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“It’s up to you two to always be on guard when they send over an officer to stand guard with you. I couldn’t get thepoliciato back down on this. The police chief knows what is going on. Him, I trust. But I don’t trust the men under him. Too much graft and corruption.”
Daria grimaced. “A way of life in Central and South America, I’m afraid.”
“Yes,” he grunted, getting up. He smoothed his dark blue pinstripe jacket with his hand. “Here comes Nik. Fill him in? I need to get down to see Korsak.”
Daria nodded, watching Luminos stride out of the waiting room like he owned the place. Clearly, he was a case officer with a lot of power at his disposal. She was grateful the CIA had sent someone like him to coordinate everything. Right now, all she wanted to do was get the hell out of Dodge. As long as they were in Peru, Suero or Valdez could reach out and tag them. Worse, infiltrate the hospital and kill Korsak. She held Nik’s gaze as he walked over and sat down next to her.
“What did the nurse want?”
“Just to bring me up to speed,” he murmured. “Korsak’s coming out of recovery in about twenty minutes. His vitals are stable, thank God.”
She reached out, sliding her fingers down his bare arm. His muscles responded beneath her fingertips and she wanted to just hold Nik, give him a safe place for once. “He’s tough.”
“He’s Spetsnaz,” Nik agreed quietly, opening his fingers, entangling them with hers. “You look beautiful, did you know that?” Her hair was dried and covering her shoulders like a cape. “I wish… I wish we were anywhere but here right now.”
“Makes two of us,” she agreed, watching the entrance out of habit.
“Listen,” he said, holding her gaze, “when this is over? When Korsak is safely taken to the US? What are your plans, Daria? I need to know.”
She warmed beneath his intense, burning look. “When you’re finished with the State Department, I’d like you to drive to Alexandria, Virginia. I want you to stay with me, Nik. At my home.” Her heart beat a little harder in her chest. “Would you?” Never had Daria wanted anything more. She added, “Alex and Lauren live nearby. About five miles away from me. I know Alex is dying to see you again. Hug you. Make lots of good, hearty Ukrainian food to put all that lost weight back on you,” and she smiled a little, seeing hope come to his eyes.
For five years, Nik had been starved emotionally and spiritually. Daria knew the toll that could take on a person. She’d been out on ops for three to six months, alone in a rugged desert, without the things in her life she needed to sustain her soul. She understood better than anyone that Nik was running on empty emotionally. His soul was dying a little at a time. She wanted to be like life-giving water and sustain Nik on every level, bringing him back to the world of the living. Back to a normal existence.
“I’d like that very much,” he told her, his voice thick with feeling.
Daria didn’t want to talk about Jack’s job offer. She knew Nik wanted desperately to get into the medical field. It was where his heart and soul lay. “It would give you a chance to decompress. Alex is like a big brother to you. I think between him and Lauren, eating good Ukrainian food and having a real home, you’ll recover more quickly.”
He lifted his hand, sliding his finger across the slope of her cheek. “All I want, Daria, is you. Everything else is less important to me. I do love Alex like a brother. We have saved one another’s lives many times over the years down here. But my heart is focused on us. On you. I know we haven’t had the time to properly get to know one another. I have so many questions, so many conversations I want to have with you, Daria.”
She closed her eyes, resting her cheek in his opened palm, her heart squeezing with so much love for this man that she couldn’t speak for a moment. She felt his mouth on her other cheek, grazing her flesh, making her breasts ache for his knowing touch, her lower body flaring to life, remembering the ecstasy he’d given her already. And would again. Opening her eyes, she lifted her cheek from his palm and held his narrowed, heated gaze. “Yes, I want the same thing. We’ll sort things out over time, Nik. Dan will be flown to the U.S, to Colorado Springs. That’s where that neurosurgeon and his technical team are located. We’re going to be busy and your focus will be on him, where it needs to be, after he arrives. He’s never been to the U.S., and Dan’s going to need a personal support team. You and Alex. Good friends.”
“That’s all true,” he murmured, holding her gaze, “I was told by Luminos earlier that the State Department has already put things in motion to bring Dan to Colorado. Until then, I will be decompressing with you at your home. I’m coming home to you, Daria. WeWILLspend quality time together, Kitten, that’s a promise. I will devote my time and love to Dan, but you are equally important to me, to my heart…”
The words,I love you, nearly tore from her lips. Daria saw the road ahead of them, saw the responsibilities once more, heaped upon Nik’s shoulders as he cared for his brother daily once he arrived in Colorado. “We’ll find the time.”
He caressed her hair, smoothing some strands into place, “Oh,” he promised her huskily, “no matter what I do during the day, at night? I am in your bed, holding you, loving you, Kitten. And I will hold you afterward and we will talk.”
“And laugh,” Daria reminded him, her lips hitching upward. “The danger will be gone, Nik. We’ll be safe, finally. It’s going to be a whole new, wonderful world for you and I.”
CHAPTER 20
Upon the couple’slanding at Reagan International Airport, the CIA immediately took Nik away to question him. Daria had been pulled aside and driven to her home outside of Alexandria, Virginia, by another CIA agent. Nik went through three days of long hours giving the CIA the intel they wanted from him. He’d been isolated at a posh D.C. hotel, although he’d had daily connection with Daria by ZOOM on his laptop. Afterward, he’d rented a car and had driven up to Daria’s place.
He parked the rental outside her two-story cabin hidden out in the woods and she met him at the gate of its white picket fence. The strong scent of dried pine needles entered his flaring nostrils as he allowed her to tug on his hand as she pulled the gate open, beckoning, pulling him down the path and into her home. She was wearing a pair of white shorts and a red midriff, sleeveless top that outlined her breasts. Her black hair swung long and shining, making him hunger for her as never before. Even better, she was barefoot! Truly, she looked the wild female jaguar.
Even though his gaze was centered on her, as a black ops soldier he automatically began to absorb his surroundings. There was a profusion of red poppies, yellow Black-Eyed Susan’s and purple Cone Flowers ranged along the length inside the picket fence, their heads waving slowly in the lazy, humid mid-summer breeze. The cabin stood towering over them, its pine logs shining a dull gold in the sunlight. The grass was neatly cut and embraced three sides of the home. He liked the porch that wrapped around it, spotting two rocking chairs on the deck. Nik wondered if Daria sat out there sometimes to watch the sun come up in the east. He’d like to be beside her and share it with her if she did.
“Are you tired?” Daria asked, releasing his hand and closing the screen door behind him.
“Part of me is. Other parts aren’t,” and he saw her give him a wicked look, her gaze drifting downward. Yes, he had an erection. He’d dreamed of being here with her.Coming home.
“I can see that,” Daria murmured, giving him a mischievous look. “Are you thirsty?”
He allowed his black ruck to slide off his shoulder and drop on the butterscotch leather couch and followed her into the L-shaped kitchen. “I am.”For you, but he didn’t say it.
“A beer?”
Nik shook his head. “No, water is fine,” he said, following her to the kitchen sink, his eyes never leaving her shapely legs. Only when Daria turned and he saw the angry, puckered scars of the knife wounds on her left thigh, did some of his ardor dissolve. She had suffered greatly, in so many ways, just as he had.
