The Espionage Effect(50)

I took full advantage of the sobering seconds without the sizzling heat of Alec’s lips on my skin to focus on the task at hand: our mission. Again, I still had no idea what said mission entailed, but I wanted my mind to be sharp and centered—not fuzzed out by arousal.

“?Pare!” A baritone voice shouted.

“Halt,” Alec translated under his breath before he turned us around. Then his expression brightened, eyes widening as a broad smile stretched across his face. “Pablo!”

He clapped the guard on the shoulder before leaning toward him. Then in hushed tones, he spoke in rapid Spanish. Recognition flickered across the guard’s face before he nodded once.

I eased my tensed shoulders and blew out a held breath through pursed lips. The guards in the main room of the party had concealed their weapons. However, the man speaking with Alec displayed an automatic assault rifle blatantly as it dangled from a shoulder strap with his hand comfortably resting on the grip.

Alec released his casual hold on the guard’s shoulder and spread his hands out in front of him, glancing my way. “I explained to him we’re retrieving a promised rare bottle of wine from Escobar’s cellar.”

The guard grumbled a few more low words meant for Alec’s ears, then let out a belly laugh.

No translation required with his lewd tone, likely “enjoy your piece of ass.”

No problemo, se?or. I will. My lips twitched into an uncontainable smirk. Apparently in the face of danger, dry humor prevailed. Probably served as an instinctual tension diffuser.

And really, the alarming interruption helped cool my blood enough to think clearly, separate our task at hand from raging hormones—or blend the two. If we had an hour to kill and an itch to scratch, no better way to pass the time than satisfying intense sexual urges. All it was. Two secret agents playing the part.

Our romantic ruse camouflaged us.

Alec returned to my side and slung an arm around my shoulder. I glanced back to verify the guard still watched us with hawk-like intensity. Only now, instead of suspicion hardening his features, a hint of amusement and jealousy relaxed them.

We rounded a corner. Then a few steps down the long corridor, Alec turned toward me, hunching his shoulders as if about to kiss me. But instead of leaning down, he held a single finger over his lips in reminder of our need for silence, then pointed up and behind his shoulder.

I played along, reaching up on tiptoe to kiss him as I glanced in the direction he’d indicated. A camera mounted near the ceiling had its lens aimed in our direction, its red light on.

When our lips collided, the contact was warm, but chaste. With a brief nod, I communicated my understanding: Even in the absence of a guard, we were still being watched.

Then Alec deepened the kiss and urged me backward until my shoulders hit the wall. He pressed in further, slid his hand over my ass, ground his pelvis against me.

I let out a soft gasp when his rigid length rubbed over sensitized nerve endings at the apex of my thighs. The startling sensation fired hot arousal from that point outward, lower, until a torturous ache clenched the muscles deep inside me.

“I want you,” he growled against my lips.

Was he playing a part? Did it matter? His body wanted mine. Mine wanted his. Cover or not, romantic ruse or honest desire, in the midst of a mission important enough to garner the attention of an invisible shadow organization, two people whose sexual chemistry defied quantitative measure needed each other on the most primal level.

“I want you. More,” I murmured with competitive qualification.

“Debatable.” He eased back and stared into my eyes, both of us breathless, chests heaving.

Before I could process another thought, he grabbed my hand and tugged us down the length of the hall. I grabbed a fistful of my gown and jogged to try and keep up, my stilettos clicking lightly on the polished travertine flooring.

Since we’d left the main room where the party continued to wind down, we’d passed nine doors in the first hallway, four on the left, five on the right. But in our current corridor, no doors marred the butter-colored plaster walls.

At the end, on the left, one finally appeared. Stained a reddish-brown mahogany, the wide rustic door curved at the top with a gentle arch. Its matte-black iron handle boasted a single latch lever above its curving twisted handhold.

When Alec released my hand and depressed the lever with his thumb, a soft click sounded. Then he shouldered the door, easing it open.

Cool, humid air rushed over our faces, chilling my skin for an instant.

He shot me a quick look. “Ready?”

I drew in a steadying breath and stared into an unknown darkness beyond. “As I’ll ever be.”

Had he meant for him? Or the mission…

I’d meant both.

In the last few days, the world as I’d known it had turned on its ear. New experiences rushed over my senses, each more exciting than the last. And not one part of me wanted it to end. Having painstakingly prepared for situations my entire life—guarded feelings, anticipated dangers, assessed every probability until I’d mentally exhausted all likeliest scenarios—I’d never understood the phrase “flying by the seat of your pants.”

Now? I vowed never to fly any other way. The exhilaration as I leapt into the unexplored? That was living.

Yet in knee-jerk reaction to an event more than a decade ago, I’d voluntarily relegated myself to be the walking dead my whole life. No more.