Compromised (9 page)

Shit, shit, shit on a stick. She thought quickly. “Platon. Are you okay? Come on—let's get you some help.” She put her arm under his shoulders and levered him into a sitting position.

“What happened?” he moaned in Greek.

“We were mugged,” she answered in English.

He groaned and put his damaged face in his hands.

While he got himself together, she took from her wallet a photo of people she didn't know, but who she'd told Platon were her parents, and dropped it in the alley behind him. She also grabbed a few euro coins and a fancy lipstick and casually dropped them as she bent down to help him up.

“Shall I take you to the hospital?” she asked, praying the answer would be no.

“Take me to Stratigos,” he mumbled from behind a potentially broken jaw.

“Okay; lean on me,” she said calmly as she walked him out of the passageway. She ducked her head, knowing that passersby would be looking at him and not wanting anyone to be able to describe her face. As she walked past a trash can, she quickly dropped the envelope of cash in it.

She hesitated at the entrance to the café. A waiter approached and she just nodded toward Stratigos, who was still talking to the three men. He went to the table and bent over to whisper in Stratigos's ear. He looked up with astonishment when he saw them, and beckoned her.

“What happened?” he asked as she deposited Platon carefully in a chair.

“We were mugged. In an alleyway down Pascis Street. It was…horrible.” She made tears well up. “He just jumped out of nowhere.”

Stratigos nodded to the three men, who got up and left. Then he called to the waiter. Two glasses of ouzo appeared. “Drink. It will calm your nerves,” he said. “Did they take the money I gave you?”

“Yes!” she cried between fairly reasonable sobs. I think I lost a photo of my parents too.” She put her hands over her face and shook as if she were crying. After a couple of minutes, she sniffed, straightened, and took some sips of the liquor in front of her.

“Here you are, my dear. Don't cry.” He slipped a roll of money secured with a rubber band to her. “Keep this one safe. Go back to work; don't you worry about Platon. He will receive the best care. I promise.”

She scraped her chair back. “Thank you. Please tell him to call me when he feels better.”

Stratigos nodded. “I will call you tomorrow morning to arrange for you to drop off the plans.”

“Okay.” She sniffed and left the café, passing the three men as they returned to Stratigos's table. She looked back once, in time to see one of the guys showing Stratigos something on his phone. She hoped it was the “crime scene” that she'd planted. She'd go back and at least try to recover the money, just to cover her bases. The envelope of cash at least had his fingerprints on it, and maybe other people's too.

She worked her way back to the alleyway, eluding any surveillance, real or imaginary. It was empty. The photo, euro coins, and lipstick had disappeared. A short walk confirmed that Stratigos's money was also gone.
Dammit
.

She elected to run home to change, since she had Platon's blood on her top. It wasn't like she really worked nine to five at the construction company, although sometimes she had to remind herself of it. She'd found herself on numerous occasions rushing back to the office, like they actually cared that their fake inventory manager was late back from lunch. Most of the officers didn't go to the office for days at a time.

As soon as she got home, she changed into a clean blouse and tried to tame the stray strands that had come loose from her flower-shaped hair clips.

As she looked at herself in the mirror, she heard fast stomping steps coming from the stairwell. Her front door burst open. She flinched and flattened herself against the wall so the intruder couldn't see her.

“Where the hell are you?” a familiar voice asked.

Simon.

She un-plastered herself from the wall and stepped calmly into the main room. “What the hell are
you
doing, letting yourself into my apartment again? Didn't we cover this before?”

S
he stood with her hands balled on her hips, fire flashing from her eyes in what would be a fairly frightening way if he didn't still have pictures of her seminaked and against a wall in his brain.

Well, she was up to her neck in something bad, and he wasn't going to let it continue. He held up a plastic baggie. In it were a photo, some euros, and her lipstick that he was sure she'd planted, and an envelope of cash he'd actually found in the trash can near the alley. “Cover-up one oh one.”

“Cover-up…what? What are you talking about?”

He wanted to say that it was a classic trained move, to leave corroborating evidence in case someone ever returned to check a story. He looked at her meaningfully, hoping she'd just admit it. She was a spy of some sort. Trained. For the US, or maybe even the enemy. God only knew what had gone on in the past year. But he was sure of this.

Semisure.

Okay, he had a feeling.

She grabbed the bag from him and peered through the plastic. “You found my money. Thank you for that. The rest…” She shrugged, tipping it out on the bed. “Well, obviously the euros are mine—I mean, no one else has euro coins.” She rolled her eyes at him. “The picture is of…Who are these people, Simon? I've never seen them before in my life.” She flipped over the photo to read the back and gave him a pitying look. “Mom and Dad? Really? You've met my parents, who definitely aren't these people in the photo, and you automatically think it's mine?” She flicked the photo onto the bed. “I'll give you that some things have changed since you left me. But my parents haven't.”

He had never wanted to punch a wall so much in his life. Ever. He was sure…

“What about the lipstick?” he said.

She picked it up and yanked the lid off. She winced as she looked at it. “Shit, Simon. You think I'd wear that color?”

He grabbed it and looked inside. She had a point. It was dark to the point of black. He'd examined it for a microphone or a compartment that could hide a tracker but hadn't registered that the color really wasn't Sadie's style.

“What about the money?” he asked tightly.

“I'd been saving cash to buy shoes at the Attica department store. They give a discount for cash every first Friday of the month.” Her voice dropped to a concerned pitch. “Are you okay, Simon? You seem really stressed. Can you talk about it?”

Fuck. Fuck
. How could he have gotten this so wrong? How was he so quick to suspect Sadie, of all people, was some kind of spy? Shit. What an idiot.

He shook his head and turned away from her, taking in the view from her window—that of a dirty alley and some Dumpsters. He saw some stacked folders on her desk with a construction company's branding all over them. Was he really so off the mark?

“Come here, Simon. What's really wrong?”

He tried again. “The man you had coffee with today—he's a very well-documented anarchist. He's been in and out of jail for the majority of the past forty years. He was responsible for a knife attack on the Greek finance minister, the car bomb that blew up a member of their parliament—with his two children—and at least five other firebombings. He's dangerous, and I don't want you to see him again.” He watched her expression carefully for a tell, any kind of sign that he wasn't going crazy.

Her eyes narrowed. “Really? How fascinating. Platon's uncle? Wow. I had no idea he had such interesting relatives.”

This
wasn't
the reaction he was hoping for. He sat on a stool by some kind of dresser and put his head in his hands. “Why are you here, Sadie? I can't move in this town without bumping into you. You're distracting me so much that I'm seeing shadows where there are none. I just don't know what to do.” Maybe pity would work. He stuck his thumbnails into the corners of his eyes before raising his face and rubbing them. He knew they would be red, and he wondered if she'd think he was close to tears. Then he wondered if he wanted her to think he'd ever be close to tears.
Fuck. Fuck
.

He held a hand out to her and she took it, concern etched across her face. He pulled her gently onto his knee and wrapped his arms around her, squeezing her as if he were using her life force.

Her hand started stroking his back, soothing and slow.

He very slowly placed his face at her neck, inhaling her familiar scent, took a deep breath, and made it shudder a bit.

She held him tighter, shifting against his leg. Well, maybe she thought it was his leg. He closed his eyes. When he wasn't looking at her, lying to her, trying to get information from her…in that moment in time, he was in love with her again, as if nothing else mattered. Nothing else affected them.

He wasn't hiding anything from her or watching her hide things from him. With his eyes closed, they were engaged again. Maybe on their honeymoon. He wanted his Sadie.

He pulled away from her and clasped her face in his hands, forcing himself to look at her. The concern in her eyes had gone, leaving something anticipatory. He was sure it matched a look in his eyes. But he closed his again. Only then could he be honest with the woman in his arms.

He moved his mouth to hers, barely touching it, allowing their breath to mingle. Sharing that thing that kept them alive. Her tongue touched his lower lip so lightly he wondered if he'd imagined it. But then he felt its touch again, and he captured her tongue in his mouth. Still gently, still quietly.

They kissed as if they were kissing for the first time. Insistent but giving. He tasted every part of her mouth, felt the swirl of her tongue against his. Just that made his stomach tighten with the knowledge that something special was happening between them.

Sadie's eyes were closed as he kissed her chin and neck. He lifted her as he stood, her eyes opening as he put her down. He avoided them. He watched his fingers smooth the dark blond hair from her face and then watched her fingers as she slowly unfastened the buttons on his shirt. She pulled the tails from his waistband and, running her hands over his chest, swiped the shirt off his shoulders. As he did the same with hers, she unzipped her skirt and let it drop to the floor.

His hands reached for her as if they had a mind of their own. No will he'd ever possessed could have kept them at his sides. He stroked her neck, down to her shoulders, and then lightly ran his hands over the swell of her breasts. Her eyes closed as he did.

He continued down her soft stomach, and his fingers just lightly floated over the front of her panties, making her suck in her breath and close her eyes.

His dick was straining against his pants, and for a second he enjoyed the sensation of the pressure building in him. The tightness of his muscles and the hardness of his arousal. His hands returned to her shoulders as she brought him against her.

He ground his dick against her as her hips pressed back. “You make me crazy for you, Sadie. This is what happens whenever I think about you.”

Her hand wriggled between them as she found her mark. She stroked him through his pants for a second and then undid them, pushing them carefully to the floor. She stepped back from him for a second with an impenetrable look on her face.

“This is just us here, okay?” she said. “Nothing else…outside this door.” She glanced at the entrance to her apartment. “Not our past—just us, here alone.” She was lying about the past part. She wanted their past so badly. Wanted to feel loved by him. She knew it was an illusion, maybe even a delusion—after all, a few minutes ago he'd been accusing her of being exactly what she was. But he seemed tortured, sad, and stressed in a way she'd never seen before.

He closed his eyes and swallowed. “Of course. I…understand.”

“Open your eyes,” she commanded.

He did. She unhooked her bra from the front and slipped out of her panties. His eyes darkened as they roamed over her body, but he didn't step toward her. What was he fighting? His dick wasn't fighting anything. It seemed to be reaching out to her.

She smiled, but instead of walking to him, she eased herself onto the bed and then lay there, head propped on one hand as she playfully patted the cover. She wanted to feel free of the lies and the anger she'd been holding on to for so long.

In a flash he was on her, pressing every part of himself over her. He wrapped his arms tightly around her neck and shoulders and kissed her with a fever. She felt as if she were being absorbed into him, as if every part of her were wrapped up in him. Her heart was as turned on as the rest of her.

“I need you,” she whispered against his mouth.

“You'll have me, sweetheart. I just want to have you first.” He braced himself on his arms and lowered his head to her breasts. They seemed to swell and reach to him as just his breath on them made her nipples hard. He sucked and bit gently, pulling away to blow cool air on the wet tips, making her wriggle on the bed. Her legs dropped open, and she hooked her ankles around his calves, trying to urge him into her. She was filled with heat that could only be sated with him inside her.

He easily dislodged her ankles as he moved down her body. She was torn. She wanted him to fill her up, to feel his weight on her as he made love to her, but she remembered what this felt like.

The unusual breeze from the window billowed the sheer curtains, and light made patterns on them. It made her feel like she was in a movie, that she wasn't real. That this wasn't real. She was fine with that. It didn't feel real. It was too good to be real.

She was so wet. Had been since she sat on his lap and felt his dick against her. He'd never wanted her like this before. Not with the immediate reaction that his body gave. And she'd never reacted this way to him either.

He blew against her, making her jump and open her legs wider for him. He laughed at her obvious acquiescence, or brazenness, but she didn't care.

He knelt between her legs and held them open until his own legs were bracing them. And then he dipped his head. The tip of his tongue brushed against her clitoris, lightly, as if gauging her reaction. Her body jerked. He did it again and she moaned.
More. I need more
.

Her hands gripped the bed covers in anticipation of his next touch. He used his shoulders this time to move her legs, exposing more of her to him. She tipped her hips, looking for his lips or tongue.

A strong tongue lick made her jump. It traveled from her ass, slowly to her clit, circled it a couple of times and then back. Pushing for entry again at her ass. Fingers probed everywhere. His tongue flicked at her clit and then laved it. Then flicked at it again while his fingers, seemingly all of them, explored every entrance and every part of her. Her mind felt as if it were melting inside her, rendering any reasonable thought impossible. Heat flooded her lower back, taking her to the edge of the wave that was uniquely Simon's. His fingers stroked inside her as his tongue pushed her, further and further, until she came, crashing and pulsing around his fingers.

He withdrew his fingers and licked where they had been, soothing the knife-edge of her climax. “I owed you that for last night,” he said, sliding back up her body with a wry smile on his face.

She grinned. “No you didn't. Sixty euros maybe, but…”

He smothered her words with a kiss as he slid right inside her. She gasped as she felt him completely filling her in one stroke. She tipped her hips up and wrapped her legs around him, wanting to feel everything, the muscles in his butt flexing as he pushed into her again and again, the sweat making his back cool in the breeze, and the tightness of his thighs. For a second she wished she had a mirror above her bed instead of a fan, but that thought was driven from her as he picked up his pace. He thrust into her faster and faster, groaning her name, as if he wanted to hear the sound of it. She reveled in the need she felt in him, the surrender to her body. She felt powerful and wanted as he clasped one arm around her, holding her to his chest as he heaved out two more breaths and came, shuddering inside her. “Sadie,” he breathed as he rested his head on her breasts.

She left her legs wrapped around him. She felt loved. Even if she wasn't. She felt loved, and she hadn't felt that way in over a year. She wanted him to feel it too. She stroked his back and rubbed her cheek lightly against the top of his head until his breath evened out and his muscles relaxed around her.

Safe. Protected. Honest. If only for a few hours.

She closed her eyes.