Chapter 4 Russian Spies and Dessert

The next morning Bond got up early and went to the pool for work, after he had the now chastised and cooperative judge Jarrod released by the men watching him all night. The man promised that he would stay in and play sick for the day and Bond told him he would make sure of it.

Bond told him if he even saw him within 25 feet of M he would shoot him in the head. Bond had Johnson stay with him to keep him out of trouble for the day.

Bond managed a moment with M after aquatics class. "M what time should I be there for dinner?"

"You were not invited for dinner. I will have them there by myself and ask Ivan and Elsa some pointed questions. I am positive I have the right man, it's just to find out who Elsa is working for, if anyone at all."

"M it's too dangerous, confronting spies like this could be dangerous. I have to be there to protect you." Bond's concern must be evident, M's features softened as she placed her hand on his arm.

"Bond, I will call you if I feel there is any threat. That is the best I can do and this is my mission, not yours." The women M chums around with were watching them interact from the side of the pool. The smug looks on their faces made M sigh. They would not let this drop once they got her alone, that was sure.

It was bad enough the innuendos flying around at cards yesterday after they caught James a her flat in nothing but his trousers, all wet and...and. M was becoming distracted by his lips again as he stared at her and she could feel the flush rushing over her face.

Bond waved over to the other women with a huge smile on his face. "M I will check on you later. Your friends are desperate for your attention now."

"No my friends, as you call them are desperate for your attention, not mine." M said as he patted his arm again and moved away to join Janice, Doris and a few of the other from swim class.

"Oh M!" James called out to her as she joined her friends. "I think that swimsuit you wore today looked smashing!" The cheeky bugger had the nerve to wink at her, making all the women giggle and practically swoon.

One woman Carol made a snide remark about M being a floozy and then marched away with her friends, Elizabeth and Iva.

"Don't mind them Em. Their just jealous. Speaking of jealous, we haven't seen Jarrod today. Have you?" Doris asked.

"No I haven't seen him since last night." M added.

"Oh, so he did walk you home last night." Janice said suggestively.

"Yes he saw me to the door and then told me he was not feeling well so he went straight home." M stated.

"I bet it was all that trying to puff up and make you notice him over your young, gorgeous pool man, physiotherapist." Doris said exaggeratedly as they walked to the lunch room. Looking around the room, Doris scanned for Jarrod.

"You must have broken Jarrod dear, because he has not missed lunch in years." Janice said with a laugh as they took their seats and began talking about what their favourite part of James Bond's anatomy was.

M had difficulty keeping a straight face though much of it. Doris and Janice loved pointing out how flushed she got, as they described everything from his chest and arms to the fit of his pants.

After lunch M excused herself to go home to get ready for dinner with Elsa and Ivan. The two women knew that she had dinner planned for this evening.

Bond watched M from a distance, after he showered and got dressed. As staff, he was allowed one meal a day, which he enjoyed from a location that would not be in the direct line of fire from an angry M.

M was cold to him today, her embarrassment from these other women may be part of it. To make her feel uncomfortable just doing something as casual as touching his arm after aquatics was telling. It would be something that M would do, give him a sliver of hope yesterday just to pull it all away today. M cared too much about what other people thought. Although, he assumed that she would have to as M, if it meant keeping her job.

Bond's main job in coming here, was to protect her and he did just that. He will continue to look after her until she was back at home under normal guard. Regardless of how much time it took Bond to make her see his seduction was genuine, he would continue to try. She was the one woman he would never give up on.

M spent that late afternoon cooking. Elsa and Ivan arrived promptly at 6:30 and M told them of Jarrod's cancellation, as she served them drinks.

They enjoyed dinner and began to eat the lovely dessert Elsa brought. M began some casual questioning of Ivan but M felt groggy after the second forkful. She noticed suddenly that Ivan was asleep in his chair, but Elsa was very much awake as she stared intently at her.

"So Emma, are you going to tell us why were are really here?" Elsa said as her accent slipped to something far more Russian.

"What are you doing here? What did you do to me?"

"I drugged the dessert. You're MI6. That Bond man, that started working here is definitely MI6. But what I really want to know, is are you who I think you are?"

"No...what are you protecting...Ivan's secrets?"

"The blubbering old fool is losing his mind. He feels guilt for the past...the time of the Soviets and the KGB. He was an agent that slipped away in the late 1980's and needed to be monitored. I am getting whatever he can remember from him and then I will kill him. You will die tonight after the effects make you sleep. By the time MI6 figures it all out, I will be in Moscow."

"I have...doubts you will succeed."

Elsa laughed maniacally. "How can you even suggest rescue?"

"I have...I have an...an agent that never listens...to orders."

"That sounds like a shoddy employee...M. Yes; I guessed your true position. There are no agents in your service old enough to come here, . William Tanner is the Chief of Staff for the head of MI6. This much I have uncovered. I will report in, the moment you are dead and then I will leave."

M's arms were so heavy, but under the table her mobile is active with a line open to James. The next sound heard was a soft silenced "pop!" As a shot hit Elsa and she collapsed dead on the table.

James' stood in the shadowed entry way, his smoking gun in his hand. "I always knew you would need me again. I knew you would need me to stay."

M battled the pull of the drug, as Ivan moaned. "I knew you wouldn't stay...away...but James..."

"Yes M?"

"What took you...so long?" Luckily M only had two small forkfuls of the dessert.

"I was never far from you regardless of your orders M." Bond said with a smile as he moved to the table.

"If she hadn't wanted...to explain everything to me...I'd be dead." M protested slowly, fighting the drugs raging through her system.

Bond handcuffed Ivan to his chair, as he rested his gun on the table with the remainder of the tainted dessert. Bond then moved to M and knelt by her feet.

"Actually I was already here I just wanted to make a killer entrance." He smirked at her.

M patted his hand on the table and laughed. "I will never complain...about your breaking...and entering again 007. Now...call this in for me...and take me to bed."

Bond smiled a broad smile as he scooped her up in his arms. "With pleasure M, with pleasure."

"I did say...to call it in first." M said as she giggled in his arms.

"Already done, so now for the good part." James climbed the stairs with her while M still managed to complain. Even under the spell of a knockout drug this woman managed to order him around.

"Put me...down Bond. You need to stay...to watch Ivan... until they come to collect us...and clean the scene."

"I cuffed him to the chair, he's drugged out of it, much like someone else I know. Only he must have eaten more cake than you."

"I got the right man...then didn't I?"

"Yes M, you did. Now what are you going to do with him?" Bond added suggestively.

"Ivan...not you...you bothersome...man. I will question him...he can live with one of our nurses...in a private facility."

"Then whatever should I do with you M?" Bond said looking at her cradled in his arms with a very suggestive smirk on his face.

"I'm drugged too...you would not….take advantage...of a drugged woman...would you?"

"Damn your logic woman! Can you not? Are you really that drugged? Or are you having a go with me?"

M laughed in his arms as he dropped her legs to the floor in her room to see if she was able to stand and walk. M managed to walk the few paces to her bed and laid down. Bond helped her remove her shoes. Bond tossed her bag from the closet onto the end of her bed and began packing her bags. M laid back on a pile of pillow against the headboard, relaxed, but still watching him like a hawk.

"Hey...get out of my knickers...007!"

"I'm packing for you M. We will be leaving within the next hour. Once the clean up crew arrives. I will drive you home to London and your flat. Hopefully, by then you've sobered up and be able to let me have it with everything you've got."

M laughed. "Both barrels….now get out of my...undergarments 007." Bond growled at the word play and hoped that she would consent to letting him stay over with her. They really needed to continue what they began yesterday in her kitchen.

"M, I think it's about time all this sexual tension was released."

"Oh you do...do you...and then what?"

"What do you mean?"

"Then...do you leave me?" M picked fluff off the blanket but her eyes would occasionally lift to see what Bond's reaction was.

Bond frowned as he stopped packing and sat beside her on the bed. Bond took her hand and brought it to his lips. He kissed her hand and turned to look at her.

"I would never leave you M. You haven't even successfully ordered me from your home and made it stick. You are stuck with me whether you want me or not."

M rolled her eyes. "Lucky me. I guess it's about time...I found someone who makes me...feel this way again."

"What way M?"

"Young...desirable...useful."

"You are all that and more M. Never doubt that, nor my love for you."

"Easy for you...to say...when I'm essentially...drunk."

"I have; in my own way been telling you for years, if you would have but acknowledged me, you damn stubborn woman."

"Tomorrow...we will deal with it all tomorrow." M said, her eyes closed and her voice became distant. M was drifting in and out of consciousness, but still fighting to stay awake, if to do nothing more than to argue with Bond. He was enjoying having rescued her far too much for her liking. She would like to wipe that arrogant smirk of his damn sexy face.

"I'm going to hold you to that M. If you don't accept me, maybe I will have you committed to one of these places for real." James got up off the bed and continued packing her bag, disappearing into the bath to collect more items.

"Don't you bloody dare! I hate old people...and retirement homes!" M yelled after him as she sprung back into awareness, just to continue arguing with Bond.

Bond came back into the room with all her toiletries and dumped them in one of her bags.

"M in reality you would have been running this place within a week. If you had come here as yourself and not Tanner's bloody widowed mother." He zipped the bags and placed them on the floor at the foot of the bed.

"Not going to happen...I would rather go...out in a blaze of glory...than in a place like this."

"Come on M it's not that bad. Should I take you to medical because of the drugs in your system?"

M managed to arch her brows, while glaring at him with a look of steel. The drug was still trying to pull her down.

"No...don't bother...and it's not...going to happen, I'm never coming...to one of these places. Come to bed...I'm not that old...yet."

James realized that the clean up crew would be there within the hour, but the least he could do was to hold this glorious woman until she drifted off to sleep.

"No you're not that old." James said as he climbed in behind her and wrapped her in his arms.

"I could wipe that damnable insufferable smirk off your face...I could do very naughty things to you...to make it go away."

"Christ M! Promise me, that you will remember this conversation tomorrow M." Bond said urgently. The heat from their bodies and his overactive imagination was making it hard to ignore the longing to touch her skin and kiss her lips again.

"Ha! Fat chance of that...I would kiss you...if I wasn't so bloody tired...right now."

Bond groaned, lying with her and both of them still fully clothed. "It's like torture, M."

"Being in bed with me?"

"Clothed, yes."

M giggled. "I'm too bloody old for this Bond."

"For what M?"

"To fall in love."

"You're never too old for that M."

"Promise."

"Yes." Bond whispered in her hair as she finally fell to sleep.

Once M was soundly asleep, James would go downstairs and deal with the drugged Russian and the clean up crew.

Tomorrow, Bond would spend the entire day with M whether she liked it or not. If just to reminder her continuously about her drugged flirtatious conversation with him in her bed.

James now had a taste, and there was not a chance in hell that he would let her go. Not for any of her silly objections based on their age difference and their job.

This old age home taught him, and he hoped taught M, that there was not much difference in the attitude of people, young or old. The external appearance didn't show the burning fire of youth and life inside.

Bond's love for M had lived and changed throughout her marriage, beyond locked doors, her job and her age. There had never been a more perfect woman for him, than the one who had his heart from the moment she glared at him from across her desk years ago. If she should ever need a place like this in the future, he would follow her, just as he did here.

As long as each of them lived, Bond planned on being part of M's life. As she laid sleeping in his arms Bond realised that he was home.

The end