Staying On Top(34)

Instead of pressing—and also to give me time to deep-breathe away my boner—I followed her gaze. The bus driver had pulled over at some point during our make-out session, which must have gone on a little longer than it had seemed to, and the two burly men who had corralled the gun-wielder had escorted him off the bus.

One of them was talking to him, a hand on his shoulder, and the previously frightening crazy person now looked to be sobbing on the side of the road. The woman who had sparked such passion sat in silence, knitting something lumpy and purple. She didn’t look up when the two men boarded the bus without her boyfriend or whatever he was, and said nothing when the driver pulled away, leaving him behind in the frigid night.

We were close enough to Belgrade that he wouldn’t have to walk far to get a ride, find shelter, or call someone, so it was hard to feel badly for him. Especially since he could have killed us.

Blair said nothing as the bus puffed and puttered the remaining ten minutes to the bus station. She sat carefully next to me, near enough that we shared heat but far enough to keep us from touching, with a faint smile on her lips. I realized my own mouth sported a matching one and shook it away. Goofiness would never help me into the bed of a girl such as Blair Paddington.

It still surprised me that even after the kiss—which I could not stop thinking about—I was still more curious about what was going on in her head than between her legs.

And that helped me stop smiling for good.





Chapter 9


Blair



I could not stop thinking about that kiss. It had been an impulse, a result of high adrenaline and base wonder that he had tried to protect me. Or, that’s what I’d thought before my lips touched his.

I could barely recall what happened after that. It was a haze of lust and heat and tongues, of his hands on my skin, of the frustrating desire to be closer to him. The reaction had been instinctual, coded into my DNA, and the force of it left my head in a fog. Scooting away from Sam had done nothing to dim the electric current of desire humming underneath my skin.

We needed more space from each other than a bus could provide, and by the time we pulled into the Belgrade station, I was happier to see Serbia than anyone had a right to be.

That is, until the sight of the all-too-perfect Marija Peronovic greeted me inside the dingy terminal.

After five days of nonstop travel, wrinkled clothes, and no shower, Sam and I fit in with the rest of our bedraggled travel companions a little too seamlessly. Marija freaking glowed, from the shiny ebony hair that hung to the middle of her back to the long inky lashes framing her bright blue eyes and the tanned legs that were completely out of place in the Serbian winter. She must have had a dress or skirt on, but it wasn’t visible under the soft blue of her wool coat.

She smiled at Sam, happiness and welcome lighting her beautiful face, and opened her arms for a hug. The girl had been one of my favorites to watch for years, and her spunky attitude with the press always planted me in her camp, but when her manicured fingers locked around Sam’s back, I wanted to claw her eyes out.

Which was stupid. Sam wasn’t mine, and I didn’t want him to be. No matter what I’d told the woman on the train, we were not lovers exploring Europe on Thanksgiving break. I was here to get access to his bank accounts by whatever means necessary, and kissing him couldn’t change that. Wouldn’t change that, even if I wanted it to.

Which I didn’t.

Sam and Marija had spent months and months on the road together for years. If they’d wanted to have sex or date, they’d had plenty of opportunity already—and who’s to say they hadn’t? The familiarity and ease between them as they caught up in soft voices suggested a level of comfort that could be more than friendship.

I touched my lips, then snatched my hand away when I realized what I was doing. So, Sam was a good kisser. So, it felt as though his lips were made of magnets perfectly tuned to a frequency in mine. All it meant was that, if this job did come to getting naked with him, I might actually enjoy it.

The tingle between my thighs at the thought said I would definitely enjoy it—or even want it—but as hard as it was to admit that to myself, I couldn’t do it like this. Lying to him.

I needed to stop dripping with lust and focus on the task at hand. Earn Sam’s trust. Make him believe I was on his side by pretending to ferret out my father’s current location. When we “failed,” talk him out of his bank account information so that I could continue the “search” on my own. End of story.

Still, would it be so bad to enjoy myself while doing my due diligence?

“Hello, earth to Blair . . .”

Sam’s voice knocked me out of a frustrating loop of not-logic. “Sorry, what?”