Jenny paled and turned her face away.
“You must think I’m a complete whore,” she whispered and swiped at her cheek with the back of her hand.
He’d expected his dirty psychological warfare to flatten her, but it still twisted his gut to see her tears. “I was trying to show you the reality of the situation and it got out of hand. I’m sorry.”
He reached for her, wanting to kiss her. He settled for brushing a tear from her cheek with the pad of his thumb. No matter how much he wanted her, he would not take advantage of a woman under his care. Not again. Not after Alona.
“So, you won’t teach me?” she asked.
For a moment he wondered if she were talking about sex or about working undercover ops. He shook his head. It seemed there was just no getting around her stubborn determination to be a part of this and, if she didn’t capitulate, MI-5 would send her to the front lines with him.
“I have no desire to sleep with you,” he lied. “Among other things, however, it’s exactly what they’d expect. What we’d have to do to play the part.”
Pink lips parted in surprise, Jenny blushed and stared at him, aghast, for more than a minute. He kept his poker face in place as thoughts of parting her thighs, piercing her with his tongue, battered his defenses.
“Oh my God,” she said finally and dropped her face into her hands.
“You need some sleep,” he said. “You’re tired. So am I.”
“Look. I want to do this.” She gripped his arm. “I’m going to do this. And it has nothing to do with the sex we’ll have. I had no idea when I made the offer, but it doesn’t change things. I’ll try to make it okay for you, but somehow you’ll have to just grin and bear having me beneath you because I’m in this. All the way.”
He shot up as if he’d sat on a tack, grabbed his beer and downed the rest of the brew.
“You really don’t want me?” she asked.
Günter turned to see her standing in the doorway, ready to leave. He knew she didn’t speak of their operation. Not specifically.
His eyes flicked over her lush curves and pouting mouth. He tried to brush off her desire for him—to blame it on the heightened emotions of the past twenty-four hours. To tell himself she felt only a physical pull. Then he recalled her charging down the airplane steps, hell-bent on saving him—remembered her distress when Ian had Tased him. How could he blame those actions on lust?
The tug on her bottom lip as she awaited his answer said he could crush her with a word or make her spirit soar with just a touch. Everything she gave to him she gave with trust and pure intention.
He cared more for her in that moment than he ever had, and it shattered his heart into tiny, irreparable shards to coldly hold her gaze and say, “You’re a job. Nothing more. Nothing less. Good night.”
Jenny paused in the courtyard. Cold wind whipped at her cheeks, buffeting her hair around her face. She pushed the strands away and took in the gray sky—felt its leaden weight increase the heavy sadness in her middle.
The SUV idled in the small drive, Ian and Günter in the front. Simon in the back. She knew what she looked like this morning—what she felt like—and if she got in that car, so would everyone else. Squaring her shoulders, she pulled up the collar on her coat and curled her fingers around door handle.
“’Bout time, Ainsley. This isn’t the Girl Gu—” Ian shut up when he saw her face, puffy and blotchy from a night of crying.
Simon looked up from the arts section of the
Times
he’d folded in thirds. Without saying anything, he reached forward and smacked the back of Günter’s head with the paper.
“What the—” Gun turned around, ready to let fly a smack of his own, and froze before slowly lowering his hand.
“What’d you do to her?” Simon asked.
“Thank you for your concern, but…” Jenny cleared her throat when her voice cracked. Meeting the ex MI-5 agent’s shuttered gaze, she finished, “Günter didn’t do anything.”
Günter pursed his lips into a firm line and faced forward again.
Jenny thought, seeing him this morning, she’d feel anger and cold disinterest. Instead, the look he’d leveled at her only fanned the conflagration in her blood to blast furnace temperatures. Was she crazy? The man didn’t want her. Not really. Why couldn’t her libido take the hint?
“We don’t have all day,” Ian said. “Let’s get to the range.”
“A shooting range?” she asked. “In Oxford?”
“On the outskirts.” Ian spoke to her over his shoulder as he backed into the street. “There’s a decommissioned military training facility we’ve taken over recently. It’s soundproofed and secure—won’t arouse mutterings amongst the locals—but isn’t fully used by 5 yet. We’ll have it mostly to ourselves.”
“And what do you need with me?”
“Two weeks. Training. You and me,” Günter answered for Ian. “I’ll teach you what I can. If you meet my standards, you’re in. If not…”
The unspoken threat hung in the air between them and anger replaced Jenny’s sadness with head-clearing alacrity. She folded her arms across her chest and notched her chin.
“Thanks for the training, but I’m not jumping your hoops. I’m in. Period.”
“You do as I say or you don’t play. As of now you report to me. Meet my standards or this is off. I’m going to work you harder than you ever thought possible. And believe me, I’d like nothing better than for you to fail.”
Günter’s voice rumbled over her, wrecking her ability to think rationally. The man alternately infuriated and attracted her in equal measure.
“Prepare to be disappointed,” she shot back.
He faced forward again.
Focusing on the quaint Oxford city streets, she took in green garlands and white Christmas lights decorating ancient yellow stone buildings. The scene, which should have been warm and welcoming, only served to make her feel more lonely for a real family and a real Christmas. This was to have been her first holiday with her brother in almost two decades.
“When are we going down to London?” Jenny asked, training her eyes on Ian, needing to anchor her expectations.
The agent’s exotic eyes slid sideways to Günter. Only Jenny witnessed the look. Simon remained engrossed in his paper and Günter appeared wooden as he gazed straight ahead, unmoving.
“We have two weeks to get you up to speed,” Ian answered finally.
“And how long is our involvement expected to last?” Jenny pushed back.
“As long as it takes.” The agent navigated a turn as tightly as he’d navigated her question, bringing them down a lane barely wide enough to admit the SUV and two gum-booted country walkers.
“You’re hiding something,” she observed.
Ian’s look of surprise—an expression she bet didn’t normally cross the chiseled lines of his poker face—quickly fell away.
“I hide a great many things, Ms. Ainsley,” he replied. “It’s my job.”
Simon snorted.
“Speaking of hiding things, Simon,” Ian continued. “I didn’t know you’d been booted from the CIA for—”
“Back off, Ian. Now,” Günter warned.
Simon, who’d turned as red as his hair, blew out a breath and looked out the window. Jenny’s heart went out to him for the humiliation wrought by the obviously private and painful memories Ian had brought to the surface. She knew firsthand how awful it was to have your personal life pried into and splashed about for public consumption.
Slanting the American a hard look, Ian said, “We do our homework on our operatives.”
“What’s this now? A British invasion?” Günter shot back, his words forming an almost-visible protective barrier around his second. “Let the CIA handle their own.”
Avoiding further argument, Ian exited and popped the hatchback. “Simon, you grab the ammo. Günter, you’re showing Jenny how to handle the guns.”
“Why all the concern about the Tiger now? Bengal has been hot for a decade,” Jenny asked, following Ian into the dark, chilly confines of the industrial building.
“Government security.” Ian slung two cases and a duffel onto the table in the middle of the room. He turned and jammed his hands into his pockets. “Now that they’re back on their feet and their leadership has stabilized under the command of a new White Tiger, the organization is planning to take out a target in London as retribution for Dublin.”
Günter froze. “You fucking bastard. No wonder you think I’ll draw them out.”
Ian shrugged. “Many of the faces have changed. The ones that haven’t will be interested in what you…and Ms. Ainsley…might have to say against MI-5.”
“You and me?” Günter asked, pointing a finger at Ian and jabbing a thumb at himself. “We’re going to have words someday.”
“Like we did yesterday?” The cold question called Günter’s attention to Ian’s bruises, and Jenny held her breath as the two men faced one another down.
“No. Alone. Just you and me.”
“I’ll pencil that in.” Ian turned away.
Günter took safety gear from a duffel—hearing protection, safety glasses, and baseball caps—and slammed it down on the table. Jenny knew from the set of his shoulders underneath his blue-and-yellow rugby shirt he probably heard more in Ian’s words than she could hope to know or understand.
That he’d told her this—told them all—said more about the permanency of their involvement in MI-5’s operation than their chat last night. Facts like this weren’t simply entrusted to people like her and Simon. A chill trailed down her spine.
“Are you going to kill us when this is over?” she asked.
Ian fought a grin. “You’ve been watching too much television.”
“But you would. If you thought we were a risk.”
He sobered and his gaze slid to Günter who’d stilled, his back to them.
“Is Günter a risk?” she asked.
“We think the problem with Günter is also his greatest asset within the organization we’re trying to infiltrate,” Ian dodged.
The answer would have to suffice. For now.
“And me? What’s your greatest risk with me?” she pushed.
Leveling his gaze at her, Ian answered, “That you’ll be the reason he screws everything up and gets himself killed.”
For a heart-stopping moment, the world ceased to have color. Sound. Scent. Jenny crossed the room to Günter and squared off with him. “You have to teach me.”
“What makes you think one sleepless night is going to change my mind?” he asked, scanning her face, obviously taking in the damage her tears had wrought.
“Even you said it, I’m just a job. This is just a job.” She turned to Ian. “And doesn’t Bengal make you horny as hell?”
“She’s right,” the agent said. “Unless you want her dry humping Jakes, there’s nobody to play the role of her stud.”
Günter made a low sound in the back of his throat that seemed suspiciously like a growl. Jenny faced him again.
“I’m ready to do this,” she said. “I can handle it. Whatever it takes.”
She saw him search for an argument and come up empty. Silence surrounded them, cushioned their world as Günter fought some private battle. And lost.
“Think you’re ready for this?” he asked.
Warm fingers, lightly calloused, surrounded her jaw. Using that one hand, he pushed her backward until the concrete wall abraded her back. Forced her chin up and brought his lips down in a crushing kiss. Slanting his mouth sideways, he held her immobile though he didn’t have to. This kiss—this man—ruled her as he plunged into her open mouth, slaking the moisture from her tongue and stealing the breath from her lungs.
Jenny’s knees went weak. Refused to hold her up past the first few moments. If it weren’t for the heated hand at her throat she would have crumpled to a hyperventilating heap on the floor. One booted foot kicked her ankles apart and she gasped—a little shriek of breath, almost a sob—as the solid length of Günter’s thigh pushed between her legs.
Lifting his head, he looked down into her eyes—a foreign hardness gleaming in his gaze. Phantom fingers ran down her spine, lingering on each vertebra until she shuddered at the icy sensation. Günter Faust smelled like musk and warm flannel. The man who held her now smelled like acid-etched danger and smoke-curled sin. Palm still at her throat, he traced one thumb along the line of her jaw, dipped his gaze to her heaving breasts.
Simon cleared his throat.
“They’re watching,” Jenny whispered, now conscious of their companions.
Günter’s hand tightened infinitesimally, reminding her of the game she’d started—one she didn’t really want to end.
“It’s just a kiss.” He issued his statement with a nudge of his leg along the seam of her jeans.
She whimpered at the jump of sensation in her pussy.
“Look at what it’s made you,” he said, pressing harder against her folds.
She cried out, on the verge of a void she wanted nothing more than to hurtle herself into.
“You think you can handle me?” He growled the question into her ear and rocked her hard against his thigh. “You think you can handle this?”
When he finished, she was no more than a puddle at his feet. He stared down at her as she tried to catch her breath and quell her shaking limbs.