Total pages in book: 106
Estimated words: 98566 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 493(@200wpm)___ 394(@250wpm)___ 329(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98566 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 493(@200wpm)___ 394(@250wpm)___ 329(@300wpm)
He frowned even more deeply. And then his gaze left my face for the first time and did a slow slalom down my body. When his eyes came back up, I swallowed. They’d gone glittering and hard, but absolutely blazing hot, gray-blue diamonds melting in a furnace. I glanced down.
Shit. I hadn’t had time to belt the robe properly as I crossed the hallway. The belt had slipped completely undone and the two sides of the robe were just hanging. With his height, he could look straight down onto the upper curves of my breasts, revealed almost down to the nipples. And a slice of skin was visible all the way down my body: the valley between my breasts, my belly, my navel and then on down to—
Things fell off into shadow around there. I wasn’t sure how much he’d seen. I grabbed the sides of the robe and tugged them firmly closed, then knotted the belt like I was securing a lifejacket. When I looked up again, his eyes were still blazing, but now they were... disapproving.
He didn’t like that I’d covered myself. A hot rush of excitement sluiced down through my body. Then I went almost dizzy with the shock of it. What’s going on? No one has ever looked at me, especially not a man. I’ve spent my entire life trying not to be noticed.
“Please?” I asked. Unexpectedly, that shameful heat twisted inside me again. Reacting to the sound of me begging him.
He didn’t move back out of the way. But he leaned a little to one side and lifted one arm up, opening up a tight little doorway.
I squeezed through, my wet hair brushing the underside of his arm, my wrist sliding along his side. Beneath the thin cotton of his dress shirt, he was a wall of hard, hot flesh. I’d never known anyone so solid.
The first door we passed was the bathroom and I tried not to even glance at it. Hold on, Calahan….
I kept walking. There was a whump behind me as Konstantin closed the door and I faltered. That was it: I was sealed in here with him. What if he started to suspect who I was? What if he already did and he’d just wanted to lure me in here so that we were private? The fear came back. The urge to just turn around and bolt for the door was almost irresistible.
But if I wanted to save Calahan, I had to go further in. I had to get Konstantin as far from the bathroom as possible. So on shaking legs, I carried on walking.
I entered the living area. The suite was huge and opulently furnished, with big leather couches, an open-plan dining area and three more doors that I guessed led off to bedrooms. No wonder it had taken Calahan a long time to search it. I walked right to the far corner. I needed to get Konstantin over there, too, so that he couldn’t see the bathroom door. But he hung back, circling me at a distance. His eyes were still molten but there was caution there, too. Suspicion. “It’s just you, in your room?” That accent...rough black rock carved by a razor-sharp blade until its surfaces shone like silver. “No husband? No boyfriend?”
I did what I always did when someone asked me that: I flushed, looked at the floor, and gave a little snort and a shake of my head, like, don’t be silly. But when I focused on him again, he’d tilted his head to one side and was glaring at me, his eyes even hotter. Disapproving, again. As if he expected me to have a boyfriend. And he really, really didn’t like me putting myself down.
I blinked at him in shock from behind my glasses. A slow-motion explosion of warmth was going off in my chest. The scariest guy in the world had somehow just made me feel better than any guy ever had.
I swallowed. “What about you?” I looked around. “This place is huge. Are you here with someone?”
He gave a slow shake of his head, still circling and watching me. “She is... indisposed.” His English was perfect. If he’d wanted to, I think he could have gradually eliminated the Russian accent and passed for some CEO from Boston or New York. But I got the impression he had no desire to pass for anything. He was proud of what he was.
I looked into his eyes. Was he missing Christina? He didn’t look sad, exactly, more frustrated that she wasn’t there. Surely he must be worried, thinking of the woman he loved lying in some Italian hospital. A pang of guilt went through me. Isn’t this wrong? We were lying to this guy. And soon, when Alison went undercover as Christina, we’d be deceiving him on a whole new level. He was a criminal. The end justified the means... right? I pushed my glasses up my nose as I debated—