Part 6 (1/2)
Nicole didn't answer her-there wasn't any point. She hadn't really thought that far ahead-all she'd cared about was getting out of here. She bit her lip and dug her fingernails into her palms.
”Go back to your room and get some sleep.” Kira waved her hand dismissively.
Nicole's hand tightened on her knife as anger surged through her, but before she could even think of making a move, Kira lunged forward. She caught Nicole's wrist, pressing her thumb against the muscles there in such a way that the knife fell from her grip and dropped to the floor.
”Let go of me!” Nicole demanded, trying in vain to shake Kira off, but the effort was useless. Her grasp was like a steel vise.
”There are cameras everywhere, but lucky for you, I'm on duty again tonight. I have to admit,” she lowered her voice, ”it was rather entertaining watching you skulk about like some character in a bad movie, but I was afraid you'd accidentally trigger an alarm and wake up Stella and Bogie. They both need their sleep, especially tonight.”
The amus.e.m.e.nt in Kira's voice pushed Nicole beyond angry. Provoked to her breaking point, she remembered the handwritten note on the Russian memo she'd found. ”You failed!” she hissed. ”You didn't win my trust, and you never will.”
In response, her hand was gripped even tighter, producing a pins and needles tingling in the tips of her fingers.
”I hate you,” she added childishly.
”You say that,” Kira whispered as she took control of Nicole's hands and backed her roughly into the corridor's hard wall, ”but your body tells me otherwise.” Kira's looked down Nicole's s.h.i.+rt and jeans. In spite of everything-her anger and distrust, she felt her legs getting weak and her lower stomach fluttering with arousal.
Her body was indeed betraying her.
She could feel her nipples grow suddenly sensitive, grazing against the fabric of her bra as a curling vortex of heat traveled like a lit fuse across the inner lining of her loins. There were only six or so inches separating them, and Kira's subtle scent invaded the small s.p.a.ce like a fragrant cloud. She wanted to shout a loud denial to Kira's all-too-accurate a.s.sertion, to break free and run, but her hands were suddenly released and a long, slender finger was placed against her lips to silence her.
”Shh, no more words between us,” Kira purred in the dim light.
Nicole felt her resistance waning.
”I can't keep fighting it either.” Kira's voice was like warm, liquid silk.
”Fight what?”
”This.”
Kira's hands softly cradled Nicole's face in a tender clasp. Kira leaned forward and gently kissed her. Nicole melted in surrender, unable to stop herself from arching into Kira's warmth. She opened her mouth to accept the tentative tip of Kira's tongue, savoring the sweet taste and essence that was her.
All the tension of their encounters had been building to this moment between them, the tone of their kiss one second coaxingly sweet and the next punis.h.i.+ng as they each struggled with the raw pa.s.sion they roused in each other.
All rational thought seemed to have left Nicole completely, her physical being now nothing more than a wanton ent.i.ty of tingling nerve endings and unfathomable aching, but then, suddenly, a rush of chilling cool air swooped in between them, jerking her down from the blissful realm she'd been floating within. She lifted her head, weak and bewildered, her lips still quivering from the unrestrained intensity of the kiss they'd just shared.
”Go back to your room, Nicole,” Kira ordered, her voice strangled and guttural. She took an unsteady step backward.
The fluorescent lighting was flickering to life overhead. Dazed, Nicole blinked hard, adjusting to the blinding luminance with great difficulty. When she eventually did, she saw an icy contempt in the blue eyes that just a moment earlier had been feverishly bright with need and desire and pa.s.sion.
”What's all the commotion here?” Stella asked reproachfully from somewhere beyond the haze of desire that was shaking Nicole's ability to think clearly. ”It's very late, little one. You need to sleep,” Stella suggested softly, closer now. ”Soon you'll be able to go home.”
When the fog cleared Nicole saw that Kira was already halfway down the pa.s.sageway. Stella, her mouth a thin line of disapproval, was casting one very dark look at her colleague's retreating figure.
Chapter Ten.
Once the door to her room was closed, Nicole tossed her duffel bag to one side and dropped down to her tender knees, gulping in several deep, ragged breaths of air. What had just happened? She put a hand to her lips. She could still feel the soft, warm imprint of Kira's mouth on her own. Trembling, she reached down to touch the cold cement beneath her in an effort to cool her burning desires. This is what it must feel like to be struck by lightning and survive, she thought. Her nerves felt jittery, her muscles weak and rubbery. What was wrong with her? How could this woman have such an effect on her?
The unsettling, frightening truth was that if Stella had not interrupted them, she wouldn't have been able to stop. She recalled her encounter with Danielle-and was amazed by how much that experience paled in comparison. Now she finally understood what was meant by s.e.xual chemistry-that basic, primal attraction from inside that was impossible to resist.
An image flashed inside her head. With horrible clarity she recalled Kira's face when Stella had switched on the lights. She physically winced as she saw again the derision in the blue eyes staring back at her. Nicole felt her insides clench with humiliation.
What was I thinking? That the one they all call Ice Princess had become so overwhelmed by pa.s.sion for me that she'd simply lost control?
It was almost laughable. It had all been just another of her twisted mind games-manipulating Nicole for her own purposes, using her s.e.xuality as a means to an as yet unknown end.
Writhing in shame and mortification, Nicole curled into a tight ball and leaned back against the closed steel door only to feel something hard and obtrusive poking at her tailbone. It was her knife. She didn't remember bending and retrieving it during her mad exodus. She picked it up and stumbled over to her bed. She fell down atop the blankets despondently. There would be no escape. She was stuck here, a prisoner for as long as they wanted to keep her.
At some point, she dozed off. One minute she'd been wondering just what information Kira had hoped to obtain from her tonight if their kiss hadn't been disrupted, and the next thing she knew, Stella was standing over her, one hand pressed lightly down upon her shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze.
”Time to go, kid.”
Nicole blinked.
”Get up. We've got only a few minutes.”
”What's going on?” she moaned once she managed to remove her tongue from where it was plastered to the roof of her mouth. She pushed her tangled hair from her face, wiped a crumb of sleep from her eyes, and made to sit up, disoriented.
”You're going home.”
”Home?” Nicole repeated with effort, trying to make sense of the word. Was she dreaming? She couldn't be serious, could she?
”C'mon, get up,” Stella urged as she tugged the blanket from the bed. ”Bogie's waiting.”
”Bogie?” Nicole sat up sleepily. ”But I just went to sleep.”
”It's four thirty in morning. Bogie and I will hike with you to a spot where a helicopter can land. That's why we have to move fast! It will take you to Nairobi and,” she flashed a bundle of official-looking papers in her face, ”from there you'll get on a plane that will take you back to Was.h.i.+ngton DC.”
Nicole was instantly awake. The events of last night came flooding back into her mind.
The kiss.
A blissful sensation rippled down her spine when she thought of Kira's lips upon her own; the taste of her, the wondrous feel of being pressed so closely against her.
”Don't you want to go home, little one?”
Nicole lifted her face to Stella, her eyes bright as she fought to control her emotions. ”I've wanted out of here from the moment I arrived,” she declared, tossing back the blanket and getting to her feet.
After was.h.i.+ng her face, brus.h.i.+ng her teeth, and tossing the rest of her clothes into her already half-packed duffel bag, she was strolling down the very pa.s.sageway she had meant to use for her escape plans last night. She watched with wide, disbelieving eyes as Stella peeled back the sleeve of the black sweater she was wearing and began punching keys on the same type of electronic device Kira had worn around her wrist upon their arrival. In response, internal mechanisms churned and twisted loudly before the steel doors magically parted to allow them access to the rusty ladder leading up to the forest.
”Okay, so I was wrong. The bolts and locks are real,” Nicole murmured aloud in a defeated voice only she could hear.
”Bogie's already above. Ready?”