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breast. The woman hadn’t come here for him. If she had, Mademoiselle Chloe would not have been so quick to push him away. Even a mediocre operative would know that sleeping with the enemy was the best way to find out what you needed to know, and most men were at their most vulnerable when they were fucking.
    He wasn’t most men. He had ice water in his veins, in his cock, and even in the middle of an orgasm he was a dangerous man. Chloe wouldn’t know that—she was inept enough to betray her knowledge of languages within moments of arriving, and she would have taken the bait he’d dangled in front of her if he were really her target.
    Which means she was after someone else. Normally that wouldn’t matter to him—he had a job to do and whoever she was there to watch would have to take care of himself.
    But this whole affair had been in the works for too many months, and he wasn’t going to let an unexpected player destroy everything he’d worked so hard for.
    He slid his hand inside Monique’s silk gown. She wasn’t wearing a bra, and she was hot for him, as she always was. Her husband was old and compliant, as long as she gave him details about her adventures, and he expected the old man had even watched them once or twice. It had neither excited nor bothered him. He could perform with or without an audience, and in the end his partner was unimportant if they were the means to an end.
    Monique had no particular value at that point. He’d found out everything he needed from her at their last meeting, but it wouldn’t do to lose interest too quickly. She would be less trouble if he pulled up her skirt and did her against the cool stone wall of the château, in the shadows.
    They would be seen, of course. By security cameras, by the armed guards patrolling with such impeccable deference. Hakim would probably have them taped, and provide a copy of it to the old man, as well as any one else with the right price.
    He put his hands between her legs and she moaned in his mouth. She wasn’t wearing underwear either, in his honor, no doubt. She was groping for his zipper, and he knew she expected him to be hard. He willed it, by thinking of the look on her face when she came, and hereached for his fly with his other hand, ready to accommodate her, when he realized it wasn’t her face he was envisioning. It was the inept Miss Chloe.
    And suddenly he wasn’t in the mood. Instead of unzipping his trousers he simply took her hand away, and with his other he made her come, instantly, so hard that she screamed as her body went rigid.
    Not a good idea. He put his hand over her mouth and she bit, hard. Monique liked rough fun and games, and he knew she was trying to draw blood.
    He put a stop to that, and the whimper that came from the back of her throat was like a female tiger who’d just been mounted. Monique was like a cat—ruthless, amoral, impervious to ordinary pain. A good match for him.
    But he wasn’t interested. He pulled away, letting her skirt fall down around her perfect legs, and she leaned back against the stone wall, mouth open, panting, her eyes glazed with satisfaction. She had blood on her mouth, the bitch. He should have paid better attention.
    “That was…interesting,” she said, her voice a husky purr. “But we’ve only just begun.”
    “We’ve finished,” he said, and the words surprised him. He’d intended to string her along. After all, the last time he’d been with her was over four months ago, and some recreational sex would have only honed his senses.
    But he didn’t want her, and there was nothing to begained by having her. There were too many unanswered questions about the nervous woman who’d arrived that afternoon and looked at him as if he were crème brûlée and froze when he touched her.
    “What do you mean?” Monique demanded.
    He leaned over and kissed her full, red lips, taking his own blood with it. “We’ve had a good time, you and I, but don’t you think it’s past