Lying and Kissing(47)

He supported me as I trembled and shook and finally relaxed. Then, as he released me, I staggered forward and my dress fell back into place. I shrugged my coat back onto my shoulders and tossed my hair out of my eyes, and I was decent again.

Apart from the ripped panties on the floor.

“What was...that?!” I panted.

“Didn’t you enjoy it?” he asked innocently.

It would be ridiculous to say no. I glared at him, but he had that hint of a smile on his lips that completely disarmed me. I settled for, “You can’t just do things like that! People could see! Yuri saw!”

“So? He’s seen me plenty of times. Sometimes, in the back of the car.”

So I’d been right about why he wanted all that legroom.

He reached out and grabbed my hand, pulling me up against him. Dammit, he was gorgeous and so assured in his power. He knew he could do whatever he wanted. “And usually,” he told me, “the girls are naked.”

I thought about how I must have looked: dress hiked up, panties gone, his fingers inside me. How was I going to look Yuri in the eye again? I shook my head. Now that the sexual heat had died away, I was starting to get mad. At him, for doing it and at myself, for letting him. I was meant to be on a mission. I was meant to be the one in control. The anger rose and bubbled. I could have said stop but—I flushed—I’d been enjoying it too much. I didn’t know how to say any of that, so I lashed out in another direction. “Is that what I am, then, just another one of your girls to—to fuck whenever you like? Another Natalia?”

He froze. “How do you know about Natalia?”

Because I listened to your phone calls. Every drop of blood in my veins turned to freezing sludge. Shit!





I thought about saying aren’t all Russian women called Natalia or Natasha? But I was pretty sure that wouldn’t fly.

“You said her name in your sleep.” It was the first thing that popped into my head.

He frowned. “I don’t talk in my sleep.”

I thought I was going to be sick.

Then he frowned more deeply, looking uncertain. “Do I?”

Nancy had once told me that the best way to make a lie believable was to believe it yourself, to convince yourself that you were telling the truth. I imagined Luka spooning me, so close that I could feel his breath on my ear. I could easily imagine that sexy Russian accent, muttering a name. “You did last night,” I said confidently. “You kept muttering about her.”

Luka’s jaw set. I could tell he believed me, but tentatively. He seemed disturbed that I’d supposedly discovered a weakness. “What did I say?” he asked.#p#分页标题#e#

My mind flashed back to all those phone calls. When he’d dumped her, she’d angrily reminded him, in her precise, clipped tones, about all the wonderful things she’d done for him. The things she’d let him do to her.

“You were telling her”—I felt myself redden, which hopefully made it seem authentic –“you were telling her you were going to take her up the ass again,” I said.

And for the first time ever, Luka dropped his eyes from mine. Was that a tiny hint of a blush in his cheeks? If it was, it was gone in a second. “Okay,” he said.

Whew.

Then he frowned. “How did you understand what I was saying?”

Shit! I hadn’t thought of that. I wasn’t supposed to understand Russian, let alone muttered Russian sleep-talking. I decided to go for broke. “You said it in English,” I said nonchalantly, digging my nails into my palms.

He frowned again. Then he seemed to remember something and nodded to himself, as if he now understood. “Ah. I see.”

“What?”

He shook his head. The matter was closed. But, now that the danger was passed, I was intrigued. “No, tell me—what?”

“Is sex thing, is not for you.” His English always got mangled when he was flustered, or excited.

“Because I’m an innocent?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Yes.”

“But it’s okay for you to corrupt me when you want to?” I asked.

Now there was a gleam in his eye. “Yes.”

I kept staring at him and, eventually, he relented. “I must have been dreaming about a sex game I used to play with Natalia,” he said. “I used to speak to her in English, when we played it.”

“Why?”

“I’d be interrogating her.”

“Interrogating—”

He smirked. “She used to pretend to be an American spy.”

My stomach did a full somersault and then plummeted into my feet. “Oh.”

He patted my shoulder. He’d cheered up, now, amused at how shocked I looked. “We will be sailing, soon. I’ll go and see about some dinner.” He nodded at the torn panties on the floor. “You find some new ones. Or just leave them off.” He kissed the top of my head and strode out the door, his shoulders almost brushing the door frame.