His Spy at Night (Spy Games Book 3) (14 page)

When he found the tiny nub, she cried out his name and an admonishment—half of pleasure, half in frustration. “Harry! Stop
teasing
me. Who knew you were cruel?”

He took that as a challenge. She brought out the worst in him. Soon she was panting, grinding against the palm of his hand as he worked his fingers deep inside her, trying his damnedest not to come all over them both. She cried out, her back stiffening, her tight inner muscles clenching. When she collapsed, her whole body trembled. “Oh my
God
that was amazing.”

Pride had him smiling with satisfaction. But she’d been torturing him for weeks and it was payback time. “We aren’t finished yet.”

He eased the panties down her legs with one hand, slowly, while he stroked her cleft with the other. Once the panties were gone, he knelt over her and rubbed the length of his erection between the cheeks of her buttocks. He slid his palms up the length of her narrow back, panting at the sensation of all that smooth, naked skin. His fingers snagged in the clasp of her bra and he unfastened it with ease. He began again, at the base of her spine, trailing the tip of his tongue to the base of her neck. He nipped at the tender side of her throat, then gently sucked, careful not to leave any marks. He eased his hands beneath her and cupped her breasts in his palms. They were swollen, the tips peaked and firm, and he wanted desperately to taste them again as he had that night in the car. He nudged her hip with his knee, and taking the cue, she wriggled onto her back.

He took a moment to admire what he’d done to her. There was enough light in the room for him to see how flushed her cheeks were, and the heat in those languorous, heavy-lidded eyes. She wasn’t delicate or fussy, which only added to the potentials for pleasure, and he’d barely begun. He discarded the bra, untangling it from her arms.

He took her breasts in his hands, feeling their weight, kissing the tip of first one, then the other. He suckled the nipple, tormenting it with his tongue. She bucked on the bed beneath him. Reaching between his legs, she stroked his erection.

That was all he allowed her to do. This was going to be faster than he’d wanted because he couldn’t wait any longer. His balls were so heavy they hurt.

Planting his hands on either side of her head, he leaned down to kiss her. The tips of her fingers bit into his thighs as her tongue thrust against his. She hooked her legs around his waist.

He positioned himself at her opening, and with a distinct lack of finesse and control, thrust inside her. Her legs tightened, her whole body arching as she took his entire length. She threw her head back, her eyes closed, moaning with pleasure. “Harder, Harry.
Faster
.”

“I’m going to come.” His breathing was ragged and he was about to explode. He could feel it building. He thrust harder and faster, just as she’d asked for, with no rhythm or thought other than to make her come again with him. Her head touched the headboard with each jerk of his hips.

“Now, Harry.
Now
!”

Her fingers scrabbled at the cheeks of his ass. She sank her teeth into his shoulder, not hard, just a nip, but enough to add to the excitement shooting from his groin to his ribcage. He felt the first ripples of her orgasm massaging his shaft and was lost.

“Son of a
bitch
,” he growled, giving up on restraint. He came on an explosion of light that burned into the backs of his eyelids, blinding him for a few moments. When his vision cleared Lies was exhausted and shaking beneath him, the aftershocks of her orgasm wringing the last of his out of him.

He rolled off her, stretching out on the bed, waiting for his heart to quit pounding so he could breathe normally again. He’d foreseen the excitement of making love to her. It was the intensity of her enthusiasm that had been so…unexpected.

The hammering of his heart had progressed to his ears. Then he realized it wasn’t his heart at all.

The neighbors in the next flat were banging on the bedroom wall behind his head.

* * *

Harry left in the wee hours of the morning, while she was asleep, no doubt driven by second thoughts and a guilty conscience.

He’d have to deal with his conscience on his own. Lies had problems to work through too. She rinsed soap from her body with the hand-held sprayer linked by a flexible hose to the tiled shower wall of her compact bathroom. Suds swirled around her bare feet, circling the floor drain.

Harry was as good in bed as she’d suspected he’d be. He’d been all about seeing to her satisfaction. Every inch of her skin hummed with contentment. But he was in danger of becoming a competent lover. He was too much in control of his own pleasure, keeping it carefully contained until certain of hers. Whatever his and Alcine’s relationship had been in bed, it wasn’t adventurous.

That was the other woman’s loss. For Lies’s part, she’d like to see his natural inclination toward dominance further unleashed so she could figure out his preferences too. Given a bit of encouragement, she’d bet he’d be naughty. Harry in bed was not at all the same man he was at the office.

Speaking of which, she was about to be late. She turned off the water, which had grown cold, and scooped a towel from the shelf next to the shower enclosure. As she dried off, she tried to decide what her next step should be. While she had no regrets over last night, did she tell the CSIS director that she’d slept with Canada’s aerospace and defense trade commissioner while on assignment? Or did she keep to herself the fact that she’d slept with a man she admired very much?

Pretending to be involved with each other was one thing. They’d gone a step further, and if she had her way, they’d go further still. While sleeping with Harry wasn’t illegal, immoral, or even unethical—what she did on her own time was still her own business—Harry had brought Bernard to the attention of CSIS. He’d made no secret of the fact he didn’t care for him. There was personal history between the two men. Not to mention that she’d been warned to keep her integrity intact because there was a lot riding on this investigation—CSIS was after the Canadian Minister of Defence, and except at the discretion of the director, CSIS reported to him. Any kink in that slender chain could cause problems for John Carmichael. Harry’s integrity—and motives—might well be called into question too. Ugly things could happen behind closed office doors.

Lies would have to be very careful that any information leading to the minister she collected from Bernard was ironclad and verifiable. She’d keep last night off the record and do her best to make sure what she and Harry did when they were alone didn’t attract any interest, because there was going to be a repeat of last night.

He could count on it.

She didn’t kid herself into thinking there’d be a happily ever after. They lived far different lives and bottom line, he hated hers. They’d both just come out of bad relationships and neither one of them was ready to try again. They were in this for the sex. The really great sex.

That was it.

With that goal firmly established she finished dressing, grabbed some bread and cheese from the kitchen, then retrieved her bicycle from the garage. She arrived at work with seconds to spare.

Harry was already in his office, doing an unruffled impersonation of a permanent fixture. Anyone could be excused for thinking he lived here. He had papers strewn across his desk and was sipping a coffee.

He lifted his head as she entered his field of vision on the way to her desk. “Lies, can I speak with you for a moment?”

He couldn’t possibly be planning to tell her last night had been a mistake. Not already and not here at the office.

“Nothing good ever comes from a conversation that starts off with those words,” she replied, although she stopped and backed up a few steps.

The fine lines bracketing his firm mouth deepened for a breath, then smoothed into faint humor. She had a moment’s vivid recollection of the tug of his mouth on her breast, and his tongue tracking the length of her belly, and her stomach did a tight, eager dance. She had a burning desire to shake all of that office decorum. If not for the lack of curtains at the windows, she’d bet she could talk him into having sex on his desk. Of course there was always after hours with the lights out to consider.

And she’d have to convince him that it was all his idea.

“I’ll rephrase that,” he said, dispelling her fantasy. “I need your help with the trade delegates at the helicopter expo in Amsterdam tomorrow. I’ve lined up meetings for them and you’ll monitor their schedules to keep them on track. Add your name to the registration list.”

She’d completely forgotten to tell Harry that Bernard expected her to be at that expo too. She might have to relax her rule about no work-talk in bed in the other rooms of her flat. If they couldn’t talk shop at the office, in public, or the bedroom, their information-exchange options became too limited and they risked more of these snafus.

“I was invited to dinner tomorrow night at the venue’s restaurant,” she said.

He set the coffee cup down and tugged at the sleeve of his suit, a sure sign he was annoyed and not wanting to let on. A motorcycle backfired somewhere in morning traffic outside of the embassy. “I assume your host will be picking up the tab.”

Harry wasn’t a spendthrift by any means, but neither did he worry about the nickels and dimes of his department’s business expenditures, meaning yes, he was ticked. Since she wasn’t his personal assistant in real life, that was his problem not hers. And she couldn’t really say she cared for his tone. Even though they weren’t in a committed relationship, she slept with one man at a time. She wasn’t Alcine.

Despite all evidence to the contrary, however, Harry was human. He’d been hurt and had issues with trust. She of all people could sympathize.

“Is there a government policy against a staff member having dinner with an embassy client at a public function that I wasn’t made aware of?” she asked.

Dark brown eyes studied her. She could see the wheels spinning, then the wariness settling in. “Why do you ask?”

“I wouldn’t want to give the impression it was anything but business. If it were personal, we’d go to my flat.”

The frown pinching his eyebrows together relaxed its tight grip. “There’s no such policy. The restaurant is a good place to network and shouldn’t interfere with embassy business,” he conceded. “Just make sure the delegates show up for their meetings in the right places at the right times.”

Harry had handed her an excellent opportunity to find out what connections the delegates made while they were here, because gathering intelligence was like assembling a puzzle. One never knew where the pieces might fit.

“I’ll register this morning,” she promised.

* * *

That was the last chance they had to speak for the remainder of the day. She wouldn’t be seeing him that evening. He was taking the trade delegation for a dinner meeting with local shipping contractors. She’d love to sit in on those meetings, but it really would look odd for his personal assistant to be with him. The Dutch contractors would see it as pretentious and Harry had to work with them.

The evening was long and boring without Harry to distract her, so she worked on some notes for her case file. She also had a few pieces of equipment that required reassembling. She’d taken them apart to get them through customs when she’d entered the country. After that, she went to bed. She was normally a night owl but between the concert on the weekend and the late night with Harry, her internal clock had taken a beating.

She fell asleep in a jumble of sheets that smelled of Harry’s aftershave and a night of fantastic sex, disappointed that she was alone and he hadn’t called.

She awoke with enough time to take an unhurried shower before catching the train headed for Schiphol. The trade expo was fifteen minutes from the international airport. The day was wet and cold so she carried her umbrella. Underneath her raincoat she wore a cream-colored cotton knit turtleneck sweater and black dress pants. Her practical shoes were the ones she wore to her office in Ottawa. They were the most comfortable pair she owned and she’d be on her feet the whole day.

From the metro station she found the bus that traveled to the venue. The registration desk was overwhelmed. Three British attendees, who’d obviously just gotten off a flight, were experiencing frustration, so Lies stepped in to help them out.

Once registered herself, with her coat checked and her nametag and pass attached to the lanyard around her neck, she was free. She’d deliberately arrived ahead of Harry and the Canadian delegates because she wanted to wander through the exhibit areas at leisure and chat with exhibitors. Expos were goldmines for gathering intelligence.

It was early afternoon when she spotted Harry and the trade mission delegates near the main entrance. She hurried over to join them and Harry introduced her as his personal assistant, sounding brisk and professional, giving not the slightest hint that he’d had her naked and sobbing his name only two nights before.

And she’d thought he couldn’t act.

The fact that he could made her uneasy. She preferred his straightforwardness. It set him apart.

She had the delegates’ schedules programmed into her phone. The meetings and seminars were held in a different hall so she led them toward it, pushing her way through the crowd. There were three meetings that interested her, but the one that really caught her attention was between a lawyer representing a Canadian securities company and a Ukrainian helicopter original equipment manufacturer—OEM for short. The helicopter OEM bought parts for repairs from manufacturers operating out of Thailand, India, and Pakistan. Her team leader, Dan, had told her that missing Canadian aircraft parts had been tracked to all three of those countries.