His Spy at Night (Spy Games Book 3) (13 page)

Bernard was watching her closely. “What’s your relationship with Harry?”

“He’s my boss.”

“He seems very interested in you.”

Lies looked at him over the rim of her glass as she took a measured sip of the wine. She enjoyed this. Establishing a cover story was like arranging the men on a chessboard. Each move was a gambit. Bernard’s questions were open-ended, inviting her to confide in him, but still, she was getting no sense of what he really wanted from her. For her part, she was trying to give the impression that her interest in Harry was based solely around what he could do for her career. She also wanted him to believe that she liked to take risks.

The latter wasn’t at all a stretch of her acting abilities.

She didn’t set the glass down but continued to hold it, rolling the stem between her fingers, so he couldn’t top it up until she was ready. She smiled as if sharing a secret. “I make him nervous. He’s afraid I’ll offend someone important because he thinks I ask too many questions.”

“It must be uncomfortable—to be watched so closely every day.”

She shrugged. “Harry is Harry. He’s good to work for and he’s generous about introducing me to people, even if he does tend to hover. I don’t like updating his electronic filing system though.” She made a face as she tossed out the lure. “He might as well have taken a bunch of papers and thrown them in a basket. I’ve been sorting unlabeled data for weeks. I have no idea what’s important and what’s not.”

She’d just let him know she had free access to embassy defense information and very little discretion. The next move was his.

“Will you be going to the helicopter expo with him?”

The helicopter expo was an annual international event hosted by the Dutch government and tended to draw the same crowd every year. He’d hardly need Harry’s connections for that. She’d thought he would ask about the Canadian trade mission here for the shipbuilding tours that Harry was hosting.

“Of course.” The expo was on Harry’s agenda because of the visiting trade commission. Helicopters were used on ships all the time. Planning for landing capabilities at sea would be part of a shipbuilding contract.

“If you’re serious about advancing your career, I have a few people I can introduce you to. I’d be honored if you’d accompany me to dinner on opening night.”

She felt his hand on her thigh beneath the table, very briefly. He was testing her to see how she’d respond.

She set her glass down and allowed him to refill it, then met his gaze. “I’d love to. Thank you. You’re very kind to offer.”

After that, the conversation switched to non-work-related topics. Bernard might be tight-lipped about his business, but when it came to his personal life he was far more forthcoming. It was easy for Lies to see how he’d attracted the Albanian diplomat’s young wife. Bernard lived a high lifestyle. He owned a sailboat he took out almost every weekend in the summer. He’d white-water-rafted in the Amazon and climbed Kilimanjaro. He’d gone on safari in South Africa several times.

Other than the sailing, however, he talked very little about his travels within Europe. To Lies, it was a telling omission. She also knew from her research that, despite being Canadian by birth, he steered clear of North American travel completely—at least under his own name. It wasn’t as difficult as it should be for people with the right connections to maintain a number of fake passports. It would never be one hundred percent impossible.

She enjoyed the rest of the evening. Bernard was an entertaining companion. When she turned down more wine, reminding him she had to bicycle home—it was illegal in the Netherlands to ride a bicycle while intoxicated, a law strictly enforced and she was an embassy employee—he didn’t persist but finished the bottle himself.

After the better part of two hours had passed, she mentioned how late it was and that she had to work in the morning. He offered to see her home, but he’d had more to drink than she did and his flat was within walking distance, so she declined. Never once, however, did she get the sense he was not in control.

They parted ways at a street corner. Bernard leaned in as if to kiss her, only to offer the same three perfectly respectable brushes of the cheek they’d shared earlier. It was silly of her to feel so relieved. A kiss was nothing.

And yet she suspected Harry would disagree. The way he’d kissed her had definitely not been nothing.

She cycled the long route that led along one of the canals ringing the heart of the old city, taking the extra time to clear her head. She’d learned nothing worth reporting to John at CSIS headquarters in Ottawa, and yet she believed she’d made significant inroads. Bernard would never trust her because he trusted no one, but he could be made to underestimate her.

Harry was waiting outside of her flat when she finally arrived home. He shouldn’t be here. If he were seen it might be perceived as prearranged.

Her heart leaped at the sight of him all the same.

He was an attractive man, dignified and well-dressed, who gave off an aura of quiet but confident authority. The lightweight cotton navy sweater, the relaxed-fit designer jeans, and red chukka boots showed another side to his character and it suited him perfectly—expensive, without being either dated or trendy.

His dark eyes were always so serious. One had to look closely to discern the tightly-leashed heat in them. Fire scorched over her as his gaze touched her. Bernard’s hand had been on her thigh and yet she’d felt nothing. Certainly not the breathless excitement and confusion Harry caused in her with a mere brush of his eyes. If Bernard’s expectations were raised through a little harmless flirtation, it was all part of the game.

Harry’s expectations, however…

She should be more careful. Their flirtations were hardly harmless. This wasn’t the same as the situation with Michael, but she wasn’t convinced her bosses would fully appreciate the difference.

“You shouldn’t be here,” she said.

“And you should have been home hours ago. I called several times.”

He sounded like an over-possessive and jealous boyfriend, something she would never have tolerated in any other man, but Harry was playing his part far better than she’d given him credit for. Plus he’d expressed—more than once—a genuine concern for her safety, and for that, she’d give him a pass.

He held her bicycle while she unlocked the door to the storage garage, then wheeled it inside behind her and tucked it into an empty space on one of the racks. She locked the tire before pocketing the key.

As she straightened, she and Harry collided. He’d deliberately moved closer so that contact between them would be unavoidable. Her fingers clutched at his sleeve to steady herself. They stared at each other. She held her breath.

“Can I come up?” he finally asked when the long stretch of silence made it obvious she wasn’t going to extend any invitation.

She slowly exhaled. They both knew what invariably happened whenever they were alone together. Her conscience nudged her, giving one final warning. Her bosses would never approve.

What they don’t know won’t hurt them
, the daredevil inside her whispered back. It wasn’t as if Harry would kiss and tell. He didn’t have it in him to be anything other than discreet.

She settled for a compromise. “On the understanding that we aren’t going to talk about my evening,” she warned him. “Or about work at all.” If she allowed him to come to her flat, he didn’t get to accuse her of playing games with him. What happened next would be straightforward.

This was about sex, plain and simple.

His face clouded over. He was going to walk away rather than argue the point. His expression said so. Part of her was relieved. Another, bigger, part wasn’t.

Before disappointment could fully manifest however, he acquiesced. “Fine.”

He held his palm pressed to the small of her back on the short ride in the lift. His thumb rubbed back and forth over her hip in a discreet but effective gesture that left her uncertain of her legs’ abilities to keep her upright. She couldn’t look at him, whereas he never took his eyes from her face. She felt them on her as plainly as she felt the weight of his hand.

They were barely inside the door of her flat before he had her pressed against the wall.

Chapter Eight

What he was doing was insanity.

It was also so out of character he could hardly believe it of himself. But Harry had wanted Lies from the moment he’d first laid eyes on her in John Carmichael’s office and he planned to have her. He needed to get her out of his system. Out of his head.

She wore tight leggings and a loose, sleeveless tunic over a T-shirt. He lifted the hem of the tunic and tugged it over her head, dropping it to the floor. He took her hips in his hands and her lips with his mouth. Her height meant their pelvises touched, his erection hard on her belly, and he would have loved to take her right there.

He had to slow things down. This wasn’t going to happen at the door of her flat where anyone happening by could hear them. It was going to be loud and he’d be taking his time. He wasn’t the only one who’d find satisfaction tonight.

Continuing to kiss her, he hooked his thumbs over the waistband of her leggings and touched naked flesh. She gasped against his lips, arching her back, the feel of the soft mounds of her breasts on his chest impeded by the sweater he wore. Her fingers went to his belt. She unbuckled it, sliding it slowly from the loops of his jeans. It clattered to the tiled floor. Her teeth grazed his lower lip. She drew it into her mouth, the tip of her tongue playing with it. He had his hands inside her leggings, cupping her buttocks, his palms under the thin scrap of her panties, when a problem presented itself. He hadn’t used protection in years.

“I’m clean,” he said. He’d had himself checked after he found out about Alcine’s affair. “Do I need a condom?”

“So am I. And no. I’m on the pill.”

“Bedroom,” he commanded. “Now.”

She twisted in his arms, catching the buttoned front of his jeans with her fingers as she kicked off her shoes. “This way.”

She led him down the narrow hall and past the darkened living room where city lights sparkled through the sheer curtains she’d left drawn closed. Her bedroom was small, barely large enough for the queen-sized bed, but right now the bed was all that mattered to him. Soft light from the street spilled into the dimly-lit room. The far wall, facing the building next door, was crafted entirely of heavy, opaque glass panels. Clothing littered the floor and draped off the top of the open closet door. Tidy, she was not. He noticed it all in passing. His primary focus remained on Lies and how beautiful she looked, all lithe-bodied and tousled blond curls.

She peeled off her T-shirt, revealing delectable breasts encased in a plain white, serviceable bra. The leggings followed. Beneath them were plain white cotton bikinis. His hard-on, straining against the fly of his jeans, throbbed with an even greater insistence. She had not an ounce of self-consciousness, which he hadn’t expected of her anyway, but the lack of frilly, feminine lingerie loosened the tight knot in his chest that had tortured him all evening at the thought of her in bed with another man. Lies might be far different from most women he knew, but in his experience, this wasn’t what one wore if she were planning a seduction. She’d said there was a limit to how far she’d go to gather information and the evidence indicated she meant it.

She sat on the edge of the bed, leaning back on her hands with her long, naked legs dangling over the side, and watched him undress. Shoes first, then the sweater. When he began to unbutton his jeans she reached out to intervene, catching the backs of his thighs with her heels and pulling him closer to the bed. She worked the zipper, easing its throat carefully down the teeth, then slipped her fingers inside the open fly to close around his length as he sprang free. He hissed a breath through clenched teeth. He shucked out of his jeans and his briefs and kicked them aside. He was totally naked and she had him in her hand, and God, she was so incredibly beautiful as she ran her fist up and down him and teased the backs of his legs with her bare toes.

She would have taken him in her mouth if he hadn’t stopped her, not that he wanted to, but because he intended for her to enjoy this as much as he did and the night would be over too soon if she did. He was in no hurry. When it came to getting Lies out of his system, he’d do it right.

He pressed her flat on the bed. Then, he flipped her onto her belly. She still had on her plain panties and bra, which he found oddly exciting, although she wouldn’t be wearing them long. He dipped his fingers beneath the fabric and into her damp heat, first one, then a second, in and out. She moaned encouragement, but not nearly loud enough. The hell with not being overheard. He planned to wake up the neighbors.

“Do you like that?” he asked, removing his fingers. “Do you want more of it?”

“Yes.” She lifted her hips, parting her thighs as she did so. “
Yes
. Don’t stop now. I’m so close.”

He had to shut his eyes to help him concentrate, to keep from easing his erection inside her instead, because it was still too soon for that. Ego now factored in. There’d be more than one orgasm in this for her. She was going to remember him and their night together. She was going to dream about it at the office while she sat at her desk, thinking up new ways to torment him. The joke was on her. He knew his way around women. He explored her folds with the tip of his finger. She was wet, she was hot, and right now she was
his
.