All the Queen's Men Read online

  He was saying things any woman in her right mind wanted to hear from the man she loved, Niema thought dimly. But, damn him, he was saying them when she was on the verge of dying. And maybe what he was saying was turning her on even more, because every word seemed to go straight to her very core.

  “You seem to think the end of this job is the end of us. Not by a long shot, sweetheart. You’re mine and you’re going to stay mine.”

  “John,” she gasped. “I love you. But if you don’t start moving your ass this very minute—!”

  He laughed, a deep-throated sound of pure pleasure, and obeyed her command. He lifted her thigh over his hip and moved hard and fast, going deep. She stiffened, her legs trembling, and erupted in a violent climax. He joined her before her tremors had ceased.

  Afterward, she couldn’t stop trembling. The pleasure had been too intense, too prolonged, and she still couldn’t quite believe all the things he had said. She twisted around to face him. Immediately his expression became guarded.

  She managed a smile, though her heart was pounding so violently she could barely speak. “Don’t think you can get away with saying things like that only when my back is turned.” She touched his face, cradling his cheek in her palm. “Did you mean them?”

  A shudder wracked him. “Every word.”

  “So did I.”

  He caught her fingers and pressed them to his lips, then folded them in his hand. For a moment he seemed beyond words.

  She kissed his chin. “I don’t expect more from you than you can give. I know who you are, remember? You have a job to do, and I won’t ask you to give it up. I’ll probably go back into fieldwork myself—”

  “Why am I not surprised?” he asked in a wry tone.

  She couldn’t seem to stop touching him. All those long hours in bed with him had only made the yearning worse, instead of sating it. She stroked her hand over his rock hard chest, pressed a kiss to his throat. “We’ll work it out. We don’t have to make decisions now, or even tomorrow.”

  His eyebrows rose and he rolled, tucking her neatly beneath him. Propped over her on his elbows, he said in amusement, “You’re being very gentle with me.”

  “I don’t want to frighten you off.”

  “After waiting five years to have you? Sweetheart, you couldn’t frighten me off with an elephant gun. But you’re right about one thing: We don’t have to make any decisions other than what to eat for breakfast. We can steal a few days just for ourselves before we go back to D.C.”

  “Can we?” That sounded like heaven—nothing to do but sleep late, make love, lie in the sun. No roles to play, no disks to steal. They could just be themselves. She still couldn’t quite take in everything he’d said: How could she not have known, not sensed his attraction to her? But maybe she had; maybe that was what she had picked up on when they were in Iran that made her so uneasy. She hadn’t been able to tell what it was, because John was so good at hiding what he was thinking, but she had known there was some tension there. Would she have been ready earlier to hear what he was saying? She didn’t know.

  They were together now, and that was all that mattered.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  John made a call on the radio, and a couple of hours later the man with the outboard brought some clothes to the boat: jeans, T-shirts, underwear, socks, and sneakers. “Have you heard anything on Ronsard?” John asked as he took the bundle of clothes.

  The man shook his head. He was dressed much as he had been the day before, in cotton pants and a pullover shirt, with dark sunglasses that prevented anyone from seeing his eyes. “Nothing since last night. His men were all over Marseilles. Looks like you lost them there. We’ll keep tight surveillance on the yacht, though, just in case.”

  Niema waited until the Company man left, then went out on the deck. “Clothes,” she said with satisfaction, taking the bundle from John’s arms. “Thank God. Being naked when you have clothes to put on is one thing, but being naked when you have no choice is nerve-wracking.”

  He reached out and fingered the thick bathrobe she had tightly belted around her after showering a few moments ago. “You look clothed to me—too damn clothed for my taste.”

  “That’s the point. If you have to work for something, you appreciate it more.” She stepped away from that encroaching finger and headed back below deck.

  “Then you should consider yourself the most appreciated woman in the civilized world,” he growled.

  Maybe he hadn’t meant for her to hear him, but she did. Her knees went a little weak. Every time she thought of the things he’d said that morning her heart started thumping hard and fast. She was so happy she was afraid she might fly apart.

  They would face problems in the future, probably in the near future. She didn’t know what form their relationship would take, whether there would be any formal commitment or just an unspoken arrangement as lovers whenever they happened to be together—which might not be very often. But all of that was in the future. For right now, for these couple of stolen days before they caught a military transport back to the States, all they had to do was love each other.

  He hadn’t said he loved her, but he didn’t have to. She felt it every time he touched her, with a wrenching blend of tenderness and almost savage lust that made his hands tremble, or when he looked at her with his emotions naked in his eyes. John was so controlled that the very fact he let her see what he was feeling told her more than words ever could.

  She didn’t have to have any promises, any plans. Not today. Not tomorrow. Maybe losing Dallas had made her afraid to count on the future; all she knew was that she was happy just having John now.

  He came below deck and leaned against the door frame, watching as she took all the articles of clothing out of the bag and placed them on the bed, dividing them into his and hers stacks.

  “Are you going somewhere?”

  “No, I just want to get dressed. I guess I can’t believe Ronsard has given up, and if there’s trouble I want to be wearing more than a robe.”

  John strolled forward and hooked a finger in the belt around her waist, pulling her against him. She went willingly, looping her arms around his neck. “We’re safe enough here on the boat,” he said. “The only way anyone can get to us without being seen is from underwater. We’re under constant surveillance, and the boat has electronic countermeasures in place in case anyone tries to eavesdrop.”

  “So we have to stay on board until we’re picked up?”

  “I wouldn’t mind a couple of days of downtime.” A slight smile curved his lips. “On the other hand, I’m not Superman, either, so we might as well get dressed.”

  He stripped off his tuxedo pants, which was all he was wearing, and was in shorts and jeans by the time she stepped into a pair of underpants. He eyed her feet. “You need Band-Aids on those blisters before you put on socks and shoes. I’ll get the first-aid kit.”

  Niema sat down on the bed and examined her feet. The blisters didn’t look bad and weren’t bothering her; the antibiotic cream she’d put on them the day before had helped a lot, plus she had been barefoot since coming on board the boat. Still, he was right: They needed protecting. Runners learned to take care of their feet.

  He came back with a small white kit in his hand and sat down beside her. “Feet up,” he said, patting his lap.

  Smiling at the luxury, she turned around and lay back on the pillows, lifting her feet onto his lap and giving herself up entirely into his hands. These strong hands gently cradled her feet, dabbing cool ointment on the blisters and covering them with adhesive strips. He performed the task with the same fearsome concentration he applied to everything.

  Still holding her feet in his hands, he looked up at her: “Did you know the feet are an erogenous zone?”

  Alarmed, she said, “I know they’re a ticklish zone.” She tried to regain custody of her feet but with very little effort he controlled the motion.

  “Trust me.” His tone was both so