

They were both sweating by the time he encountered the bikini-cut panties she’d struggled into that morning. And found out firsthand just how much he turned her on.

He took his time getting her out of them, fingers teasing and rubbing through the damp lace. Bringing her right to the edge, until she was moaning and squirming against his fingers. By the time he eased her out of her panties…with his teeth…one excruciating inch at a time…Alexis couldn’t remember why she’d wanted to stop him.

When he finally slid one finger into her slick heat, she almost came right there, so ready he had her pleading. Sometime during the thrash and slide of their sweat-soaked limbs, he broke out a condom, and she was grateful he’d thought about protection, though she’d been on the Pill for convenience since college.

But when his cock eased into her in a long slow slide, when he braced above her on his elbows, and the friction teased her clit—that was when she climaxed. The shocks of pleasure blew her mind, rolling through her one after another, until she thought she’d never stop coming.

_____________________________________

Afterward Alexis lay sprawled on the bearskin, limbs languid and sated, damp with the residue of her own climax as the aftershocks eased. In the end, he’d pinned her arms overhead, bringing her again to the peak just when she’d thought the last tremors must be wrung out of her.

You ought to be ashamed
, she rebuked her inner rebel.
There’s a reason I’ve kept you locked up since I joined the government. Look what you’ve gone and done now.
She’d simply had no idea her body could react that way, never cared to make herself vulnerable enough to find out. Never dreamed she’d respond so intensely to being dominated, of all things, a feeling she’d hated and fought against all her life.

She—whose professional success had always hinged on how decisively she took charge herself.

Damn it, where was her judgment? She’d just royally screwed herself, hadn’t she?

Uncomfortable, she rolled on her side, away from Kostenko, and stared into the blazing fire. On the walls all around, the eyes of those carved wooden faces followed her.