Undercover Lover (24 page)

Jenny laughed and looked up at him, her face stained from the line of her tears. He kissed her on the nose.

“Aren’t you the philosopher?” she asked, her native accent more pronounced since she’d begun spending time on English soil.

“No,” he answered. “I don’t normally notice these things.”

“Just in me?” She searched his face with her gaze, eyes wide, lashes spiked with wetness.

“Just in you,” he affirmed.

“Why did you follow me?” she asked, surprising him. “Was it just for David?”

He smiled to himself, then at her.

“At first. Then…” Then what? She’d grown on him so slowly—become part of his life, like sunrise. Maybe that’s why he called her sunshine?

“Then what?” she asked.

He shook his head.

“You needed looking after.”

“Looking after?” A breathy laugh escaped her. “What was I? A puppy?”

Brushing her hair from her forehead, he smiled, a little sad.

“Lonely,” he said. “You were lonely.”

Eyes softening, she leaned into him—examined him until he felt she might know his most inner self—then said, “And so were you.”

The strings to his heart jerked and he swallowed down the sharp sensation. Using sex as a shield, he rolled her to her back and pressed his cock against her leg. It stretched to life with languid interest. Palming him, she explored his shape and he hardened further in the warmth of her hand. Interest sparked in her gaze and she moved against him. He groaned and kissed a freckle on the tip of her nose.

She looked deep into his eyes and whispered, “I have a fantasy.”

Günter’s cock leapt at the word
fantasy
, engorging so rapidly he had to hold back a hiss at the pleasure-cum-pain.

“How could I possibly object to that?” he asked, his voice hoarse and thick with his desire.

“I want you to take me when we’re in London. When you know they’re watching. Make them believe I’m yours.”

“Jenny…” He groaned and fell back against the pillows.

“What?” She straddled his hips and his cock stirred as her hot, moist flesh slid against his abs. “Listen to me.”

He looked at her and arched one brow to tell her she had his attention but not his approval.

“If you’re too standoffish with me they’ll be suspicious.”

“I don’t need to fuck you in public to convince them you’re my girlfriend.”

“No. Not in public.” She slapped her palms down on his chest and leaned forward. “But there won’t be any question in their minds about us if you do it when you know they’re watching.”

Frowning, he tried to catch her meaning. “As in, while we’re in the hotel room?”

“Or in the service elevator. Wherever there might be a camera.”

The devilish twinkle in her eye brought him to the short length of his leash and his mind jerked to a stop.

He sat up on one elbow. “You’re a bloody exhibitionist, that’s what you are.”

She took in his horrified expression and fell off him in a fit of giggles.

“You’re so appalled,” she gasped, hand clutching the smooth plane of her naked abdomen. “Oh my God. Such a prude.”

Holding back a grin, he rolled her to her back and said as sternly as he could, “No wonder you enjoy faffing about on that pole. It reminds you of shagging in public.”

“Hey,” she said with a light push to his chest. “It’s not faffing about if it keeps me in shape.”

Günter slid his gaze down to her toes and back to her face. “I suppose you’ve got me there. Not an ounce of
faff
on you.”

The pun drew a pained groan from her lips, but she grinned up at him. “If you do your
job
properly, I won’t need that bloody pole.”

He cleared his throat and swallowed his smile, desperate to look serious.

“Young lady,” he said, leaning in to nuzzle her neck, “are you questioning my work ethic?”

“Never,” she breathed, cupping him with her hand and squeezing gently.

“Roll to your side,” he directed, his cock throbbing sweetly under her attentions.

She complied and he drew her back against him with his forearm along her middle. Wriggling her bottom against his erection, she crooked her leg and hooked her ankle over his thigh.

“That’s right,” he praised, gazing down at the lovely landscape of creamy flesh.

He took in perfect breasts, high and pink crested with nipples puckered so tight he could almost feel how their beaded hardness pulled at sensitive nerves. Shapely thighs hid a strength he knew would carry her above him as she rode him for as long as they both pleased. And at the apex of those thighs, below the sloping dip of her belly, he found a nestled wonderland of sweet, silky folds he’d never tire of exploring.

Curving the band of his lower arm around her middle, he dipped the fingers of his opposite hand into her pussy, drawing out her cream and spreading it around her pussy. She moaned and tossed her head back against his chest as he slipped his finger along the seam of her sex.

“So sweet,” he said, and prepared to delve into her recesses once more. “Hold yourself open for me.”

With nimble fingers, she parted herself for him. The slick sound of her separating lips drew his balls tight to his cock—sending blood through his shaft in a rhythm he knew she felt against the soft cushion of her ass.

“Don’t move,” he said. “Not one bit.”

One lubricated finger, slick with his saliva, probed the bud of her anus and she breathed in sharply. Pleased she hadn’t moved, he teased his thumb into her pussy at the same time he slid his index finger through the tight ring of muscle at her backside.

“Günter,” she gasped, and he knew her mind fought to make sense of the competing sensations overloading her nerve endings.

Slowly, he withdrew his fingers from her wet, heated flesh and plunged again, firmer this time. “Like it?” he asked, and when she nodded he rewarded her with a harder thrust into her twin channels.

“Gun,” she screamed, and her flesh fluttered sweetly around his finger and thumb.

“That’s right, sunshine,” he said. “Touch yourself. Touch yourself and come for me.”

He watched, transfixed as his glistening thumb retreated and delved anew, piercing her entry to the rhythm she set with the pad of her two fingers on the nub of her clit.

“Suck them. Wet them,” he told her, knowing the lubrication would increase her pleasure.

She tilted her head to look up at him as she popped her fingers in her mouth. Her wide-eyed gaze almost undid him. Pre-cum leaked from his cock, creating a slick, sticky trail along the crease of her ass. He slid along her flesh with a firm thrust that made her gasp.

“Hang on tight,” he gritted. “And come with me.”

Somehow—he didn’t know how—he managed to coordinate the plunge of his thumb into her pussy, the see-saw of his finger in the tight seal of her anus, and the slide of his cock along the pillow of her bottom, as Jenny circled the bead of her clit and bucked beneath him. With their increasingly frantic rhythm, he knew she wouldn’t last, and neither would he.

Her fragrant juices wet his thumb and her thighs, nestling into the vee of his fingers. Her bouquet—musky and sweet, with the hint of roses—blanketed him in visions of innocence and sin, summer and winter, absolution and covetous need. Until he lost himself in it. In her.

“The money is in the case,” Ian said, laying a gleaming leather briefcase on the kitchen table.

Günter nodded. He knew the drill.

It was half past three in the morning, and they were due to leave in forty-five minutes for the airport where they’d emerge from a private airplane hangar, supposedly fresh off a redeye from New York. With Simon already in London, it’d be only Günter and Jenny in the car from the airport to their hotel.

“You briefed Ms. Ainsley on the drop points?” he asked, thumbing the case open with a quiet snick. If they came up with any intel, she’d need to use some errand as a pretext to get a coded thumb drive to MI-5.

“We did.” Ian’s dark eyes pinned him with a pointed stare. “And you did what you had to do?”

“You already know I did,” Günter said, checking the lining for tracking devices or other devious MI-5 tricks that might get him killed if discovered by the wrong people. “But I wouldn’t have if I didn’t want to.”

“So long as you can act the part,” Ian warned.

It was Günter’s turn to give a hard look. “She gets so much as a hangnail and I’ll skin you alive before I go after the DG.”

“You need to ice the melodrama,” Ian said. “Neither you nor I need another Dublin.”

Günter slammed the case shut.

“Whose bloody idea was it to bring her in on this in the first place?” He jabbed his one-time friend in the chest with two fingers. “You know me best. Was it your idea to use her as leverage?”

Façade unexpectedly crumbling, Ian slid wearily into a chair and slumped forward to drop his head in his hands.

“It wasn’t supposed to go like this,” he said into his palms. “I don’t know why they decided they wanted her too, but she was supposed to be kept safe in the original plan.”

Fear jabbed at Günter’s gut. “Look at me.”

Ian dropped his hands to the table and Günter sat across from him to study his face. He should have seen it sooner. The man hadn’t slept in days.

“What aren’t you telling me?”

Ian threw his head back and groaned.

“I couldn’t answer that question even if I knew.” He dropped his chin and looked Gun in the eye. “Which I don’t.”

“So you think it’s a…” Günter rubbed his eyes with the thumb and index finger of his right hand, as he searched for an angle. “A setup?”

“I honestly don’t know, mate.” Ian shook his head. “You were right when you said something didn’t add up. And there’s enough anger over Dublin still that I wouldn’t put it past 5 to send you upriver.”

“Can’t you give me anything here?” Günter asked, desperate for even the most meager candle to light the dark hole he and Jenny were walking into.

“There are things I can guess, but nothing I know. Not for certain. Mentioning them wouldn’t be worth the trouble—to you or to me—yet.”

Günter went very still. “How could you let them do this to us?”

Regret passed like a shadow over Ian’s face. “If there’s one thing Dublin taught me it’s to follow protocol.”

Years of distance collapsed, and Günter recognized the guilt Ian harbored. It gnawed at them both, nearly snapping the thread that connected them to the rest of humanity, and to each other.

“It was on me, mate. Not you…” Günter said finally. “My team. My cock-up.”

Ian stood and looked away. “Make sure Ms. Ainsley’s ready to leave. I’ll meet you in the drive.”

Staring after Ian, Günter wondered that the events of his past had led to this moment. Just when he’d found love, it seemed predestined that a surreal imitation of the nightmare he’d created in Dublin would be revisited upon him by a vengeful god. As if he hadn’t hated himself enough. Done penance enough. Now he stood to lose the one person he’d counted on to make him feel alive and whole for so long. Whether she knew it or not, Jenny was his life’s blood. He’d do anything—risk anything—to make certain he didn’t lose her. Even if it meant losing himself. Again.

* * * * *

Jenny fumbled with the clasp of the heavy necklace, cursing when it clattered to the floor.

“Let me,” Günter’s baritone rumbled in her ear.

She jumped.

“All right?” he asked and stooped to retrieve the necklace.

Throat dry, she nodded.

His eyes met hers in the mirror. “Look, you really can back out…”

“No.” She cleared her throat against the tightness in her voice. “I just don’t look the part is all. I don’t want to screw it all up.”

Sure fingers, steady and warm, looped the necklace around her throat and clasped it at her nape before sliding down to caress her bare shoulders.

Their eyes met and held.

“You’re beautiful and…” He leaned down to kiss her neck. “Competent.” Kiss. “And stubborn.” Nip and lick. “And sexy.” Hot breath in her ear. “You make me so hard.” Tongue swirling around her lobe to dip in her ear. “I want you every waking minute, and well into the night.”

A wave of warm happiness culminated in a thigh-clenching flood of desire. When he hadn’t come to her last night, she’d worried their lovemaking had been a one-time affair—something he’d done just because she’d won the bet.

“Gun,” she moaned when his palm slid underneath the red satin of her blouse to steal beneath her bra.

“Mmm,” he hummed along the column of her neck, grazing the flesh with his teeth.

Her hand fluttered up and behind his head to grip his hair while he tweaked and pinched her nipple to an aching hard point.

“Please.” She arched into his hand.

“Your favorite word, other than
no
,” he teased, but cupped her pussy and gave a firm squeeze.