Chapter Text
Illya listens to the sounds of people on the sidewalk below the hotel room. Champs-Élysées is lively at any time of day or night, and sitting by the balcony, Illya can hear street musicians, vendors selling ice cream, couples chatting as they walk along the avenue. It’s a pleasantly warm night, and the sounds of mild bustling a few floors below remind Illya of his time in the city as an undergrad, eager to explore all that the city had to offer himself and the bright young things he went to school with. The only damper to the evening is the fact that he could stand to eat, it’s getting late, and Napoleon still hasn’t returned to the hotel.
Once again, they've been tasked with trying to track down a large amount of quadrillenium X, though this affair has been on the whole fairly uneventful. While Illya certainly prefers Paris in the summer to a Yukon winter, after five days of fruitless running around, he’s very ready to return to Manhattan with the whole thing over and done with. Illya doesn’t actually know where Napoleon is—he’d spent the day in the UNCLE Paris physics lab reviewing their latest reports while Napoleon set out to follow up on the meager leads they’d been given back in New York. While he’s not concerned (yet), he is annoyed that they’ve missed dinner, and eager to figure out a plan for the next few days so they can end this affair and go home. So Illya flips through the pile of quantum mechanics journals he’d taken from the lab, feeling his eyes start to glaze over and his stomach continue to empty, and waits for Napoleon to come back.
He sighs, continuing to listen to the street sounds scoring his listlessness. Sometimes he thinks about what it would be like to have another job at UNCLE. He could go back to Section Eight, dedicate himself to full time lab work. No more field work, no more cheap hotels, significantly less danger of being shot in the head or tortured or blown up. He can only begin to imagine how he’d take advantage of fewer sleepless nights, many more hot meals, and much more time spent in his own bed.
He doesn’t actually want all that, of course.
Illya can’t imagine days spent alone with crystals and batteries and vacuums, running endless, mind-numbingly boring experiments. (If they were letting him exclusively test explosives, that might be a different story.) And while he likes his colleagues in Section Eight fine, he can’t really imagine working anywhere but by Napoleon’s side. But when they’re in the field, he can only handle so many nights falling asleep to the sound of Napoleon’s soft breathing—so many mornings finishing himself off in the shower before his partner wakes up—so much time spent in such close physical proximity while still being afraid to take the risk to reach out and touch him. In the meantime, Illya will have to try to keep his growing want contained and locked away before it threatens to upend his entire life, spiraling out of control.
Illya is startled out of his musings when there’s an unfamiliar knock at the door. Suspicious—it’s certainly not housekeeping, not at this hour, and Napoleon would have either let himself in or contacted him by now. He rises from the couch and carefully moves towards the door, hand hovering above his holster. On the exceedingly unlikely chance that it is a hotel employee, he doesn’t really want to draw his weapon, but he knows better than to face whomever is waiting without protection.
When he peers through the peephole, he immediately groans in frustration. Боже кляте.[1]
Angelique is about the worst person in the world who could appear on the other side of the door, and she is also deeply unlikely to just go away. She is a problem that Illya is unfortunately going to have to navigate, so he weighs his options. He could call Napoleon and make him deal with her, but Illya doesn’t want to run the risk of interrupting whatever he’s up to and blowing any potential cover. Ignoring Angelique could put him in a worse situation than dealing with her head on, especially given she’s found their location. The easiest course of action is to just find out what she wants and try to get her out of there as quickly as possible. So, Illya places his holster and gun out of sight, resigns himself to the fact that he’s about to ruin his evening, and opens the door. Angelique looks genuinely surprised to see him.
“Oh! Salut, cheri.”[2]
“What are you doing here?”
She chuckles. “I’m doing quite well, thank you for asking. How are things with you?”
Illya resists the impulse to tell her va te faire foutre[3] and slam the door in her face. “Let’s start again—what are you doing here, Angelique?”
“Looking for your partner, of course.”
“He’s not here.”
“Well, then, I suppose I’ll have to deal with you. Are you going to let me in, or would you prefer me to make a scene?”
His scowl deepens, but he holds the door open as she saunters in. “This is nicer than what UNCLE usually pays for,” Angelique remarks, looking around the small suite.
“That’s because they’re not paying for it,” Illya says bitterly. “We are.”
(So much for what was supposed to be a brief layover. He and Napoleon had agreed to go in together on a suite, far nicer than their usual arrangements, when they thought they were only going to be in town for the night. When they happened to conveniently be in the right place to pick up the mission from UNCLE Paris, Waverly and the other higher-ups had asked them to stay put. They had made the fair point that moving hotels could draw unnecessary attention to themselves when THRUSH likely didn’t know they were even in country. Unfortunately, this fair point did not come accompanied with a promise of full reimbursement from either UNCLE Paris or New York. So they were stuck draining their bank accounts for a home base where they were spending very little time in the first place.)
Angelique raises an eyebrow. “And you still chose a room with one bed?”
Illya doesn’t like the way Angelique always seems to be able to peer into him, to somehow pick up on subtext she shouldn’t even know exists. He opts to move on from this line of questioning.
“I doubt you came here to discuss our sleeping arrangements.”
“Quite right.” She sits down on the couch. “A little bird told me that you’re in search of the five hundred and fifty kilograms of quadrillenium X that are to be transported out of the country.”
“Perhaps.”
“It’s being held in the lab of Dr. Georges Fleuriot—someone whom I am particularly interested in seeing removed from THRUSH.”
This isn’t entirely new information (Fleuriot has been on UNCLE’s radar for a while), but it is helpful to have it confirmed. That is, if Angelique isn’t outright lying to him. “Continue.”
“Fleuriot is high-ranking, but ultimately very disposable,” she continues. “To be quite frank, he’s in my way. But I believe we have a mutual interest in seeing his downfall, which I’d like to assist you with. With Fleuriot gone, I move up through next to no effort of my own, you two can successfully report back to Mr. Waverly that you’ve completed your little mission, and we all live happily ever after.”
“That’s all well and good,” Illya says, sitting in the armchair next to her, “but beyond confirming what we already suspected, you haven’t demonstrated that you actually know anything helpful to our cause.”
Angelique extends her legs out on the coffee table. “Luckily for you, I know where his lab is. I might even be willing to tell you how to find it.”
“For a price, of course.”
“Smart boy.”
He shouldn’t even be entertaining this. “What do you want?”
Angelique smirks. “Normally it’s a bottle of champagne and Napoleon makes sure I’m satisfied at least twice, but I suppose I can be flexible on the terms for you.”
Illya frowns. Napoleon is not above playing the honeypot—in fact, if the reason to seduce a woman arises during an affair, he will almost certainly take the opportunity. (Illya remains grateful that—at least to his knowledge—Napoleon has come back from these liaisons unharmed. He’s less grateful when Napoleon returns the next morning whistling and annoyingly pleased with himself.) But Illya has less of a libido and more of a sense of self preservation than his partner, and thus does not tend to get himself involved in such things. Falling into bed with Angelique for information that may or may not even exist is about as dangerous and stupid as it gets.
“Very funny, Angelique. Shall I walk you to the door?”
“You’re not going to even think about my offer?”
“What is there to consider? I don’t trust you—I don’t understand how Napoleon trusts you, for that matter—and I am positive you will find a way to double cross me, so this really is a waste of both of our time.”
“I’m offering you a temporary truce where we all win. That deal seems at least worthy of consideration.”
“That deal involves sleeping with you.”
“As the Americans say, bingo.”
Illya knows he shouldn’t be giving her the time of day. For that matter, he shouldn’t have even let her inside the suite at all. If previous experience is anything to go by, the longer Angelique sticks around, the more threatening her presence becomes.
“Do you really think I’m as easily seduced as my partner?”
“Of course not,” Angelique laughs. “If I thought that, I wouldn’t have concerned myself with a deal and we would be in bed by now.”
“You’re very confident in yourself.”
“Oh, always—that’s why I’m so good at what I do.”
“I presume you’re not going to force me,” Illya says cautiously.
She frowns. “Of course I wouldn’t force you. I have no interest in an unwilling partner.”
“So what if I say no?”
“Then I leave, and you can explain to Napoleon that I gave you the opportunity to quickly end this little affair, but you turned me down. Or maybe I’ll wait for Napoleon to come back, and you can sit over here and watch while he fulfils the terms of the deal.”
Illya immediately tries to put the fantasy of watching Napoleon fuck Angelique out of his head. “How do I know your information is good?”
“I suppose you’ll just have to go on faith.” Angelique bats her eyelashes at him theatrically. “Am I really that untrustworthy?”
“Obviously,” Illya scowls.
“Your partner doesn’t seem to think so.”
“My partner would chase your skirt into the Seine.”
“And I’d let him,” she says, “because that’s the type of game we like to play. Napoleon may come out the other side slightly damp, but ultimately none the worse for wear.” She leans back. “What do you say, Mr. Kuryakin? Would you like to play a game with me?”
As much as it infuriates Illya to admit it, it’s not a terrible deal on its face. It’s a terrible idea, but on paper, there’s a kind of logic. Even if Angelique welches out, the worst that can happen is that he humbles himself enough to get her off twice, and she heads on her merry way having got one over on him. At best, the information that she’ll provide will save him and Napoleon a lot of time and energy, and they rid themselves of this entire affair a lot faster than they would have on their own. And—despite Illya’s permanent disdain for her and everything she stands for—Angelique is very easy on the eyes. It won’t be an entirely unpleasant experience. Hopefully.
“I’m not buying you any champagne.”
“I suppose I can go without,” Angelique replies smugly.
“As to your other terms—”
“Two times. At least once with your mouth.”
“Trading THRUSH secrets for orgasms.” Illya shakes his head. “Is that really all they’re worth to you?”
She shrugs. “It doesn’t matter what I think they’re worth. It matters what you think they’re worth.”
Illya already regrets this, but Angelique’s point is salient. What are THRUSH secrets worth to him? And what is he willing to do to get them?
Against every fiber of his being screaming at him to remember his better judgement, he stiffly holds out his hand. Angelique smiles, warm and dangerous, and shakes it.
“This is coercion, you know.”
“Come now, Illya, be a good sport. I’m offering you a very fair deal that you could just as easily leave as take. Hardly threatening.”
“You never fail to demonstrate just how much of a walking threat you are.”
“Well.” Angelique looks infinitely pleased with herself. “Tu commences tôt avec des phrases coquines.”[4]
“Tu vas voir c’que tu vas voir.”[5] Illya then realizes—very belatedly—that he hadn’t thought to check her for weapons when she first arrived at the door. Stupid of him. Very stupid. “Give me your bag.”
“Why? You’re not going to find anything untoward inside.”
“Give me your bag,” he repeats firmly. “I’m not kidding around.”
Angelique pouts, but hands him her clutch. “Napoleon always makes me come unarmed. If I break that rule anymore, he won’t play with me.”
“Forgive me if I don’t take you at your word.”
Illya moves to the bedroom and pours the contents out onto the bedspread. He examines the items—a clasp change purse containing a few thousand francs, a red Dior lipstick, a cigarette case, a lighter, two long hair ribbons, a vial of what seems to be massage oil, a small round plastic compact containing about half a month’s worth of the Pill (very modern), and a passport (hers; British; interesting)—and is annoyed to find them all perfectly ordinary. Angelique always has some angle, some little way to get under his skin; he just has to figure out what the trick is this time. As he replaces the items back in her bag, he studies her appearance, staring at her through the wide doorway. There has to be something. Angelique gazes at him serenely until he’s finally able to spot the anomalous addition to her outfit.
“I’ve never seen you wear a hairpin,” he says, holding out his hand.
She scoffs. “You can’t possibly think I’d use that as a weapon.”
“No, but I’m sure you’ve come up with some other creative use for it. Hand it over.”
Angelique makes a face at him, but gets up, removes her hairpin, and places it in his palm anyway. “Spoilsport.”
Sure enough, when Illya breaks off the small gem at the end, there is a miniature transistor on the other side. If she’s been tracking their communications, that’s likely how she was able to figure out where they’ve been staying.
“Don’t patronize me,” he says cooly, crushing it under his shoe. “If I find you have any other tricks up your sleeve, I’m going to be significantly less inclined to participate.”
“I suppose you’ll just have to undress me and find out.” Angelique steps out of her shoes and plants herself in front of the bed. “Shall we begin?”
“Must we?”
“Illya, I really think that if you were to lighten up, you would see that this isn’t so bad.”
He doesn’t really have much to say in response to that. “Are you expecting me to take the line about undressing you literally?”
“Of course,” Angelique says smoothly. The moment he begrudgingly lifts his hands, she adds, “If you tear anything, Mr. Waverly will be receiving an itemized bill from Del Floria’s.”
Illya glares at her, but undoes the buttons on the front of her blouse with care. (Not that he had planned to ruin her clothes—that particular brand of pettiness doesn’t really fit his style.) He even is polite enough to lay it flat on the coffee table so it doesn’t wrinkle, and does the same with her skirt. She doesn’t deserve the decency, but he’s not in the mood for any complaining.
Angelique pulls back the covers and flops on the bed in her bra and underpants. “Go on,” she directs him, leaning back against the pillows. “I want to watch you.”
Illya proceeds to undress with about as much flair and eroticism as the act of brushing one’s teeth. This does not faze Angelique in the slightest. In fact, she seems to find it all quite entertaining.
“You really are determined to not have any fun. I assure you I won’t tell anyone if you enjoy yourself.”
“I’m doing this for the sake of world peace, not my own amusement,” he informs her, neatly folding his jeans and turtleneck.
“You can’t possibly be serious.” When he narrows his eyes at her, Angelique bursts into laughter. “Oh, you are serious. All right, Illya,” she says, trying to look solemn. “We’re doing this for the sake of international peace. Tu es un fantastique citoyen du monde.[6] Just lie back and think of U Thant.”
Illya hates that this makes him laugh. He hates that it does help with the tension.
“I told you.” Angelique pats beside her on the bed. “You can enjoy yourself and the world won’t end.”
He rolls his eyes, but drops his clothing on the coffee table and joins her. When she leans to kiss him, he places his index finger on her lips. “Not on the mouth.”
“Always so many rules with you, no wonder nobody thinks you’re any fun,” Angelique complains, but presses her lips to Illya’s cheek, then his jawline, then neck.
Illya ignores the comment and focuses on the scent of her perfume (a green chypre, floral, with fresh notes of honeysuckle and hyacinth) as she continues kissing his skin. When she bites his neck—hard enough that he’s certain she’s going to leave a bruise—he makes an involuntary noise that falls somewhere between surprise, pain, and pleasure. “Ah—you’re going to have me wearing turtlenecks for the next week if you’re not careful.”
“I like to leave a calling card.” He shivers when she drags her tongue over the sensitive skin she’s bitten, sucking hard before punctuating each bruise with a kiss. “Don’t tell me you’ll get in trouble with UNCLE for a few love bites.”
(Agents showing up to HQ with bruises on any and all parts of the body is about as common an occurrence as it gets. Illya showing up with bruises that are very obviously hickeys won’t necessarily get him into trouble, but it will earn him teasing from Napoleon, giggles from the secretary pool, and raised eyebrows from the rest of Section Two.) “I was thinking more about polite society.”
“You care about polite society?”
“We all have to exist in it, don’t we?”
“If I cared about polite society, I wouldn’t have joined THRUSH.”
“Touché.”
Illya shifts his position and pulls Angelique close so she’s sitting in his lap. He bites at the join of her neck, then her collarbone, making her gasp. “Naughty,” she chastises, sounding borderline impressed.
“I like to give as good as I get.”
He nips along the curve of her breasts, trying not to grin when Angelique starts rubbing against him. Her bra (which is more utilitarian than he’d expected from her) is a white cotton and polyester model that fastens in the front. After he removes it, he brushes her nipples with the pads of his thumbs, then with his lips. It’s charming how reactive she is, dangerously so, but he tries to focus on the task at hand.
He notices little details about Angelique he would have never normally seen, let alone paid attention to—the small wrinkles at the corners of her eyes, the dusting of freckles on her shoulders and breasts, the pleasant softness of her stomach and hips. What might be flaws on others only serve to make her less of the femme fatale and more the human being. In the back of his mind, a small part of him understands part of why Napoleon is so drawn to her. Perhaps what’s most striking about Angelique is how entirely unselfconscious she is. She is comfortable and unapologetic in her desires, more playful in bed than Illya would have initially thought. There’s an unexpected ease in the way she moves. It’s clear she’s playing a game, but it seems that it’s one that she also wants him to enjoy. (He doesn’t dwell on how much this reminds him of Napoleon.)
When he slips a hand below the waistband of her underpants, Angelique gently halts him. “Let me have a look at your nails first.” Illya holds back on any snide comments and dutifully presents his hands. She examines them, finding his nails sufficiently short and clean, then repositions herself with her back against the pillows. “Do carry on.”
Illya draws her underpants down and over her thighs, placing them on the bedside table next to her clutch, and opens her legs. Despite the platinum tint of her hair, he quickly discovers that Angelique is a natural blonde. He also can’t help but feel a little smug that she’s this aroused already. He wets his fingers in his mouth and traces them along her labia. She’s soft and warm to the touch, and she sighs contentedly as Illya rubs her in small, slow circles around her entrance.
After teasing her for a while, he slides his middle finger inside, feeling her pulse against him. She makes a noise, almost like a whimper, and Illya immediately pauses to look up at her. Concern must be written on his face, because when she meets his eyes, her expression softens. “It’s nice, darling. You just have big hands.”
“I’ll be careful,” he tells her, curling his finger up to press against the spot that makes her shudder. He spreads her labia with his other hand, giving him better access to her clitoris. When he strokes it with his thumb, Angelique gasps and starts playing with her nipples, rolling them between her fingers as he stimulates her.
Admittedly, Illya is enjoying himself. It’s not exactly difficult to get turned on while finger-fucking an incredibly responsive, breathtakingly gorgeous woman. (Even if she is, more often than not, one of the banes of Illya’s existence.) The way she squeezes around him is particularly arousing; the sensation of her, like wet velvet around his finger, makes him want to bring her to orgasm right then and there. But that’s risky thinking. Illya quickly realizes he has to slow down, lest he give away the game too early.
He pulls his finger out of her and goes back to gently playing with her labia, feeling her drip. Angelique half-whines, still lazily fingering her nipples. “You’re such a little tease.”
“I thought you wanted me to make you come with my mouth,” Illya says, letting a slow smirk cross his face.
“And you’d better get on with it, too.”
“In a minute.” He spreads her buttocks apart and takes a second to look at her. Her wetness has dripped down to her perineum, which he massages gently. He finds the light dusting of blonde hair around her asshole oddly endearing. Fingers slick with her arousal, he rubs the soft puckered flesh. “Do you let Napoleon touch you here?”
“Nosy, aren’t you?” Angelique says, sounding breathy. “If you want secrets about Napoleon, that will require some renegotiation.”
“Sounds interesting, but I believe you have more leverage than I do.”
“Keep doing what you’re doing and the tables might just turn in your favor.”
He bites a series of bruises into the soft skin of her inner thigh. “Tell me one thing. Did you know he wasn’t here when you knocked on the door?”
“No,” Angelique admits. “I was surprised to see you. But I’m certainly not complaining.”
That’s about as close to a compliment as she’s likely to give him. He’ll take it.
Illya responds by pressing an open-mouthed kiss to her cunt, indulging in the taste of her slick. When he sucks her clitoris gently, dragging his tongue against her, she groans deliciously. Illya can feel his cock thicken in his briefs.
He explores her with lips, tongue, and teeth, figuring out what amount of pressure and friction invokes more of those noises of pleasure. The feeling of her throbbing against him is intoxicating—Illya has to keep reminding himself to be careful, lest he end up drawn in too far by her charm.
Eventually he finds a pattern with his tongue that makes Angelique squirm against him, and he has to grip her thighs to be able to keep up the pace. “More, just like that,” she demands, and makes that same little whimpering noise when he starts moving his tongue faster. “There, there, yes, ah—” She rolls her hips and swears when his nose nudges against her clitoris. “More.” She tangles her hands in his hair and presses his face into her cunt, shameless and driven as she rubs against him.
Illya can’t help feeling in awe of her. This is probably the most vulnerable he will ever see Angelique, and yet—even as she wriggles under his touch—she has him wrapped around her little finger. He wants to impress her. He wants to make her come. He has his face buried in the cunt of an enemy agent and it makes him hard, and that in and of itself is almost more dangerous than if she was holding a gun to his temple.
She comes like a bow string being released, shivering with each wave of pleasure. Illya hums, lapping at her as she spasms against his tongue. (He’s admittedly a little proud of himself. Angelique isn’t the type to fake it—he can imagine no scenario on earth in which she would pretend to be satisfied with him if she actually wasn’t. So that means he’d actually pulled it off. Who would have thought.) He kisses and nips and rubs her through the aftershocks, until she pants, “ça suffit,”[7] and nudges him away.
Illya licks the last of her wetness from his lips as Angelique stretches languidly. “Satisfactory?” he asks, looking up at her between her legs.
Angelique gazes at him as she catches her breath. “You performed much better than expected.”
“A simple ‘thank you, wonderful job, Illya’ would have sufficed. Praise won’t kill you, you know.”
“Go clean up and then come back for the second round.”
“You’re insatiable. No wonder Napoleon likes you, you’re the only ones who can keep up with each other’s libidos.”
“If I had known you even had a libido, we could have been doing this years ago.” She snuggles back into the pillows and waves him toward the bathroom, rather resembling the cat that got the cream.
Illya washes his face and hands, glancing at his reflection in the mirror, and grimaces. The bruises blooming on his neck are unmistakable. Napoleon is not only going to of course recognize them as love bites, he’ll also have immediate questions about what Illya’s been up to. He hadn’t really thought about what reasoning he’s inevitably going to have to detail, but he supposes he’ll cross that bridge when he comes to it.
“You’ve made me look thoroughly debauched,” he informs Angelique when he settles back onto the bed. She laughs.
“If you think you look thoroughly debauched, you’re not having enough good sex.”
“I suppose not.”
“Darling, you’re an international man of mystery. Indulging your baser instincts every once in a while comes with the territory.” She rolls over onto her stomach and looks up at him. “I really don’t know why you don’t do it more often.”
“I don’t tend to pick up innocents,” Illya says evenly, running his hand over the curve of her ass, “and getting involved with femme fatales such as yourself is usually more trouble than it’s worth.”
Angelique hums contentedly as he rubs her. “If you weren’t always so deeply unpleasant towards me, maybe I wouldn’t always give you trouble.”
“Maybe I wouldn’t be so unpleasant towards you if you didn’t always give me trouble. You could always switch sides.”
“So could you.”
“Don’t you ever think about giving THRUSH up?” he asks her seriously. “You’re a known quantity with our higher ups; with all the knowledge you possess, I’m certain you could work out an immunity deal.”
“I rather like the life I lead. If I went straight, I wouldn’t have nearly as much fun as I do now.”
“Pleasure was your motivation for joining THRUSH?”
“Pleasure is my motivation for everything,” Angelique grins. She traces a finger down the outline of his cock, still half-hard, through his briefs. He shivers a little. “As Wilde said, it’s the only thing to live for.”
Illya has a response on the tip of his tongue about how Wilde’s pursuit of pleasure was precisely what ended up getting him into trouble. However, he’s quickly distracted by Angelique pulling down his briefs and taking his cock in hand. It doesn’t take much to get him fully hard—Angelique’s hands are soft, her grip is firm, and she strokes him at about the same tempo as the one he takes when masturbating. All in all, she’s very efficient.
“Isn’t this so much more enjoyable than our usual encounters?” Angelique inquires, gently sliding down his foreskin to reveal his cockhead. He groans as she swipes the pre-ejaculate pearling at the tip up with her thumb and licks it. “I told you, we could have been doing this from the start.”
Illya still has enough focus to roll his eyes. “This is a one night only engagement, Angelique.”
“More’s the pity. Especially if we were to get Napoleon involved. I’d love to sit back with a Brandy Alexander and watch you two play together.”
Heat spreads rapidly under Illya’s skin as he envisions the scenario—Angelique holding court from a plush, king-sized bed, cocktail in hand, while he and Napoleon rut against each other. Or maybe they’d soixante-neuf,[8] Angelique providing commentary while they test their skills in, ah, non-verbal communication. Or maybe she’d just give Illya instructions on how to fellate Napoleon, detailing what arouses him most, and praising them both when Napoleon squirms and moans. Or—
“Do you like ménages à trois?”[9] Illya asks, shaking himself out of the fantasy.
“When I get the chance.”
“With women and men?”
Angelique smirks. “Yes, darling. I’m a woman of the modern era.”
“And with him?”
“We haven’t indulged, but I imagine it’d be great fun. Your partner likes his sweet young things—I do, too,” she purrs. “Especially that little redhead Miss Dancer, but I have been informed she is off-limits.”
April is a very competent and self-sufficient young person, a model UNCLE agent whom Illya both respects and admires. He still cannot imagine any situation (erotic or otherwise) involving her and Angelique that does not end with April being eaten alive.
“That is likely for the best,” Illya pants.
“I think Napoleon is afraid that I would destroy that poor girl, though I think he ought to be more concerned with what we’d do to him. But, say, if you and I were to team up—I think we’d be unstoppable, don’t you?” Illya is spared from having to formulate an intelligent response by Angelique settling in his lap. “I suppose I’ll have to save that fantasy for a rainy day. Ready?”
“As I’ll ever be,” he manages.
“Good,” she says, satisfied. “Let me tie you up.”
This is taking a sharp left turn.
“No,” Illya refuses immediately. “Absolutely not.”
“Please?” Angelique pouts her lips performatively. “I’ve been so agreeable. I haven’t done anything bad to you all evening.”
“And I’m not going to give you any more opportunity to start.”
“I’ll tell you when they’re moving the quadrillenium X.” She rubs herself along his length, and Illya’s ability to focus on anything other than that sensation begins to drain away. “Maybe, if you’re very, very good,” she considers, “I’ll even tell you where it’s going.”
Either she really gets off on seeing her partners tied up or she really wants Fleuriot out of the picture. Regardless of her intentions, Illya knows that the information Angelique is teasing would serve him and Napoleon extraordinarily well. The problem, however, remains the same as ever—in order to get that information, he has to trust her. And, not only does he have to trust her, he has to be willing to let her raise the stakes tenfold.
“Do you plan to untie me afterwards?”
“We’ll see how well you behave.”
“Timetable, location, and destination of the quadrillenium X. All three.”
Angelique holds up her right hand in the scout’s salute.
It’s a stupid decision. He knows it’s a stupid decision. But ignoring any sense of self-preservation he has left, Illya sighs resignedly and stretches his arms above his head, letting Angelique bind his wrists to the bedframe with her hair ribbons. She ties the knots deftly—not so tight that he’ll lose circulation right away, but secure enough that his range of motion is severely limited.
“Tu es si facile,”[10] Angelique says, almost affectionately. When she straddles him again, she teases the tip of his cock against her clitoris, then her entrance. He jolts at the sensation, making a sort of whining noise in the back of his throat. “Détends-toi,”[11] she murmurs, and sinks back onto his cock. She stretches around him, tension and warmth and pressure enveloping him, and all Illya can do is grip the headboard and focus on trying to not immediately slam his hips upwards. Each throb, each little spasm against him feels like an electrical pulse. Angelique curves her body against his, pressing their torsos together, and groans when he fully buries his cock inside her.
“Move,” Illya finds himself repeating, suddenly desperate for more, for any movement, the sensation of wet heat around him starting to get overwhelming. “Move, bouge, Angelique, allez, je ne blague pas—”[12]
“I’m moving,” she says, and this time, her tone is unmistakably fond.
Angelique sets a steady tempo, canting her hips, taking what she needs. She’s moving too slowly for Illya to reach orgasm, but he doesn’t have any complaints about either her undulations or the little needy noises she keeps making as she gets closer to the edge. He wonders if Napoleon lets her fuck him like this—if he likes ceding control and allowing someone else to hold the power in making him feel good—if he finds a type of release and comfort in being able to let go. That private, hungry, selfish part of himself makes Illya wonder not so much if Napoleon would like it if he tied him up, but if he would ever trust him enough to let Illya try to make him feel good—to be the one responsible for his pleasure.
It’s sooner rather than later that Angelique cries out, pressing against his chest as she shudders and clenches around him. This orgasm is much less frantic than the first—Illya doesn’t have much choice but to indulge in the feeling as she rocks slowly and deliciously against him.
After a long moment, Angelique sighs happily and dismounts him. “I’m not one for excessive praise, but I must say that was marvelous.”
“I obviously didn’t do much of anything,” Illya says.
“You let me take the reins—that’s why it was so marvelous, darling.”
“What, Napoleon doesn’t ever let you tie him up?”
At that, Angelique gives him a bit of an odd look, one that he can’t really parse the meaning of.
“What?”
“So many questions about Napoleon—you’re so curious, so preoccupied,” she comments. She drags her finger down the length of his sternum, his torso, until she reaches the trail of hair below his navel. “Don’t you find that fascinating?”
“Not particularly,” Illya says, as mildly as he can manage. “We don’t have much in the way of shared topics of conversation.”
“And the one you chose is what Napoleon is like in bed?”
He feels his face start to flush—one of the few tells he’s never been able to overcome. “Do you have a point to make?”
“Napoleon always describes you as jealous, but I always thought he meant jealous of himself. It certainly seems that your envy lies elsewhere.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I think you happen to be jealous of me.”
Alarm bells go off in Illya’s brain. “I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about,” he lies.
He expects her to mock him, or to laugh, or needle him further. But there’s something almost akin to—if not sympathy, then some type of understanding in Angelique’s expression. “You’re certainly not the first agent that’s ever fallen for their partner. There’s no shame in it.”
(Of course he’s given himself away. Angelique’s real danger, far beyond the physical weapons she wields, lies in her ability to find a loose thread of vulnerability and pull at it until her target unravels. There is shame in falling for Napoleon. Not because it’s a desire for a man—despite the danger that comes with that type of wanting, he oddly enough doesn’t really have any hangups about it. It’s shameful because it’s a desire that he can never act upon. It’s a desire that he must hold fast to and keep locked away, because to open that particular Pandora’s box will certainly complicate both of their lives—if not destroy their partnership and end up irreparably driving them apart. It’s a selfish desire, and therefore shameful, and therefore one that he can’t allow himself to admit.)
Illya tries to mentally recalibrate before this spins entirely out of control. “We’re coming awfully close to playing out of bounds, aren’t we?”
“When have you ever known me to pay attention to the rules?”
“You’d better if you want the game to continue.”
Angelique rolls her eyes, but her expression stays soft. “All right, darling. Since you’ve been so good this evening, I think I’ll give you a secret about Napoleon for free.”
“I’d rather you just get me off,” Illya says quickly. (He’s not sure where she’s going with this.) “Turnabout is fair play, you know.”
Angelique reaches to the bedside table and pulls the small vial of oil out of her clutch. “Do you remember the night after that silly affair with the stamps, when the three of us went to dinner?”
“What about it?” he asks, immediately suspicious.
(This was years ago now, but the events of that particular evening had long been burned into Illya's memory. Napoleon had asked Illya if he wanted to join him and Angelique at the Penthouse Club, luring him in with the promise of picking up the tab. It had turned out to be the most egregious case of Napoleon forcing him to third wheel that Illya had suffered through to date. Napoleon and Angelique sipped champagne and slurped oysters and spoke to each other filthily in French, while Illya glowered at them over the menu and ordered the most expensive entrée he could find. Thankfully, the night had been mild enough for the trio to walk back to the hotel Angelique was staying in, because Illya didn’t think he could handle listening to the two of them in the back of a taxi.
“Would you like to come up?” Napoleon asks him as they turn the corner of the hotel.
Illya snorts in response. “Pour quoi faire? Pour regarder davantage vos préliminaires?”[13]
“Préliminaires,” Angelique echoes, her heels clicking on the sidewalk. “You impress me, Illya—given the way you typically act around women, I didn’t think you even knew that word, let alone what it means.”
“How do you say ‘nightcap’ in French?” Napoleon interjects smoothly. “I know how to order a soixante quinze,[14] but that’s hardly an after-dinner drink.”
“I suppose one would say un verre avant de se coucher,” Angelique says. Illya shoots her a look.
“Okay.” Napoleon stops on the sidewalk and turns to face him. “Illya,” he says warmly, “veux-tu prendre un verre avant de se coucher avec moi?”[15]
Illya feels himself flush at the double-entendre that Napoleon clearly doesn’t get. Angelique, that little viper, always has to find a way to make sure she embarrasses him. If they were still at dinner, he would have considered kicking her in the shin. “I think I’ll pass this evening.”
“All right.” Napoleon looks slightly disappointed as they begin walking again. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning then?”
“Of course. Thanks again for dinner.”
When they get to the lobby doors, Illya finds he doesn’t have much to offer in the way of a final epigram. Flustered, all he manages to come up with is the deeply pathetic, “Well, enjoy your drinks. And your bed.”
Before either Napoleon or Angelique can say anything, he turns stiffly and hurries down the sidewalk like some inverted Orpheus, refusing to look back.)
Angelique opens the vial of oil and pours a little into her hand. “That night, after you left us at the hotel, he said your name in bed.”
Illya feels his stomach seize. He doesn’t know what he expected. This is about as cruel as she could possibly get.
“Do tell me if you don’t like what I’m doing,” she says, spreading his legs and moving to kneel between them. “How long has it been since you’ve been touched like this?”
“None of your business.” (It’s been a while.)
“I’ll take that to mean it’s been a while. Anyways, do you want to hear the story?”
He shouldn’t let her lie to him, shouldn’t let her make up scenarios that give him false hope and set his nerves on fire. When he doesn’t say anything in response, Angelique continues anyway. “After you left us at the hotel, we carried on as usual. Napoleon had been such a good boy that evening, he even let me sit on his face.”
He can see it—Angelique’s hand tangled in Napoleon’s hair, his hands gripping the top of her thighs, his face drenched with her arousal. His cock twitches. Angelique rubs the pads of her fingers against his hole, making him shiver. “And since Napoleon had been so good, I rewarded him by touching him just like this. Put your knees up.”
Illya does what he’s told.
“That’s it,” she coos, smiling at his noises of pleasure under her touch. “Napoleon’s very responsive, too. Very cute. Anyways, I was fucking him with my fingers, and when I moved just the right way—well, I’ll show you what he did.”
A sudden expression crosses her face—oddly vulnerable, as if she’s forgotten that they’ve been playing a game. If Illya didn’t know any better, he’d think she looked earnest. “Illya,” she gasps, sliding her finger inside him. “Oh, oh, Illya.”
He swears and tries to shove his hips back against her, bucking into her touch. She cannot possibly be telling him the truth, but he can’t help how his body reacts to the thought.
“I should have been annoyed with him, but I couldn’t help but find it endearing how obsessed you two are with each other.”
If such a place as hell exists, Angelique is certainly going to her own special corner.
“Don’t be cruel, Angelique,” Illya spits. When she starts rubbing against his prostate, he makes a little noise that, if he had any good sense left, might have embarrassed him by how desperate he sounds. “Lying like this is—ah—playing dirty, even for you.”
“Darling, after all we’ve done tonight, I think now would be an awfully silly time to start lying.”
“I wouldn’t dare put it past you.” He swears again when she wraps her fingers around his cock. She begins stroking him maddeningly slowly—enough to overwhelm him with sensation, but not enough to make him come. He thrusts into her fist, pathetically trying to increase the friction. “Angelique, come on, just move.”
“Patience is a virtue. I haven’t finished my story yet.”
Illya groans. “Hurry up.”
“Napoleon had enough sense to at least look sorry. But he was so caught up in his own pleasure, the only apology he could offer was, ‘You know how I feel about bossy blondes.’”
This is beyond insane. Even if somehow Angelique is not, in fact, lying through her teeth, this is beyond the bounds of his understanding of reality.
“And then I told him the same thing I told you,” she says, sliding a second finger inside him and fucking him in earnest. “That I’d love to watch you two play with each other. But I suggested that you two might have more fun alone.”
“What did he say?” Illya gasps, his curiosity getting the better of him.
“Il n'avait pas grand chose à dire. Il était trop occupé à jouir.”[16]
Illya resigns himself to the fact that this is how he’s going to die—tied to a headboard with hair ribbons in a hotel room in France while Angelique tortures him with erotic stories about his partner. What a way to go.
“Angelique, just let me come so we can get this over with.” He strains against the binds around his wrists, panting. “Блядь,[17] I’m not going to beg.”
“Oh, really?”
“Really.”
“Would you like to bet on that?”
“Angelique—”
“Fine,” she says, just barely increasing the speed of her strokes. “Just tell me one little thing first.”
“What?”
“Would you do it?”
His body is screaming for release. He’s so close. He’s so close. “Ah—would I do what?”
“If Napoleon asked you to make love with him,” she asks, “would you do it?”
Even in the moment, he can’t believe what he does. He’s shocked at himself for not hesitating, for revealing a desire that, if spoken aloud—made real—threatens to destroy his entire life. But for some reason far beyond conscious, rational thought, he looks her in the eye and chokes out, “Yes.”
Angelique smiles at him. It reaches her eyes. “Хороший хлопчик.”[18]
Illya ejaculates all over himself, shooting streaks of cum so hard they hit his chest and the underside of his chin. He nearly whites out as his orgasm tears through him like a wave of bullets. Angelique continues stroking him, murmuring soft praises in French as his body jerks, and he lets the warm crash of pleasure completely overtake him.
When the aftershocks subside and he comes back to himself, Angelique is gone. Not really gone, of course, as he watches her shut the door to the bathroom. He can hear her urinate, the toilet flushing, the sink running. For a long minute, Illya thinks she is actually going to leave him tied to the bed. He wouldn’t be surprised. (It would, of course, also increase his animosity towards her a thousandfold.) But soon she returns and sinks back onto the bed with a warm washcloth.
“So the iceman melteth,” she says, wiping his release from his neck and chest.
“The black widow didn’t bite.”
“She didn’t need to—don’t you know you catch more flies with honey?” (That does prompt a smile from him.)
“Since we’re still under our temporary truce,” Illya says as she cleans him up, “I’d like to request that you remain discreet about this. All of it.” Falling back on their agreement is a last resort. He’s said too much, and it’s his own fault, so he’ll suffer the consequences if any of this makes its way back to Napoleon. All he can do is ask her to keep quiet, and hope that she won’t make him grovel for her silence.
In a shockingly generous move, Angelique simply nods and says, “I won’t tell him anything.” When he raises an eyebrow at her—it’s never this easy—she shrugs. “I told you before, you’re not the only agent who’s ever fallen for their partner.”
That sets his thoughts going—he’s never thought about Angelique having a partner, as he’s only ever seen her work on her own. Did she used to have a partner? Do THRUSH partners work as closely as UNCLE partners? Does she miss whoever she is—was?—paired with? Before he can formulate a real question, she drags the washcloth over his cock, making him jerk from the oversensitivity.
Angelique moves on to untying his right wrist once she determines he’s sufficiently clean. “Fleuriot’s laboratory is below the Bibliothèque Saint Geneviève. I trust given your time at the Sorbonne that you are familiar with the library.”
So she is actually following through on the deal. “Yes.”
“The interior entrance is accessed through a panel on the left-hand side of the mezzanine staircase. It’s down three flights, with embarrassingly minimal security. The exterior entrance is in the back, where they’ll be waiting with a van before dawn on Saturday, likely 0500 hours. If you miss them, the boat leaves from a port in Calais at 0900 for the THRUSH experimental laboratory in London. Agnes Tewksbury will be there to meet it.”
Mother Muffin being involved is just the icing on the cake. “And where will you be?”
“I’ll be long gone by then,” Angelique says, moving on to his left wrist. “You can tell me all about it next time I’m in New York.”
“Over oysters and champagne?”
“Of course. I’ll even let you pick what language we flirt in.”
“Fangen Sie an, Ihr Deutsch aufzufrischen.”
“Ich werde daran arbeiten.”[19]
Once he’s untied, Illya sits up and rotates his wrists, getting his circulation going again. “I suppose I better let you take the first shower.”
“How gentlemanly. I didn’t know you had it in you,” Angelique says, amused. “But one little question for you before I freshen up.”
“Go on.”
“Was our trade worth it?”
It seems, in her odd way, that she is asking him from some place of honest curiosity. So Illya replies honestly when he says, “Yes. It was.” They shake hands once more, and Angelique settles back into that rare, real smile again. Then she laughs.
“What?”
“Nothing of substance. I just couldn’t help but wonder about what Napoleon would say to all of this.”
“Well,” a voice announces, “you won’t have to wonder long.”
They both startle to see Napoleon leaning against the bedroom doorway. Clearly they’d both been too caught up to hear him come in. Illya knows the expression on his face far too well. It’s the one he wears when he forces someone to call his bluff—the one where danger hangs imminently in the air, but Napoleon, as cool as ever, sits on the precipice of the fray. Illya feels like he’s about to pass away on the spot.
“I think,” Napoleon says slowly, “he’d say that you two are bad little agents who have some significant explaining to do. So, which one of you would like to begin?”