One-Shot: Red Sparrow Kiss

"Dominika Egorova." The sound of the name rang out in the glitzy gala hall in the heart of Russia. A stunningly beautiful, blonde woman turned at the address, a glass of champagne dangling listlessly in her palm. She regarded the salutation with barely-masked surprise.

"You know my name?"

"You told me," the handsome American, with a thin beard, explained as he approached her.

Dominika wasn't fooled. "You stole my ID from the pool," she guessed. It was a statement, not a question. She had to admit, she now remembered noticing him as they passed each other poolside. She had been about to enter for a swim; he had just been leaving, the water clinging to his muscled skin after just completing a workout.

"That would be illegal," the American, Nathaniel Nash, pointed out. Even so, a barely perceptible, nervous chuckle, emanated from his throat. Almost as if he was coyly asking, Who, me? Willing to deny everything, admit nothing. Dominika knew his type, knew it all too well. "Were you just looking for me?"

"I'd know where to find you if I was," Dominika neither confirmed nor denied, as she downed a sip from her wine glass.

"Listen, I'm curious, did you want me to know that you were following me, or are you just real clumsy?" Ah. So he thought he had her figured out too. This American was smooth. Very smooth. Even Dominika had to concede that. But then again, American spies were into that style these days, trying to project their best James Bond impression. Sometimes it passed. Sometimes it didn't.

"You Americans always think the rest of us are so interested in you, don't you?" she purred her put-down. Clearly, he was flirting with her. Dominika had to put him in his place... for now.

Nathaniel finished a slug of red wine. "So what made you want to become a translator?" he probed, deliberately avoiding her last question.

Dominika blinked, a rare moment of surprised vulnerability flashing across her face. She had been trained to view any question, no matter how innocently asked or innocuously floated, as an interrogation. The truth must never be freely given, provided she could be sure that it would do her no harm in the future. Even so... "My mother is unwell. If I work for the government, the state helps me take care of her." The explanation - the truth - flowed from her with a strange freedom. And it wasn't because the wine had rushed to her head. On the contrary, she hadn't had that much to drink this evening. "My uncle helped me get the job."

"Your uncle is a very powerful man," Nathaniel observed. Clearly, he knew of him.

"In my country, if you do not matter to the men in power, you do not matter," Dominika shrugged. She knew better than most that she should be grateful to have such friends - family, even - in high places.

"Hey, I'd like to see you again," Nathaniel plowed right on. Whoo, boy. He dove right into that one hot and heavy. Was he that desperate? For intelligence? Or something else... All right, she would play along.

Dominika smirked. She had all the power now. And she wasn't going to relinquish it, not for a second. "Why? Are we going to become friends?" A little flirting back never, ever hurt.

"Is that what you want?" Nathaniel challenged.

She shrugged again, not bothered. "I don't have any."

"There's a Russian restaurant right by the Alp. Have dinner with me there."

Dominika threw back on her cold, almost uninterested mask, even as she accepted the date. "Tomorrow at 8."

"OK." And she slid past him and away.

Sometime later that following evening, in a private hotel room, Dominika stepped close to Nathaniel and gently kissed him. He returned the kiss eagerly, as her hand slid from the marbled surface of the sink and and reached up to grasp his biceps. Even as Nathaniel's hands reached out to cup her face.

He popped out of the kiss abruptly, staring down in Dominika's pretty face, his hands cradling her jawline. Both leaned back in as one, their mouths opening up to each other even as they crashed back into a more fiery kiss. Nathaniel picked Dominika up by her thighs, lifting her gingerly onto the sink. She gave a breathy pant, moaning a little in her arousal, as Nathaniel began to undress her. The two enemy spies began to make love...