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I straightened up and pulled on the strapless bra. My hands were shaking so hard I could barely fasten the clasp. Then I pulled the cocktail dress up my body and stepped into my heels.
I glanced down at our shadows. As mine stopped moving, his finally, reluctantly, came to life. I saw him pull on his jockey shorts, then his pants, then his shirt and jacket and finally his shoes. There. It’s safe now.
I lifted my hair and stepped backwards, towards him. “Do me up, please?” I didn’t like how my voice quavered.
I heard him move closer and felt the warmth of his breath on the back of my neck. And suddenly, it wasn’t safe at all.
He pulled the zipper slowly up, its metal rasp the only sound in the room. His fingers brushed my naked back and I had to close my eyes and focus on slowing my breathing: my whole body was crying out for his touch and I knew that all it would take was one soft moan from me and he’d whip me around and kiss me. When the zipper reached the top, I knew I should be relieved. But when he stepped back, it was like a physical loss.
I took a deep breath, sat down at the dressing table, and started doing my makeup with careful precision. It took a while and the ritual of it calmed me, just as a soldier is calmed by carefully loading his gun. The tension in the room eased, but only a little. I could feel it in the air between us, a storm on the edge of breaking.
When I was finished, I slipped in the contact lenses I’d bought, then secured my hair in the hair net and pulled on the wig.
“I’m still worried Steward will recognize you,” said Colton from behind me.
I smiled to myself. Then, in one movement, I stood and turned around. “Recognize who, sweetie?” I asked.
Colton had been looking at my back the whole time I’d been getting ready so he got the full effect all at once. He gaped at me, genuinely bewildered. “How—How…?” He cocked his head and stared. “How did you do that?”
I’d used a few old spy tricks, contouring my face differently so that my cheekbones were less prominent, using lip liner to widen my mouth a little and adding colored contact lenses to make my eyes deep green. But the main change was my hair. The wig was a mass of honey-blonde ringlets that spilled down over my shoulders and caught the light whenever I tossed them. And I was going to be doing that a lot. I gave a light, musical giggle and shimmied my shoulders. “It ain’t nothin’,” I told him. The accent took it to the next level: it was rich with Alabama sunshine, sweet as iced tea and just a little naive. The sort of rich, East Coast men who’d be at the party would hear it and patronize the hell out of me, which was just what I wanted. If I was prey, I couldn’t possibly be a threat.
“It’s…” Colton shook his head. “I don’t—” And then he glanced down and he stopped speaking altogether. I’d almost forgotten the other reason Steward wouldn’t recognize me: the dress. It was a scarlet, stretchy tube that hugged my hips and ass. It was long enough to be acceptable at this sort of party…just. But it had a scoop neck that revealed a bountiful amount of soft, milky cleavage.
Sometimes, the least sophisticated tricks are the best. I still remembered my old instructor, Ms. Sobolevsky, lecturing us at the academy. For a man to see through your disguise, he first has to be looking at your face.
Colton finally dragged his eyes up to mine. “You’re incredible,” he said.
For a second, I just smiled, proud of my tradecraft. But he held my gaze, and the words started to take on new meaning. The amber in his eyes flared and burned. There was lust there: he liked me like this, with the honey-blonde hair. He wanted to fuck Rachel—as I was calling this identity—wanted to throw her on the bed, drag the dress up over her hips and see those honey-blonde curls bounce as he fucked her. But there was something else there, too. A need that went beyond lust, that burned straight through my Rachel disguise, and then all the layers of ice and flirting that made up Tanya, the spy, and cut right to my vulnerable core. To the authentic me, to the woman that he’d seen damp-haired and without makeup, in ridiculous pink pajamas.
The tension in the room changed again. We’d been on the edge of grabbing each other and fucking. Suddenly, we were on the edge of something far more dangerous.
My chest ached with how much I wanted it. I allowed the traitorous, selfish thought to creep in. I don’t want to be alone anymore. But then came the stab of guilt. Lev’s face as he lay in my arms.
