“What did he want?” asked Luka as soon as we were back in the car.
“Nothing.”
Luka looked at me skeptically. “It’s never nothing.”
What would sound convincing? “He asked me about myself. Lots of questions.”
“Oh.” He nodded slowly to himself. “Okay. That makes sense.”
I pretended to be oblivious. “Why?”
Luka sighed. “He was checking you out. Making sure you weren’t a spy.”
“A spy?!” Sounding incredulous wasn’t too hard. I still felt so unlike a proper agent that it sounded ridiculous. “For one of the other gangs?”
“Or for the CIA. You are an American.”
“I thought the CIA were all...assassinations and politics.”
Luka shook his head. “Drugs and guns. They’re meant to stop it, but really they control it. They’re corrupt.”
I blinked. His dad had said the same thing. It was weird, seeing how we were viewed from the other side, hearing the ridiculous propaganda they believed.
I nestled into his side. His dad’s words were going round and round in my head. I was going to have to break up with Luka. I’d known it all along—it was the only possible outcome, ever since I’d agreed to take the mission. But back then, sitting in Adam’s office at Langley, I hadn’t figured on feeling this way about him.
How did I feel about him, exactly? Aside from the obvious lust, there was definitely something deeper. I could feel it tugging at me, whenever we were apart. I felt the sick fear when I thought he might be in danger, like when he’d run into the brothel. And, when we were together, I felt...complete. Like there’d been something missing, before. Was that love? I didn’t have much to compare it to. The few relationships I’d had before the crash had been teenage fumblings and then college awkwardness. No one had ever made me feel the way Luka had. But it had only been a handful of days. Way too soon to call it love.
“What’s the matter?” asked Luka. “Cold?”
I’d been staring determinedly out of the window. Now I looked round at him in surprise. “What?”
He glanced down at my chest. I realized I’d wrapped my arms around myself.
“You always do that in cars,” he said. “Unless I’m holding you.”
I stared at him. I hadn’t realized I’d been doing it...but just as importantly, I hadn’t realized he’d been noticing little things like that. I knew he’d been looking at my body, stripping me with his eyes. But I didn’t know he’d been studying me like that, discovering all my little quirks.
“Are you going to tell me what it is?” he asked. That accent of his made the words like huge, stone slabs, ones that could shatter my fragile defenses if he wanted to. But he didn’t use them in that way. He spoke gently, nudging at my layers of ice instead. It was like having a massive, powerful bear nuzzling your ear.
I might not be having flashbacks anymore, but the memories were still there, affecting me on an instinctual level. Of course I couldn’t tell him about the crash. Thinking about it meant reliving it, every little detail preserved by my goddamn photographic memory. The only way to survive was to push it way down inside and cover it with enough layers of ice that the pain was muted...and everything was frozen.
Funny how that didn’t seem to be working so well, anymore.
But, even if I could tell him, and if that could somehow help me...did I deserve that? I was about to betray him in the worst way possible.
“Soon,” I said. “For now....” I nestled into him and he folded his strong arms around me, wrapping me in warmth and security.
***
By the time we reached his apartment block, I’d unwound. Luka’s arms around me started to have a different effect. I began to notice the press of his forearms against the undersides of my breasts and the feel of his muscles against my back. My whole body began to come to life, woken by his closeness.
I knew it was wrong. I knew it would soon be over between us and he’d hate me forever. But however much I told myself that, my body didn’t listen. I kept looking into the rear view mirror and catching glimpses of us, his big body wrapped around my much smaller one, and the combination of his gentleness and his immense power, of how I was both protected and somehow captured by him, sent a slow, deep throb echoing through me.
In the elevator on the way up I twisted around in his arms and kissed him, soft and slow at first and then with quickly rising ferocity. By the time the doors opened, I had his shirt unfastened and my hands inside, sliding over the smooth slabs of his pecs. He gave a low growl and swept me up, one arm under my ass, and carried me inside. Then I was dumped back onto my feet on the polished wood floor and, as I stumbled in my heels—
My dress came up over my head, blocking my vision and trapping my arms for a second. Then it was gone and I was gasping and panting...and virtually naked. I’d gone for black underwear, this time, a half cup bra and a thong, both of them secured with thin ribbons. The va-va-voom option, not the sweet virginal option. Appropriate, I thought bitterly, given that I was going to behave like a real femme fatale and stab him in the back.
But my guilt didn’t do anything to slow the building heat inside me. I saw him rake his eyes down and then up my body, taking in my heels and stockings and the skimpy, glossy underwear. “Different,” he rumbled after a second. “Not you. Someone else.”
I nodded. I did kind of feel like someone else. Someone evil.
He stepped closer to me and put his fingers under my chin, lifting my head so that I met his eyes. “I know game we can play,” he growled, his English fracturing in his eagerness. His hand cupped my breast, almost covering it completely. “Do you want to play game, Arianna?” he hissed.
This was new—he was turned on in a different, darker way than I’d seen him before. But I was panting, now, actually rubbing my thighs together to get friction. I wanted his hands all over me. I wanted his cock inside me. “Yes,” I whispered.
He grabbed me and pulled me close, one hand squeezing my ass and one fondling my breast. I moaned.
Luka put his mouth close to my ear and whispered, “I know you’re CIA.”