Chapter 9

The Plaza On The River

Lucas pushed the door closed with a firm shove, they certainly didn't need any witnesses. Kate pulled him into the room, her arms circling his waist. He stroked a long elegant finger along her cheek before he cupped her face in his hands, lowering his head to claim her mouth in soft tender kiss. Teasing and tasting, until on a moan of pleasure her mouth opened as he deepened the kiss, wanting more, his tongue sliding in and exploring. Her hands pulled his shirt free of his jeans and slid beneath the soft material to caress his back, her gentle touch causing his muscles to ripple in anticipation. Pulling her closer, his fingers playing with the short silky strands of her hair as he changed the angle of his kiss, his teeth scraping over her lips causing heat to spread down her body. Her tongue slid over his as she returned his kisses with equal passion.

Lucas' hands slid to her blouse caressing her through the thin material. It wasn't enough, he needed to feel her soft silky skin. His left hand pulled her shirt free of her jeans as his right hand moved beneath the hem. All the time they kissed endlessly taking it in turns to lead.

Kate pulled away slightly, tugging at Lucas' shirt.

"Please Lucas' I want to see you, touch you," she whispered.

Reluctantly he released his hold and allowed her to pull his shirt over his head. Kate's eyes widened in surprise, the tattoos had gone from his chest. She slowly walked around him, her fingers softly grazing his skin as she moved. The domes remained on his back but all the other marks that had blemished his skin had gone. She wondered why but now wasn't the time to ask. She stood behind him her arms looped around his waist. Her hands moved to stroke his toned abdomen while she showered kisses over his back. Her tongue traced the outline of the domes. Eight of them was that significant? She moved back round, her finger tracing the area where the image of Blake had been.

Lucas saw the unasked question in her eyes.

"Later," he whispered.

He slowly undid the buttons of her blouse, revealing tempting glances of white lace as he revealed more of her body. He wanted to go slow, to saviour every second. He slowly slid the blouse from her shoulder trailing a line of kisses along her collar bone and to the soft skin at her neck. His hands moved to her back and he pulled her close.

"Let's get more comfortable before we continue this," he whispered moving her towards the bed.

She watched as he kicked off shoes and slid his jeans down. The outline of his erection visible through the thin material of his boxer shorts. He was slim of that there was no doubt but he was toned, his muscles rippling as he moved. Realising that she was lingering behind she removed her own boots and jeans. When she went to remove her bra he stopped her, reaching behind to undo the clasp himself. Stroking his hand slowly down the soft skin of her side until he reached her matching lace panties he slowly pulled them down stroking the cheeks of her buttocks and he thighs. Her golden skin darker than his own.
Once she was naked he removed his boxer shorts and lowered her to the bed.

"Lucas, are you on a deliberate go slow?" Kate murmured.

"Yes," he whispered just before he kissed her again.

His hands stroked and caressed her small breast cupping it his hand.

"I know they are tiny," she sighed.

"No small, delicate, perfect like you." His thumb moved across the pink tipped nipple.

She strained against him wanting more, but he would not be rushed stroking first one firm breast then the other, until he eventually took pity on her and gently took her nipple in his mouth, allowing his tongue to stroke her areola before giving in to her whispered demands and sucking gently on the taut peak.

Kate felt like she was on fire everywhere, his gentle sucking leaving her breathless. She grasped his head, her fingers tangling in his short dark hair, shorter than it had been in December. She writhed beneath him begging him for more. His gentle sucking became harder, faster his hands skimming her abdomen fanning the flames of passion. Heat pooled at her centre, her hips lifted pushing against him where she need his touch, telling where she needed his touch.

"Patience," Lucas whispered.

She trembled.

"Please Lucas I need….."

"You need what?" he asked as he stroked the soft skin of her inner thigh.

"I need you to touch me."

He returned his mouth to her nipple sucking hard as his hand moved to the junction of her thighs. Her legs parted allowing him to touch her quivering centre. A single stroke over her clitoris sent her flying as she climaxed fast and hard.

God she was so responsive Lucas thought as he began to stroke her. She was hot and wet, so damn wet. His cock throbbed, he was desperate to be inside her but he wanted to have her mindless with need for him. He slid two fingers deep inside her tight core slowly moving in and then withdrawing inch by inch, teasing her by waiting for several seconds before slowly pushing back in. She begged him to go faster and when he continued in the same slow fashion she grabbed his hand and increased his pace. Thrusting her hips to meet his fingers

"Oh God, please Lucas make me come again." He gently circled her clitoris over and over until her orgasm consumed her .

His heart was pounding, it was unbelievable how turned on he was just watching her climax. She looked so damn sexy when she came totally abandoning herself to the moment. Her head thrown back, her eyes wide and dark a flush of passion on her skin.

He needed to taste her so he gently pulled her to the edge of the bed. Sliding to his knees he pushed her legs wide apart leaving her exposed and open. He stroked the soft skin of her inner thigh before gently brushing kisses on her delicate skin. Kate was certain he was trying to kill her. Her hips lifted silently begging him to touch her centre. Unable to resist anymore he place his tongue on her straining clit, slowly licking her secret place. Her legs moved to his shoulders as his tongue slowly slid into her vagina. She tasted like honey. Someone as sassy as her should have tasted sharp, but she didn't, she tasted like sweet thick honey.

"Lucas please I need you inside me I can't come again. Not like this," she begged.

"Yes you can Kate. I am going to make it happen, just let go I'll catch you. Watch me as I make you come." His quiet words stunned her she had never had been multi orgasmic with anybody else but him.

He slid his fingers inside her wet warmth, all the while sucking and licking her straining clit. His fingers stroking her vaginal walls. He knew when he had found her secret spot, she trembled and her breath came out in little pants. Her hips bucked against him. She climaxed again against his fingers crying out his name.

He waited until her breathing returned to normal before moving them both back up the bed. He stroked her cheek.

"Now I am going to bury myself deep inside you and I am going to watch you come apart again and then I am going to come inside you." His tone deep and seductive, his eyes dark with passion, caused a frisson of electricity to pass through her body.

Pausing only to sheath himself with a condom he pushed deep inside. His control shattered at being encased in her. She was so hot and tight pushing up to meet him, her muscles clamping down on him. He tried to go slow with long deep strokes but desire slammed through him. No longer able to hold back he thrust hard and fast desperate to bring her to release. He felt her orgasm start deep in her core.

"That's it sweetheart come for me."

He watched her as he said he would and then he thrust into her again and again her legs moving around his waist pulling him in closer, her hand stroking his back before grabbing his buttocks urging him on. He climaxed whispering her name over and over again.

They dozed for a while, content just to lie in each others arms. Kate's head lay nestled in his shoulder her hand making lazy circles on his abdomen. She felt his gentle kiss against her hair. She reached to pull the duvet over them both. Looking up, she spoke first.

"You should come with a health warning North, sex like that could kill a girl."

"I take it I'm forgiven then?"

"Yeah."

"How was your afternoon with Jo and Ros?" he asked.

"Good, it was good . They are good people. Ros tries to be a hard ass but I suspect she is quite vulnerable. I asked her if she had slept with you and she said no. Was she close to Adam?"

"She told you about Adam?" Lucas was surprised. Ros must really like Kate to have discussed Adam.

"Yeah, how come nobody knows that it was an intelligence officer who died?"

"We didn't want the press knowing an officer had died. It's complicated a lot of what we do the public must never know of."

"So was she close to him? Adam I mean." Kate repeated the question.

"I don't know for sure, I never saw them together but I was with Ros when he died. Her reaction struck me as being of a lover not just a colleague. For a day it destroyed her, then that outer shield she has was back in place."

"What about Jo? I sense she was fond of him as well."

"He was the section head. Jo and him were on an operation that turned nasty. Our working relationships are very different to most peoples, we see, hear and do things that most people couldn't begin to understand. We are beyond close to each other. I never saw them together either but I would say he was like an older brother."

"When you say you did not see them together is that because you were in Russia?" she asked.

Lucas sighed, he knew they had to talk of Russia but that didn't mean he wanted to.

"Yeah I was in Russia. Adam was killed two days after I came back."

"You told me that you were away for eight years. Were you in Russia all that time?"

"Yes," Lucas replied dully.

"Were you undercover or something?" Kate asked remembering he had said he could not come back.

"Yeah initially I was. I got a call from Harry on that Sunday morning I left you. I was in Russia by the evening."

"Only initially, what about the rest of the time?" she asked.

"The whole operation went tits up forty eight hours in. I was found out and arrested. I was a prisoner for eight years."

"Eight years," Kate whispered. Her arms tightened round him instinctively offering comfort and support. Hadn't she always suspected he had spent time in a Russian prison, from the moments she had seen the tattoos?

She lifted up and studied his face, the pain so evident in his exquisite blue eyes. She stroked his cheek. She had no idea what to say, how could anybody know what to say? She couldn't begin to imagine what it must have been like taken away from everything that you knew and love. Her mind returned to her comments from yesterday .

"Of course you wouldn't have a clue about that, would you Lucas? Being held against your will, not knowing what you've done. Not knowing when or if you will be able to go home."

"Oh shit, Lucas I'm sorry for what I said yesterday, that's why you collapsed isn't it?"

"Hey you didn't know, no blaming yourself. I had a flashback to the prison that's why I passed out."

"How did it happen? How did the operation go tits up in the first place."

Lucas sighed, he could lie make up some clever story but he wanted to be honest with her. He had told Elizaveta too many lies.

"I was sold out by a double agent."

Her mind protested, this only happened in films and novels not real life. Spies and double agents, what kind of world had she been drawn into?

"Do you know who?"

"It was Connie." The pain of her betrayal was still raw.

"Connie who died defusing the bomb?" she whispered.

"Yes we found her out. It's funny because I knew her, or rather her reputation as an excellent officer before I went to Russia, she was a legend. I said as much to her when I returned. I should have realised when her response was 'the stuff of nightmares' that something was not right. After she was exposed as a traitor she cut a deal; she would help us locate and defuse a nuclear bomb and we would give her a new life and protection."

"A nuclear bomb!" Kate stared at him in disbelief.

"Yeah you'll never believe how close we came."

"Lord no wonder you all looked at me so strangely."

"Anyway she realised that she would die disarming the bomb to prevent it going critical and seconds before she died she told me she was the one who had betrayed me."

"Lucas I don't know what to say, eight years in a Russian jail. I can't begin to imagine the hell it must have been or how you survived," said Kate sympathetically.

"Oh you know it wasn't so bad, some of these Russian prisons even have beds and cold showers. I think Billy Butlin gave them the blue print." As a joke it was feeble Lucas knew, but it had become second nature to laugh it off.

She reached over and touched his lips.

"Lucas you don't have to pretend with me. I am not Ros or Harry."

"Thank God," he half smiled. "I have an eidetic memory. I was able to retreat into my memories a lot of the time," Lucas explained." I would watch films, listen to music, and re- read my favourite novels all in my mind."

"A photographic memory how fascinating, that explains your recall of my office. That must make life interesting?"

"It is both a blessing and a burden," he replied cryptically.

"Did they torture you? Scrub that, stupid question of course they did. I am sorry Lucas tell me to shut up," she said.

"I sense you wanted to know about the tattoos?" Lucas looked at her.

She stroked his chest.

"I know that they are part of the culture and I am guessing the ones on your back represent the eight years you were imprisoned, but that is all."

"Yes, the trick to surviving prison is to fit in. In Russia you fit in or you die," Lucas explained. "So I chose to fit in. On the rare occasions I was not in solitary confinement I had these done. The prisoners use tattoos as a way of signalling both their contempt for the system and to indicate the criminal hierarchy. I also saw them done as punishment, men held down screaming while they were branded, almost like God marking Cain in the bible.

A prisoners initiation tattoo is usually done on the chest. I chose Blake's "Ancient of Days" I'm not sure why. Maybe because it depicts Urizen, who was the embodiment of law and conventional reason. The place I was trapped in was a place where the laws and reasoning were far from conventional. Or perhaps it was just because I liked the picture."

"How did they know the picture?" Kate asked.

"I drew it for them and they copied it. Tattoos done in a Russian prison have this distinct bluish colour the outline is blurred because of the lack of instruments to draw fine lines. The ink is created from burning the heel of a shoe and mixing the soot with urine." He watched her expression change to one of horror. "I know disgusting or what. It's injected into the skin using a sharpened guitar string attached to an electric shaver. I can't begin to explain the pain of having this done nor the risks, sitting in a filthy dirty cell. Using make do equipment. Many prisoners developed serious infections and quite a few died. I developed one myself. I nearly died, septicaemia," he explained. "I was in the hospital wing for months." He didn't add that he wished he had died.

"I hated them, when I returned home I felt so dirty and unclean. It didn't matter that unbelievably I had not picked up hepatitis or HIV, I stank. I'm not sure the stench of the prison will ever leave me. No matter how many times I scrub myself I never feel clean. The tattoos were such a visible reminder. I had to get rid of them. I am having them removed with Laser. Don't hate me I am having them done privately how bad is that. The only good thing is they seem to be responding well to the Laser."

Her heart bled for him, how many times had he scrubbed himself in those first days of freedom? What must it be like to feel so dirty?

"The problem though is in here," He touched his temple. "I still see them so vividly. I still feel the pain of having them done. I cannot erase them in here"

The pain in his voice almost killed her, she rested her head back on his chest digesting all he had said. He shivered, as if he were cold she reached beneath the covers finding his hand, her fingers linked with his in silent support.

"Maybe you need to replace them with a different image, can you do that? I don't know a lot about eidetic memories," she said.

"I can block some things. it's a bit like putting them in a folder like on a computer I guess. I then have to search to find the image in my brain. I have blocked a lot of what happened in Russia," Lucas explained.

"Ok so let's try something. Everywhere there was a tattoo I will give you another memory."

She moved slightly capturing his wrist, her fingers tracing the area where the tattoo had been. She replaced her fingers with her mouth. He watched as she slowly licked the area causing the pulse to beat erratically.

"Show me where the tattoos were Lucas. This laser treatment is very good I cannot see any scarring."

He pointed to his left arm where he had had the words "I don't hear nothing, I don't see nothing, I won't tell nothing to nobody" written. And he hadn't for eight long years he had never told them a thing. Even when he had felt so alone, betrayed and abandoned; he had remained loyal.

He had never thought of his arm as being an erogenous zone but the way she was kissing licking and nibbling his flesh was certainly turning him on. She moved to kiss his chest where the Blake Image "Ancient of Days" had been so prominent. Her lips grazed his nipples and he groaned in pleasure, as he felt his cock harden in anticipation. She kissed her way down his abdomen spending an age kissing his lower abdomen over where "Know Thy Self" had be written.

"Kate if you are planning to kiss the tattoos I have had removed from my back that might prove uncomfortable." He groaned as his erection became harder still.

She smiled as she moved lower her hand encircling his throbbing cock.

"Ah Kate, I never had a tattoo there," he gasped

"That's alright we'll just pretend."

She slowly stroked the length of his shaft moving slowly from it's tip to his balls. Again and again she repeated the motion. When a bead of fluid appeared she rubbed it slowly into the head of his cock while she gently stroked and squeezed his balls.

"Please Kate stopping teasing me," Lucas groaned.

"Tell me what you want Lucas." Her voice breathless, her core wet and ready for him.

"I want you to straddle me and slowly take me in your body. I want to watch you as we make love."

She pushed him on to his back and reached for a condom but before applying it, she took him into her mouth and worshipped him with her lips and tongue. She stopped only when he begged her to.

She sheathed his penis and then slowly lowered herself over him. She moved so slowly almost withdrawing completely before sliding back down. He had no idea how long she did this, time had no meaning, she was like a Goddess worshipping at an altar. Her hands roamed over his body, His hips moved impatiently, he wanted so much more.

"Kate ride me, ride me hard. Please I want to forget, just for tonight help me forget."

His hands moved to her hips as he showed her the pace he needed. She arched back taking more of him in. His no longer the only moans and gasps of pleasure. She looked magnificent with her back arched, her pert breasts thrust up, her skin luminous with passion. His hands were everywhere gliding and caressing her slender body. Then he reached down to where they were joined finding and stroking her sex until they both spiralled into release seconds apart.

Kate collapsed on to his chest and as their breathing slowed she moved to his side. His arms snaked round her.

"Please don't leave me, don't let go of me tonight," he pleaded.

"It's Ok Lucas I am not going anywhere," she replied simply.

She reached to turn the light off.

"Please leave the light on dim…" he looked away ashamed to speak any more. Ashamed to admit he was scared of the dark.

Kate adjusted the light to dim without asking questions. Although not yet nine o'clock, cradled in his arms, she watched as he slipped into a deep sleep. She realised they had barely touched the surface of his time in Russia, and was left to wonder how many demons still haunted this man.

Outside the hotel two men watched, neither aware of the others presence, as the light in the room went dim. They both concluded that Lucas North would not be returning home that night.