Seduced by the Operative

The atavistic urge to disrupt the tranquil harmony of both the room and the woman in his arms gripped him. A little roughly, he deposited her on the bed and stood over her while he unbuckled his belt and shed his clothing.

Her gaze swept down his chest and flat belly to linger on the erection jutting from the nest of dark hair at his groin. “You have missed me,” she said with a teasing smile.

Luis was in no mood for teasing. He wanted her wet and hot, as hungry for him as he was for her. At some deeper, primal level, he also wanted her to acknowledge him as a mate as worthy of her as the husband she’d lost.

He took time only to unstrap the ankle holster that was as much a part of him as his suspicious nature and various scars. Naked, he came down beside her. Stretching her arms above her head, he captured her wrists with one hand and yanked at the ties of her slacks with the other.

Her eyes widened, but she obligingly kicked off her sandals and raised her hips. In one swift move, Luis rid her of both slacks and lacy briefs. He tugged up the hem of her blouse, well aware of the fact that she rarely wore a bra at home.

She didn’t need one. Her breasts were small and firm and tipped with pink nipples that rose to stiff peaks when he suckled them. Mounding the creamy flesh with his free hand, he bent his head.

Claire dragged in a swift breath. She wasn’t sure what lay behind this sudden, Neanderthal approach to sex, but her body responded to it. Her back arched as Luis used his tongue and teeth on her. Pleasure streaked from her breasts to her belly, and her womb clenched in a tight spasm. She could feel the tension building, feel her nerves ignite every place his silky mustache prickled her skin.

His mouth was hot and demanding, his knee insistent, as he wedged it between hers and pried them apart. The psychologist in Claire analyzed the negative cognitions of sexual dominance even as the woman in her responded to his strength and unerring skill.

“Luis,” she panted, tugging at her wrists. “Let me touch you. Let me pleasure you.”

“Next time, querida. This time, I want to pleasure you.”

He was good at it. So damned good. His muscled thigh pressed against her sensitive flesh. His mouth claimed hers. When he finally released her wrists and hooked an arm around her waist to position her under him, Claire was wet and ready. And very grateful for the fact they didn’t have to resort to condoms.

She’d started birth control again before deciding to yield to Luis’s blatant attempts at seduction, but was well aware of his numerous past conquests. They’d been cautious at first, always using the extra protection of a condom. She trusted him enough now, though, to believe him when he swore she was the only woman in his life.

For the moment, anyway. She had no idea how long that would last, but until circumstances changed, she had not the slightest hesitation about welcoming him eagerly into her body.

When he entered her, she could feel each hot, ridged inch. His first thrusts were swift, hard, possessive. She lifted her hips to meet them, and they soon moved together in a rhythm that grew more urgent, more intense, with each grind of their hips.

Her climax began as a swirl of tight, dark sensation. She felt it spiraling up from her belly, tried to contain it. When the sensations exploded in a starburst of exquisite pleasure, she threw her head back, arched her spine and rode the crest.

“Well, we certainly worked up an appetite.”

Smiling, Claire sipped her frothy cappuccino and surveyed the remnants of the dinner they’d eaten on the deck. A fat candle flickered inside a glass hurricane lamp. Tiny white lights strung through the vines twisting around the trellised roof added to the glow of a full moon.

She’d pulled on lacy briefs and a celery-colored silk caftan. Luis’s scent still clung to her skin, mingling with the fragrant cherry-and-rum aroma of his thin cigarillo and the chocolaty steam rising from the cup she held cradled in both hands.

He sat across from her. He’d raked a hand through his dark hair and left his shirt hanging out, half-buttoned. She liked him this way, Claire mused, as her gaze drifted to the V of bronzed skin dusted with curling black chest air. Relaxed. Comfortable. He was usually so polished and urbane. So much in control. The colonel might have left the military years ago, but the military hadn’t left him.

“Tell me what happened in Cartoza,” she requested.

“I’m damned if I know.” He leaned back in his chair and blew out a cloud of smoke. “I thought everything was going well. President and Se?ora Diaz welcomed the Andrews to Cartoza with a family luncheon. That afternoon, the two presidents attended the opening session of the Organization of American States. Andrews was welcomed warmly despite the United States’ difficulties with some Latin-American countries.”

“Like Venezuela,” Claire murmured, remembering a particularly nasty op another OMEGA agent had worked on that country’s border some months back.

“Like Venezuela,” Luis echoed. “While the politicos attended to business, Se?ora Diaz gave Stacy a tour of the capital. They were accompanied by the fourteen-year-old girl who recently won our national spelling bee. And, of course, a full contingent of both U.S. and Cartozan security forces. I vetted every one of our people myself.”

Claire didn’t doubt it. As former chief of Cartoza’s security forces, Luis would not take the challenges associated with a visiting head of state lightly.

“The first nightmare came well after midnight, close to four a.m. I didn’t learn of it until several hours later. I also learned the physician accompanying Andrews’s party had administered a sedative and Stacy had slept for the rest of the night.”

Frowning, he rolled the thin cigar in his fingers.

“She appeared happy and quite normal the next morning, although you could see the fatigue in her eyes. We altered her schedule so it included only the events we thought she would most enjoy. Stacy and Rosa—the spelling bee champion—splashed in the Dolphin Cove with a group of other youngsters. That afternoon they attended a village fiesta. It was very colorful, crowded and noisy, but I swear to you, Claire, my people tested everything before she ate or drank it. I’m ninety-nine-point-nine percent certain no one slipped her any kind of drug or hallucinogen.”

“It certainly seems unlikely, but you and I have been in this business long enough to know anything is possible. So the second nightmare occurred that night, after the fiesta?”

“It did.”

His mouth grim, Luis stubbed out his cigarillo in the ashtray Claire kept out on the deck for his use. He never lit up inside and always took care to stand or sit downwind, so as not to expose her to secondhand smoke.

She would have liked him to give the habit up completely, but the casual nature of their relationship didn’t give her the right to request that kind of behavioral modification. Unless or until that relationship changed, she actually enjoyed an occasional whiff of the rum-and-cherry smoke.

“Did the White House fax you the results of the blood test they administered after the second nightmare?” he wanted to know.

“I had to sign and send back a confidentiality agreement first. The results may have come in in the past few hours…while I was otherwise engaged.”

“Will you inform me if the actual results are different from what I was told?”

“No.”

Her calm reply produced only a small shrug. Luis had learned enough about Claire’s profession—and about her—during their months together to have expected no other answer. He also knew she would do her best to keep him in the loop, however. Especially with his prickly macho pride and national honor at stake.

“If they are different,” she assured him, “I’ll ask Stacy or her father if I can discuss them with you.”

She tapped a nail against her cappuccino cup. A item from the notes she’d dictated tugged at her thoughts.

“Do you know what the women at the fiesta were wearing? The village women?”

The question surprised him. “Their best garments, I would guess. As you know well, the women of my county love bright colors. They would have worn ruffled skirts in red and turquoise and green. Embroidered blouses trimmed with colorful ribbons. That sort of thing.”

“What about on their heads?”

“The girls usually wear garlands of flowers, the older women lace mantillas.”

“Flowers and lace, not kerchiefs?”

“Some may have covered their hair with cloth mantles. Why do you ask this?”

“It was just something Stacy said. A fragment of the dream she remembered.”

Luis’s gaze sharpened. “You think a woman wearing a head covering may have frightened her and caused her to have these nightmares?”

“I haven’t formulated any viable theories as to their root cause yet. I had just dictated my notes and begun my research when you arrived.”

“Nevertheless, I’ll query the captain who commanded her escort and have him review the footage from the festival. If Stacy spoke to or came in contact with a woman wearing a mantle, it should be on the surveillance videos.”

Being able to take some action, any action, seemed to reenergize him.

“Are you done with your cappuccino, my heart? If so, I’ll carry the dishes into the kitchen.”