Spies, Lies & Naked Thighs

Deep baritone, slight accent. Sexy. Listening to him speak, it’s as if I’m hearing an echo, spreading out in waves to various parts of my body and making me shiver. Who is he?

I open my eyes only far enough so I can see him. A soft butter glow from an overhead light illuminates his broad shoulders emphasized by a white T-shirt. His back is to me, his black-crow haircut coming to a point in a sharp V at the base of his neck. And do I see a gun stuffed into the waistband of his jeans? He’s standing and looking out the train window. I can see his face in the ref lection in the window, though not clear enough to make a positive ID. The glass glimmers an unholy blackness, as if this denizen of the night has cloaked the train in darkness to hide his nefarious plans. Do those plans include me?

I hear him take a breath.

“MI6 agents were waiting for him at the hotel.” Pause. “How the hell do I know? Didn’t you say he had connections to an insurgent group based in London?” He clears his throat. “His neck was broken—”

I flinch. Now I recognize that voice and that face.

The one-eyed Jack.

Edgy, I lift my head up to get a better look at him. Tall, masculine stance with his legs spread wide apart, his gelled black hair seems to vibrate and spark, as if electricity instead of blood runs through his veins. I tingle when I see a black band stretching in a diagonal across the back of his head. An eye patch. It’s him, all right.

I dig my fingers into the thin red-and-white-plaid blanket underneath me. His words disturb me. He killed the Russian and he’s spoofing his boss and putting the blame on the British secret service.

Liar.

Why is he doing that? And where does this stud get off ruining my operation? He makes me angry in a way that has nothing to do with surveillance or intelligence. I should smother him with my nude breasts over his face. Why not? It only takes four minutes for a mark to suffocate, though more than one subject has died with a smile on his face and a hard-on in his pants when I take him down. I’ll make this one-eyed Jack wish he never met up with me.

“—no money on him,” he says. “They picked him clean.”

I claw my nails over the thin blanket, ripping it. Like hellthey did. I left ten thousand dollars stacked on the table in that hotel room. Now I get it. He stole my money. Okay, so the dead presidents belong to the Bureau, but it’ll come out of my salary if I don’t get it back. The government doesn’t cut me any slack when it comes to the disbursement of payout cash. TA special agents have a rep for dipping their long nails into the money pot for “extra” expenses. Not me. I’m not in this business for money. And I don’t like killing. I only kill professionals and only then when my butt is on the line.

“Yes, I understand, a car will be waiting for me. Where?” Pause. “Got it. Ciao.”

Ciao? He spoke to me in German, now this Italian BS. Who’s he talking to? Why didn’t he kill me? As if I don’t know. Pussy galore is the motto for this thief in tight jeans. I smile. From this angle, the man’s got an ass packed tighter than a bag of cement. Sweet.

I turn my head and reach for my choker. My microphone. It’s gone. My rings, bracelets, all gone. Where’s my backup, anyway? Screwing in the van, I bet, when they should be helping me. If they’re dipping their dicks into a Swiss miss, how are they going to find me? I can’t put up a signal. As if I’m going to leave a chalk mark on a telephone pole when I’m streaking through the countryside at high speed.

I close my eyes. My hands shake and my stomach is in revolt, the taste of bile spurting up my throat and leaving a foul taste in my mouth. I’ve got to concentrate on coming up with a plan. I have no idea where I’m going, who this jerk with the black eye patch is or how I’m going to explain to Rork the Russian is dead.

I do know the one-eyed Jack is armed. And dangerous. And yes, I could kill him now. Fast, easy. Sure, he’s handsome and built like a superman, but I feel nothing for him. I must adhere to my code of owing no allegiance to anything but getting the job done. I refuse to back down, yet I need to vet my chances of success in view of my less-than-perfect situation. Lying horizontal on a hard bunk, faintly aware of a nagging headache dulling my brain as well as my sluggish motor skills, I consider for a moment whether I’m making a mistake. For a reason known only to him, the one-eyed Jack saved my life.

A sensual heat wiggles through me, down to my toes, warming my body in a tiny orgasm for the briefest of moments. I can’t help but bask in that feeling, though I can’t forget or ignore the fact that sexual attraction played a part in his decision to keep me alive. Does he want to make love to me? The reason a male is drawn to a woman is different in every man. No one physical attribute, mental awakening, scent or touch is common to all experiences, for each woman is unique. Though the one-eyed Jack may find my dominatrix persona a challenge to his alpha-male personality, I have reason to believe he’ll kill me after he takes me to his bed.

Should I surrender my womanly anxiety and wait to see what happens? Let go of my controlling thoughts and be aware of a different emotion revving up my power? Desire for sexual stimulation. I’ve been too long without the extreme pleasure a man’s touch can give me, whether he’s caressing the back of my neck or arousing me with a probing finger. I yearn to bathe in the essence of his touch, my sexual energy revitalized in the smell and taste of him, our bodies pressed against each other, his hands playing with my breasts.

I make my decision. The one-eyed Jack is key to my plan. I can’t wait for him to make his move. It’s imperative I find out why he killed the Russian.

With a smile, I run my gaze up and down his body, assessing his strength. His caramel-tanned skin has a satin sheen emphasizing his bulging arms. Strong. I can handle him. I’m not only trained in the art of seduction but also the martial arts. I’ll take him down and then I’ll see if he’s man enough to endure what I have planned for him.

And I know exactly how to do it.

Keeping so still hardly a puff of air escapes my lips, I open my eyes and survey the sleeper compartment, my gaze darting from corner to corner in the small single-berth room. I see a washbasin, brown Formica paneling and luggage racks attached to the walls. His backpack is confined in the metal luggage frame overhead. I twist my head from side to side, noting a door behind me with the latch locked. Good. No one will disturb us.

Squinting through the drips of perspiration streaking down my face, I reach down to my waist and my fingers wrap around my hemp rope. I don’t have more than a few seconds to overcome him, then restrict his movements with my two-meter-long rope. It won’t be easy. He’s a big guy.

I pull up my ki, my energy. Spiritual, mental and physical all work together to give me the accuracy I need to strike. Where? The back of his neck at the base of his skull is good, or the side of his neck at the carotid artery. Or each of his collarbones.

Hurry up. Pick a spot. If I have to strike twice, I may not get the chance.

I’ll already be dead.

He clips his cell phone to his belt and, with his back still to me, he reaches up to the luggage rack to open his backpack.

Now’s my chance.

I pull myself up to my knees on the hard bunk, then stand up so slowly I’m in slo-mo. Assuming a fighting stance in my thigh-high boots, I turn my left side forward, bending my knees so I can move quickly and easily, keeping my head and shoulders back to maintain my center of gravity. I flatten out my hand, keeping my thumb against it, my wrist straight as I raise up my hand toward my left ear and—

Before I make my move, the train whistle blows as another TGV passes us. Whooosh! The train jolts sharply, catching us both off guard, though lucky for me he braces himself against the luggage rack to keep the backpack from slamming to the floor. At the same time, gravity shifts under me and I nearly lose my balance.

Quick, strike.

Before he turns around, I bring my hand down at a forty-five-degree angle, clubbing him against the back of his neck with the edge of my hand. Perfect. He grunts loudly before he drops to the floor, unconscious.

I jump off the bunk and grab his gun, his cell phone, and stuff them into my waistband. Bending down, I check the pulse on the side of his neck. Strong, steady beat. He’s alive. I grin. Seeing him helpless and at my mercy ignites a delicious desire in me that tempts me to reach into my sexual arsenal, a longing to take this relationship to the next level. I turn him over and take a long, hard look at the bulge between his legs, aching to get my finger on his trigger. My eyes widen. Even unconscious, he carries a big stick. My question is, does he know how to use it?

I trace my finger over the dark stubble running down his cheek. Prickly hairs sting the pads of my fingers, but I don’t stop. I want to memorize the sculpted planes of his face. His sweat anoints my fingers and dribbles of perspiration edge along his black eye patch, tempting me to peek under it. I don’t. Not now. I want to see the surprise in his other eye when I do.

A sexual longing races down to my groin, making me hot. He’s mine to do with as I please. I run my fingers over his chest, my black nails ripping his T-shirt. He’s sweating, his wet shirt clinging to his broad chest; even the spiked black hair on the top of his head droops. I inhale his now-familiar scent. Only one way to cool him off.

Strip him naked.

9

I like to play sex games with the mark. It turns me on, the anticipation growing until I can hardly bear it and he’s pushed to the limit of his endurance. Sensory deprivation is the game I enjoy the most since it involves challenging my favorite sexual taboo: bondage. The shrink at TA headquarters says it’s because I have a distrust of men and I want to be in control. I’m not denying that. Before I became a TA agent, I had limited experience with sex, having spent much of my adult life studying and working for my degree. Yet I hungered for a man’s touch. I didn’t see why the male species didn’t understand women like sex, need sex, and we can give as well as receive.

On the other hand, I have to take some of the blame for my failure to maintain a lasting relationship. For years, I kept my emotions pent-up inside me, preferring instead to fan-tasize about my sexual desires rather than acting upon them. I was a loner in school and uncomfortable with boys’ comments about my body. How many times did I wish I had a boyfriend holding me in his arms, his hands sliding down my jeans, hearing him moan when he realized I wasn’t wearing panties, his fingers demanding entry into me? No one knew I fantasized about being a Frankish captive in a harim, the Arabic word meaning forbidden. A harem.

To feed my fantasy, I ravished book after book about the walled seraglio of the Caliphate, wildly romantic stories like the tale of a Persian entrepreneur who bought captives from the slave traders coming down from the Turkish border, how he trained the girls in the arts, clothed them in diaphanous, amber-scented gowns and lined their eyes with black kohl, sparkling with powdered pearls. Then he sold the most beautiful, the most talented girls to the Caliph for more than the equivalent of two prized racehorses.

No wonder I enhanced the fantasy when I found the Mask of Darkma and formed my own theory about what happened in the ancient vault. They say the past and the present are intermingled in the thoughts of those who write history. I could think of nothing but the past and what happened to the fleeing lovers. Their fear, confusion, relief, then acceptance of their fate.

The Turks are attacking, my lord.

Quick, woman, we must hide.

Down there, my liege, in the open vault.

You’re not frightened?

Not as long as I’m with you.

I found comfort in their whispers, knowing I’d unearthed not only the physical evidence of the existence of this brave knight and the woman he bedded, but the spiritual fulfillment of their quest.

I can still remember the thrill I felt racing through me when I held the mask in my hands. Crouching down on my hands and knees in a pile of dirt, I closed my eyes and I could hear the clanging swords echoing in my ears, men shouting battle cries, horses neighing, the Turks striking along the knights’ flanks, separating them from their foot soldiers, then knocking them off their horses covered in bright silk trappings and attacking them in their heavy mail armor.

And nearby the women watched and waited, their wails desperate, their hearts breaking, their tears flowing.