that she crawled up onto him, over him, seeking a way to be inside him as he emptied himself inside her.
Afterward, she asked for it again so quickly he almost laughed. She had never come down from her last orgasm, she was soft and warm as taffy, the black pupils of her eyes as dilated as if he had given her opium. This was the moment he had been manufacturing all evening, the moment to ask her for what he wanted while she wasn't thinking clearly, or at all.
'Of course I'll help you.' She guided him back into her with a deep-felt sigh. 'No one has ever asked me for help before.'
'Not even your brothers?'
'All I ever get from them are orders.' Her fingers cupped him, caressing. 'You'd think they'd be more enlightened.' She maneuvered herself above him, straddling his girth, stretching her thighs to their limits. The slight pain made the pleasure all the sweeter. 'That's what we were talking about in the bar when you came over.'
'They all feel that way, don't they,' he said, 'all your girlfriends.'
'Oh, yes,' she moaned, but he couldn't be sure that was an answer to his question because she was trembling again from head to toe and her eyes were rolling in her head.
He held on to her as she let go, feeling the frantic bucking of wild youthful energy as if it were a shot of adrenaline into his own system.
At last she was spent, or as near as she could get, but still she wanted to hear the phrase he had pumped out all night long, 'Whatever you want, Irema. Whatever you want.' When had she ever heard that from a man? In her secret discussions with her girlfriends, sitting in front of a mirror while she applied lipstick, in her dreams at night as she tossed and turned in fretful sleep. But in real life, from a flesh-and-blood male-one who held her, kissed her, caressed her, entered her with such tenderness, until she screamed at him to do otherwise? This night, never before. This night only.
Which was why she would do anything to ensure that it never ended, including convincing herself that everything he told her was true, must be true because of how she felt about him, because of what he had given her freely, and would do so again whenever she wanted it.
'Your father and I work for the Order.' He held her gently, rocking her, just as she liked. 'The only difference is he works in the field-in his case, here in Trabzon-while I am stuck in an office in Rome. For the most part. Every so often, I'm asked to go into the field to check up on operatives. But anonymously, you know. So your father must never know that I was here or that I was asking about his activities. It would cost me my job, with no opportunity to explain myself, do you understand, Irema?'
She nodded. Her heart was thumping as hard as if he were still thrusting into her. She vaguely understood that her father was more than a rug merchant. For one thing, there were the men who sought him out-they came and never left with a rug. For another, her father was far richer than any rug merchant of her knowledge. Also, people-Georgian, Russian, Turkish, whatever-inclined their heads to him when they passed him in the street. He commanded respect. So, though she had never been allowed in the shop during business hours, her eyes and ears had been open, picking up bits and pieces here and there, far more, she suspected, than her father knew.
'I've been here three days now, talking to his associates,' he said, 'and everything seems in order, except for one thing.'
Irema stared at him. The thumping of her heart had turned painful-something bad couldn't happen to her father, it couldn't.
'What is the one thing?' she asked in little more than a croak. The grit of fear had parched her throat.
'Earlier today your father had an… altercation with another member of' the Order.' His face was stern, scaring her all the more. 'This was a very important member of the Order, Irema, very high up in the ruling body.'
'Very high up?'
He nodded. 'Very. Your father sent him away, refused to give him the help he requested. I have to tell you that this is an extremely serious breach of protocol.'
'Protocol?'
'My bosses are pissed off.'
'Oh!' She put her hand over her mouth as she giggled delightedly.
'Irema.' He took her hand away from her mouth. 'This is no laughing matter, I assure you.'
'Oh, but it is!' At last her heart was light, and she felt an exhilaration inside herself. She never could have believed it, but hers was the power to exonerate her father from false reports that would have doomed him with the Order. She had overheard enough, had pieced enough together to make a patchwork quilt, and although she had also heard her father tell her brothers numerous times never to tell outsiders family business, she knew this was different. She was helping her father with the people who paid him, who were the source of all the money, all the respect that he had worked so hard for. How could that be wrong? Also, this man and her father were allies. So she told her sweet lover what she knew:
'That altercation was a ruse.'
'A ruse?' He rose up on one elbow, his shadowed face hard and craggy. 'What do you mean?'
'My father would never be so rude to another member of the Order. I heard him talking on the phone to one of my brothers. It was all faked, in case someone was watching.'
'All faked.' Her lover lay back, his hand resting on her soft, soft belly. 'Ah, Irema, my love. It was all faked.'
Once he started to laugh he couldn't stop.
Chapter 27
Bravo saw Jenny on the split-level terrace of the Sumela Cafe', with the silver platter of the Black Sea spread out below them. Adem Khalif had taken him here for a late-night dinner. Bravo should have been exhausted, but he wasn't. He had read articles about the so-called adrenaline high soldiers experienced in the heat of battle, but until now he'd had no direct experience with the phenomenon.
Seeing her in profile, bathed in desolate moonlight, he recalled the stricken look on her face during their brief encounter in the bazaar. Then she turned and the nape of her neck was exposed to him, the long sweep, pale in the moonlight, the gentle slope leading to the base of her skull, the fine down of hair, the perfect vulnerable arc. For a moment all his anger, rage and urge for revenge slipped away, and he was left naked, as vulnerable as she seemed, with all his suppressed emotions exposed.
Not only to him, apparently, because Khalif, standing with him shoulder to shoulder, said, 'Bravo, what is it? Do you know that woman?' He drew a gun. 'She is one of your enemies.'
At a table not far away, the bearded Glimmer Twins, still with them, raised their heads. They half rose off their chairs, their upper bodies tilted slightly forward as if they were sprinters at the starting line.
'Pot that away,' Bravo said, without looking at Khalif, because Jenny had moved a pace and now he could see that she was with another woman: Camille, his Camille. What in the world was going on?
He began to walk toward the table where the two women sat, chatting as if they were friends-no, something in their attitude convinced him that the connection between them had become more intimate.
'Bravo, do you think this is wise?' Khalif said.
'Stand guard here,' Bravo answered him. 'Keep your hand on your gun, if you must, but don't try to stop me.'
Khalif didn't, and though he was filled with foreboding he waved Mikhail's men to sit back down. He'd heard that tone of voice before, from Dexter Shaw, and he knew better than to interfere.
Camille paused in midsentence, and Jenny saw the woman's eyes shift to a spot behind and just to the right of her. She turned. At the sight of Bravo her heart thudded in her breast and the sudden quick rush of blood to her head made her dizzy. She wanted to rise and hit him, as surely she would have in the bazaar had the bullet from the assassin's gun not struck the merchant beside her. She tasted blood in her mouth, and realized that she had bitten her lip.
'I want to speak with you,' he said as he came up. 'Now.' Her hands balled into fists, but then she realized
