Midnight Promises (18 page)

“I’ll get two of our men on that.” Midnight spoke quietly into the interoffice intercom.

“Now, let’s find out who runs it,” Metal said grimly. He used the wireless mouse and came to a stop at a single photograph, at the top of a series of photographs. Even without reading the text, from the look of the face this was the top dog. “Vladimir Borodin,” he read. He turned to her. “Name mean anything to you?”

“Vaguely, I guess. I mean I’ve heard it before. I read Russian but I don’t keep up with the news there or anything. Let’s see what his background is.” She read, clicking through, then froze. Metal had placed his hand on her other shoulder and he must have felt her tension.

“What, honey?” he said, his voice low.

A chill had invaded her, penetrated her very core. She was freezing. Her parents had warned her thousands of times about them.

“His name is Vladimir Borodin.” Her voice shook. “Former
Colonel
Vladimir Borodin of the
Komitét Gosudàrstvennoj Bezopàsnosti
. Under the Soviet Union.”

“The KGB,” Metal breathed.

She nodded miserably, looking up at him. “My father and mother risked their lives to escape from the KGB and now someone from the KGB is after me.”

Chapter Ten

In the SUV going back home, Metal went into warrior mode again. The smiling guy at ASI disappeared and super spy took his place. He was quiet as he drove quickly back to his house in the worsening weather. The snow had never really stopped all day but now there were flurries. He was a superb driver, though fast. With anyone else she’d be a little scared of this speed in icy conditions but the vehicle felt solid and safe under her at all times.

He only spoke when they were close to his house. Ordinarily she didn’t pay much attention to geography when someone else was driving but they passed that pretty park with the fountain and the statue—the fountain was frozen and the statue dusted with snow—and she knew they were near.

The trip was hazy, since she had so much to think about. It still seemed absurd, that a former colonel in the KGB could be after her, but for her parents it wouldn’t have been absurd. They’d been terrified all their lives, even after the KGB was disbanded. The KGB had been a historical artifact for her, dead before she was a year old. Given her parent’s penchant for talking around things elliptically instead of imparting information, she’d simply taken the letters as a stand-in for some mythical monster like the boogeyman.

She remembered Googling the initials when she was twelve and being surprised that the KGB had been an actual
thing
.

It had scared her that, though tossed on the dustheap of history, part of a country that didn’t exist anymore and was, in any event, on the other side of the world, the initials could still make her mother pale.

She didn’t have enough data to make any meaningful assessment of this and she wanted to avoid the fog of panic that had surrounded her parents. She was
not
her parents. She had spent her entire life not being her parents. Sometimes she thought she had immersed herself in the tech world, with its young geeks who thought the world began the year they were born and knew no history at all, so that she could escape her parent’s nebulous world of unspoken and unseen terrors, all from the past. Since she discovered computers at age seven she’d simply dived right in and disassociated herself from their world as much as possible.

They had anxieties she couldn’t understand and that had clearly wrecked their lives. She hadn’t wanted that for herself. Still didn’t want that for herself.

And anyway her attacker wasn’t KGB. He couldn’t have been much over thirty. He, too, had been a kid when the KGB had disbanded. He was an executive at Intergaz. Which could mean anything but didn’t necessarily entail the CEO knew anything about his extracurricular activities. Borodin hadn’t been an active member of any secret service for nearly a generation. That atavistic stab of terror had been a reflex, more her parents’ fear from beyond the grave than her own.

Anatoli Lagoshin was the man to be worried about, and he was an MBA, not a former member of Spetsnaz.

The farther away she got from the situation the crazier it was. Nothing made any sense at all.

It was easier to focus on a problem that she could meaningfully assess. John’s job offer. She could assess it, but she didn’t know how to think about it. As a principle, Felicity was really happy freelancing and being her own boss. She’d had a brief unhappy stint in a corporate job and had realized within the first month, when she’d been gently chided for not following the dress code, that it wasn’t for her.

She liked making her own hours and rising or falling on her own work ethic.

But…there’d been something really nice in the air at ASI. A sense of comradeship. Of close team work. They also had a really cool sort of no bullshit thing going on. Certainly there wasn’t a dress code. Coming out, Metal had greeted two guys who looked like they’d just been sprung from jail. He’d introduced them to her and the two guys had been super polite and so friendly she forgot immediately that they looked like they could slit her throat with no trouble. They listened to the same music she did, she discovered as they chatted.

Having John and Douglas as bosses didn’t seem like such a bad thing. Working in that office…well it beat working in her dusty little house. They did exciting stuff. And presumably they’d take care of billing and filling out the endless paperwork for taxes and business compliance she found so tedious and baffling, so she could concentrate on her work.

And living in Portland… It was cold here, so that was good. She didn’t think she could do Miami. She had Lauren here, who’d showed over and over that she was a true friend. And Suzanne very definitely could become a friend. Lauren talked often with warmth of Claire and Allegra. Two potential friends right there and she wouldn’t have to do anything but sit back and be liked.

Jacko…Jacko tolerated her, for Lauren’s sake. Though at times she thought she saw a smile lurking in his dark eyes when he talked to her.

And there was Metal. Yeah…

As if thoughts were tangible, he turned to her.

“So,” he said, his voice expressionless. “MIT, huh?” It was the first thing he’d said to her in the SUV.

He gave her nothing by which she could read his mood. Not his face, not his voice.

Only one answer.

“Yes.” Was this going to be a problem?

“Goddamn.” He shook his head. He was smiling now. “A brainiac. Do you know I never went to college? Enrolled in the navy right out of high school.”

“In September, 2001,” Felicity said softly. “After your entire family died. Lauren told me. And I know you became a medic. She said Jacko said you know as much as any trauma surgeon.”

“Lauren talks too much. What was it like graduating from a place like MIT?” His voice was cautious.

“Okay,” she said. “It was okay.” Though to tell the truth, she’d barely noticed the campus and spent the entire time at MIT in the underground computer lab.

“So…I guess you’re smarter than me.”

“Probably.” She kept a poker face. “But you can shoot better than I can.”

“Damn straight.” A corner of his mouth turned up. “Cook better too. So I guess we’re even.”

She was smiling too. “Not quite. I’m still prettier than you are.”

“No contest. We’re home.” Metal turned and drove up the driveway. The garage door rolled up and rolled back down when they entered the garage. She barely had time to unbuckle herself before he was at her door, helping her down. She needed the help. Her side was sore but more than that, she was tired.

She had a sedentary job and didn’t go out much. Her only exercise was halfheartedly following yoga tutorials on YouTube and she wasn’t assiduous about it. At the end of the day she could be mentally tired but rarely physically tired.

Now she felt physically tired for the first time in years. Exhausted, actually.

Metal put an arm around her waist and as they walked into his house from the garage she was grateful for the support.

The house was warm and welcoming, and she smiled as she crossed the threshold. When she returned home after going out her own house felt stale, as if even the dust motes hadn’t moved in her absence. Metal’s house somehow felt alive, embracing them, saying—
welcome back
.

Which was insane, of course. She must be really tired if she thought Metal’s house was talking to her.

“How about we mix things up?” Metal asked. “Instead of tea how about I make you some hot milk with honey and then feed you dinner and you make it an early night?”

“I feel like a two-year-old,” she complained. And yawned.

“Uh-huh.” Metal walked her into the bedroom, turned down the covers, helped her out of her coat and boots. It felt familiar. Hadn’t they done this already a couple of times?

“It seems like you’re always putting me to bed like a sick child. I’m sorry. That’s not very sexy, is it?”

Metal froze. His big body simply stopped moving but it looked like a nuclear explosion had gone off inside his head. “You think I don’t find you sexy? Is that what you think?” he asked hoarsely.

“Well…”

His face was stretched tight with tension. He took her hand and, shockingly, placed it on his groin. Oh man. Either he was really excited or he’d put a big steel tube down his pants when she wasn’t looking.

“Feel that?”

Felicity couldn’t answer because the instant her hand touched him, his penis moved. A strong surge of blood—that was the mechanism, wasn’t it? Because it sort of felt like magic—pulsed through him and the steel tube grew longer and harder. He placed his hand over hers to keep it there though, really? It was so fascinating she couldn’t force herself to pry her hand away.

His penis was hard but also hot. She could feel heat through his briefs and jeans. Man, it was like a furnace. And just like that, heat coursed through her, too, just from touching him. He was watching her closely, eyes slitted. Under his hand, she tightened her grip around him and his eyes closed briefly. He looked like he was in pain but when he opened his eyes again, he said, “Do it again.”

She didn’t have to ask what. She knew. Pleasure was coursing back and forth between them and she could almost see the lines of it, as if it was a physical thing. Her hand tightened and his penis surged again.

Oh man. Amazing.

Metal put a big hand to the back of her head and took a step closer. Her hand was trapped between their bodies.

All that tiredness? Gone, as if it had never been. Energy pulsed throughout her body, head to toe, down to her fingertips. Particularly the fingertips of the hand that curled around his penis. That hand felt zapped by some energy beam.

Metal brought his forehead down to hers. “That feels so good,” he whispered.

“Yeah,” she whispered back. It did. It felt really good. She remembered with intense clarity when his hand had been on, been in, her sex. That had felt like pleasure central.

This was just so
amazing.
Nothing like this had ever happened to her before, ever. With hindsight, sex had been a lukewarm thing, when it hadn’t actually been downright chilly. Sex before Metal had been a simulacrum of this, like eating wax food instead of the real deal. Just being near Metal, near all that male power and his intense focus on her, was better than any sex she’d ever had.

She ran her hand along his hot, hard length and Metal gave a sigh that sounded like pain. Only it wasn’t pain because his penis did that jumping thing again. She was tempted to conduct a little experiment—to see what happened if she continued holding him. Every time her hand moved he seemed to become harder, longer. Was there an end point? Maybe it would explode.

Be fun to find out.

And then a thought jolted her. For the first time in her life she had a whack at a relationship. A real one. Maybe. Not with a nerd but with a man. He’d seemed really happy at John’s job offer. He seemed really happy being here with her. He wasn’t looking for the exit and he wanted her close.

There might be more of this in her future. Lots more. Wow.

“I think I should see about getting you fed. You must be very tired.” His face was so close she could feel the puffs of breath as he spoke.

There might be lots of this on offer in the future, cuddling and kisses and rainbows and unicorns, but sex was on offer right now. She wasn’t tired anymore, not at all. Her stitches didn’t hurt and anyway she trusted Metal to be really careful.

“Felicity?” There was a load of meaning in the word. “You’re tired, right?”

She lifted her head back, looked him straight in the eyes. “Not that tired,” she whispered.

Chapter Eleven

Oh man.
Not that tired.
That was an invitation. Definitely an invitation. Wasn’t it? True, he wasn’t thinking too straight because all the blood was gone from his head but even he could tell that she wasn’t saying no. And if the words weren’t enough, her face told him yes too.

She was bright pink, her sky-blue eyes were glowing. Her lips looked a little swollen as if they’d kissed, even though they hadn’t.

Well, that was easy enough to remedy. Metal bent and touched his mouth to hers. It seemed as though static electricity sparked between them when their lips met. They both drew in their breaths.

His mouth settled on hers again, tongue stroking hers and he felt heat surge through him at her every touch. Come on, they were just kissing and he felt like the top of his head was about to blow off. He’d kissed a million times before—though he couldn’t quite remember the women he’d kissed. They were like fuzzy background images and Felicity was sharply detailed, full-color, high-def.

Everything crystal clear even with his eyes closed. Each touch of her fingers felt like fire, burning him without hurting him. This wasn’t pain, no.

He lifted his head. They were holding tightly to each other. With her head tipped back over his arm he was able to look down at her and see every feature clearly.

God, she was beautiful. He kept finding new ways she was beautiful, every time he looked at her. Her straight little nose, the platinum fuzz around her temples, her deep pink mouth. The most beautiful woman he’d ever held in his arms. The smartest woman he’d ever held in his arms too.

And she had this incredible sweetness tempering the smarts. Metal had once dated an international banker. God knows why he’d thought that a good idea. Lee. She’d been ferociously smart too, but it was all in the service of proving herself better than anyone else. She had a burning need to be the smartest person in the room and wasn’t shy about letting people know about it. She was competitive and used language as a tool to hurt.

Felicity wasn’t like that. There was nothing sharp-edged about her, nothing there that wanted to hurt.

He bent down for another kiss and she closed her eyes, smiling. He kissed her again. He knew how she liked being kissed. She liked it the way he did, long and languorous.

It hit him like a hammer blow to the heart that…he was going to learn everything about her. Learn all her pleasure points. Learn how to make her come every single way there was.

She was going to stay here, in Portland. He wasn’t going to accept anything else. He was going to find the fucker who was after her, eliminate him and keep Felicity close. This was it. She was the one.

She was going to accept John’s offer. Wasn’t she?

John was a great boss and he liked Metal. Metal and Jacko got great Christmas bonuses and Midnight and Senior both said they were deserved. But Midnight was a hard-ass. He didn’t offer jobs out of a soft heart or because he liked the boyfriend. He’d offered Felicity a job because she was really good at what she did.

Felicity. Living here in Portland. Maybe…living with him?

The thought shook him. Felicity pulled away a little and looked up at him puzzled. She’d felt something. Had she actually felt the thought? She was so smart maybe she could do that. Read thoughts or something. It should scare him but it didn’t.

“Metal?”

He didn’t say anything, just looked down into her lovely face.

He opened his mouth then closed it. Because…well, it was too soon. Wasn’t it? She’d only been here in Portland for…he couldn’t count the hours because his brain was blasted. But not long. She’d been weak and wounded for a lot of that time.

She had someone after her. She wasn’t in any position to think about the future.

They hadn’t actually even had sex, though what they had had was the best sex of his life.

So he should shut up, enjoy the moment, protect her until they found the fuck, give her time and space. Make sure she liked it here. Let her breathe.

But the connection between his brain and mouth had been severed.

“Are you going to accept John’s offer?”

She’d been expecting a kiss, her face lifted to his, eyes closing. They popped back open again. “What?”

Shit shit shit.

But he’d said it and he couldn’t unsay it.

“John made you a job offer. Are you going to accept it?” Damn. His voice came out rough, demanding. He couldn’t modulate it. What the fuck was
wrong
with him?

“I—” She looked confused. “I don’t know.”

Of course she doesn’t know
,
you asshole.

Lighten up.

He kissed her then lifted his head and used his mouth for something else. He knew better, he did, he really did. But he couldn’t help himself. “Midnight and the Senior—John and Douglas—they’re really good bosses. Really good. They are results-oriented and as long as you know what you’re doing—and you do—they won’t bug you. The pay is generous and you saw the premises—it’s a great place to work. The guys are great too. The whole place is…” He faltered because she was simply staring at him. He swallowed. “Great,” he finished lamely.

“Metal, I—” There was a little frown between her eyebrows. He didn’t want that frown there. Only one way to get rid of that frown. He bent and kissed her again. Longer, deeper, hotter.

“Never mind,” he said hoarsely.

Turned out his head only had room for one idea at a time. The job offer was pushed out by the next thought.

Sex.

Then that thought was shoved out by another. Sex in a way that wouldn’t hurt her.

Metal placed little biting kisses on that luscious mouth as he pulled her sweater up over her head and ran his hand over her narrow back to unhook her bra. She was there with him every step of the way. She lifted her hands so he could get rid of the sweater then placed her hands on the bottom of his sweatshirt, pausing a second.

Was she waiting for
permission?

“God, yeah,” Metal muttered against her mouth and felt her mouth smile under his.

“Going to need your cooperation,” she said, a little breathlessly.

It was hard, but
do the hard thing
was the unofficial SEAL motto. Letting go of her was hard. Metal stepped back so she was no longer in his arms and bent down so she could slide the sweatshirt off him. He didn’t have a bra she had to fiddle with. He didn’t even have briefs. All that was left for her to do was unzip his jeans and take off boots and socks.

Which she did. When she’d finished they both looked down at him, her eyes a wide pool of blue.

Man, it didn’t look like a human organ, it looked like a tool. Something you broke down doors with. Metal shrugged. “I’m really, really excited.”

She was bright red now, fighting a smile. “I can tell.”

“How about you?” Metal’s rough voice was hard. He smiled at her. Tried to smile at her but the smile didn’t stick on his face. He was feeling too…
something
to smile. Emotions were boiling inside him, clanging around, and he felt like he was going to explode. Words wouldn’t form in his head and if they did he wasn’t sure he could get out what he wanted to say.

Lots of things he wanted to say.
Stay
being uppermost. But it was as if he’d had a seizure or something and bits of his body and head were not connected. And his dick was on a mission of its own without any command and control function at all.

“Me?” Felicity lifted her eyes from his dick to his face and maybe his face was as frightening as his dick because they grew wide and the smile disappeared.

This was all wrong. Metal wanted lightness here in the room with them. She’d been through so much and through all of it she’d been a real trouper. Someone had tried to kidnap her, that someone might be connected to the KGB, the same KGB her parents had escaped from. And her story—fuck. A lifetime under cover, hunching to avoid attention.

She didn’t deserve that. She was beautiful, bright, kindhearted. She deserved a life in the light instead of in the shadows.

She certainly deserved better than a man who could barely talk and whose dick was flying in her face, dark red, shiny at the tip, just about ready to blow.

She deserved soft words and softer kisses and gentleness and romanticism.

What she had, instead, was him.

“Let’s see. See what point you’re at.” His voice had gone guttural and her eyes widened. God, he had to get himself under control.

At least he could keep his touch soft. He stepped closer to her, slid his hand over her belly, down between her legs. Automatically, she opened her legs for him and he wanted to weep in gratitude. Particularly when he stroked her and found her wet. For him.

Other signs too. Bright pink, down to her breasts. The nipples were a darker pink and hard. The left breast was trembling from her rapid heartbeat. He could probably guage her pulse from the beat in her breast if he was capable of counting above three.

He hated it but he probably even looked a little threatening. God, please no. But right now, though he’d been in control of himself all his life, he felt that control fraying, slipping through his fingers.

She didn’t look frightened of him, though. Thank God. Like he’d done, she laid her hand on his chest and slid it down. She didn’t have far to slide, because just below his belly button, there he was. Stiff as steel.

She opened her hand and grasped him and the pleasure was so great it was almost pain. She must have felt him pulsing in her hand because she tightened it. His lungs and voice weren’t working because if they were, he’d tell her to stop. Or something. Because he was a second from shooting his wad and embarrassing them both.

Words weren’t going to do it, actions were.

She had on what Lauren had called yoga pants but were really sex pants because they had an elastic waist and just slid down her legs, easy as you please.

Yes. Now he was working really fast. Socks, boots, off. Pants off, panties off and holy hell there she was, naked.

You are so incredibly beautiful.
I
can’t believe you’re here.
I
feel like I have been waiting for you all my life.
Please stay here
,
with me.

Those were the words he wanted to say but his throat simply closed up.

She looked up at him, a little shy, a little uncertain. What a fuckhead he was.

Well, no one had ever called him a man of words. He was an action-oriented guy. Maybe he could show her.

He gently pulled the elastic thingie—girls had a name for it but he couldn’t remember it—out of Felicity’s ponytail and let her hair fall down over her shoulders. God, it was so beautiful, soft and honey-toned, with little platinum streaks and that almost white fluffy stuff at her temples. He cupped her head between his palms, letting all that softness fall over his hands and wrists. It was like plunging into a waterfall.

He bent but she met him halfway, rising up on her toes, hanging on to his wrists and oh, man. She stepped forward and there she was, right up against him, breasts against his chest, belly against his hard-on.

Blood surged through his dick again at the feel of her and she sighed into his mouth, rubbing her belly against him.

“Now,” he muttered. “It has to be now.” Otherwise he’d just make a mess all over her belly and embarrass them both.

“Yes,” she sighed.

“Say it in Russian.”

“
Da.
” She smiled under his mouth.

Da
. Damned straight.

Metal put an arm under her and lowered her to the bed, gently and carefully, still kissing her. He was blasted, but not so blasted he didn’t remember she was wounded. Some remote, dusty part of his brain was still firing so he remembered to scrabble in his jeans for a condom. The way he was feeling he’d need a couple of pounds of condoms but for the moment one would do.

He angled his body so that his torso wasn’t on hers. He kept his hand on the edge of the gauze as a reminder that this area was off-limits. He needed it because, man. She wasn’t remembering it for him. No, she was twisting in his arms, trying to get as close to him as she could, winding her arms around his neck, trying to hook her legs around his. Trying to bring him on top of her because for this first time, it should be missionary position all the way. The most basic position of all because these were basic feelings.

That wasn’t going to fly, though. Before he forgot himself, before he slid over to lie on her just like she wanted, he lifted his mouth, licked her behind the ear, then whispered into it. “Turn over.” His voice sounded cracked, as if he’d been screaming in the wind for hours.

“Turn over?” She didn’t understand. Yeah, it went against his instincts too. This first time of theirs should be wrapped in each other’s arms.

Before he changed his mind and did something stupid, he eased her gently over onto her uninjured side. God, she was beautiful no matter what the angle. Narrow back, small waist, gently rounded hips. All pale ivory-colored skin, shiny blond hair swirling around her shoulders. Her face was in profile as she turned to him.

“Metal?”

“Shh.” Metal fitted himself against her back. He was much taller than she was; her feet reached his shins.

He nudged that glorious pale fall of hair away from her neck with his nose. “It has to be this way. I don’t want to hurt you.”

Good. He had more control over his voice now, it sounded less cracked, less deranged. Maybe because he was very close to sliding into her and frustration wasn’t eating him up from the inside.

He licked the soft skin underneath her ear, kissed it, bit it. She shivered and sighed as he fit himself against her back, touching as much of her with as much of him as possible. No pressure on the wound, no pain, just pleasure.

He cupped her breast, rubbing his thumb over her hard little nipple and she shivered again. Pleasure, oh yeah.

He nipped her a little harder and growled against her ear. “This isn’t so bad, is it?”

She had goose bumps on her forearms. He only had one huge goose bump and it was poking her in the back.