a tiny red light indicating a camera. All I see is a bland brown-and-cream decor, double bed, round table and chairs, small white lamps and a scary modernist orange painting hanging over the bed. The overworked AC barely moves the humid air around.
“I did.” He lights up another cigarette, drawing the smoke into his lungs, then blowing it out slowly. “I always do.”
“Always, Ivan?” I say in my sexiest voice, though I’m sweating in my dark-angel armor-corset, pulling in my waist so tight I can only take short breaths. A shiny, studded mistress leather bracer protects my right forearm, and bracelet coils of black leather snake around my other arm. Rings decorated with medieval motifs of chains and flowers and cheap gemstones adorn my fingers. Pointy rhinestone studs on my collar dare him to get close enough to kiss me.
I smile. If he wants to bad enough, he’ll find a way. What he doesn’t know is my choker also contains a sensitive microphone hooked up to a sophisticated comms system embedded in the rhinestone-studded collar to capture every word of intel that spills out of him. I hid the receiver in a planter in the bar and a cell phone tower relays the signal back to the field agents listening on the other end in a nearby parked van. The agents can monitor and neutralize intel gathered as well as sexual goings-on. I hope they’ve got plenty of coffee. This could turn out to be a tense and wildly erotic all-night session. A cyber ménage à trois.
“You must have a drink with me,” says the Russian, pouring vodka into a glass chilled with square ice cubes. “Before we get down to business.”
He hands me the vodka while his dark eyes rivet on the bare skin exposed above my thigh-high boots. I swear I see him salivating at the thought of nibbling on me.
“I prefer martinis.” Wiggling my shoulders, I reach inside the squatty glass and slide my fingers around a big ice cube. Wet and cold. “But I can use the ice to cool off.”
The Russian licks his lips with his fat tongue, watching me glide the slippery ice down my neck to the swell of my breasts, leaving a shiny wet trail on my skin before dipping the ice cube into my cleavage. I shiver. The ice is cold, yet sensuous. The effect is so refreshing I let out a low groan. That heats up his excitement.
Panting, saliva glistening in the corner of his mouth, Ivan puts out his cigarette, clenches his fists, then un-clenches them. He’s hot, but I’m just warming up. From mock orgies to perfect my multifarious sexual personas, to virtual-reality computer games to train my biometric skills and experiment with every sexual position imaginable, I’m well schooled in my job. I give BJs to die for, fake exquisite orgasms, execute the most delectable James Bondage knots, pull down my panties with style and use my grippers when necessary to give even the smallest dick a good time.
But having sex with the mark is not my goal. Driving him crazy with pent-up sexual frustration is. According to my preop meeting with Rork, the Russian’s intelligence is so valuable my mission is not only to extract the guidance chip from him, but to protect him and preserve him as a long-term asset. Which means no penetration. Keep him wanting it.
“Wish you could turn into an ice cube, Ivan?” I tease, letting the ice slide down the inside of my black leather basque. I shudder as the melting cube slithers down over my rib cage.
“You’re getting all wet,” he says, rubbing his hand on his crotch.
“I’m very wet,” I say, picking up another cube out of the glass and running the ice up and down my thigh above my stocking. “You could say I’m slippery when wet.”
His eyes bulge out, his breaths coming fast and short. “Let me see your cunt.”
“Not yet, Ivan.” I stretch my body up tall, and with a bump and grind, I edge my forefinger under my bra strap. Rolling my shoulders forward and humming to myself, I slowly pull down the strap until it slackens and falls down over my arm. “I bet that guidance chip is burning a hole in your pocket.” I lick my lips, but keep my eyes on the Russian. Anticipation plays a big part in my game. A slow smile creeps over his smooth face, but he makes no comment. That worries me. Long pauses are no good. He’s thinking. I pull my bra down lower, let him see more flesh, not too much, and ask, “Why don’t you get rid of it?”
Breathing heavily, the ex-KGB agent without a single gray strand anywhere in his slicked-back, dyed black hair, watches me with a combination of wariness and interest. After a brief hesitation, he dips his hand into his jacket, then opens his palm, revealing a small chip enclosed in a clear plastic case, shiny with the residue of his sweat.
“Is this what you want?” he asks.
“Yes.” I reach for the chip, but he closes his palm.
“Take off your clothes first,” he insists, leaning forward and reaching out to grab my bra strap.
“Not so fast, Ivan.” I turn my body away from him, though I keep my eyes on him. Never lose eye contact. Keep the mark under your control. “You don’t want to miss the show, do you?”
I rock back and forth on my high-heeled boots, elongating my leg to an erotic pinnacle, raising my arms up high, stretching my lissome body. Then I turn around to face him and slide down my other bra strap. With a pout and a moan, I push my breasts together to wow him with my cleavage. He’s almost panting, but I won’t flash my nipples. Not yet. Stripping in front of the Russian ref lects the power of my nudity over him. Men have a negotiable weakness for watching a woman take off her clothes. Promise them nipples and pussy lips and they’ll babble about everything from tip-offs to defections.
Why?
It’s simple. I let him get close enough to smell me, then his eyes take in my form-fitting corset, stockings held up by tight black leather garters, but I don’t let him possess me. The game is over then. I’ll get nothing from him. You could call me a tease, but interrogation can be a cruel game. Very cruel. How well I know the tenebrous mood of an angry interrogator.
An unconscious shiver slithers down my spine, chilling my blood as memories of my first day at Tadma prison play in my mind like a video on endless rewind. Though I long for a total blackout of that day, it never comes. I find peace only in total darkness, when I sink into a numbing calm and blur the vibrant but ugly colors of the prison scenes burned into my brain. No matter how hard I try, I can never erase from my mind the months of torture and pain I experienced in that hellhole. Back then, I never thought I’d be stripping in front of a man who’s a killer, a sexual deviant, a mole.
But my nightmare didn’t start in prison. I once led a normal life as an archaeologist, traveling the world in search of antiquities. And I had a family who cared about me. A mother and a sister. I also had dreams of advancing in my field. I’d just made a startling archaeological discovery in the middle of the Syrian Desert when the horror began….
Two years earlier An excavation site in northern Syria
I descend the crude stone steps into the dark underground vault, my heart pumping, my lungs trying not to breathe in the lingering incense. An eerie flickering from my flashlight angers a barrage of bats. Shrieking and fluttering, these mammals of darkness descend upon me, catching their spindly wings in my long ponytail and pulling on my khaki shirt. I cry out with frustration more than fear, pulling a squealing bat off my chest. A loose button pops off my shirt, revealing my cleavage nestled in a white lacy bra. I ignore it and cover my face, my long blue-glass earrings swinging wildly and stinging my cheeks as
