“Then do it, so the rest of us can finish our jobs.”
She stared defiantly at those silver eyes. “I’m sorry you weren’t able to apprehend both the targets. I’ll help you find the missing man.”
“I don’t need you to do my job. And now, if you’ll excuse us?” He addressed Armando, “You didn’t interrupt Number Eight like you were cued to do.”
“I was…distracted. Can you send me to bed now, too?” Armando asked, amusement in his voice.
Jed turned and looked pointedly at Helen. Okay, she got the message. This was man-to-man private. She left the room and closed the door, wondering why she felt so prickly toward this one commando. After all, he’d shown up at the right time twice already. Both times, it seemed, she’d delayed his royal highness from some important task.
She shouldn’t have mentioned about having finished her mission. After all, that gave him the opening to remind her that he still had his to do, and she was partially to blame for that. Okay, more than partially. If she hadn’t made him lose time going back down the elevator, he could have had both the Cummings in custody by now.
Instead, only the woman was caught and now they had to interrogate her to find out where her husband could be hiding. A whole lot of work lay ahead for other people and it made Helen feel bad that she was to blame.
She had to get these overwhelming sensations under control somehow before she got back to work. Sleep. She knew she would just be lying in bed if she went to her quarters. The idea of having Dr. Kirkland and staff touching her right now made her want to puke. No, she had to tire herself out, get her mind off sex, then head to the CAVE. Armando said he tricked his mind into believing he was back in balance. She had to find out how he did it.
First…she thought of it a moment, then nodded. Yeah, she would go swimming. A couple of long and slow laps alone would take the edge off. Maybe she would sit in the hot tub for a few minutes and relax. Her injured leg would probably thank her for it.
The silent vibration of her cell phone interrupted her thoughts. She checked her message. Dr. Kirkland wanted to know whether she was okay and to make sure she got to bed soon.
Helen smiled. She hadn’t had so many men wanting her in bed in a while. Her smile disappeared. Wasn’t that the reason for her current dilemma? According to Armando, her body was overcompensating. All last year, she’d ignored her emotional and physical needs while in training. She had a healthy sex drive normally but she hadn’t…She frowned. When was the last time…? She sighed. Pathetic. She could just imagine Dr. Kirkland’s face if she text-messaged him: Supersoldier-spy needs sex for food.
Sixteen
He put down his dictionary. He’d forgotten one thing about dangerous women. They hated not being in control. And when they felt their control being threatened, they tended to be extremely obstinate. Their independence both irritated and amused him. It also had the perverse effect of turning him on.
Sleep-deprived. Nursing a leg injury. One could say Elena Rostova had had a pretty active day, from elevator-surfing, to hand-to-hand combat, to running down twelve flights of steps, to being chased by several unknown assailants and being shot with a tranquilizer.
Most of the operatives from the mission were already asleep or relaxing somewhere. None of them had had the same strenuous two days she had had. And what was she doing? She was going to take a swim.
She was being extremely obstinate about something. The look of defiance on her face told him that she suspected that he would be watching her sooner or later. Of course he would, especially once he’d checked her sleeping quarters and found no one there.
He’d wondered how long the serum would stay in her system. In his opinion, a little too long. She should be in bed, exhausted. But there she was, larger than life on the screen, peeling off her clothes carelessly. His eyes narrowed slightly as he caught the brief wince of pain crossing her face as she pulled her pants off.
She was starting to come down. He buzzed Dr. Kirkland’s line.
“Has she called you yet?” he asked.
“No, but I just text-messaged her and she sent back that she’d just taken the painkillers but was feeling fine.”
“Does she even know what time of day it is?”
“I don’t think her body will care, especially if she continues to fight sleep.”
“She has a high tolerance for pain, then,” he remarked, returning his attention to Helen. “When you talked to her, was she emotionally stable?”
“Yes, normal. Why?”
“She wasn’t acting sensitive to light?”
“No, nothing similar to Armando’s symptoms at all. Not yet, anyway.”
“I’ll call you back, Doc. Get some rest. Some of us should.”
He leaned back and sipped on his drink as he watched the screen thoughtfully. She obviously didn’t want to return to her quarters. Why? Was it because she didn’t want Dr. Kirkland to examine her? But she wasn’t hiding the pain, so what was it she didn’t want Dr. Kirkland to know?
Her body gleamed in the soft light reflected by the pool. She didn’t dive in, like she usually did, but sat at the tiled edge and draped her long legs over the shallow end. He watched the water slowly covering her body as she lowered herself in, lapping up her thighs, hips, narrow waist, to just below her breasts. Her eyes were closed as she stood there, not moving deeper.
He waited, his eyes feasting on her naked breasts, so white against the dark water. She was beautiful, like a water nymph, and he didn’t bother to curb the desire rising hard in him. She slowly sank deeper and her long sigh sounded lush, sensuous, even through the speakers, reaching out in a secret caress. He took another sip of water. Elena Rostova might not know who he was, but she knew how to get to him.
