“Monique survived,” he said softly.
“You told me she was dead. That she was shot in the face.”
“That’s what I saw. But the night was chaos—I must have been mistaken. All that I know is that she survived, and she’s coming after you.”
“Well, you can protect me from one single woman, can’t you? You’ve done it before.” The memory of Maureen’s body, facedown in the snow, leeching blood, was still etched in her brain, and she shuddered.
“She’s not coming alone.”
He was leaning against the bedside table, hands propped on his knees, seemingly at ease. “But why?” Chloe asked. “If she wanted to kill someone, why wouldn’t she want to kill you? I was just an innocent bystander.”
“You still are. And she has every intention of killing me when she can find me. I’m just a little harder to track. So she’s having to make do with you.”
“Lucky me,” she muttered. “Always someone’s second choice.”
“I’m sorry, would you rather have half of Europe after you? It’s easy enough to arrange.”
“And how would you do that?”
“Simply by staying with you.”
She turned to look at him. He’d said the words offhandedly, and she knew he had no interest or intention of being around her a moment longer than he had to. If it had been up to him he wouldn’t have seen her again. Hadn’t he said that earlier?
“So why does she want to kill me? Apart from the fact that I think I called her a skanky bitch. Why should she bother, I don’t matter to her.”
“No,” he said, “you don’t.”
“Then why?”
“Because you matter to me.”
His face was hidden in the moonlight, his words without inflection, and she almost thought she’d misheard him. “I don’t understand.”
“What’s to understand? Monique knows me well enough to recognize that the best way to hurt me is to hurt you. Simple logic. She’ll be here in a few hours.”
“A few hours? Then why don’t we leave?”
“For one thing, the snow is piling up, shutting down the highways. It won’t stop Monique, but it might slow her down a bit. Anyway, this is the safest place we can be, for now. I’ve improved the security system, and we have the advantage. They’re coming into unknown territory, whereas I’ve had time to check things out thoroughly. I’ve even managed to set a few surprises to welcome them. I was considering sneaking you out of here ahead of time, but you’re safer with me.”
“So you’ve always told me.”
“I have, haven’t I?” he said wearily. “Once Monique is finished you won’t have to see me again. Consider it a reward for following my orders.”
“Are you going to kill her? If you have to?”
“I’m going to kill her whether I have to or not,” he said. “And then I’ll be gone.”
“Where?”
He shrugged. “Where I belong, I suppose. Back to the Committee. It’s all I know how to do, and I’ve been well-trained to do it. It would be a shame to waste such expensive education and talent.” His voice was light.
“It would be a shame to waste you,” she said. “Don’t you think you matter more than a few highly specialized skills?”
He turned to look at her, and the murky light fell across his face, revealing his faintly ironic smile. “No,” he said. “Go back to sleep. I thought I gave you enough to knock you out for twelve hours at least, but you always were a stubborn woman.”
“You drugged me?”
“It wasn’t the first time. And I can do a lot worse if you annoy me. Be quiet and let me think. I’ll keep watch, and you’ll be safe enough. Believe me, they won’t come without warning.”
“When are they coming?”
“If it weren’t for the storm they would have been here by midnight. As it is, I expect they’ll be here sometime between four and five in the morning. It will still be dark enough to cover their movements. They’ve probably planned a simple assault—get in fast, complete their mission and out again in no more than twenty minutes. Monique would only hire the best.”
“And you’re enough to stop them?”
“Yes. Now go back to sleep.”
“What time is it now?”
“Just after eleven.”
“And they won’t be coming for another five hours?”
“Six if we’re lucky, four if we’re not.”
“Then why don’t you lie down and try to get some rest? It’s a huge bed. You won’t have to worry about accidentally touching me.” She hadn’t expected anything more than a cutting response, but without a word he rose, moving around to the other side of the huge bed, and lay down on it, kicking off his shoes. He didn’t get under the covers, but he was there, within reach.
“Have you been having trouble sleeping since you got back?” His voice was just a whisper on the night wind, closer than she realized.
“Yes. And you?”
“I never have trouble sleeping. I’ll sleep for exactly one hour now, and wake up feeling rested and alert. Don’t forget, what happened in Paris was nothing new for me.”
She was nothing new for him, she thought. And she was an idiot to be thinking about such things, when she could be dead in a matter of hours, but somehow the imminent possibility of dying only made living more important. Made loving more important. And all the psychobabble and rationalizations didn’t mean a thing when it came right down to it.
“It wasn’t Stockholm Syndrome,” she said in a muffled voice, turning her back on him in the vast expanse of the king-size bed. There might as well be an ocean between them.
“I know,” he said, and he sounded oddly gentle. “I told you, Stockholm Syndrome is a myth.”
She turned over to look at him, and he was much closer than she’d realized. So close she could reach out and touch him. “Then why do I still feel this way?” she whispered.
He said nothing, but for the first time his face looked unguarded in the moonlight. “Are we going to die in a few hours?” she asked.
“Quite possibly,” he said. “But not right now.” And he reached out and touched her face, his hand incredibly gentle. She stared at him, frozen, as he leaned over and kissed her with heartbreaking tenderness.
“What’s this?” she asked, trying to sound cynical and failing miserably. “My reward?”
“No,” he said. “It’s mine.” He caught her face with his hands, cradling it, looking down at her. The stillness was complete, magical, and she felt everything seem to fade away, the blood, the pain, the danger. For a moment there was just the two of them, alone in the night, and there was no barrier, no cool defenses in his dark eyes. She could see past the calm, dispassionate surface, to something deep and hard and frightening inside him. Something he felt for her.
She closed her eyes, reaching up to slide her arms around his neck. He moved over her, a heavy, warm weight that kept the monsters at bay, and began to kiss her, slowly seducing her with his mouth, his lips, his teeth, his tongue. She’d never been kissed like that, with such dedicated concentration, as if kissing her was all that mattered in the world, an end in itself, and she gave herself up to it, opening her mouth for him, kissing him back with single-minded concentration that was slowly turning into a kind of panicked fire. Then she reached for his shirt, her fingers fumbling at the buttons.
He caught her hands in one of his strong ones, holding her still. “Shh, Chloe. This time there’s no need for rush. No need for fear or pain. There’s all the time in the world to just enjoy yourself. Pleasure—that’s all you need to think about. Close your eyes and let me bring it to you.”
His voice was low, hypnotic, soothing her sudden uprush of tension, and she lay back against the pillows, staring up at him.
He held her hands, more as a reassurance than a restraint, as he brought his mouth down the side of her neck, and he was reaching under the baggy sweatshirt, to touch her skin, his fingers cool against her heated flesh. She was so l
ost in his kisses, the taste of his mouth, that she barely noticed when he pulled the sweatshirt over her shoulders and tossed it away, when he slid the baggy pants down her legs and off her. He’d left her underwear on—the French bra and lace panties that her well-meaning parents had gotten her for Christmas. She hadn’t even paid any attention when she’d put them on, but when his hand slid up her body to cover her breast she knew she’d done it on purpose. He followed with his mouth, sucking at her through the lace, and her body trembled as the need blossomed through her body in a rush of heat. He’d released her hands, and they lay beside her on the wide bed, where he’d placed them. She felt strange, filled with a dreamy lassitude, able to only lie there and let him touch her, kiss her. It must be the hangover from the drug, she thought dizzily, as he put his mouth on her hip bones, just above the lace band of the panties. That, or he’d managed to hypnotize her with his mouth, his eyes, her own longing.
She felt as if they were in a snow globe—roughly shaken, but now all was still and silent with the flakes drifting down around them in their safe little glass jar. She could always try to fight her way out of that strange surrender, but she didn’t want to. He was right. They could be dead in a matter of hours. She could have what she wanted, needed, right now, and there might be no consequences to live with. No life to live with. And if she was going to die she wanted to spend the last hours of her life in bed with a man whose name she didn’t even know.
He unfastened the bra with a flick of his fingers, the same bra she’d struggled to fasten a short while ago, and he pulled it from her body and tossed it. He moved slowly, touching her nipple with his tongue, and she felt it stiffen immediately into a hard, tight knot that matched the hard, tight knot between her legs. She’d never thought her breasts were particularly sensitive, but he seemed to know just how to touch them, suck them, slide his tongue over them until she was shaking with reaction. Just when she thought she was going to climax simply from the feel of his mouth tugging at her breast, his tongue swirling around the tip, he moved down, his mouth dancing across her flat stomach, and his hands slid under the lace straps of the panties and pulled them down her long legs. His mouth followed—on her hips, her legs, the insides of her knees, moving up again, and when he put his mouth between her legs she trembled, reaching for him, threading her hands through his long, thick hair as it fell over her hips.
He cupped her hips, pulling her thighs apart, and his mouth was like nothing she’d ever felt, an invasion, a branding, a claiming that felt so total and absolute that she could do nothing but let him touch her, lick her, bite her, using his mouth in ways she hadn’t imagined, until he slid his fingers inside her, and she arched off the bed in sudden, rigid climax that was fast and hard and like nothing she’d ever felt.
It was fast, it was short, and she sank back, breathless, only to have him start it all over again, building slowly, gently, into a greater intensity so that when he slid his fingers inside her she cried out this time, and the orgasm held for longer. As long as he seemed to want to hold it.
She collapsed back on the bed, panting, shaken, and reached out to touch his face. “No more,” she whispered. “I can’t…”
“Of course you can,” he whispered between her thighs. This time the simple touch of his tongue sent her into spasms, and the shocking feel of his fingers finished her. She thought she screamed, she who usually made love in discreet silence, but it didn’t matter, since he was prepared, covering her mouth with his hand, so that her cries fell into his skin and nowhere else.
And that final freedom made it complete. She didn’t have to hold anything back, she could scream, she could cry, and could simply let go of her body and let it happen, let him do whatever he wanted, and she gave in willingly, ready to vanish into a thick maelstrom of unimaginable power.
When she fell back on the bed in a mindless, boneless heap he moved his hand from her mouth, falling back beside her, his heavy breathing matching her own, as she slowly started to come down from the inexpressible power of her climax. She lay on her back, eyes closed, listening to him, feeling him lying beside her, exactly where he should be, as her racing heart slowed infinitesimally.
“Sleep now, Chloe,” he whispered, his voice soft, soothing.
The lassitude vanished. Her eyes shot open, and she turned her head to look at him. He lay on his back, seemingly at ease, still fully dressed, the murky light drifting across him.
She spent one moment considering the possibilities. That he didn’t want her, had no need of her or her body, had only given her what he’d promised without giving anything of himself. And then she ignored it. If they were going to die, she wasn’t going to waste another moment on a rash of stupid insecurities.
She rose on one elbow, looking at him. Her muscles trembled slightly under her, but she ignored her unexpected weakness. “What are you doing?”
He didn’t open his eyes, the rat bastard. “Sleeping,” he said.
“No,” she said. “You’re not.” And she reached over and began unfastening the row of black shell buttons on his shirt.
One hand came up and caught hers, stopping her once more, but she wasn’t about to be distracted. “Let go of my hand,” she said. “We’re not finished here.”
“I am.”
She pulled her hand free, slid it down his stomach to touch him. Hard, pulsing, through the black pants. “No, you’re not,” she said, as she began to unbuckle his belt. “And neither am I.”
“Chloe…”
“Shut up,” she said ruthlessly, and she freed him, leaned over and put her mouth on him.
He was cool and smooth and silken, hard as ice in her mouth, and she had no idea where the pleasure came from that filled her as she let her mouth learn him. She only knew it made her tremble with its strength.
He’d stopped arguing. She reached a hand up to blindly rip at his shirt, but he was helping her now, unbuttoning it and pulling it off, and then his hands cupped her head, and he talked to her, whispered words in gutter French as she slowly sucked and pulled at him with her mouth, and she was sweating, shaking with the power of the response she was drawing from him, when he suddenly pulled her away, moving back against the head of the huge old bed, kicking the rest of his clothes onto the floor so that he was now as naked, as ready as she was.
“If you really want me, Chloe, you have to take me,” he said.
She sat back on her heels to look at him. And then she put her hands on his shoulders, the smooth, strong skin, and climbed on top of him, straddling him as he sat there on the bed.
She felt momentarily self-conscious. “I’ve never done this…” she said.
“Good.” He pulled her the rest of the way, positioning her over him, moving so that she could feel the head of his cock just touching her. “Now it’s up to you.”
She moved, just enough to let him enter her, and a look of almost exquisite pleasure crossed his face, and his quick intake of breath was so erotic that she pushed down, so that he filled her, so deep, so tight that she almost climaxed again.
He’d closed his eyes, but his long fingers were clutching her hips, and only the slightest pressure made her move, rise up, then slowly down again, and his guttural groan seemed to vibrate inside her own body. She rested her forehead on his shoulder as she moved, he moved, together, the rise and fall, deep and hard, and he was talking to her, telling her lies that she wanted to believe, all in French, words of praise and love and sex and the dark, spiraling need that suddenly flamed out of control as he exploded inside her. And without expecting it she lost the last tiny bit of self-control, following, and she was sobbing quietly against his skin, shaking with the force of their joining, until she collapsed against him, gasping for breath.
She didn’t know what she expected. Not that he would turn, with her still tight in his arms, stretching her out beneath his strong body, and she knew that even though he’d climaxed inside her he was still hard, getting harder, and she didn’t think she could bear it, as s
he wrapped her legs around him, pulling him in deeper still, the words long gone.
She didn’t need to speak, he was kissing her again, fucking her again, and she simply gave into it, a holy wash of sin and redemption, and the snowy darkness closed around her, and time lost its meaning.
And there was nothing left between them but love, neither pure nor simple, but love it was.
24
Chloe lay sprawled across his body, drained, exhausted, in a deeper, more abandoned sleep than he’d given her with his cocktail of drugs. She was practically boneless, so relaxed that he doubted even gunshots would wake her.
He couldn’t afford to test that theory. He’d lived to the ripe old age of thirty-four always being aware that failure was an option, and looking out for it. If a stray bullet managed to hit him then she was doomed, and he wasn’t about to let that happen. She was sexually infatuated with him, he accepted that with a strange combination of fatalism and gratitude, and he’d given himself over to her with single-minded dedication and a total lack of restraint. The result was that she was half-dead with pleasure and his own body still trembled occasionally from the aftermath.
She’d get over it. She was a practical young woman, a born survivor, and once he disappeared, either into the murky netherworld of the Committee or the more solid answer of a grave, she’d be able to move on.
But she was never going to get better sex in her life.
It was the one selfish bastard thing he’d kept for himself. He hoped and prayed he’d spoiled her for anyone else. She’d sleep with other men, she’d marry and have children and orgasms with someone other than him. But no one would ever be able to make her body sing as he did, and no matter how ruthless that was, he rejoiced in it.
He let his hand trail down her arm. Her skin was smooth, flawless, with Gilles Hakim’s brutality nothing more than a distant nightmare. If he ever returned to the Committee, Thomason was going to scream bloody murder that he’d wasted that liquid platinum on a civilian. Fuck him. He’d give Chloe anything he could get away with giving her.