“You know how you’re not after a relationship, and I’m not after a relationship,” he said, breathlessly, lifting away slightly, “but you have a crush on me, and I find you … incredibly distracting?” Off came his sweater, a team effort of her pushing it up and him pulling it over his head. For a second, she glimpsed his abs—actualabs—before his T-shirt settled down again.
She would have preferred something a little less noncommittal than ‘distracting,’ but she’d take it.
“You know how we’ve got just this one night together?” she said. Off came her sweater, in much the same fashion.
“You know how we’re under all this pressure?” Off came his T-shirt.
“You know how none of this feels like it’s really happening?” And her blouse.
“You know how you’ve been pressing up against me all afternoon on the bike in that jacket and those jeans that make your ass and legs look incredible? Not to mention how you kicked literal ass in those boots earlier.” And his belt.
“You know how we were just talking about how short life is?” And her jeans—another team effort.
“You know how your big life plan after this is over is to have a one-night stand?” And his jeans.
“You heard that?” she said, pulling back.
“First rule of tradecraft: listen to all conversations.”
“I thought the first rule was to park down the street.”
“I also heard you agreeing that I’m hot. Not that I need the compliment, as previously ascertained.”
“Well, I created you. So I’ll take the credit for your hotness, thank you. You are my Frankenstein’s monster, but without the bolts. You don’t have bolts, do you?”
“Check for yourself.” He laughed, and she both heard it and felt it, because at that moment she was stroking his belly and his lips were touching hers, and the current from the connection was coursing through her entire body on its way to stoking a fire deep inside. She had never felt this turned on in her life, but then the foreplay to this moment had started in her mind long before she’d met the guy in the flesh.
“Just this one time,” he said, “okay?”
“Just one time.”
“You’re sure you’re okay if we do this?”
“Yes, already!”
“All right, all right, just checking that we’re on the same page.”
“As long as it’s the page where we have the sex scene.”
“Oh, we’re gonna need way more than a page.”
Chapter 17
Carter
FBI Field Office, D.C.
Eighteen months earlier
The FBI interview room was just on the uncomfortable side of small, with bare gray walls, a desk and three plastic chairs, a strip of windows too high to see out of, and a two-way mirror to give you the sense people were watching—and they probably were. But it wasn’t the close confines that worried Carter, or even the rank of the two people sitting across from him. There was Silvia, the CIA’s number-two for Russian operations—thinner and grayer than he remembered but with the same unflappable air—and the balding guy from the hotel room, who’d introduced himself as Benjamin Schneider, assistant director of the FBI International Operations Division. Of greater concern was the fact that no less than the deputy director of the CIA, Herman Folds, was observing by video link. Nika had been whisked away in a different vehicle, and he guessed they were keeping her waiting in another room. He hoped they’d removed her handcuffs, as they had his. She’d be getting nervous. Carter would give it ten minutes before hecalled in a lawyer. Figure out where they were coming from and then stall for time.
“We just want to get your side of the story,” Schneider said after they’d run through the pleasantries, his nasal voice deadened by the room’s soundproofing.
“My side of what story?”
“Let’s start with the death of the station chief. When did you last see him?”
“I’ve only met him a couple of times—hadn’t seen him for years. Randolph was my contact. You know this,” Carter said, directing the comment to Silvia.
