He didn’t look at her. He hadn’t since that kiss. Brief, comprehensive, and incomprehensible. His mouth firm and complete on hers. Caught by surprise, her lips had parted. His had, too. Their breaths mingled again. One more instant and—

  He’d backed away from her immediately. Then he’d looked around as if searching for danger.

  To her, it felt like the danger came from him.

  She skated several more minutes, circling with the other skaters, ignoring his presence behind her, calming her mind.

  When they announced it was time to clean the ice, she was done and exchanged skates for her boots.

  She didn’t wait for his permission to begin walking, but headed to the center of the Mall. Turning one way, she saw the Washington Monument rising tall and straight with the Lincoln Memorial beyond it and the swelling rises of Arlington Cemetery across the river. Then she pivoted and looked toward the Capitol. In that instant, wandering snowflakes began to sift down.

  She smiled and tipped her head back, opening her mouth to catch a slow-moving flake.

  One finally dropped into her mouth, melting before it even reached her tongue. She straightened.

  Hunter was right there. So close.

  He was going to kiss her again. She saw it in his eyes.

  Her lips parted, she looked up at him.

  He leaned closer …

  He straightened and turned away. “Time to get back.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  * * *

  Hunter watched her return with Rufus and Derek to the embassy grounds after their walk Saturday morning.

  Keeping out of sight, he heard her tell the king she was going to finish her Christmas cards in the library.

  She was lying.

  He didn’t question his certainty, but kept watch.

  Yes, there she went. Slipping out with a quick look around. He followed on foot. She went straight to the nearest Metro stop. When she made the first transfer, with him trailing behind, he was as sure of where she was going as he had been that she was lying.

  At the animal shelter, he asked to see a puppy that the woman at the front desk said had a waiting list for adoption. Through a window in the introduction cubicle, he watched April sit on the floor of the main area, cuddling Dragon and feeding him treats.

  The puppy chewed on the edge of his shoe. He reached down and detached the puppy’s mouth, offering it a toy from a basket. But he never took his eyes from the window.

  So he saw the moment she began to cry.

  * * *

  He caught Sharon on her way out of the embassy, after she’d spent half an hour with April.

  They’d dispensed with the professional on Sharon’s way in. Now he asked her, “You’ve got a house and kids, right?”

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “Don’t tell me you’ve actually listened to things I’ve said about my personal life all these years.”

  Of course he had. It was important to know who you were working with so you could anticipate their weaknesses and bring out their strengths.

  “Three kids — two boys and a girl.” Maybe he was showing off a little.

  “Be still my heart! If you know their names, I’ll faint dead away.”

  He didn’t. Which was just as well, since he was the only one around to pick her up. Besides, their names didn’t figure in to this. “Kids should have a dog. It’s … it’s good for their character. Teaches them responsibility. And, uh, loyalty and … and about social structure and interactions.”

  “If you say so, Hunter. You do know I have a husband, too, don’t you? You’ve met him, oh, five, six times.”

  Hunter waved off the existence of a man he remembered vaguely as stocky and with a wide grin. Why did she keep straying from the subject? She was as bad as April, with these detours.

  “A dog,” he said. “Your family needs another dog. One for each kid. I know just the dog. Housetrained, good with kids and other animals. He—”

  “Hold on there, Dr. Doolittle. If we get another dog our community says we have to declare ourselves a kennel and get a special license. I already have a zoo — no way am I going to add a kennel. Why don’t you keep him yourself?”

  “Me? What would I do with a dog? I’m …. I’m a professional.”

  “You don’t think I’m a professional?” Her voice was even, but she jammed her hands on her hips. “I’ve got, as you’ve said, a house and kids and a husband and — yes — dogs. So that makes me not capable of doing my job professionally?”

  Hunter knew the ice had thinned under his feet in the last few seconds. Damn. Why’d he have to think of ice. And skating. And kissing—

  “You’re not only capable. You always do your job professionally. If you did not, I would ask for another assignment.”

  Her posture relaxed. “Ah, you silver-tongued charmer, you,” she murmured. “As for what you would do with a dog, you would love it and play with it and let it look at you adoringly. Oh, yeah, and let it chew up some of your shoes. So why do you have it in your head that this job means you can’t have a dog?”

  He glanced at his shoes, as if they could protest against hypothetically being chewed. “For you, this job is a place to work. For me, it is …” He backed away from that and started again. “If someone came to you with the offer of another job, a good job, you would consider it. Because this job doesn’t… You do it well,” he continued quickly, “but still it is only a part of your life. Maybe not the most important part.”

  “Your maybe is right. It shouldn’t be for you, either, Hunter.”

  He said nothing.

  She shook her head at him, then said in a tone she had never used to him before, “You can be a professional without pulling down all the shades and pretending there’s nobody home inside your life, Hunter.”

  * * *

  They went to a performance of the Messiah at the Kennedy Center that night. With Madame.

  She unbent enough during the drive back to the embassy to express pleasure at the music.

  April was quieter than usual and heavy-eyed.

  The king gave Hunter a sharp look, as if suspecting he was the cause. Nope. A four-legged scruffy, old dog.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  * * *

  Where the hell was the king?

  He usually kept April right by his side. But now, when a royal presence — a disapproving royal presence — could do some real good, he was … Hunter checked that King Jozef was still talking to the British Ambassador in the State Dining Room, beside the fireplace under the portrait of Abraham Lincoln.

  The British Ambassador had added his government’s pleas to the Americans’ that the king extend the flyover agreement. And Hunter knew an unofficial conversation at a function like this often achieved more than a formal exchange.

  But, dammit, the man had an obligation to keep April from getting out of her depth.

  Which was exactly where she was at the moment, and judging by the way she was smiling up at the slick chief of staff to a certain rising senator, she didn’t even realize her feet couldn’t touch bottom anymore.

  This First Lady’s well-known passion for ballroom dancing had led to the Family Dining Room being cleared of most of its furniture, festooned with garlands, outfitted with a quartet from the Marine Band adding dance rhythms to carols, and a portion of the guests dancing happily.

  The dancing wasn’t the problem. In fact April’s dancing was so effortless, that unlike when they’d practiced in the hotel suite, she had plenty of attention left over to chat away while looking directly into the eyes of her partner.

  That was the problem. Her partner.

  For the fourth time tonight.

  The man known among many Washington women as Nine-Handed Neil, because he was beyond an octopus. That’s what Sharon had said when they’d crossed paths with this guy before.

  The man also had sat next to April at the dinner for a few dozen select guests in the Diplomatic Reception Room before the party. From his distant view, as befitted someone at the bottom of the social pecking order for this event, Hunter had obtained only glimpses of her talking and smiling at her tablemates, especially the senator from Missouri’s chief of staff. And then he’d watched her go from dance to dance, with one eager partner after another.

  But while the others who asked her to dance were satisfied with one song, this particular partner had come back again. And again. And again.

  The music ended, the dancers applauded, and April’s gaze went toward the doorway. She shifted, clearly trying for a sight-line to the King through the crowd and intervening decorations. Hunter breathed a little easier.

  Then Nine-Handed Neil leaned closer, as if whispering in her ear were the only way to make himself heard. She glanced in the direction of the king again, that giveaway tuck of concentration between her brows. It smoothed out as she nodded, then smiled up at Nine-Handed.

  The man put his palm to the small of her back.

  A snarl clawed at the back of Hunter’s throat.

  Only because she was letting herself be directed through the momentarily still dancers, away from this doorway where he stood. Away from the king.

  She should be at the king’s side, adding her support to whatever the British Ambassador was saying.

  That’s why he was so frustrated.

  A thought flickered at the back of Hunter’s head. He shot it down.

  Not that kind of frustrated. Professionally frustrated. About the mission. Getting the agreement extended.

  Where was Nine-Handed Neil steering her? As if she couldn’t find her way across that room without his hand on her back. Did the jerk think she was stupid? Asses like that wouldn’t care if she was, wouldn’t notice that she wasn’t. Asses like that only looked at the way that de Chartier dress clung to her curves, at the swing Etienne had given her hair, at the heels, and manicure.

  Nine-Handed Neil didn’t care about the woman who visited animals she couldn’t save, who made friends with every soul in a hotel, who made muffins for one of the best known men in D.C., who had to find the perfect Christmas tree for a king she barely knew, who had come down the back stairs at the embassy earlier with a fluttering smile and uncertain eyes.

  Hunter saw where Nine-Handed Neil had her headed now.

  The Ushers’ room that connected the Family Dining Room and the Entrance Hall. Probably told her it would be quicker to go that way than through the crowds. Right.

  Hunter headed toward the Entrance Hall side of the Ushers’ room with as much speed as he could without attracting attention.

  He pulled the doors closed behind him as he entered, noting the corresponding doors to the Family Dining Room were already closed. Long drapes covered a slightly recessed window to his right, the space beyond it dim.

  Still, plenty of light to spot the sweep of April’s dress there, partially obscured by the curtains, and how the man was crowding her deeper into the shallow window alcove.

  “No, Neil—”

  Hunter was there before she finished the second word.

  The space was cozy for two. With three it was downright crowded. Especially with the distance April had put between her and Nine-Handed Neil. She had both palms planted on his chest, and her elbows locked.

  The man wasn’t called Nine-Handed for nothing, however. He was palming the points of her bare shoulders, murmuring something about her being a “babe.”

  Hunter yanked him back. April stumbled sidewise at the release of the resistance to her stiff-arm. The other man swung around on Hunter — literally.

  Hunter sidestepped at the same time he blocked the ineffectual punch with one forearm. Neil stumbled into the curtain, seemed to get all nine hands tangled momentarily.

  “You all right?” Hunter demanded of April.

  “I’m fine. What on earth are—”

  But he’d turned back to the other man, who was nearly free from the curtain.

  “The senator’s looking for you.”

  “What?” It was like magic. Or like the man’s brain had suddenly retaken control after being hijacked by regions significantly farther south. “Where?”

  “Got back through the Family Dining Room. You’ll see him.”

  Straightening and smoothing clothes and hair as he went, Neil was out through those double doors in an instant, leaving Hunter alone with April.

  “You okay?” She looked okay. Hardly mussed at all.

  “If you’re waiting for me to thank you, you can forget it.” She sounded irked. “I didn’t need you bursting in here like that.”

  “The curtains were closed.” Why had he said that? Of all the inane comments.

  “So we could see the Christmas lights better. We couldn’t see them with the drapes open because of the inside lights.”

  “He wasn’t looking at any Christmas lights when I saw him.”

  “I was handling it.”

  “You don’t know about men like this, April.”

  “How do you know what I know— Oh, of course, your file on me. I hadn’t realized it had gone to such detail. But your research wasn’t foolproof, Hunter. Just because you thought I was an ugly duckling before you transformed me, don’t be so damned sure I don’t know about men like Neil.”

  “Ugly duck— I don’t…”

  He felt a kinship with Nine-Handed Neil he never would have expected. In the closed off area, the warm scent of her twined around him like steam after coming in from the cold. Her cheeks were rosy, her eyes glowed and her lips … her lips were moist and surely as soft as they looked.

  Hunter Pierce was suddenly angry.

  “What the hell were you doing going with him to a spot like this if you know about men like him?” His arm jabbed at the sliver of space between them. “When all a man has to do is—”

  He slid his right hand around the back of her neck, then up, to cup the base of her skull, tilting it back.

  Her lips parted.

  He looked down at her.

  Somewhere a voice told him this was his last chance. His very last chance.

  He told the voice to go to hell, and kissed her.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  * * *

  Her mouth opened under his. He slid his tongue into her warmth, seeking. Their tongues met.

  She made a soft sound, and it drove him deeper, fuller. Wanting the source of that sound, the source of that warmth. Her palm slid along his jaw line, thumb stroking his cheek. Trying to soothe?

  There was no soothing this.

  He stroked into her mouth, the rhythm certain and powerful. Her hands came around to the back of his neck. Holding on. Opening.

  They had been kissing for a heartbeat. They had been kissing forever.

  He didn’t know. Only wanted to keep on.

  She gave a small gasp. He felt it more than heard it. Gave up her mouth, instantly.

  He looked into her eyes, almost too close to see. They both dragged in air, ragged with the need — for oxygen, for more.

  If he took her mouth again now… no…

  He kissed the corner of her mouth. Her eyes drifted closed. His mouth slid down, over the curve of her chin, down her throat.

  He wanted to keep going, to find the edge of the dress, then under it to her breast. To take her nipple in his mouth, to feel it smooth and hard—

  He jerked his head to the side. But could not force himself to end the connection.

  Never lifting his head, he kissed along her bare shoulder, the skin so smooth, so warm. He put his mouth over delicate flesh covering the bone and sucked on it. She dropped her head back, pressing herself against him. The rhythm took hold again. Something only they knew. His arm across her back supported her as she arched and he covered the curve of her body with his own.

  Felt the soft pulse of her breasts against his chest, knew the heat he would discover as his leg found a place between hers despite her dress.

  One hand spread across the fabric below her hip, then closed, drawing the material up. Then again.

  Once more and he’d feel her skin. Be so close to—

  He spread his fingers, feeling the fabric slide away from him, back to covering her. He jerked himself straight, bringing her with him.

  He grasped her shoulders, holding her away. Keeping himself away.

  He breathed hard. Wanting to—.

  No. If he thought of what he wanted to do, he’d do it. Here. Now.

  Her hair was tumbling, her mouth was swollen, her skin was flushed from the rub of his skin.

  A surge so strong it was painful pulsed through him. The desire, the need—

  “No. This can’t— We have to get back. You have to get back. King Jozef will be looking for you.”

  She looked at him for a long moment. Her eyes so clear, yet he had no idea what she was thinking.

  “I shouldn’t have—” he started.

  She slid out of his hold, as if he’d never had a hold on her at all. Turned so he had only her profile as she reached up, her fingers tucking tendrils of hair.

  The motion raised her breasts, brought them tighter against the dress. Another few inches and—

  “I’m not naïve, Hunter.” Her voice was almost even. Almost in control. “I know what—”

  “Like hell. If you weren’t naïve, you wouldn’t have been maneuvered into this alcove with him in the first place and you wouldn’t have stayed here after ….” After he’d entered and couldn’t control himself. God, she had to be the most naïve woman on the face of the planet not to see the desire revving through him. “Because you would have known what could happen.”

  She started toward the doors to the Entrance Hall. He turned with her movement, as if he couldn’t keep his eyes off of her. With a hand on the doorknob she paused. “I would have if I wanted that to happen.

  She flicked a final look at him over her shoulder — dear God, a shoulder with a faint redness still showing. From his mouth or his hands? — swung open the door and swished through the opening, back into the party.

  If she’d wanted it to happen?

 

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