His Spy at Night (Spy Games Book 3) (18 page)

Marlon, a short, round-bellied man, had thick, salt-and-pepper hair and a clean-shaven, baby-like face. He greeted them at the door, clasping Harry’s hand, his eyes wandering over Lies in a highly appreciative manner that didn’t bother Harry in the least. Marlon was happily married and Lies did look stunning. She’d tidied her curls but hadn’t bothered to try and tame them, a look that he liked. She wore a trace of makeup around her eyes, emphasizing their size and vibrant color, but taking nothing away from their natural beauty. Her lipstick was a dark shade of pink well suited to her light complexion.

She’d opted for the standard little black dress, a safe choice for an unknown venue, although it had a few departures from the typical conservative features. Harry viewed the anomalies with appreciation as they were escorted through the main level of the restaurant, Lies a few steps ahead. The dress had a high neckline and long sleeves, but the back was nonexistent, plunging in a wide vee from the rounds of her shoulders to her waist. The hem of the tight skirt touched a conservative inch above her knees. In the back however, the slit meant to facilitate walking hadn’t taken bending over into consideration.

Although Lies bent over while wearing that dress certainly had Harry’s consideration. He imagined her hands gripping the back of the sofa in his flat while he stood behind her, spreading her thighs, making her ready for him with deft strokes of his fingers. Perhaps his tongue.

He dragged his attention back to the moment. That was for later. He had other plans for the first part of the evening.

They climbed a spiraling central staircase to Marlon’s personal table. He was speaking to Lies in Dutch, taking for granted by her appearance that she was a national. She laughed at whatever he was saying, her rapid-fire response too fast for Harry, with his limited understanding of the language, to follow. All he caught was
Canadees
, which meant Canadian, and a reference to Frisians.

“He said my accent is charming and asked where I’m from,” Lies translated for Harry. “I told him I’m Canadian but my family is from Friesland.”

“And I said we won’t hold her family against her and she’s welcome here regardless,” Marlon interjected. “I’m usually very good at identifying what part of the country people are from. Her Dutch is impeccable but the hint of Canadian and Frisian in her accent made it difficult to place.” He held out a leather chair for Lies so she could sit down, then patted Harry on the shoulder. “Enjoy yourselves. I’ll be your waiter for the evening. Let me treat you to a bottle of my favorite wine.”

A silk screen separated their table, which overlooked the marble kitchen and its industrious staff, from the rest of the restaurant to give them an illusion of privacy. Lights made of Austrian crystal gleamed from low recesses in the high-ceilinged walls. Windows of distorted glazed glass extended from the ground a level below them to the ceiling a level above.

“Where are the others?” Lies asked as Harry took a seat across from her. She examined the table. There was enough room for eight but only settings for two. Candles and a centerpiece of orchids spoke of intimate dining. “Are we the first to arrive?”

“There aren’t any others. They all canceled.”

Lies leaned toward him, her elbows on the table and her chin on her linked fingers. She arched a brow. “Harry. Is this a seduction?”

This was more like her. Intent on unsettling him. He might not know her as well as he should, given the things they’d done together, but he was on to her game.

The problem was that he didn’t mind when she won. And that he didn’t like for her to play it with others.

“If you behave yourself, yes,” he said. “Otherwise, it’s a business meeting that went sideways thanks to my inability to master the meeting app on my phone.”

“How would you like me to behave?”

She made her words, so innocent when taken at face value, sound suggestive, giving him visions of her under the table with her head between his legs. His fly was open and she had her mouth on his erection. Already, it was shouting out for her attention.

He was a fine one to talk about boundaries. He’d thought phone sex had stretched his, but this…

He reined in his aching erection with ruthless determination.

“At least until after dinner,” he said, earning a smile that suggested she knew where the evening was headed and couldn’t wait for the next stage, making his own impatience soar.

He was saved by Marlon, who brought the bottle of wine he’d promised, then returned a short time later to take their order.

The evening passed quickly enough as they chatted about a number of benign topics. She enjoyed politics and sports, and interestingly, had a keen memory for statistics. Yet even though she appeared to be having a good time in his company, and he enjoyed being in hers, he could tell that something continued to bother her and he wanted to know what it was.

He’d planned on taking her to his place after dinner. Instead, as they said good-bye to Marlon at the door and walked into the evening, Harry made a slight change to his agenda. If they went to his flat there would be no more talking.

The rain that had poured buckets all day was finished, leaving the night air clear and warm, and smelling of earth and the approach of autumn.

“Let’s go for a walk,” he said. He paused. She was wearing heels. “Your shoes. Are they comfortable?”

“They’re fine.”

The foundations of the buildings along the street, including Marlon’s restaurant, formed an integral part of the canal system, and acted as a buttress. In the old days deliverymen would arrive at the businesses and households by boat and unload their goods at service doors opening directly onto the water.

A block down the street, beside one of the bridges that crossed the canal, was a boat launch for day tours. The tours had ended hours earlier. The bleak weather would have been hard on business. As Harry had hoped, however, a few of the boatmen still lingered, tidying their craft in preparation for the next day’s tourist operations.

After a brief negotiation, and an exchange involving several hundred euros, he’d secured a private ride. The boatman took his position at the wheel in the bow. Harry escorted Lies to the stern where they could sit in solitude and speak without being overheard. They sat side-by-side, close but not touching. The low, vinyl-cushioned benches were comfortable enough to make the ride pleasant as they pulled away from the dock and plodded up the canal under the blanket of night. City lights glittered along the banks, interspersed with the beams of slow-moving traffic and bicycle headlamps. Shadowy branches of weeping trees dipped downward to stroke the water’s black surface, which rippled like a washboard from the boat’s lazy passing. The moon was out, a pale wafer in the velvety sky, but the haze of smog and the glare from the city blocked any stars from view. The air was chillier on the water so Harry shrugged out of his suit jacket and draped it around her shoulders.

Their captain kept his back turned to them, earning his tip. The drifted along in silence, the motor chugging and the wooden floorboards humming beneath their feet. Lies didn’t speak, not even to tease him, and he found that he missed it. There had been enough casual conversation between them throughout dinner.

“Why did you sleep with me?” he asked. “Why the phone sex last night? Am I that much of a challenge to you?”

“Absolutely,” she replied, without any hesitation.

Well. That took the wind from his sails.

“And I’m a challenge to you,” she continued. “So I could ask you the same questions, but why bother? We’re both in this for pleasure. The whole evening has been wonderful. But I would have slept with you even without dinner and a boat ride, as nice as they are.” She placed her hand on his thigh next to hers, tilting her face toward his. They were very close to eye level. “All you had to do was ask.”

He disliked her thinking that he was only interested in her for sex. He disliked it even more that it was all she wanted from him. They had little else to offer each other however. They agreed on that much at least.

“I am asking,” he said. “This time I’m using a gentleman’s approach.”

“And it would be difficult to resist, assuming I wanted to, which I don’t.” She inched her fingers higher. “But don’t you ever get tired of always being so polite?”

He rubbed the back of his neck rather than slide his hand into the front of her dress as he’d like to, and tried to tame an erection that was rapidly becoming a permanent affliction when he was with her. “Groping each other in a car or on a boat in front of an audience is polite? Making so much noise that the neighbors are banging on the bedroom wall in the middle of the night is polite? Phone sex is polite?”

“I was there too, and I wasn’t complaining. Don’t you want it to be, I don’t know…” She shrugged. His jacket slid off her shoulder. “Uninhibited? Daring? To go wherever your imagination takes you? Us?” She leaned closer and tugged at his tie with her free hand. “Take me home. Then tell me what you want me to do to you, Harry,” she whispered, her breath warm on his throat, and he swallowed. “Better yet, make it an order. Trust me, I wouldn’t complain about that either.”

Chapter Eleven

He took her to his place.

Lies was surprised by his choice of residence, although not so much by the luxury of it—which was significant—as by the location. It wasn’t far from the beach in Scheveningen, maybe ten minutes on foot, in an area that was upscale and decidedly hip. He was neither of those things. She’d assumed he lived closer to the embassy and his work.

“I like the ocean,” he replied when she said so.

He’d grown up in Nova Scotia, she’d learned over dinner. His mother still lived in Halifax, the capital city, with three pugs and a cat she’d named after her son. That was all the family he had. Hers, by comparison, was enormous.

Yet another area in which they differed.

He parked in a designated spot on the street. They walked the flight of stairs to the second level. His door opened onto an enormous room that took up half the floor of the building. Pot lighting arced along the edge of a ten-foot ceiling where it met a rounded wall of curtainless windows. The top halves of the windows were crafted of colored glass.

Harry didn’t turn on the lights, but let what filtered in from the city illuminate the spacious room. A low leather sofa divided the dining from the living area. Shadows indicated the positions of a table and chairs and, oddly enough, a piano.

Lies, however, had an interest only in Harry. From the moment they’d been escorted to the best table in the restaurant and she’d realized they were dining alone, she’d longed to straddle his lap and take him inside her right there. She wasn’t normally into exhibitionism. Harry certainly was not. Not if his reaction to how they’d gotten carried away in the car after the theater was any indication. But when he’d suggested a canal ride she’d been wild with impatience and ready to reconsider. The thought of his hands on her—of having him finally inside her after waiting all evening—had left her giddy.

That same giddiness left her lightheaded now.

He tossed his car keys in a dish on the kitchen counter and loosened his tie. She’d returned his jacket to him. He eased it off his shoulders and slung it across one of the bar stools at the marble kitchen counter.

He turned to study her where she stood by the door, keeping several feet of distance between them. “If we’re going to have a sexual relationship, we need to go over the rules. I don’t want this spilling over into the office. And I expect exclusivity.”

He said the last with a hint of a challenge, as if he dared her to argue or seek definition. She’d be offended except she understood where he came from. She’d been lied to by a lover as well. While Harry didn’t have it in him to pretend to be something he wasn’t, Lies had no difficulties with it whatsoever. When it came to her investigation she would lie to him if she had to.

But never about what they did together in private. Intimacy required honesty. And trust. Those two things went both ways. Therefore she had a rule to remind him of too. “What we do when we’re in bed together is separate from our careers. There’s to be no pillow talk about work.”

“Come here,” he said.

She felt a rush of excitement at the command in his tone. Up until now she’d kept her sex life conservative. There’d be no need of safe words with Harry. Ever. And Lies was fine with that. While she wanted him to take charge, and to give her instructions, she wasn’t about to start this kind of game with a man who might get carried away and not take her personal safety into consideration. But she’d spent weeks pushing Harry out of his comfort zone. Let him test hers for a change. She could tell that he’d like to.

And once committed, Harry did nothing halfway.

She stopped a hand’s-breadth from him and ran her palms over her breasts and down the front of her dress. “I wore this because I thought you’d like it.” She slid her arms around his neck and pressed against him. “Tell me what you were thinking when you first saw me in it. Did it make you want to touch me?”

His eyes had gone very dark. He was already hard against her. “I imagined bending you over the back of my sofa and taking you from behind.”

She spun out of his arms and walked to the sofa, adding a sway to her hips. She ran a finger along the length of its low-slung back. “You mean this one?” She bent forward, grasping the butter-soft leather in both hands, and looked over her shoulder. “Like this?”