that.” Nadja pointed to the diamond-and-ruby ring on Casmir’s finger. “I see you’re still wearing the ring he gave you. Why is that? If you’re trying to forget—”
“I don’t ever want to forget.” Casmir held up her hand and studied the priceless bauble on her slender finger. “This reminds me of what can happen when you start to enjoy your work too much. Luckily I came to my senses in time. Yurii was not a nice man.”
“There are no nice men, Cass. They only exist in a weak woman’s mind.”
“I’m beginning to believe that. Who do you think will be going to Austria?” Casmir asked, changing the subject. “I hope it’s not me. I just got back from Munich and I’m still trying to catch up on my sleep.”
“Unlike you, I was hoping it would be me,” Nadja admitted. “But I overslept this morning, and you know how Polax feels about scheduled appointments. He’s probably already crossed me off the list for walking through the front door late.”
She gave Casmir an oh-well shrug, though in her heart she felt sick about the lost chance. She needed to be on that plane bound for Austria. It was the only way to find out what had happened to Ruger.
“I’ll be back with the coffee,” she said.
It had been five years since he’d seen her. But Bjorn remembered that night in Vienna like it was yesterday.
He’d been on Onyxx business, and Nadja was most likely on similar business for Quest. Although at the time, who she was or where she worked hadn’t been important. The only thing he had cared about when he’d seen her was celebrating the end of a long four-month field mission by getting laid.
He had gone out to a keller for a bite to eat and had just finished his meal when she’d entered the small restaurant wearing knee-high black boots, snowflakes in her wild blond hair.
She was breathless, her nose and cheeks as red as her wool cape. It wasn’t the same wool cape she was wearing when she stepped into the elevator today, but the similarities had been uncanny. So much so that it had put him back in Vienna in a blink of an eye.
That night she had made a quick search of the keller, located the rear exit, then left as quickly as she had appeared. He’d read the signs, knew she was on the run. He’d paid for his meal, then followed her, his plan self-serving. Help her out of her tight spot—whatever it was—then later, if she was willing, out of her clothes.
With that in mind, he’d stepped out the back door just as gunfire erupted in the alley. As bullets ricocheted off the brick walls, he had grabbed her hand and raced for cover.
On the run, she had pulled her .45 from her thigh holster and returned fire. Her smooth moves and unruffled response had assured him that she was no novice at dodging bullets and getting out of tight spots.
It had been cold as hell that night, and after they had eluded the gunman, he had hot-wired a car and driven them to an inn on the outskirts of the city. Inside a spartan room, safe from the outside world and the nasty weather, Nadja had expressed her gratitude as she had pulled the red cape from her shoulders.
He’d suggested a hot shower to warm her up—she was shivering—and when she’d agreed, he’d gone into the bathroom and turned on the water.
On his way out, and on her way in, she had given him a look. Her sexy soft-brown eyes…the door left ajar…
An invitation?
No man would have seen it differently.
From the bedroom he’d enjoyed the show as she removed her boots, then the custom-made Springfield along with the red leather holster strapped to her thigh. He’d watched her slip off her silk stockings and red garter belt. Then her panties and bra.
With each piece she dropped to the floor, his blood had surged hotter and hotter, until… Until he’d stashed his two .38’s under the mattress and entered the bathroom.
His plan of sweeping her off her feet hadn’t been necessary. He had stripped and stepped into the shower, and had been backed up against the wall immediately. She had put his cock inside her so damn quick that he hadn’t lasted three minutes the first time. But then, neither had she. She’d gone off like a firecracker.
The second time had been almost as quick.
But the third…
Polax was wrong about Nadja’s endurance.
Looking back on that night, she had never broken a sweat. Not while they had been on the run, or after an hour in the shower. When she’d stepped out, he’d stayed inside. He’d needed a minute to recover from the most amazing sex he’d ever experienced.
He’d shut the hot water off and stood under a blast of cold to clear his head, then emerged from the bathroom minutes later determined to start round two. But to his surprise and disappointment, she was gone. Gone but not forgotten.
With his gift for remembering details, the woman in red had been engraved in his memory for all eternity.
They continued to stroll the museum now, Bjorn in tailored navy blue pants and a navy Henley sweater, his flaxen hair brushing his shoulders. His look—that of a man who had seen more in his thirty-eight years than most men twice his age. Merrick was dressed in his usual all-black attire. A stark contrast to his silver hair and neatly trimmed steel-gray beard.
On the way back to the elevator, Bjorn stopped in front of a narrow window. There, overlooking the River Vltava, he silently considered the situation. He could think of a hundred places he’d rather be in January. It was snowing again, and the temperature was a bone-chilling twenty-two degrees. Austria would be no better.
He hated cold weather. As a kid in Copenhagen, he’d spent too many nights freezing his ass off in dark alleyways. Worse, he hated what those cold nights had forced him to become.
Still, this chilly trip had proven to be interesting. It really was good to see her again. To see that she was alive and looking so well.
He had never met a woman who could match his sexual appetite. But that night she had more than done so. She had driven him over the edge, and followed after him without any hesitation or reservations.
Normally he didn’t care about conversing with the women who fell into his bed. But over the years he had never been able to forget the lady in red and the wild, hot sex they had shared in that shower in Vienna. And often he had wondered what she would have said the next morning if she had stayed to wake up beside him.
They were in an elevator headed back into the underworld of the Vysehrad when Merrick said, “It’s settled then. We’ll tell Polax you’ve made your choice, and you want the—”
“Brunette,” Bjorn injected. “My choice is Pasha Lenova. Polax’s rain-or-shine femme.”
Chapter 3
Nadja left the conclave and walked to the end of the hall. She was just rounding the corner when she spied him standing next to a bank of elevators with his back to her. She knew it was him. Knew because there was no way she would ever forget that stance, or that ass—bare or otherwise.
In his sleek dark pants, he owned the stance. Solid and sure, his fair hair grazing his shoulders.
He was talking to a man dressed in black. The man was older, and she recognized him—who wouldn’t recognize the all-impressive Adolf Merrick, the legendary Isis from Onyxx?
Nadja slipped back around the corner and leaned against the wall, her thoughts completely suspended. After the initial shock waned, her brain began to toss out questions. The first being, what the hell was he doing here with Adolf Merrick? The second, did he know she was an agent here at Quest?
The memory of that night in Vienna and of him washed over her. He’d been amazingly resourceful. On the run together, he’d proven to be a quick thinker, and an even quicker man of action. And at the inn…
Nadja unconsciously