Bad Russian 02.04 ivy Read online

  As soon as we’re level with them, I shout, “Stop!”

  She does. I jump out.

  I shoot the driver of the nearest SUV. The other drives off at speed.

  Two more men are clambering out of the parked black vehicle. Both have guns drawn and raised. Shame. I’d like to have taken at least one of them alive. I drill the nearest man in the center of his forehead. The other in the throat.

  There’s no point searching them. They won’t have any ID.

  I get back in the car.

  I kiss Saskia before I tell her to drive. Her heartbeat right now is the most thrilling thing I ever felt.

  As we pull away, she asks if I know who they were.

  “Not really.” I tell her, “I did see that they were Chinese, though.”

  I hope she doesn’t guess how terrible that news is.

  The adrenaline’s pumping. My cock is huge and engorged so hard it aches. I want so badly to sling Saskia in the back seat. Rip her clothes off. Split her wide open. Pull her soft wetness down onto my pole and fuck her senseless.

  I direct her to drive in some wide circles, heading away from the safe house. When I’m as certain as I can be that there’s nothing on our tail, we loop back around. She parks in the indoor garage next to the yellow cab van.

  Leaving Saskia up in the kitchen, I carry a plastic bottle of fresh water down to Richard Drinkwater. Naturally, he’s waiting behind the door. Naturally he tries to jump me as soon as I get in the door.

  I pop a fist straight in his eye.

  He goes down. Sprawls on his ass.

  I tell him, “You better try the more subtle tools of spycraft. You’re shit at the big boy games.”

  He groans and slumps forward. He has no morale at all. And almost no preparation even. Whoever talked him into spying, they must think of him as very expendable.

  I wish he’d get back up. Jump at me again. He would never be more than a two-blow fight, though.

  I put the water on the table. I could almost feel sorry for him. I would if he had taken some trouble to prepare himself for what he was getting into. I wonder about his motives. What made him spy against his country? Was he bribed or blackmailed? Carrot or stick?

  “How long do you think you can keep me here?” He’s clambering back to his feet. Sullen, pouty like a child. “The State Department will be after you, you fucker. You know what that means? The C I fucking A. Dipshit. So enjoy your sense of power before they come and blow you the fuck away.”

  I slap him backhand across the jaw, just to make him shut up.

  I grab his collar. Pull his face to mine. “You’d better hope the C I fucking A doesn’t get a fucking hold of you, Deputy Secretary. They would strip you for parts.”

  I shouldn’t have allowed myself that. I risk damaging the goods.

  Still, it does give me some satisfaction so I provide him with a kick in the balls to be thinking over before I leave him.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Him

  Back in the kitchen, Saskia’s waiting for me.

  She advances on me.

  “He’s safe down there?”

  “He’s in a fireproof, bomb-proof cell.”

  “Maybe I need one of those.”

  “You don’t. You’ve got me.”

  “Are you bomb-proof?”

  “Try me.” She steps nearer. She’s close enough that I can taste her on the air.

  “We already played this scene,” I tell her.

  Her voice is low. “I want a rematch.” She’s determined.

  “I want to fuck you, Saskia. I want to make you mine. Fill you with my seed.”

  She’s standing close. “So, what are you waiting for, big boy? What you said before…”

  “I mean it. But you’re not ready.”

  “Oh, I think I am.”

  “You’re not.”

  Her tongue slips across her lips. Her breath is hot on my shirt. The scents of her are warm and inviting. She shakes her shoulders. I guess the chase got her hot, too. Like it did me.

  “I’m ready. I trust you, okay?”

  She’s looking up at me. Her chin flattens as she lifts an eyebrow. Her lips pucker.

  I hold her by the shoulders. “You’d say anything right now.”

  She shimmies and rubs her pelvis on my thigh. “You’re right, Arkady. I would. Tell me what to say, and I’ll say it. How much more ready can I be than that? I’m ready.”

  “Look, you have to understand.” She’s pushing me into a corner. I’m this close to giving her what she’s asking for. To peeling her ripe body out of those clothes and fucking her, long and hard. Filling her up with my hot seed.

  She nods. “I understand.” She has a minx’s grin.

  “It’s not a game.” I tell her, my voice is beginning to crack. “I mean it. I want you for life. Forever.”

  “Can we really do it that long?” She starts to unbutton her shirt. I get a look at the creamy softness of her round breasts.

  I take hold of her hair. Her eyes flash. I pull her to me. Her lips open. Her scents are driving me insane. I stop thinking.

  All right.

  I take her mouth with mine. We’re locked together. We’re a single being. A melody in muscle and sinew. Powered by shared breath. And need.

  “Take me, Arkady,” she sighs into my mouth. Her tongue presses mine.

  Our two bodies fire up like they’ve been let out of school. Different entrances, of course. Me from a professor’s office. She comes running to me from the students’ entrance. Her hands, her arms and legs jump into life. Mine, too.

  She pulls off her shirt. Then she unclips and shakes out of the bra. I hold her face and kiss her. Deep and long. Cradling, squeezing her breasts. My hands take turns pulling off my own coat. Our wet tongues meet. I pull her close. Hold her by the back of her neck and kiss her throat. Lick and suck her breasts while I squeeze them.

  Her nails rake up and down my body. She pulls my shirt out of my black jeans. Tugs on my belt. I slide my hand up under her skirt. Find the curve of her ass. I gasp and squeeze her there. Her cheek fits into my hand like she was born for me.

  Her hips rock in my hand. My forefinger and thumb slide between her cheeks. She spasms when I rub past her ass. Then down. Into the wonderful, dark wetness. Her lips spread, and she presses down, into my hand. Her juices explode onto my fingers. She moans as she reaches back to grab my wrist.

  Her eyes widen and roll as she squirms on my hand, puling it hard and tight against her shuddering pussy. Then she drags my hand to her mouth. Licks and sucks my fingers. I hurry out of my jeans.

  She unzips her skirt, and it drops to the floor. I lift her. My aim is to carry her to the couch in the other room but neither of us can wait even that long. Her legs wrap around me and her mound saws against me.

  She reaches down, behind her. Plunges her hand into my boxer shorts. She grips and pulls my cock, slipping her hand along it, encircling the shaft with her fingers. Tracing the ridges and veins with her thumb. Squeezing to find and feel the pulses.

  All the time, her eyes and mine are locked together. Wild.

  She presses down in my arms. Pulls my cock to her. Rubs her lips and her opening with the bulb. Presses me up at the base of her clit. Her wings kiss and drag along the underside until I’m wet with her.

  Then she takes her fingers to her mouth again. I lean forward to take a taste first.

  As I do, my cock engages at her entrance. Her eyebrows arc and her lips part.

  For the first penetration, I would have wanted a bed of rose petals. A four-poster in a grand suite. Champagne and music.

  But the most perfect part is her. And I’m going to break her. In this steely kitchen. Standing with her ankles around my ass. Her tightness around the head of my cock bursts, and she lets out a tiny whimper as I break into her.

  Suddenly she’s helpless. Leaving it to me. I impale her. Stretch her impossibly wide as I drive the length of my cock all the way in, until her wetness is press
ed hot against my groin. Holding her, supporting her, protecting her, fucking her, there’s nothing but her.

  My life has met its purpose. I give her the force of my cock, moving to pump in low, then high, rolling to surprise her, slowing to woo and reassure her. Slamming her to astound her and overwhelm her.

  I’m guided by the gleam in her eyes. By the heave of her breasts. By the fluttering, pleading, needy grip of her wet pussy on the hardness of my cock.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Her

  He splits me. Fills me. Rips me in two. Ecstatic pain and awful pleasure blend like two rivers.

  His massive pecs ripple and glow in a sheen of light. His eyes blaze into mine. The rasp of his breath makes me shake.

  I grip my hands behind his neck. He’s a pillar of living stone. I pull myself to him. I need his kiss. I need his tongue and his breath as his weapon stretches me. The hot pain spreads through me. It’s the best feeling. I’m flying, bouncing on the rocket of his enormous girth. A memory of the taste of his seed sets my hips hammering onto him.

  I know that I need it. I bang my ass as hard as I can onto the tops of his thighs, trying to pull him deeper. Make him stretch me more. My ankles lock tighter around him. He moves to push me higher, and I’m losing coordination. I’m falling and exploding and cascading, and I’m aware of shouting. Sobbing. Clinging.

  All of my muscles twang. I’m on fire inside. Fire rising through waterfalls of ice as the hard girth of him forces my quivering walls apart and I feel him, deep inside. In places that have never been touched. My face sinks onto his neck and I bite down as his cock drills into me.

  I lose count of the crests and climaxes. They’re all flowing and bursting into one another. His crouch deepens. His knees widen. He’s hammering harder. Upward. Higher than ever.

  Heat at the base of his cock starts a swelling. A fat pulse gathers and beats. As his face tightens and his biceps and his abs glisten and bulge, he bares his teeth.

  Hot, thick, sticky gushes pummel into me. It coats my insides, and I zing everywhere it makes contact.

  “God, Saskia,” he shouts, “Come with me!”

  “Yes,” my hair waves, wet as my head thrashes, “Yes,” my thighs and my buttocks clench. “YES!” And I’m blown to bits.

  He carries me to one of the couches and we lie, curled together. He holds me there for a time. It seems like it’s forever, until it’s over, and then it feels it was just a moment, and it left me with a hollow and lost feeling.

  “We have to go.”

  I’m feeling half awake. “Where? Why?”

  “We have to not be here. I’ll tell you why on the way.”

  I’m frowning, “On the way where?” I look around at him. I’m just feeling the protection of his body, wrapping mine like a shield. And immediately he wants to take it away. ”Where are we going?”

  I see his eye. He doesn’t know. I say it, “You don’t know.”

  “Come on. Get dressed.”

  I can see he’s hurrying. “Have you got a pair of jeans or something I could wear? I’m kind of over my work clothes for today.”

  “Certainly. And I’ve got tee shirts if you’d like one. I don’t have any shoes your size, though.”

  He finds me some blue jeans and a Cardinals tee-shirt. I ask him if it’s camouflage. He looks confused and upset.

  “I’ve been a Cardinals fan since I was a small child.”

  We go out a back way. I think I’m getting the picture. He’s got an anonymous brown sedan, a Honda or something, parked on a small street at the rear. We get in and he drives away slowly. His driving is not the precise, rapid style he’s driven before. It’s wide. Loose and vague.

  He’s concerned that the house has been found. That we’ll be spotted. And he doesn’t want to tell me.

  “Do you think I scare too easily?” I ask him.

  “I think you’re among the least scareable people I know. Why do you ask?”

  “Are you afraid of the Chinese finding us, or the CIA?”

  “Either. Both. Maybe the FSB, too. They might be upset that I haven’t checked in yet.”

  “Why haven’t you? Have you still not decided what you’re going to do yet?”

  “No, I think I have decided.”

  “What are you going to do, then?”

  “Have you been to the Watergate hotel?”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Her

  Donna McCleaver was not happy about the arrangements. I told her that I hadn’t been happy with the last time and that shut her up. I told her I would be ready to meet her in a suite in a DC hotel, and that it would be in Foggy Bottom.

  I would call her at eleven exactly with the name of the hotel. Then she would have just three minutes to arrive or the meeting would be off and I would reschedule.

  I wouldn’t tell her the room number until she after was in the elevator.

  She asked me icily, “Which floor will I go to?”

  “Pick a number.”

  When she did arrive, she got into the elevator alone, but I knew she would have sent a signal for her goons to join her.

  She waits at the door of the suite. I walk along the hallway in my business suit to join her. I have the keycard ready.

  She’s tall, elegant as I remember her. She has a face like a steak knife. “You aren’t even in the suite?”

  “Are you outraged that I wasn’t inside, waiting? A second time I haven’t been your sitting duck?”

  “Listen, I don’t know what happened to your apartment.”

  “No?”

  I open the door and show her in. The suite is large. Luxurious. Arkady chose it so that there’s too much space and too many places to hide. So she can’t be confident of who else is here, or where they might be. I’ve left every door off the main room slightly open.

  I sit with my back to the big bay window. I seat her across a table from me with the hazy sun in her eyes. As she sits, she asks me, “Where is Mr. Drinkwater?” as though maybe he could be seated by the cocktail cabinet or standing at the end of the long, curved window, peering around the net drapes.

  “I have a few things I need dealt with first, if you don’t mind, Ms. McCleaver. If you don’t mind.”

  “Please,” she leans forward, “Call me Donna.”

  “Thanks, but I don’t think I will.”

  “Have it your way. I just thought we may as well act like reasonable people and as professionals.”

  “Is that how you were acting when you had my apartment firebombed?”

  “I know nothing about what happened to your apartment.”