An Affair of Vengeance (22 page)

She stepped out from behind the plants and began to walk toward the far stairs.

Kral’s singsong voice bounced off the walls, but she couldn’t make out his words. He sounded muffled, like he wasn’t in the courtyard. Yet.

She sped up, feeling McCrea behind her.

Then came the click of Kral’s footsteps, growing louder. Closer. And a musical whistling that sent a shot of adrenaline through her veins.

Go. Now!

She sprinted for the safety of the stairs that led up to her room.

But before she got two strides, someone grabbed her from behind and leaped into the air. The bottle she’d been holding slipped out of her grasp. Glass shattered against tile. She fell, hard and fast, straight into the pool with a body on her back, her skin slapping the flat water like a thunderclap. Chemical-laden water stung her eyes as she sank to the bottom. Water rushed into her nose. Whoever had tackled her still had his arm around her. He pulled her up now as she wriggled to get away. His strong arms jerked her once in a clear reprimand, and she let herself be drawn up. They reached the surface and she gulped in a great gasp of delicious air.

“It’s me, damn it,” McCrea whispered in her ear. He was behind her, and treading water like a polo player to stay afloat. “Take off your shoes.”

“What?”

He growled and gripped the hem of her dress, tugging it off over her head. It snagged on her ears, and for a moment she was blind. Fear bubbled up, threatened to make her panic. She ripped the fabric from her face and kicked off her sandals. They floated to the surface. She watched them go, thinking that the pictures she’d taken might be ruined.

Then his hands were on her waist and he flipped her around to face him. His upper half was bare. He’d taken his shirt off, probably flung it aside before he’d tossed her into the pool. Her breasts, covered only by a thin lace bra, bumped against his broad chest as she kicked and paddled to stay afloat. Stripped and soaked, they looked like a couple engaged in an impromptu intimate liaison, and she understood that this was exactly how McCrea intended it to appear to the fast-approaching Kral.

She knew what she’d have to do. Another performance. Her heart cracked open and wept at the thought, but she lifted her chin, ready.

McCrea touched the back of her neck and she melted into him, glad for the warmth of his skin against hers. Then in one swift, sure movement, he found her lips with his. She closed her eyes, letting his mouth engulf hers. No plunging aggression, no demands; the kiss was intimate and restrained. He was gentle, almost shy, and she felt her body responding.

No. She commanded herself to hold back. It was supposed to be a show piece, nothing more. She didn’t have to really want him in order for Kral to be convinced of their theater. But how she wanted his hands on her skin, his tongue in her mouth! Her back bumped against the pool wall and their kiss deepened. His body pressed hard against hers, his arms holding her tightly, afloat in the water. Even as she tried to think of things that would keep her body cool—multiplication tables, a recipe for apple pie, and the results of last year’s congressional elections—his touch overrode her desire to remain detached.

Screw apple pie. She slipped her tongue into his mouth. His hands caught and tangled in her wet hair, but she liked the sensation of capture with him. The raw pleasure of kissing him so engrossed her that she nearly forgot why they’d jumped in the pool in the first place.

“There you are!” Kral’s voice rang in the courtyard.

“She desired a quick swim,” McCrea explained.

Kral laughed. “Never stand between a woman and what she wants, especially when that thing is you.” Footsteps clipped closer to the edge of the pool. “Where’d you run off to, my dear?”

She cleared her throat, and then turned to face him. “Got distracted by your wine. You have an amazing collection.”

“Thank you. I try very hard to give my guests nothing but the best experiences while they are subject to my hospitality.” Kral grinned ear to ear, like a jester. “Just keep to the common areas. My guards shoot to kill. You understand, of course?”

“Of course.” McCrea’s deep voice was a purr against her ear.

Kral left, walking up a far staircase and disappearing from sight, but they were far from safe. Kral was suspicious. He’d pointed out that his guards were watching, ready to shoot to kill. Evangeline figured it was necessary to continue the ruse of an intimate liaison, just to be sure.

McCrea must have agreed, for he lowered his mouth to hers once more, but this time mechanically, as though the whole scenario were a mission that he was reluctant to complete.

Which it was, she cautioned herself. As much as she knew they shared a connection, this business in the pool was just that: business. She understood—agreed, even—which was exactly why she needed to stop herself from feeling anything more for him. Right now, before she got in any deeper. They were temporary partners. Any emotional or physical needs she quenched with him now would only find themselves thirsty again in a few short days. The thicker the ties, the more painful they were to sever, and severed they would be, eventually. That was the job. That was her life. As loudly as her body and soul cried out for a little companionship, she wouldn’t willingly take on more bonds that she’d only have to cut.

Yet, the show must go on, and right then, she couldn’t be sure that they were putting on a believable ruse, not with the fresh coldness coming from his end.

So she let her mouth fall open at the pressure of his tightly pursed lips and ran one of her hands across the short, bristly hair on his head. He’d shaved it recently, judging from the very short growth. She appreciated the fact that he didn’t bother much with his hairstyle. No gel congealed under her fingertips. Just a whisper of fuzz on a hard, hot skull. She spread her fingers around the back of his head and kissed him harder, not pushing but yielding, encouraging him to explore further. She moved her fingers on his body as they kissed, over the smoothness of his earlobes, and then the muscles in the nape of his neck. There she massaged the strength under his wet skin.

He pulled away from her mouth to lean into her touch. He took a deep, gasping breath. She knew that she’d awakened him, and that she should stop, there, before she sent them back into something from which they’d not easily return. Evangeline pressed her lips to his chest and paused, her mouth on his skin, feeling the rhythm of his body course through his veins. His heart knocked hard against her mouth. Her legs wrapped around his waist, and she could feel his blood pumping down there, too, even more vigorously than it did at his chest. Not just pumping, but filling.

He was growing aroused.

She met his eyes. Usually cloaked and unreadable, right then they burned with an unmistakable urgency. He wanted her.

God help her, but she wanted him, too.

She tumbled her tongue into his. He returned her aggressive passion measure for measure. His hands gripped her butt and pulled her full onto his hips, his hardness a thick, hot ridge that filled the space between her thighs. His lips ran up her neck, then across her ear. His tongue probed inside the shell of her ear. Shivering, she flexed and extended her toes and pressed her knees firmly around his ribs. Her pelvis formed to his. Just like when they’d danced—they fit. Matched. Nearly merged, but for the small matter of underwear and woolen suit pants.

Her brain interceded with a last-ditch warning.
Push him aside
, it warned, but it was too late. With his arousal between her hip bones and her fingers clawing his back, they’d soared well past the mission parameters and over the edge into real passion. What was the point anymore in trying to save herself from the pain of their eventual separation? She already felt more bonded to him than she’d ever felt with any man before. It would already hurt like hell to let him go. She may as well get her fill of him while she could, so she would at least have the memory of him to keep her warm when she was alone again.

But as their kiss continued and he moved against her, rubbing her with an erection so long that she couldn’t feel its terminus, she knew she’d never have her fill of him. And it wasn’t enough to mold her body against him. She wanted to dive into him. Be lost in him. Become one with him.

Her mouth went to his again. She rolled rhythmically against his sex, which was firm and slightly rounded, folded up against his belly by the inelasticity of his pants. His hands seized her ass so forcefully that she wondered if she’d have ten tiny, circular bruises on her cheeks in the morning. He lifted her up and down against himself, his tongue moving in her mouth to the same slow beat. She clenched his back, his ribs hard beneath undulating layers of lean muscle.

His body quaked against her each time her hips rolled. His fingertips drove into the flesh of her thighs with each shuddering wave. She knew he wasn’t the sort of man who would lose self-control at a moment like this, but she didn’t think it would take much more from her to bring him to completion.

Or her to completion, really. With his tongue sweeping the inside of her mouth, she imagined his other thickness sliding inside her as well. Filling her, stretching her, joining with her. They’d be one. Her desperate loneliness would subside, for a little while, at least.

She wanted relief. She wanted togetherness. She wanted everything with him. Consequences be damned. She’d picked up the shattered pieces of her soul once before. She could do it again.

She reached underwater.

McCrea’s eyes snapped to attention when her hand shifted to his fly.

He gasped and pulled back. Wordless. He was good at wordless. Her whole sense of self fell to her feet as she realized that he was rejecting her honest advance. He didn’t feel what she’d felt, didn’t want what she wanted. Already, her heart began to splinter,
but she wouldn’t cry. Couldn’t. He didn’t need to know that she’d taken any of it personally.

It was just a mission, and she was a professional.

She told herself this like a mantra, over and over again, as without ceremony he lifted himself clean out of the pool and onto the stone edge. He offered her his hand. “Let’s go.”

He was right, of course. Kral was gone. Romping in the pool was no longer necessary. Anything she felt for him had to be left behind. All her unspent desire for him, abandoned.

But she didn’t relish the idea of walking to the suite in her underclothes. Her dress was a worthless heap of silk dangling over the pool’s edge. Her shoes? Floating like driftwood at the opposite end. Not only did she want those pictures she’d taken, she’d feel slightly better about walking to her room nearly naked if she at least had shoes on.

She refused his hand, an act that gave her an unprofessional but satisfying snip of pleasure, and swam over to her shoes. She tossed them out and found a ladder to climb up.

“Here’s your dress.” He held the blue mess out to her as she sauntered past, head high, though she wore nothing but her bra, panties, and a pair of platform sandals. She couldn’t look in his eyes.

“Oh, just leave it. I can’t very well track water into our lovely suite, can I, dearest?” She smiled sweetly over his shoulder at a big lemon tree in a pot. “You should take your slacks off before you go inside. Hardly good manners to ruin the antique rugs.”

She strolled away. Crushing rejection hit her a second later. Embarrassment, too. Did he know how much she wanted him? Could he tell that it wasn’t an act? She hoped not. It turned her stomach to know how deeply she’d let herself feel for him. Her dignity disintegrated under the notion. But how easily she forgot herself around him! It felt out of her control, and that frightened her. A woman in her position, with her duties, should never
encounter something that she couldn’t control. Worse yet when that thing—that weakness—was inside her.

Once inside the suite, she stepped out of her shoes, intending to check the camera. She stopped herself before she pulled back the sole, and instead set the shoes down by the door. How could she know whether or not she was being watched? They hadn’t found any surveillance, but that didn’t mean there was none. As much as it killed her to not know what evidence she’d gathered, she’d have to leave the camera in place until she got to a secure location.

Her breath hiccupped. How did she know she hadn’t been watched while she searched that old records room? At least it’d been darker than pitch in there. Any cameras operating in that room wouldn’t have captured much in the low light, and she doubted that Kral had cameras strung up in every cranny, although that cranny seemed to house some of his most delicate documents.

She felt uncomfortable to think of the chance she’d taken. Maybe McCrea had been right when he’d called her desperate. She couldn’t help but feel that that adjective described her actions toward him as well. Desperately throwing herself at him like a high-school girl with a crush on a college boy. How humiliating! She should have left it at a passionate embrace for the benefit of Kral, but no. She had to take it to the next level. She had to grind on his engorged groin like a horny teenager.

Well, it wasn’t like she’d been alone in her passion—that thick erection hadn’t been for show, unless he was one hell of an actor—but she’d been the one to be rejected. She wouldn’t let it happen again. She’d be his partner, not his lover.

Retreating to the bathroom, she stripped out of her underclothes, turned down the bright lights, and drew a hot, soapy bath. A few minutes later she heard McCrea enter the bedroom. His footfall told her he walked to the bathroom door.

What now? Her body tensed, waiting. She willed him to enter and come close enough for her to explain what she’d found in the records room, so they could move past this embarrassment and get back to unemotional discourse. But underneath that high-minded wish was a more base desire, though she wished she didn’t feel it. The wounded part of her wanted him to barge through the door, to see her naked body in the bath and find himself overcome with passion. She’d turn him down, no matter how much she wanted him. The refusal would even the score, in a petty and twisted little way that she wasn’t even sure he’d recognize.