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  Yes!

  Nick had known that the answer to his unasked question would be yes. Letting him come in for coffee was girl code for Do you want to have sex? And the answer was yes. Hell, yes!

  Nick thought of nothing else as he drove them back to her house. She’d murmured directions, but he didn’t need them. He’d driven so often to her house on his stakeouts, he could find the way blindfolded.

  And now that he’d spent an evening with Charity, he could probably find her blindfolded, by smell alone. She had the most enchanting scent. The whole car was filled with it. Some fresh springlike perfume mixed with shampoo and soap and warm woman. Unique, heady.

  In the car, her scent alone had been enough to make his cock sit up and take notice, not that it needed any stimulation. Good thing he had on his expensive cashmere overcoat.

  Nick was a good strategist. He set goals and figured out how to meet them with the tools at hand. This was the staging phase, the one right before battle. This was when his body started readying itself for combat. His senses heightened, his heart rate slowed, he saw and heard with unusual clarity.

  The next stage was crucial. He had to convince her to trust him. Taking a woman to bed was the best way to do that, he knew from long experience. So he should be moving things slowly around to getting into her pants.

  Nick knew exactly how that was supposed to work. Walk her to her door, a light kiss before she opens it, just to break the ice, another kiss after she’d poured their nightcaps. Sitting on the couch, listening to the music she’d put on, idly chatting. Another light kiss, then another, less light this time, with a little tongue….

  Everything slowly, with style, giving her time to get used to him.

  He could do it. He’d done it before, countless times. He always kept his cool during sex. Hell, with Consuelo, he could have recited from memory whole chunks of the Army Field Manual while fucking, trying not to wince while Consuelo’s razor-sharp claws dug into his back. Keeping his cool before, during, and in the aftermath of sex was easy, he’d done it all his life.

  No matter how heated the fucking, a part of him remained detached and was sometimes even able to comment on the proceedings, as if he were at a show.

  He needed that cool right now. This was a job. A pleasurable job, okay, and man, did he deserve it after the shit details he’d been on in Afghanistan and after a year in the employ of the Drug Lord from Hell and his sister, Cruella De Vil. He had the moves, all shiny and polished from lots of use. He had the moves, the words, he had it all in his armamentarium. This should be a snap.

  Have sex, make sure she was pleasured, gain her confidence, seduce some intel on Worontzoff out of her, gain an invite to the musical evening Fuckhead was organizing…that was the mission. He’d done harder things in his life, he could do this. Easy.

  So why was he finding it so hard to focus on the job while she was in his arms?

  He stopped just inside the door, back against it, just for a second. His knees had turned weak when her tongue met his. It was crazy. Maybe it was the bottle of wine he’d polished off over dinner, though he was known for being able to hold his liquor. He was Irish, after all.

  So maybe it wasn’t the wine, but her mouth. The taste of her, spicy, sexy, with an overlay of the chocolate and cream desert.

  He lifted his mouth for a moment and looked down at her. Her hair spilled over the collar of his overcoat, light against the dark color. Her lips were red, slightly swollen, pale gemlike eyes wide, the pupils dilated. A vein beat against her neck and he wanted, violently, to feel that beat against her breast.

  She was watching him, taking cues from him, though the only kind of cue she could get right now was How fast can I get you into bed? Should he be slowing this down? Her eyes fluttered shut and she lifted her mouth to his in a kiss that was all too short.

  Maybe he didn’t have to slow this down. Which, all in all, was a good thing, because he didn’t know if he could.

  “Do you want coffee?” she whispered finally, pulling back and searching his eyes. Did he want coffee? Shit no, he didn’t need coffee, he didn’t need any stimulants. The way he was feeling right now, he needed someone to hose him down.

  “No,” he whispered back.

  Christ, she was pretty. No, she wasn’t just pretty. She was beautiful. Not many women were beautiful, magazine articles to the contrary. They gussied themselves up, and a lot of them that were secretly dogs wore so much makeup you really couldn’t tell what they looked like in there, under all the glop. And then of course there was the knife and the needle, giving half the women in America the same thin, upturned nose and big pillowy lips.

  Charity had a natural beauty that didn’t scream look at me! in any way, and yet once you did, once you really looked, it was almost impossible to tear your gaze away.

  Her makeup had almost gone, but she didn’t need it. That clear, porcelain poreless skin that looked softer than anything human could possibly be, the big, tilted light-colored cat’s eyes, the delicate shape of her cheekbones and jaw—they were a magnet for the eyes.

  “You’re so fucking beautiful,” he whispered, then winced. “Whoa. Sorry.”

  “Thanks,” she whispered and laughed softly. “Why are we whispering?”

  They were whispering because it was a whispering moment. Actually, it was a magical moment. She felt so good in his arms. Everything about this felt good. The night, the woman…

  It was utterly silent, as if they were the only people left in a white world of snow and silence. She was smiling dreamily up at him, beautiful and welcoming.

  This was the best place he’d been in since—shit, since he didn’t remember when.

  Nick leaned against the door with her in his arms. He leaned against it because it was there and because, crazily, his knees were buckling.

  It wasn’t Charity’s weight. She was slender, even slight. He’d bet the farm she didn’t weigh more than one twenty, tops. He’d climbed a mountain in the Kush carting a rucksack weighing more than eighty pounds, sixteen liters of water, and his XM8 with nine magazines, which weighed over twenty pounds. He hadn’t done it laughing and he hadn’t leaped like a mountain goat, but he’d done it.

  Holding Charity was a snap in comparison. So why were his legs having problems holding him up?

  Their eyes met and they moved as one. He bent down to her again just as she lifted her face to his. The kiss was long and deep, his cock rising painfully every time his tongue touched hers. He lifted his head again and smiled down into her eyes. Might as well just ask it.

  “So—we headed for the bedroom?” Please God, let the answer be yes. If it wasn’t, he was going to howl. Tonight his fist simply wouldn’t be enough for the blue steeler in his pants.

  She nodded. Yes!

  Another kiss that had his thigh muscles clenching. He was about ready to carry her off to the bedroom when the three molecules of brain matter he had left rang a warning bell.

  The house was large, particularly for a single woman. It had been her family’s home. It was large enough to have to ask where her bedroom was.

  He knew perfectly well where her bedroom was. He’d been in her house twice—he’d picked her locks while she was in the library, combing the house for clues to who she was.

  Initially, it had been to find weaknesses, things he could leverage for intel. Drugs would have been good. Lots of alcohol would be good, too. Maybe a stash of heavily used vibrators and sex toys, though he’d sincerely hoped not at the time.

  Addictions were like a door with a WALK THROUGH ME sign on it. Weaknesses, champagne tastes on a beer budget, sexual deviancy—they were all chinks in the armor, chinks he wouldn’t hesitate to use.

  Thank God there’d been nothing. Consuelo had put him right off that stuff. If he never saw a fur-lined handcuff, if he never fucked a woman who was high in his life, he’d be delirious.

  As it happened, there was nothing in Charity’s house but beautiful furniture, books, and paintings. Charity’s
life was as easy to read as a book, appropriately enough, because her house was full of them. Full of CDs, too. The bought kind, which he thought was overkill in the upstanding citizen department. He was a law enforcement officer and he hadn’t bought music since 2001. Charity did, which spoke volumes.

  There were watercolors everywhere, signed Clarissa Prewitt. Her mother.

  The house, he realized now, was a reflection of her. Elegant, classy, feminine.

  Another kiss that had his thigh muscles clenching. “Which way to your bedroom?” he asked against her mouth. He knew the answer. Corridor to the left. First door to the right.

  “Corridor to the left,” she said. “First door to the right.” He started moving as soon as the words were out of her mouth. She looked up at him, wide-eyed. “You’re going to carry me to the bedroom?”

  “Oh yeah.” It was the fastest way to get there. He needed fast because he was burning up. He needed fast before his knees gave out and he tumbled with her to the floor.

  If they fell on the floor, he’d fuck her there, which was not good. Not romantic. This had to be romantic. He could do romantic. Couldn’t he? Since when wasn’t he in control?

  Since about five minutes ago, apparently. He was kissing her and panting and sweating by the time he made it into her bedroom and gently put her on her feet. It would be easier to get her clothes off if he could just stop kissing her, but that seemed beyond his ability. He had one hand around the back of her head and he was fumbling with her clothes with the other.

  Damn! Why didn’t he have three hands so he could undress himself at the same time?

  He worked fast. Sweater, bra, skirt, stockings—thigh highs! Yes!—panties, shoes. Ding! Charity done. He lifted her again and placed her on the bed. An uncharitable observer would have said he threw her on the bed, so hard she bounced.

  Now him.

  God, he broke the land-speed record for undressing. Overcoat, shirt, undershirt, pants, briefs, shoes, socks.

  Put on a rubber in record time.

  Thank God he wasn’t on a mission because then it would have taken him minutes to get out of his shoulder rig, get rid of the ankle holster, unhook the spare magazines and flashbangs, lose the combat knife and sheath…

  No wonder soldiers didn’t fuck in the field. It took them an hour to get undressed.

  Finally, finally, he was naked and looking down at an equally naked Charity, spread out on the bed, a luscious little soft pale morsel, arranged solely for his delight.

  As stoked as he was, as horny as he was, as much as he wanted to jump her bones, he paused for just a moment to look at her, the pale perfection of her. Besides that delicate, slender body, all female grace, the expression in her beautiful eyes was enough to stop him dead. Softness, humor, affection…

  It wasn’t what he was used to seeing in his sex partners. He was used to seeing lust and desire, and no emotions at all.

  He frowned. Was she turned on? Or was she all wrapped up in this romantic fantasy she’d created in her head?

  Only one way to find out.

  Nick leaned down and clasped his hand around her ankle, pulling her leg out a little, anchoring it to the mattress. He was sidetracked for a second by the sight of her foot emerging from his dark fist.

  God, even her feet were lovely. High-arched, narrow pink-tipped toes. Good enough to eat. If he were to start at her toes, though, it would take him all night.

  Some other time.

  His eyes tracked from her pretty feet, up over the narrow ankles, up the long length of her legs and…ah. There it was, the source of all delight.

  Here, too, she was perfection itself. A little cloud of pale brown pubic hair surrounding puffy pink tissues that, yes, thank you, God, glistened. It was official. She was turned on. He could get going.

  Well, one last thing.

  Nick let go of her ankle and ran his fingertips up her leg, enjoying every inch of the trip. She was smooth and warm and entrancing. He slowed his hand down to savor the sensations, watching her eyelids droop a little.

  Oh yeah. Her cheeks were tinted pink now, as were her nipples. He could see her heartbeat in her left breast, rocking the soft tissues. She was getting turned on by his finger on her leg.

  Oh, and maybe what she could read in his eyes.

  “Nick,” she whispered.

  “We’re getting there,” he answered. Oh God, this was just such a delight.

  Finally, his hand arrived where it wanted to be, against her soft little cunt. She was wet and getting wetter by the second. His finger was enough to call up moisture out of her body, which he spread against the lips of her sex. He dipped his finger into her, just a little, and felt her jolt and sigh. He pressed his free hand against her knee, pressing it closer to the bed, opening her more for his touch.

  The instant she understood what he wanted, she spread her legs for him. Nick could barely tear his eyes away from her—pink and puffy and soft.

  Her eyes were closed now and he knew she must be concentrating on the sensation of his hand on her, at times in her. She sighed.

  He could keep this up forever, just touching her lightly in the silence of the night, but when he glanced down at himself, he realized he’d better do this the old-fashioned way before he blew all over her belly and embarrassed himself and her.

  He was enormous, red and swollen and hard as a club. His hand was having a good time and his head was, too, but his cock was protesting.

  Do it right or I’m out of here.

  Okay, he told his dick. It always had been a hard-ass.

  Keeping his right hand cupping her cunt, he leaned his left hand on the mattress, right next to her sharp little hip bone and mounted her.

  Now the sensations changed. He no longer felt a dreamy sort of pleasure, as if in a daze. Now the feelings were sharper, harsher, keener. Acute and hard-edged.

  No more slow, dreamy motions, no more enjoying her with all his senses. Now he had only one sense and that was concentrated between his legs.

  Using two fingers, he opened her up, fitted himself to her and thrust, harder than he intended. He gritted his teeth against the pleasure, holding his shaking torso up on one arm so he wouldn’t crush her, breathing hard through his nose.

  Jesus, she was tight. Incredibly tight. A little blood drifted back up into his head. He frowned. Too tight.

  He looked down at her. She looked uncomfortable, almost in pain. Goddammit.

  “Charity,” he croaked. “Please tell me you’re not a virgin.”

  She looked up at him, appalled. “Oh my God,” she whispered. “It doesn’t grow back, does it?”

  A laugh exploded out of his chest and somehow exited his cock and he collapsed on to her, laughing and coming in equally excited bursts.

  Seven

  Vassily stared into the fire, listening to the silence of the house. Normally, he listened to music at night. Some nights it relaxed him enough to sleep. Most nights, though, he sat in his armchair, hoping to keep the memories at bay.

  He didn’t want music or vodka or even the company of one of his men.

  He needed her, needed to talk to her. Oh how he longed for that connection with Katya—with Charity. That soft female energy wrapped in such a beautiful package, truly a gift of the gods. Katya had been his soul mate; she’d kept him going when he sank into his depressions.

  He felt completely bereft, half a creature. He’d thought his heart and soul had died with Katya, but this new Katya revived them. He was whole again. Once Katya was completely his once more, he would turn back the clock. He had the power to do what only the gods could do, bring back his Katya.

  Charity.

  He cursed. Lately he’d caught himself several times calling Charity Katya. He stopped at the first syllable and Charity though he was calling her a cat.

  He covered up by saying she reminded him of a cat. Elegant, self-contained, graceful, with brilliant clear eyes. She smiled every time.

  And yet—and yet she was Katya. Noth
ing would convince Vassily that Charity wasn’t the reincarnation of his very heart.

  He hadn’t been able to save Katya. She’d been tossed into a pitch-black hole with ravening sharp-toothed monsters at the bottom.

  The scene came to him nightly, with a drumbeat of slick sweat and panic. The scene was always the same. The frozen tundra stretching for eternity, gray and featureless, the strongest fence imaginable—ten thousand miles of frozen nothingness. No one had ever escaped alive across that endless, frozen fence.

  The prisoners—most sick, dehydrated, half starved, and without enough clothes for the subzero temperatures—had been herded out from the train wagons like cattle. Blinking dazedly in the meager winter sunlight, the first sunlight they’d seen in ten days, they’d tumbled out of the freight wagon on unsteady limbs, half dead already merely from the journey.

  Vassily had tried to shield Katya as best he could through the endless journey. He’d given her his coat and had maneuvered her against a wall with his back to the pack to give her a modicum of privacy.

  He had no food or water to give her, nor comfort. They both knew what was coming. They’d heard the stories. Vassily had once interviewed a zek from Stalin’s camps for a newspaper article.

  They knew.

  Katya knew.

  They spoke little through the endless journey. There was little to say.

  Vassily had done his best to hide Katya from the guards when they stumbled down the ramp, but it didn’t work—couldn’t work. Katya moved like a beautiful woman.

  He’d put his coat over her head and ordered her to walk hunched over, like an old lady. But Katya’s beautiful ankles had been visible. And snatches of her glorious pale gold hair slid out from the tight bun to curl around her shoulders.

  Vassily’s heart sank when he heard the first guard cry out, a wolf scenting fresh meat. In a second, the whole pack had descended, ripping her out of his arms, carrying her away, meat for the night.

  Vassily could still hear her screams, see her slender white arm outstretched, drowning in a sea of louts. He’d fought, as hard as an intellectual could. But these were brutal men, one step up from the prisoners they guarded, and used to violence. One blow from a guard’s rifle butt and he went down like a felled bull.