Chapter 15
MARGOT
The warehouse parking lot smells like diesel and wet concrete. I stand under a sodium light in Katya’s gray blazer with the sealed envelope in my hand and eleven minutes of flawless performance behind me.
Dmitri’s replacement sits across from me at the folding table. He’s younger than Dmitri with a shaved head and no expression. He asked three questions. I gave three answers. He slid the envelope across the table and nodded once.
My hands don’t shake. I pick up the envelope and tuck it inside the blazer without looking at the name on the front, because Katya wouldn’t look. Katya would already know. Two of his men stand at the corridor junction, close enough to intervene if I stumble over a word, but I don’t.
“The transit confirmation is on schedule.” I say it in Katya’s cadence, the way Nadia drilled me to deliver it. “Next contact follows the standard interval.”
The courier checks his phone, nods, and stands. The meeting is over.
I turn and walk toward the sedan at the far end of the lot. The men at the junction watch me go. After eleven minutes when a single wrong inflection could have ended in a bullet, I walk like it was nothing because Katya would walk like she wasn’t eager to get away from this place.
I reach the car parked a block away, to comply with the terms that I bring no one else this time. Valentin gets out of the back seat and puts his hand at the small of my back. I lean into him. The warmth of his palm through my blouse is reassuring after that tense meeting.
I’m already nauseated again despite having eaten and drunk plenty beforehand.
Valentin has the housekeeper bringing me meals every four hours, and Mrs. Varlov’s look of disappointment if I don’t eat at least half is more compelling than if he’d ordered me to eat.
I let myself tremble now that I’m far enough away from the courier as I slip into the back seat.
Valentin gets in beside me. The engine is already running.
Nathan puts it in gear and drives. My reaction this time is different. The nausea lingers faintly, but the adrenaline changes to something else. Something more physical that demands release. By the time he pulls through the compound gate, my panties are wet, and I’ve stopped pretending otherwise.
Valentin walks me to the second floor. He doesn’t touch me in the corridor. He stops outside his door, not mine, and looks at me with the careful restraint he uses when he’s leaving the decision in my hands.
I pull him inside by his shirt collar.
The door closes behind us. His rooms are dark except for the desk lamp, and I push him back against the wall, which is a reversal of every physical exchange we’ve had since the interrogation room.
He’s been the one positioning me, directing me, or placing me where I need to stand.
I put him against the wall because I want him to know this is mine.
I kiss him. The kiss turns desperate within seconds because of the adrenaline and other reasons I’m not ready to name.
Zavid called it feelings and emotion in the conference room.
Valentin didn’t deny it, but I’m not going to say it first. I kiss him instead, hard enough that his head tips back against the wall and he grips my waist hard enough that I know he’s been holding himself back since the parking lot.
“Margot.” It’s more a grunt than my name.
“Don’t talk.” I unbutton his shirt by feel, working the buttons from collar to sternum while he moves his mouth against my neck. “I don’t want strategy. I don’t want a debrief. I want this.”
He gets it and stops talking. He moves his hands from my waist to my lower back to pull me flush against him. His cock is hard against my pussy through our clothes, and I rock my hips against him, seeking friction. We both moan.
He turns us. I’m against the wall now with his thigh between mine, and the pressure of it makes me grip his shoulders and push my pussy against his leg.
He unbuttons my blouse with steady hands, which shouldn’t be possible given how unsteady his breathing is, and when the fabric falls open, he presses his mouth to the skin above my bra and exhales against me.
“I need to be inside you.” His voice is rough against my collarbone.
“Then stop being careful.”
He reaches behind me and unclasps my bra with one hand.
The fabric falls between us, and he cups my breast, dragging his thumb across my nipple until I gasp against his ear.
He does it again, slower, watching my face while sliding his other hand down my ribcage and over my hip to find the zipper at my side.
My skirt drops. I’m in underwear and heels against his wall, and the vulnerability of that excites me. I unbutton his trousers and reach inside, wrapping my hand around his cock, and the sound he makes against my throat is worth every risk I’ve taken since the motel.
His shaft is hard and thick in my grip. I stroke him twice, and he thrusts into my hand. I tighten my fingers as his forehead drops against mine.
“Margot…”
“I know.” I push his trousers down his hips. “Take me to the bed.”
He slips out of his pants before lifting me.
I wrap my legs around his hips, and he carries me three steps to the bed and sets me down.
He stands over me long enough to strip off the shirt I already unbuttoned, and I look at him in the desk light, the hard lines of his chest and stomach, and the scar on his shoulder I haven’t asked about.
He pulls my underwear down my legs and tosses it without looking where it lands.
He kneels on the bed between my thighs. I expect him to push inside me immediately, but he doesn’t.
He lowers his mouth to my breast first, sucking my nipple until my back arches off the mattress, then kissing down my stomach with a deliberateness that makes me grip the sheets.
His mouth reaches my hip bone and his breath is between my legs, warm and close, and the anticipation is so intense I whimper.
“You don’t have to?—“
He puts his mouth on my slit, sliding his tongue across my clit, and I cup the back of his head.
He licks me slowly at first as I whimper and tremble against him.
He pushes two fingers inside me while working my clit with his tongue, and the combined sensation builds so fast I have to press my hand against the headboard to keep from sliding up the bed.
“There.” I grip his hair. “That’s the spot.”
He murmurs something against my slick flesh and curls his fingers against the spot. My vision blurs as he sucks gently on my clit. With a cry, I come with my heels digging into the mattress. “Valentin…”
He works me through the aftershocks until I’m shaking, then crawls up my body and kisses me with my taste still on his lips. I pull him down against me because I need his weight.
Neither of us reaches for protection. I think about it.
I meet his gaze and suspect he’s thinking about it too, but I don’t stop.
He doesn’t stop. The recklessness is a decision we keep making together.
I can’t explain it, other than I don’t want any barriers between us.
It’s stupid, but everything about this is probably stupid, so what’s one more bad decision.
He positions himself between my thighs and enters slowly, watching my face.
I grip his forearms and pull him deeper because slow isn’t what I want tonight.
I earned this moment of pleasure. I want him to see the woman underneath him is Margot Carlstrom, not Katya.
I don’t think he was ever her lover, but I’m not a stand-in for her right now.
I stare up at him. “Say my name.”
He frowns. “What?”
“Say it, or we stop.”
Valentin is still frowning, but he says, “Margot.”
“Again.”
His eyes widen, but he says, “Margot, I’m going to fuck you now.”
I nod, and he moves. I move with him. His rhythm builds from controlled to hard, and I match it, rolling my hips against his while digging my nails into his shoulders.
The sounds I make aren’t performed or curated.
They’re involuntary and raw, and every one of them belongs to me.
Not Katya. “Right there.” I grip his hip and hold him in the angle that makes everything sharpen.
He braces one arm beside my head and uses the other hand to grip my thigh, opening me wider so he can drive deeper.
Every inch of his cock fills me, and I moan under the onslaught, wanting more though he’s just the right size.
He presses his forehead against mine, and his breathing comes ragged and hot against my mouth.
“Look at me.” I hold his face between my hands.
He looks at me, and I don’t have to ask this time. He clearly understands. “Margot, not Katya.” He sees me. With our gazes locked, the control drops away, the strategy is gone, and there’s nothing left but a man who wants me, not Katya.
I come again with his name on my lips, harder this time, the orgasm crashing through me in waves that make me grip the sheets and arch into him. He follows within seconds, driving his hips deeply one final time as he groans against my throat.
Afterward, we lie there breathing. His weight is on me, heavy and warm, but I don’t push him off. I let him stay because the weight feels like safety. I know how dangerous that equation is, but I let it be dangerous for the moment and relax into the sensation.
Eventually, he rolls onto his back. I turn onto my side and look at him in the lamplight, once again noticing the scar on his shoulder from an operation he hasn’t told me about.
His chest rises and falls less erratically as his pulse comes down.
His expression is unguarded in a way he never allows in front of his team.
Neither of us labels this. Naming it would require us to decide what it means inside a building where one of us holds the keys and the other was brought here against her will. This is too new to withstand that.
I sit up and find my clothes. He watches me dress without asking where I’m going.
I explain anyway. “I have a Kimberly call scheduled.”