Read Online Seduced by a Spy by Andrea Pickens - Free Book Online Page A

the onerous task, duty demands I set personal feeling aside. Let us try to get it over with as quickly as possible.”
    Catching her hand, Orlov turned it and kissed the inside of her wrist. “You wound me anew with your scorn,
golub
. Come, let us agree to be friends, at least for this fleeting interlude.”
    Shannon was suddenly aware of a heat shooting through her. A strange fire, that threatened to melt her defenses. For a flickering instant, she found herself tempted to surrender to his suggestion. Then, coming to her senses, she yanked her fingers free. “You are wasting your charms, Mr. Orlov.”
    Her skittishness provoked a smile from him. “Am I?” he murmured with a smoky seductiveness. His accent added an exotic edge that made her itch to touch the golden stubbling on his jaw. “I wager I could make you ask me to conquer you,
golub
,” he added, fixing her with a lazy, lidded gaze. The gleam of his pirate earring added a rakish wink.
    “You are very sure of yourself,” she snapped.
    “I know my desires. Do you?”
    She didn’t answer.
What a ridiculous question
. Of course she knew what she wanted. Not him—that was for sure. The last thing she needed in her life was an arrogant, infuriating male.
    Yet beneath the show of acerbic wit, was there a glimmer of some deeper emotion in his eyes? At certain moments, an odd sort of stirring seemed to peek through the cocksure banter.
    Longing?
For what?
    “If we are to be sequestered in each other’s company, we could at least try to converse.” His sardonic drawl cut short her musing. “Tell me something of yourself. What brought you to join Lord Lynsley’s flock?”
    Shannon set her teeth. “I am not about to share the intimate details of my life with you, Mr. Orlov.”
    “If I were seeking intimacies, I would know just where to find them,
golub
.”
    “What you would find, sirrah, was your head handed to you on a platter.” Cutting through the twist of linen, she set it aside and reached for the jar of salve. “And stop calling me by that ridiculous name. It means ‘pigeon,’ does it not?”
    “In Russian, it also means ‘dove.’” The low lamplight limned the nuanced curves of his mouth. A pliant, playful humor curled at its corners, at odds with the arctic chill that sometimes hardened his eyes to slivers of ice.
That
was a look that sent shivers down her spine. At the moment, however, there was naught but a faint twinkle. “It was meant as a peace offering of sorts. What would you prefer that I call you? Olive?”
    Shannon bit back a snort, hoping she sounded angry, rather than amused. She did not wish him to know she found his irreverent teasings entertaining.
    “I don’t imagine Olivia would be any more acceptable.”
    “Indeed not. It reminds me of a spinster aunt, who makes herself useful by darning stockings.”
    Orlov exaggerated a shudder. “I can imagine you engaged in many activities involving a pointed implement, but darning is not one of them.”
    “Do you never tire of making sexual innuendoes?” she challenged. “If you are hoping to put me to blush, you are wasting your time. My sensibilities are not those of an innocent maiden.”
    “And yet…” Steepling his fingers, Orlov ran his gaze the length of her body. “You
are
innocent.”
    To her dismay, she felt her cheeks begin to burn. “You don’t know anything about me,” she replied. Even to her own ears, the retort sounded shrill. Covering her confusion, she turned away and took a book from her bag of supplies.
    “Not your name, perhaps. But there are other elemental things that a woman expresses without words. They are in the way she moves, the way she smiles—”
    “Bollocks,” she swore. “You see what you
want
to see, Mr. Orlov. And your vision is colored by your own hubris.” She snapped open the travelworn cover. “Don’t think for an instant that I will ever be impaled on your conceit.”
    After a stretch of silence, he shifted in the narrow