Susan Downs - Ekaterina

He made a sound at the back of his throat, something that made her warm from head to toe, and moved into the kiss, tasting, testing, with a controlled urgency and a devastating gentleness that curled her toes and erased every ache.

“Kat.” He drew back, close enough to touch her, far enough to look in her eyes. “Kat, you kissed me.”

She nodded. “I caught that.” She ran a hand down his face, thick with dark whiskers. “I wasn’t sure I’d see you again.” She saw the echo of her words in his wretched expression. “But God saved me.” Oh, yes, God had saved her. Her racing pulse testified to that fact. She was very alive, and perhaps even falling in love. She ignored a sharp stab of guilt, and clung to the feeling of joy that swept through her. “Think you can get me out of here anytime soon?”

A smile creased his face, and tease came into those blue eyes that held so much mystery. “Promise you’ll kiss me again sometime, maybe when I know I won’t hurt you?”

She felt a blush start at her toes and work its way up. “It didn’t hurt, and… maybe.”

He ran a finger tenderly along her jaw line. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there to protect you.” The look of grief in his beautiful eyes made her want to cry.

“It wasn’t your fault, Vadeem I—” she couldn’t tell him she’d seen him outside the church, wrestling with some unseen anger. Her abduction had already stripped him down to his feelings. She couldn’t dig deeper when he looked so raw. Instead, “He wanted Anton’s book.”

Vadeem sat back, disbelief in his blinking eyes.

“That’s not all. He told me he’d killed that monk. That young one we met at the monastery.”

Before her eyes, Vadeem’s face changed, darkened. He swallowed, and the hardness she’d seen on the train from Pskov entered his expression. She tensed, and let go of his hand.

“Yeah. I’m going to get you out of here. You just sit tight.”

Why did she have the feeling his here meant farther than the Blagoveshensk hospital?

“Were you followed?” Dog-tired, Ilyitch turned up the collar on his coat. His eyes burned, and he was achingly aware that someone could be watching him destroy the cover he’d erected for the last decade.

Grazovich gave him a glare. “Hardly.”

Ilyitch had to admit, the glitzy casino, eerily aglow with disco lights and packed with gyrating bodies, seemed perfect for a clandestine face-to-face. A dull haze of cigarette smoke and the odor of too many sweaty bodies had his head swimming. The thought that the general probably had a dozen or so bodyguards on the payroll, watching their backs gave little comfort. Ratting out his comrades in his own backyard never made the beer settle in his stomach.

He slapped the book onto the bar table and slid it across to Grazovich. He had to shout over the din of a Russian rapper. “I’m tired of chasing all over Russia. It’s your turn.”

“This is the journal?” Grazovich’s reached out and fingered the worn book like a gilded Ukrainian egg. It looked newer than Ilyitch supposed, but perhaps Timofea had taken good care of it.

Ilyitch shrugged. Like he’d read it? That was Grazovich’s job. He was the rare art dealer, the one who knew how to dig up Russia’s treasures. Ilyitch ran the money.

“What happened to the girl?”

“She got away.” Ilyitch glared at the General, just daring him to comment.

Grazovich met the look without flinching. “I see.” A bleach blonde wearing less than a simple black dress sashayed up to them and leaned on Grazovich. A sick smile crossed the general’s face as he snaked an arm around her. Ilyitch looked away, preferring the sight of a couple clenched on the dance floor to the general’s gruesome habits.

“Refill?” A barkeep sliced through Ilyitch’s disgust, indicating the spent beer bottle. Ilyitch passed him a ten-ruble note. “A bottle of Smirnoff.” Tonight, he’d celebrate the sweet victory of a job nearly completed. The bartender screwed off the top and handed him the bottle. Ilyitch took a swig right from the bottle, just getting started.

Grazovich flipped through the book, his face expectant, the girl forgotten although she hung on his shoulder, moving her hips to the music, leaving nothing to the imagination. It took only a moment for Grazovich’s expression to change. His face mottled with anger. “You’re an idiot.” Grazovich swore, adding to his opinion.

Ilyitch blinked like he’d been slapped.

“This is a Bible. A fancy American Bible.” He flung it onto the bar toward Ilyitch. It upset a bowl of pistachio nuts, spilling them across the wooden bar. Grazovich’s eyes narrowed, and for a split second, Ilyitch smelled the odor of evil that trailed his terrorist bedfellow. Ilyitch grabbed up the book, and stared at the pages. Disbelief, then frustration, clenched his stomach.

“Get the girl. Bring her to Pskov. I’ll meet you there, and we’ll see if we can unearth Anton’s little secret. This is your last chance. Don’t make me sorry I saved your hide ten years ago.”

Ilyitch took the book, and tucked it away in his pocket, not rising to the threat. He had more going for him than this greasy Abkhazian thought. Much more. He wasn’t about to let it slip through his fingers. “Where are you going?”

“To see what treasures Moscow holds for a weary traveler.” He wound a finger around the blonde’s hair and tugged. Ilyitch left before he saw the rest.

From Kat’s vantage point, Pyotr seemed her last link to hope, and even that was dissolving quickly under the heat of Vadeem’s bluntness. “She’s in danger. She’s leaving.”

Vadeem paced the departure lobby like a panther, waiting for their flight to be called. Kat had never seen him so unstrung, but then again, she’d only known him for five days. Theirs wasn’t a lengthy relationship.

But it felt like it. It felt like she’d known this man for the better part of her life, or at least wanted to. He climbed right into her heart, nestled there, and she’d forgotten, or at least abandoned, every teaching about not falling for an unbeliever.

She was in more danger than Vadeem even realized.

Maybe he was right. Leave. Run away before her heart got totally skinned. Depart before the emotions that had begun to build started to take on nightmare proportions. She had even spent time duping herself into believing he could love her back. Those blue eyes that looked right into her soul with unmasked delight, that lopsided smile, even those strong arms that held her, had made her wonder, and hope he could, possibly…

Kat swallowed back a sudden wave of heartache, and picked up her suitcase. She nearly crumpled.

“What are you doing?” Vadeem instantly curled a hand around her waist, holding her up with a tight grip. “You aren’t carrying anything, and if you don’t behave, I’ll carry you.”

A smile tugged at his mouth, and she wanted to give in to his joke… unless it wasn’t a joke. She grimaced, not sure. Visions of Matthew, forced to walk her home, or even the argument that had finally led to their official breakup, flashed through her mind.

“You aren’t going to Russia and that’s final.”

Bossy. That was the way Matthew treated her. And suddenly Vadeem had acquired all sorts of Matthew attributes. Like carrying her in his arms out of the hospital, with Pyotr hot on his heels, at the crack of dawn, despite the fact that her legs worked just fine. Or calling a taxi and driving straight to the hotel, where Vadeem unceremoniously packed her bag. She’d been red-faced and not a little furious as he ordered her to sit in a chair. He hadn’t been too polite about it either.