she asked, following him, curious.
“What’s to prevent an assassin from wearing high-tech noise-canceling headphones?”
Angelina opened her mouth to answer but closed it again, with her words unsaid, realizing he was right. She glanced at the notebook in her hand and quickly wrote Alec’s question down—another thing to mention to Captain Zale—noting at the same time how much light the spaces between the pipes allowed into the shadowed recess. Enough light to write. Which meant plenty enough space to shoot between.
You were right to bring Alec with you, she told herself. Perhaps someone else has thought of this, but perhaps not. She turned and faced the apse, peering through one of the gaps, trying to think like an assassin. Despite the relatively narrow spaces between the pipes, up close she could clearly see everything in front of the altar. A man could stand behind the organ pipes and take aim between them. It would not be difficult.
“It’s not that hard a shot to make,” Alec said softly as he came to stand next to Angelina.
“You are correct,” she told him. “Where they will be during the ceremony—the entire royal family—I could make that shot. In the pews. At the baptismal font. At the altar. I could make it easily.”
Her eyes met his. And just that quickly Angelina’s thoughts turned from the deadly serious business at hand, to remembering what it had felt like when this man had kissed her. Held her. Caressed her. The iron hardness of his body when he’d pulled her down and trapped her beneath him early this morning. The taste of him on her lips.
So long. It had been so long since she’d let herself even think of men as men. So long since she’d let herself remember she was a woman with a woman’s heart, a woman’s needs. So long since she’d let herself relax her guard enough to even consider the possibility of a sexual relationship with a man.
But she was thinking of it now. Because he was making her think of it. Because he’d kissed her this morning as if it was a perfectly normal and natural thing—which it was—but not for her.
She shuddered and caught her breath as a wave of longing swept through her, longing for something she knew she could never have. She started to turn away, but he stopped her, his hand warm and firm on her arm. And that intensified the ache.
His lips captured hers—or was it the other way around? Angelina didn’t know who had moved first, but just like this morning, they were both aroused, both fighting for control, both trembling in the grip of a need that possessed them to the exclusion of all other thought.
“Angel,” he whispered between incendiary kisses that set off sparks throughout her body. Holding her so tightly she knew she couldn’t escape. Even if she’d wanted to escape...which she didn’t. “Oh God, Angel.”
No one had ever called her Angel. Not her parents, not her cousin, not her friends. No one. She didn’t know why, but somehow, when Alec called her Angel, it made her feel special. Cherished. Unique. A name for him alone.
He pressed her against the organ pipes, then grasped one of her thighs and pulled it up, up, until he was holding her bent knee, stroking it through the slacks she wore. But she might as well not have been wearing anything for all the protection they afforded her. Because, with her knee raised and clasping his hip, the crux of her thighs was open to him. Vulnerable. And he pressed his erection against her mound until she moaned. Moaned, and melted.
She couldn’t think. She tried, but thought was impossible. Her entire world had condensed into this moment in time, into desire that left her shaking and desperate. The only thing that let Angelina hold on to her sanity was the knowledge that Alec was as desperate as she was. That he was shaking, too. That she wasn’t the only one vulnerable.
A sound impinged on her consciousness, the sound of footsteps echoing in the cathedral, then of someone calling her name in Zakharan. “Lieutenant Mateja?”
Angelina tore herself away from Alec, just as she had this morning. But this time she didn’t try to pretend she hadn’t wanted him as much as he’d wanted her. This time she didn’t wipe the taste of him away.
“We cannot do this,” she whispered to Alec. “I cannot do this.” Putting on a calm face, she quickly moved out from behind the organ pipes. “I am here,” she told the custodian in Zakharan, thankful she didn’t wear lipstick that would now be smudged. She hoped the wizened little man wouldn’t think to look behind the pipes, wouldn’t ask where Alec was, or he’d wonder what the hell they were doing in that recessed space and put two and two together.
“You said you only needed a half hour,” the custodian reminded her. “It has been almost twice that. It is nearly noon, and I must lock up so I can go to lunch. Are you finished here?”
“Five more minutes,” she promised him. “I will be quick. I only have one more thing to check.”
As soon as the custodian walked away, Alec came out from behind the pipes. She sensed his stare, but refused to meet his eyes, ashamed of what had taken place between them. Any kind of romantic entanglement was incompatible with the life she’d chosen. Every man she’d dated—and there hadn’t been all that many since she’d joined the queen’s security detail—automatically expected that once their relationship grew serious, Angelina would quit her dangerous job.
And that was not going to happen...until Angelina herself determined she could no longer do her job to her own satisfaction. As long as she stayed in peak physical condition, as long as her reaction time meant no one was better than she was at protecting the queen, her choice was clear.
She couldn’t be soft and yielding, not for any man. She couldn’t be anything other than what she was—tough and uncompromising. She couldn’t even pretend...as other women she knew pretended. And that meant the life most Zakharian women took for granted was out of the realm of possibility for her.
Even if she didn’t get involved romantically, even if this was only sex—only sex? she asked herself, remembering how things had exploded between Alec and her—she wasn’t willing to risk her reputation. Things were difficult enough for a woman in the Zakharian National Forces. When sex reared its ugly head, men tended to look at women differently. As if they didn’t already.
This was twice now she had surrendered to her body’s insistent demands. Twice she had let Alec inside her defenses. Twice she had let herself forget who and what she was. And that was two times too many.
Least said, soonest mended. Alec could hear the words in his head as clearly as if his mother were standing next to him reciting that old maxim. And he knew the wisest course of action was to say nothing to the outgoing RSO. What did you say to a man who was being bounced out of a coveted job to make room for you? Ostensibly because of political favoritism, but really because he was suspected of fraud and corruption?
No, it was better to say nothing at all, not even to commiserate with the guy over being displaced. So he listened politely as the outgoing RSO—a man he’d crossed paths with before—went through his calendar and case roster with Alec.
He noted that the guy had a hard time meeting Alec’s eyes, and his laughter seemed forced—signs of a guilty conscience? Alec wondered. Or just that he doesn’t quite know what to say to me, too, especially since we know each other? It wasn’t unheard of to be replaced on short notice. But it couldn’t be easy.
