I pushed the door open and stepped inside, holding my breath. If he’s in here, it’s all over….
But the room was empty. I quickly closed the door behind me and leaned against it. Seconds later, I heard the heavy footsteps of the bodyguard on the stairs. Had he been counting the quartet as we left and knew he’d only seen three of us go? Would he wonder where I was or just assume I’d slipped out of the house in the commotion?
The footsteps reached the top of the stairs...then came slowly towards me. Shit! He was thinking about checking the rooms. The floor creaked, right outside the door....
...and then faded away as he went back to his post. It was several seconds before I dared to breathe again.
For the first time, I looked around. The lights were down low, but I could see a king size bed with expensive, midnight-blue bedding. Off to one side, an open door led to a walk-in closet with suits hanging in neat rows. On the other side of the room was a closed door that I figured led to the bathroom.
And sitting right in the middle of the bed, its screen lit up, was the laptop. Luka must have been coming up here throughout the night to check his email. A workaholic.
I hurried over to the bed and dug in my purse for the bug—a wafer-thin silver sticker. I lifted up the laptop, then peeled off the sticker’s backing and stuck it in place on the underside. Now, whenever the laptop was on, we’d be able to see what was on his screen.
I put the laptop back exactly as I’d found it. Now all I had to do was wait until the bodyguard took a break and I could sneak downstairs and out of the front door.
At that moment, the door to the bathroom swung open and Luka stepped out.
There are some moments you know you’re going to remember for the rest of your life. I know this, because one in particular has burrowed so deep into my soul that it’s never coming out. I remember the sickening feeling in the pit of my stomach as the car fell. It was my life, dropping out from under me. The feeling that nothing is ever going to be alright again.#p#分页标题#e#
This was the same and yet different. That was an ending; this was something beginning.
I’d stepped away from the bed and towards the door. That single step probably saved my life. If I’d still had my hand on the laptop, he’d have known for sure I was a spy and I would have been carried out of that room in a bloody, plastic-wrapped bundle.
I saw shock on his face and then, just for a split second, another look, one I couldn’t even process, right then—I filed it away for later. Then anger, and a quick glance at the laptop.
Some instinct made me keep my eyes on him. If I’d looked at the laptop, my fate would have been sealed. But I just stood there, mouth open, as he closed the distance between us.
One huge hand slammed into my chest, the palm right on the valley of my upper breasts. He pushed me back against the door, the hard wood jarring me painfully. He kept coming, stopping when his face was inches from mine. The whole world narrowed down to the throbbing heat of his hand against my skin and those burning, ice-fire eyes.
“What the fuck are you doing in my room?” he demanded.
We stared at each other as I took panic breaths through my nose, my lips a tight line of fear. His hand, pinning me to the door, might as well have been made of warm iron. He had me so firmly that I couldn’t even wriggle to the side. And despite my mounting panic, I was aware of the side of his thumb and the side of his pinky finger as they framed the tops of my breasts. Every breath made the soft flesh push and swell around them and a black, twisting energy shoot straight down to my groin. What the fuck is wrong with me?!
In my earpiece, I could hear panicked whispers as Adam, Roberta and the others tried to figure out what to do. Burst in and rescue me? Wait and see how it played out?
His words were replaying over and over in my head. It was the first time I’d ever heard him speak in English. His accent was heavy, softening some syllables and making others granite-hard. His fffuck was like a slow penetration followed by a jerk of the hips.
What the hell is wrong with me?! I wondered again. I had to answer him, had to think of some way out of this, but my mind was stuck on endless loop, replaying his words. Any second now, he was going to snap and just kill me.
So I did the only thing I could think of. I squeezed my eyes shut to try to break the loop and saw that image of him as he’d come out of the bathroom. The shock on his face, flicking momentarily to another look.
Pleasure.
Just for a fraction of a second, the ghost of a smile had touched his lips. Not the fake smile he’d given the women downstairs. A smile that actually reached those cold eyes, thawing them a little. It had been gone in an instant, but it had been there. He’d been pleased to see me.