Chapter 10
LUKE
What the fuck are you doing, Macarthur?
I stand beneath the vaulted penthouse ceiling, my cock so hard it’s fucking painful.
Again.
This job is starting to feel like lethal fucking torture.
I’d planned to break in, assess the club, then be waiting in Zinaida’s office when she arrived.
I’d meant to catch her off guard. Not to ambush her naked in the shower, with my gun pressed just above the cleft of that delicious ass.
Then why did you do it?
I’ve been a shadow for a long time. I could have disappeared before Zinaida even knew I’d been inside the penthouse.
It would certainly have been the professional thing to do.
And you know damned well that if it had been any other female client, that’s exactly what you would have done.
Except that when I realized she was not only in the suite, but naked in the shower, the idea of sneaking away like some kind of peeping Tom felt utterly repugnant.
Sure, Luke. You really took the fucking high road.
I’ve always trusted my instincts, but there were a thousand ways I could have handled this morning’s encounter, and any of them would have been better than the one I chose.
I need to start using different damn instincts if I’m going to survive this thing with an ounce of professionalism left.
I check my phone. Barely a minute has passed since I left her bedroom.
For a minute there, I wasn’t sure I would leave it.
The glimpse of luscious pink folds when she bent over almost broke me.
But I don’t break, not even for Zinaida Melikov. And if this is going to work, there’s no room for games.
No matter how delicious those games would be.
Zinaida’s life has been entrusted to my care. I won’t allow anything, even her hot, scented naked body, to distract me from the job I’ve been hired to do.
Reset your head, Macarthur.
I pull out my laptop to look more closely at the security around the penthouse, and a sudden flash of movement catches my eye.
I lean forward, cursing the lack of camera surveillance.
Mak might have designed the setup, but I’m guessing Zinaida overrode whoever came in to install it, because the lone camera in her private suite shows only a useless, dark corner of the room, where a full-length ornamental mirror is gathering dust.
Surely there can’t be anyone hiding in her suite? I only just left, for Chrissakes.
Trying to work out what I saw, I zoom in on the corner.
And then I fucking freeze.
The movement I saw was a reflection in the mirror, of the silk robe being thrown to the floor. But not because Zinaida is swapping it for other clothes.
No.
Zinaida isn’t getting dressed.
Instead she’s propping herself up on the bed pillows, eyes closed, mouth slightly open—with a vibrator in her hand.
Oh, fuck.
I need to close the camera window.
Right now.
And then walk away from the job, for good this time. I’m not playing any more games.
Except the same instinct that made me call her bluff in the bathroom tells me that, for once, Zinaida isn’t playing a game.
She isn’t staring at me in the mirror. In fact, I’d put good money on her having forgotten it’s there altogether, and certainly that the camera is trained on it.
Because this isn’t the Zinaida from the Viewing Room, her knowing eyes staring directly into mine, daring me to lose my shit.
This Zinaida is clutching the pillow with one hand, turning her face into it to muffle the moans I don’t need audio to imagine, her hand sliding the vibrator between the swollen, glistening lips I promised myself I’d forget.
A small extension on the upper side of the device settles over her clit, and her whole body arches up from the bed.
Christ.
Close the fucking window, Luke.
Except there’s not a snowball’s chance in hell I’m going to, and I fucking know it.
Zinaida’s hand slips down from the pillow and over one hard nipple. She rotates the vibrator with the other, driving herself mercilessly toward release, biting her lip as she races to the finish line.
I want to stop her. Want to wrench the damned tool from her hand and replace it with my mouth, and then with my cock. I want to make it last far longer than the sprint she’s on.
It’s the fact that she’s in such a rush that makes me absolutely certain she isn’t putting on an act for my sake.
Zinaida knows how to mess with people. If she wanted to fuck with me, she’d be staring into the mirror and taking her sweet, agonizing time torturing me.
She’s doing this because she needs to get it out of her system before she walks out of here.
Because she fucking knows she won’t be able to pull off the iron maiden act when she’s desperately turned on.
And no matter what I just told her, or the strict rules by which I always operate, the truth is that Zinaida has just unwittingly played the one game that might actually fucking break me.
If she’s writhing on the bed, nearing orgasm in less than a goddamn minute after our encounter, it means that mask of hers isn’t anywhere nearly as impenetrable as she’d like me to think.
I sensed it that night in the Viewing Room, even if I refused to let it get to me.
I saw it when her nipples hardened the moment I pulled her against me this morning.
I caught it in the heady scent of her arousal that lingered in the air as her ass sashayed away from me.
And, yes, I knew it when she bent over in front of me, even if I refused to acknowledge it at the time.
But now, watching her race toward orgasm for the second time in as many days, knowing that gasping, trembling bundle of desire is only a few short paces away, I’m as fucking hard as rifle steel and closer to losing it than I’ve ever been in my life.
And I can’t look away. Even if I wanted to.
The vibrator withdraws slowly, gleaming wet, then plunges deep inside. Her other hand slides down her body, and my mouth goes dry as she finds the point that takes her to the edge.
Zinaida turns her head into the pillow, biting it to muffle her screams, and her whole body arches up as the first spasms hit.
I can almost feel the fierce grip of the convulsions as she trembles and shakes on the bed, her hand coming up to clench the pillow, her hair tangled across it like a mermaid underwater.
Her eyes fly open.
Oh, fuck.
For a minute I think she’s staring at me deliberately. Then I remember that the camera is trained on the mirror and realize she’s looking at herself.
She flushes, bites her lip, and turns away from her own reflection.
But in the brief, unguarded moment before she does, I see the woman behind the brilliant sapphire eyes, the ocean beneath the surface calm.
And what I see is so velvet dark, so fucking powerful, that I feel like I’m going to drown in it.
Then she whips her legs over the bed and stands up, the elegant lines of her body smoothly reasserting themselves from the trembling chaos of a moment before.
When she looks in the mirror again, the storm has completely disappeared, as if it was never there.
I shut the screen down and cross the floor, opening the glass doors onto the terrace. I suck the freezing predawn air into my lungs, slowly mastering the raging beast of lust that’s ripping through my every cell.
You can still back out, Luke.
I should.
Get out of this contract, away from Zinaida and back into a fucking war zone, as fast as I can.
But I know I won’t.
“You could crawl to me on your knees, naked and begging, and I still wouldn’t break,” I’d said to her less than ten minutes ago.
But the truth is I’m more than halfway fucking broken already.
And the thought of Zinaida Melikov on her knees, naked and begging, is almost enough to throw me over the edge completely.
I grip the stone balustrade hard enough to leave an imprint on my hands.
Get it together, Macarthur. And do it fucking fast.
She can’t ever know I saw what I did, or this entire charade has all been for nothing.
By the time Zinaida emerges from her suite, my self-mastery is firmly back in place. Which is fortunate, given her own ice queen composure.
“Coffee?” She sweeps past me to the machine on the side counter, leaving a waft of intoxicating scent in her wake.
Her makeup is flawless, her hair drawn back into a slick, elegant roll that gives no indication of the tangled mess on her pillow earlier.
Her mint-green sheath is devastatingly simple—if you don’t count the dramatic slit up one side and terrifying heels, that is.
“Black.” I stand at the end of the long glass meeting table with my back to her as the machine grinds into action, keeping my eyes firmly fixed on the diagram of her business structure I have up on the wall-mounted screen.
She places two black coffees on the table with a perfectly still hand. Taking a seat in one of the steel-gray chairs, she crosses her legs to expose a seductive length of toned thigh, lifts her cup to scarlet lips, and raises her eyebrows in polite query.
You do know how to play the game, Miss Melikov, don’t you?
I wait a full beat before taking my own seat opposite her.
But then, so do I.
And God help me, I’m beginning to enjoy this one far more than is professional.
“Let’s start with your people.” I launch straight in, clicking on each name to bring up their profile.
Within minutes we’re immersed in the details of her impressive empire.
Despite the insanely erotic beginning to the day, I find it surprisingly easy to talk business with her.
Zinaida’s mind is sharper than some of the best intelligence operatives I’ve worked with, and she has a way of cutting to the point that is unusual outside military circles.
Half an hour later, we’ve covered a lot of ground remarkably quickly.
Despite the sprawling staff required to run her clubs, I’m relieved to discover her inner circle is relatively small. “That makes it easier,” I admit as we start to wind up. “Or at least, it narrows down the options of who might be leaking information.”