Bristow's Kryptonite
The implications of the situation are very apparent to Jack. He is dimly aware that a decade of watching Arvin Sloane damage and compromise Sydney is being repaid in one glorious orgy of action. He understands that this could be viewed as another move in the endless chess game between himself and Irina Derevko.
He refuses to admit he has always had an eye for an attractive woman with dark hair and eyes. Especially ones who take advantage of the situation and enjoy the studied motions of a seduction.
But Nadia is erasing the boundaries as easily as Sydney creates them, devouring them with her mouth against his throat. Her body is graceful and sexual pressed against his.
"This is wrong," he murmurs into her long, dark hair -- which is like her mother's. Nadia lifts her face toward his and her smile is bitterly humorous.
"Almost thou persuadest me," she says lightly, tapping him on the corner of his mouth. She reminds him that she is the castoff daughter, raised in an orphanage and a latecomer to the webs of betrayal, love, hate, and desire that connects them. There are worse things in Nadia's life than the knowledge she is seducing or being seduced by her sister's father, her father's best friend, and her mother's husband.
Jack crushes his objections against Nadia's lips, and they are warm and yielding. Her fingers grip against his shoulders, and her foot twists around his ankle. Despite her appearance and her oddly chipper demeanor, this is no innocent. Nadia has the genes of two devastatingly manipulative people hiding behind her beautiful eyes, and she has enough native wit to know what she's doing. Even if something were to go terribly wrong, there will be no hurt eyes raised to his later.
Nadia has chosen to sleep with him, and there is nothing in her makeup that allows her to be capable of regret.
Her hair and cheek brushes against him, and Jack gets another shock of dismay and desire. She smells like Irina, and the thought makes him gasp while Nadia lithely slides up his leg. Sydney wears a different perfume, uses crisper scents, is altogether more wholesome and American. Nadia, on the other hand, has the faint scent of sandalwood and cinnamon and leather that he associates with sex and danger. Jack can see the danger of enjoying the experience, even as he traces the outline of her ear with one fingertip.
But when has Jack ever avoided disaster by staying away? Especially with this family of women and their liquid, knowing eyes?
"You're very good at this," Nadia murmurs against Jack's ear. "I think I like you."
He erased her mother -- even now, Jack cannot think of Irina in concrete terms. What he did to her. Why he did it. But this woman has lost her mother, and he lied to her about it. He should warn her away and tell her to stay away.
Instead he pulls Nadia closer and tears her shirt from collar to hem, exposing her entire back in the mirror behind him. It arches beautiful, her spine clearly flexible, and the skin without a hint of a blemish. She is very much a Derevko, hot and wanting and unashamed of what she desires. Nadia finds her torn shirt a turn-on and pulls Jack by his tie toward the bed.
It's the very Derevko-ness of this woman that is irresistible, the stretch of her neck exposed and extended, the shower of wine-dark hair thrown back and the flicker of tongue used to wet lips. Jack is helpless against his own predilections. At the very least, he isn't resisting them very aggressively, not with Nadia urging him with a soft growl in her throat and bared breasts displayed aggressively, propped up on her elbows.
Slowly breaking eye contact, Jack lowers his head between her breasts, seducing this woman the way he has at least two other women of her blood. Nadia doesn't make a sound, but her heart speeds up as he leisurely cups each breast. As though they have all the time in the world, and that they are not on their way to a rescue of their mutual family member.
Nadia truly loves Sydney; and for that alone, Jack doesn't want to hurt her any more than necessary. But he is not a fool, and she is not a child, and nothing Sydney says will alter these facts.
She has the adaptable poker face of her kin, but the eyes sparkle with life and hope. They haven't taken it from her yet, and when she hauls him up to remove his shirt and pull him close against her, Jack is momentarily seduced by her youth and attitude. Even murderously angry, Nadia is alive and luxuriating in life and sex and action.
"I think I like you, too," Jack whispers into her ear, hand moving over the curves of her side.
Nadia's smile is vicious as she cups the front of his trousers. "It's in the blood," she tells him, and there is no doubt at all whose daughter she is. Or that he will finish his seduction and enjoy every moment of her body and their lovemaking.
Later, still naked and now vulnerable, Nadia leans into Jack. Her hands seem smaller now as they're pressed against his chest, and there is conflict in her eyes.
"You're certain, right?" she asks in a tiny voice. "This man is the one who killed my mother?"
The knot in Jack's chest that had found a little release from the guilt begins to retie in a new, more intricate pattern. "Yes," he assures her, stroking her damp hair affectionately. "He is the one..."