He lowered his head, putting his lips against her neck. His tongue followed the blood as it pulsed through the artery there. Then it traced to her ear, dipping inside, and slowly trailed downward again, until his mouth encountered the top of her shirt.
Think you could possibly have on any more clothes, Daniels? he had asked. But what she had put on, she could take off.
She wanted his lips and his tongue on her body. Moving over the hollow of her collarbone and across the small, highly sensitized swell of her breast. Circling her nipple, just as his fingers had caressed it, their movements sure and unhurried. So sure. So knowing. As his mouth would be.
She turned her head, bending her knees a little so she could put her lips under his. His head tilted to accommodate the kiss, his mouth fastening hungrily over hers. There was nothing tentative about the movement, but he didn’t push his tongue inside as she expected. His lips played with hers, making contact and then breaking it, only to touch her mouth again at a slightly different angle. A series of small weightless kisses, which gradually gave way to something else.
His mouth opened, his lips moist and warm, trailing languidly over hers. Breaking off and then coming back to hers again. And again. And yet again.
Only after what seemed an eternity did his mouth fully open and his tongue contact hers. Her lips had already parted, ready for the invasion that was not an invasion, but the long-awaited answer to an unspoken invitation.
His head turned slightly, the alignment again perfect. He eased her against the wall at her back, one arm around her waist. His fingers deserted her breast and worked at the buttons of her clothing, a barrier between them that neither wanted there.
He never released her mouth, however, plundering it even as he unfastened and pushed aside layers of fabric. He eased her parka over her shoulders, guiding it down her arms, and she let it fall to the floor.
She should have felt the cold, but she didn’t. She was aware of nothing but the movement of his mouth and his hands. After he had tugged her shirt out of her pants and unfastened the last of its buttons, it followed the jacket to the floor. Only when he pulled the top of her thermal underwear over her head did he break the contact of the kiss, just long enough to accomplish that task.
“Your turn,” he said, his mouth again over hers, so that the words were muffled by her lips, almost lost against them. Her mind seemed drugged by his kisses, so that she didn’t respond for a moment. And he didn’t wait.
He unzipped his parka, shrugging out of it and dropping it onto the floor beside hers. And then he took her hands and put them against the buttons of his shirt. Finally, she seemed to comprehend what he wanted her to do.
Her fingers trembled over the simple task, and after a moment his hands lifted, brushing hers aside as he pulled the shirt out of his pants and then apart, those two actions almost simultaneous. And as soon as he had, he leaned against her.
His bare chest pressed against her breasts, flattening them, and her breath released in a low moan. She was conscious on some level of the cold, damp stones behind her, but she was far more conscious of the warmth of the solid wall of his chest, hair-roughened, moving enticingly against the front of her body. Against the hardened peaks of her breasts.
Her arms went around him, spread hands caressing. Following the corded muscle of his shoulders and the long, elegantly sculpted back and narrow waist. Trailing up the smoothly ringed column of his spine.
They were completely naked above the waist, and oblivious to the cold. Their bodies were pressed tightly together. Hands exploring. And it wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough. Not for either of them.
His palms cupped under her hips, lifting her into his erection. She gasped again as she felt the undeniable proof that he was as aroused by what they were doing as she was. A little danger gets the juices flowing.
Was that what this was all about? A reaction to what had just occurred? To the close call they’d had? And if it were? she asked herself, the intellectual question almost unimportant as her palms moved over the warm, smooth skin of his back. Did she really care about his motives? Were hers any purer?
This was about two people coming together after a long and tantalizing physical awareness. Maybe that’s all it was for him, despite what else it was for her. And if, as his reputation indicated, this was all Joshua Stone was ever willing to give, she would take it. Her decision. And her choice.
She arched her back, changing resolution into action. His hands were still cupped under her hips, and as she moved, he pulled her closer, groaning as their bodies came together, as close as they could get physically, given the situation.
And then he released her, dropping her back to the ground so quickly she staggered. His hands, working at the fastening of her pants, steadied her by the simple expedient of grabbing a handful of their fabric.
Then, he was unbuttoning and unzipping with a frenzied urgency. Her hands found the waistband of his trousers, working as hurriedly, as desperately.
Given that frenzy, she expected him to take her standing up, pressed against the wall behind her. Instead, he bent, putting one knee on the floor, and pulled the two down-filled parkas together to form a makeshift pallet at her feet.
When he looked up, the slant of fading light from the crack over his head fell on his eyes, highlighting them. Their pupils were wildly dilated now, either from the darkness in the cellar or because of what was happening between them.
She could barely see the rest of his features, but his mouth was set again, almost stern, unsmiling. And for some reason a jolt of anxiety moved through her stomach. That was not the way a man about to make love should look.
When he held up his hand, inviting her to join him on top of the two parkas, she never thought about refusing. She put her still-trembling fingers into his strong, dark ones, letting him pull her down to the spread coats. As his body lowered over hers, moving as if he had all the time in the world, the last thing she saw before the subtle remains of daylight faded away into night were Joshua Stone’s eyes looking down into hers.
And no matter how many times she recreated that scene during the next three years, she found she could never quite be sure what had been in them.
Chapter One
“Special Ops is asking for you.”
Paige glanced up from the magnifier through which she was studying the latest satellite images of a site along the Russia-Afghanistan border. Her boss hadn’t stopped at her desk. He had simply tossed the paper that held the message he had delivered down on it and then disappeared into his own office.
Special Ops, she thought, wondering how long it had been since she had heard those words. Not nearly long enough.
She wished she could treat the summons as casually as Pete Logan had. Instead, the phrase created an unwanted frisson of anxiety. Almost in self-defense, she looked down through the magnifying glass again, ignoring the paper Logan had dropped on her desk and trying to bring her concentration back to the photographs that had come in only an hour ago.
She had been totally absorbed in them before the interruption. After all, this was her job. Being at the beck and call of Special Operations was not, she thought fiercely, feeling her anger build, despite her attempt to focus on the satellite images. The days she had spent with the spooks were over and done. Long gone. Long forgotten.
Which was why, of course, her ability to concentrate was all of a sudden shot to hell, she thought in disgust. She pushed the magnifier away, the motion almost violent.
Special Ops. What the hell could Special Ops want with her? She glanced at the paper lying on the outer edge of her desk, as reluctant to pick it up as if it were something vile.
The print was facing the other direction, and she couldn’t quite manage to decipher the upsidedown signature of whoever