Blamed (7 page)

He knew the dialogue playing out in her head right now. Echoes of Casey’s words—and his own—rang in his ears. “Come here.”

“No.”

“I said, come here

“I’d prefer not to.” She eyed him warily, posture stiff as he shook his head with a wry smile and skirted the edge of the counter to pull her off the barstool. The second her body collided carefully with his, however, everything in her seemed to melt. Reaching up, she curved one palm around his nape, the other cupping his jaw, and drew him to her for a deep, slow kiss.

He had no problem accommodating her. “I remember...” Dazed by the rightness of having her without any distance between them, he permitted himself a moment to nuzzle her nose, tenderness toward her a fragile thing in his constricted chest. “I remember the moment I realized you truly would be the death of me.” His hands settled on her hips as he tauntingly licked the corner of her mouth. “And not because you inadvertently felled a three-story building on me.”

“Oh? What moment was that?” Her breath feathered over his lips, forcing him to steal another scorching kiss from her.

When he lifted his head, pulse pounding, he explained, “After you arrived home following the fundraising gala at the Art Institute last December.”

That had her pulling away, out of his arms. “
After
I arrived home?”

“I watched you. It was my job to watch you.” Yet never had it felt like work until that night, when he could see but couldn’t touch. “That night you were barefoot in your flat, wearing that little black dress that hugs your curves so very, very right. You walked around for an hour after you came back from the gala, dancing and singing in your living room all by your lonesome, and all I wanted to do was knock on your door and join you. Dance with you. I was hard as fucking stone every goddamn minute until you turned the lights off and went to bed. You owe me for that hour, Beth darling, and I intend to collect.”

“You watched me. How—No, never mind, I honestly don’t want to know.” She stared at him, cheeks flushed, chest rising and falling in rhythm with his own racing heartbeat. He was a wretch, taking satisfaction in seeing her rattled, but satisfied he was.

The feeling only grew when she drew in an unsteady breath and determinedly squared her shoulders. “I owe you nothing, Vick
darling.
You let me think you were dead for a year.
A
year.
” Ill-concealed rage shook her voice. “And I should kill you for that, but I’m so stupidly happy that you’re alive and...and here—” She broke off, shaking her head when he moved to hold her. “I’m an idiot over you. I always have been. But goddammit, Vick, I lived with your death on my conscience, and all the while you were sitting pretty right across the street.”

“Beth—”

“You knew. You knew, and you let me carry this terrible weight, anyway.” Tears shimmered in her eyes but never fell. “Did you think I wouldn’t mourn you, Vick, just because I didn’t know your name?”

Her quiet question ripped with brutal efficiency through any lingering passion, leaving only the desire to soothe in its wake. His heart thudded painfully, his conscience pricking him with all the subtlety of an ice pick to the skull. “I didn’t deserve your grief.”

“That was for me to decide.” Arms wrapped around her torso, she backed away toward the bedroom, but there was no invitation to chase visible in her body language. “I will never be able to apologize enough for the part I played in bringing down that building on top of you. But I...I’m not sure I can forgive you for this.”

He stopped breathing. “Not ever?”

A tear escaped to roll quickly down her cheek. “Not tonight, at least.” Seeming to shake herself, she swiped away the wetness, her soft sniffling cracking open his chest. “Tobias will be here in a few hours. Take the first watch so I don’t have to deal with him on zero sleep?”

Without a word, he lifted his Ruger from the kitchen counter and checked the chamber, gaze never leaving hers. He didn’t want to miss another tear, another blink. He didn’t want to miss another damn thing about this woman.

Nodding briskly, she fled to the bedroom, leaving him alone with his aching heart.

Chapter Seven

Nissi Beach, Cyprus
Two years earlier

It was time. Beth couldn’t have pinpointed when, exactly, she’d decided it was time, but the knowing in her bones assured her it was.

Now
, her bones whispered.
Take him now.

The sand between her toes was fine and soft, white and pure, offsetting the sparkling blue of the water perfectly. A warm wave lapped teasingly at her ankles as she strode into the sea, determination tightening her skin over her knowing bones to a near-painful degree. The afternoon sun toyed with the idea of setting sometime in the near future, its decision reflected in the changing hues of the Cypriot sky; blue bled to purple, purple to pink, but the horizon stayed bright as the breeze lifted Beth’s hair from her bare shoulders.

Even with her sunglasses on, she felt a need to shield her eyes, and lifted a hand to shadow her stare at the man on the surfboard. He sat on the banana-yellow board, legs lazily draped on either side, and stared back at her from twenty yards away. His naked torso, all lean muscle packed under darkly tanned flesh, called to her fingertips. Tribal tattoos in unforgiving black ink curved around his upper arms, hinting at the wild lines and curves spanning his broad shoulders that she’d glimpsed earlier, when he was paddling out.

Her bones were really fucking smart, she decided as she crooked a finger, beckoning him to her.

To his credit, he didn’t play coy. Paddling into the shallows, he hopped off the board and tucked it under his arm, striding through the water as droplets sluiced in fine rivulets over the sculpted delineations of his chest.

Beth couldn’t tear her gaze from him. His body was a work of art, beyond the tattoo across his shoulder blades. It was as if he were masculinity itself, honed down to its essential elements, without one spare molecule set aside for a smidgeon of softness. Coming out of the water, burnished by the island sun, he looked like a god.

A god she really wanted to bang.

To the casual observer, he gave no sign that he knew her, no hint that they’d once spent hours together in a karaoke box singing ABBA songs, or that they had been forced to take refuge in an abandoned cottage overnight to keep from being blown to bits by militant Croatians. But even behind the brown irises—his eyes had been gray last time, she mused—there was a gleam of recognition. His mouth curved in a slight smile that might have been merely inquiring, flirtatious, but she knew pleasure when she saw it, and the corners of his lips, with their faint upward lift as he came to a halt in front of her, positively radiated pleasure.

These were the facts,
her
facts. Her truth. She told herself it didn’t matter what he said, if he said anything, because she knew it was him.

Plus, it wasn’t as though he could fail to recognize her. A week lounging in the sun on Nissi Beach had darkened her already golden skin to a warm copper shade closer in tone to that of her Moroccan mother’s, but Beth had stopped experimenting with hair dye around the time she was finally able to legally purchase her own booze and she rarely cut her deep-brown ponytail any shorter than shoulder-length. She was as she’d always been, and he had to see that.

She slid her sunglasses to the top of her head. “I didn’t catch your name.”

“Bertrand Thierry.”

So much for what he said not mattering. How she managed a smile while his easy lie—as falsely suave as ever, this time in French-accented English—stabbed her in the heart, she’d never know. “Strange. I could’ve sworn your name was Nicolas Galliano.” Her light tone didn’t betray the ache in her chest. “No, wait. I meant Dmitri Kovak. Felix Yates? Ah, I’ve got it now—James Horner.”

He simply arched a tawny eyebrow, as if to say,
Are you quite finished?

She simply shrugged, as if to say,
Silly me.

Silly me
,
thinking you would tell me the truth for once.
“Don’t you want to know my name?”

Now it was his turn to shrug.

God, she wanted to hit him. Shake him. Remind him that he wasn’t fooling her, not for one second. So what if he was a blond-haired, brown-eyed surfer bum this time? The scar on his tanned cheek was the same scar that had bisected his brown beard when she’d crossed paths with him in Hong Kong. The jagged bump on the bridge of his nose was the same bump that had rested against her forehead when he shielded her body from shrapnel in Serbia. The gap between his front teeth was the same gap that had drawn her attention the first day she met him, almost nine years ago now, in Belgium. He still stood somewhere around six-three, still possessed those strong, capable-looking hands with their long, elegant fingers.

He was the same, every damn time, no matter what color his hair or his eyes. After all these years of running into and around each other, playing cat-and-mouse and catch-and-release, how could he possibly think she wouldn’t know him, no matter what stupid fake name he gave?

She didn’t need a name to know he was written on her heart. But that didn’t stop her from wanting to know him—the real him. “Fine, then. We’ll skip introductions and head straight into completely anonymous, no-strings sex, and go our separate ways.”

Well. That certainly got his attention. “
Pardon?
”

The distinctly threatening note in that one word sent a shiver tripping down her spine, but her bravado never faltered. “You heard me.”
It’s time
, urged her bones. “I’m propositioning you.”

His glare was hot enough to incinerate her where she stood. Stepping closer, he loomed over her, and she was struck anew by his size. This man—her spy, as she thought of him, because she refused to assign him one of his aliases—was a tall man, and with a little more meat on his bones, bulking him up from that whipcord runner’s physique he was currently rocking, he’d be a
big
man too.

She bit her lip as she peered up at him. Damn, but she wouldn’t mind if he turned into a bigger man one of these days. Then she wouldn’t feel so nervous about wanting to sink her teeth into him and take a bite; at the moment, there wasn’t a spare, nibble-worthy ounce on him.

“You want sex from me.” His clenched jaw made the words almost indecipherable. “You want anonymous, no-strings-attached, and therefore
meaningless
sex from me.”

They both knew it wouldn’t—couldn’t—ever be meaningless between them. Not that the knowledge stopped her from lying to him. “Yes. But if you’re not up for it, I’m sure I can find a man who is.”

Ooooh, but he was
mad.
It made her giddy. When she took a first, tentative step backward, he shifted as if to grab her around the waist, and that was enough to send her sprinting across the sand. Her feet barely touched the ground as she raced over the beach toward the row of private bungalows tucked among the swaying palm trees. A quick peek over her shoulder showed him stalking after her, sunny surfboard still in hand, a ferocious scowl on his rugged face while his white board shorts slipped low on his hips.

She couldn’t help it—she laughed. By the time her feet hit the deck of her rented beach house, she’d managed to control her glee, brushing the sand from her feet and tossing her sunglasses on the lounge chair next to the paperback she had abandoned earlier in the afternoon to go stalk him as he rode the waves.

The sound of his surfboard being shoved into the sand was her only warning before his arms caught her around the waist and dragged her into the one-room, open-plan bungalow. A heartbeat later, his lips crashed down upon hers, fierce and commanding, his hands sinking into her hair. No finesse, no subtlety, and Beth loved knowing it was she who’d stripped him of his control, if not his cover identity.

She was breathless and panting when he tore his mouth away. His own breathing seemed no steadier as he asked, “Why are you in Cyprus?”

She considered her answer, considered him. “Would you believe me if I said I was on vacation?”

He smirked. “
Non.
”

Too bad for him, because for once, she actually was on vacation. Ten days alone in a little open-air bungalow with all the amenities a twenty-first-century girl could hope for, in celebration of finally completing her graduate degree in Art History. It had been a long, winding road, as had her undergraduate work, because it had all been done remotely, with the occasional night class thrown in.

Thank goodness Beth had no compunction about throwing the family legacy in a few admissions officers’ faces to get what she wanted—especially since she’d only wanted the tiniest smidgeon of flexibility when it came to how she would complete her coursework. Kill orders rarely waited around for an assassin to finish her midterm exams, after all. “I came to Cyprus to unwind.” She blatantly perused his delightful body, a thrill of bold pleasure suffusing her when she saw his cheeks flush under her regard. “And I know exactly how I want to go about doing that.”

The sun dipped lower in the sky, shades of pink and orange dappling the white linen drapes that billowed in the breeze from the bungalow’s open floor-to-ceiling windows. His hand reached over her shoulder to tug loose the knots of her turquoise bikini top, twisting the strings around his fingers to draw it away from her body.

Her gaze never left his as one half of her swimsuit fell to the floor, though she blushed at his appreciative stare. There was no point in covering herself, not when she wanted more than anything to be naked with him. Completely, down-to-the-soul naked. And that meant knowing who, exactly, she was getting naked with. “Tell me your name. Your real name.”

“I already told you,” he murmured, but his response lacked conviction.

Irritation simmered, but she shoved it aside. She knew what she wanted, and she damn well planned on taking it. “You know what this is, don’t you?” Her first time. She’d always known her first time would be with him.

“Why do you think I chased after you?” He had more than a handful of inches on her and no compunction, it seemed, about using his greater height to bend her into submission, crowding her toward the bed until her calves bumped against the teakwood frame. “Your first time should be with someone you love,
ma petite.
”

His casual French made her queasy, but she shoved the uncertainty aside, in favor of heeding the demands of her bones. She would
not
acknowledge the ache his words spurred to life beneath her sternum. “I need to know your name. It’s not Bertrand. It’s not Nicolas. It’s not Dmitri, or Felix, or James. So tell me.” Her bare toes bumped his as she shifted, leaning into his heat and lifting her hands to rest on his strong shoulders. “Tell me, please.”

“
Cherie
, I—”

“Stop.” Her breath shuddered in her lungs as she struggled with her decision. Because, in the end, it
was
her decision whether to let this spy into her body. Into her heart. “If you can’t tell me who you are, then don’t tell me anything.” She held his face gently, beseechingly. “Don’t lie to me while you’re loving me.”

His lips compressed into a thin, harsh line. He tilted his forehead down to rest against hers, and she realized that if she listened just right, he wasn’t lying at all.

Their noses brushed.
I’m sorry.

A callused thumb stroking the line of her jaw.
Forgive me.

The brush of his mouth over hers.
Let me in.

His tongue, sweeping past her breathlessly parted lips.
Let me help you unwind.

Tasting deep, then retreating to catch her bottom lip between his teeth with a decisive tug.
Let me love you.

Beth dissolved on a moan, hands falling away from his cheeks as she flung her arms around his neck. For some reason, beyond all logic, this kiss felt like...like a first kiss. As though the frantic kisses of minutes earlier had never happened, along with their actual first kiss years ago in the middle of that village road a few miles southwest of Pančevo.

She loved the taste of him, the sweet, sultry heat of his mouth, the scent of him mixing with that of the saltwater clinging to his skin. Everything about him was an aphrodisiac: the sleek beauty of his bronzed skin, his ever-so-lean body, how his palms skated down her back to grip her bottom and squeeze it, the soft groans coming from deep in his chest.

She might not know his name, but she knew, beyond doubt, that he desperately wanted her.

A pattern soon emerged. Each time she sensed he wanted to speak, to say something, to tell her what he wanted or ask what she needed, he would sink his teeth into something—her lip, her shoulder, the sensitive underside of her breasts. And damn, but he wanted to speak
a
lot.
Like, all the time. She was going to be covered in bite marks tomorrow morning.

God, that was so fucking hot.

Eventually, she found herself filling the silence, first with gasps and moans as he rid her of her bikini bottoms, then with whimpers as he urged her onto the pristine white bedspread and settled his weight between her legs. Her thighs gripped his trim waist and narrow hips, ankles linking automatically behind him. It felt so good, so
right
to be with him like this, and the years she’d spent wanting him and wishing he were hers slipped away until nothing but the present remained.

In the present, he really
was
hers. She could feel it in the sure stroke of his hands, the wet heat of his mouth, the impatient shifting of his hips as he shimmied out of his board shorts, and then he was naked.

Naked and hard, and she was aching. Dying. Needing him to show her the way, this new way, and she felt no compunction in begging. “Oh, God. Oh, God, please.
Please.
” He growled, nipped at her throat. Nerves chased over her skin, tightening it, chilling it. Heating it. “Come into me. Come into me now, please. Please, baby. I need it.”

The blunt head of his erection parted her slick folds in a teasing stroke, and they both shuddered. Eyes shut tight, she groped blindly for the bedside table and the drawer in which she’d stashed a box of condoms with this very idea in mind. Eventually, he shoved her hand aside and opened the drawer himself. A rip of foil, the soft shushing of his hips brushing against her inner thighs, until he settled back into place.