Staying On Top(67)

When we headed toward what appeared to be a residential portion of the village as opposed to the more commercial area, my brain snapped to attention. We stopped at a house that looked pretty much like all of the others—open-air patio, small balcony, cracked white plaster. Instead of using a code to open the door as we had in Belgrade, Blair tipped up a flowerpot and grabbed a key.

I put my hand over hers before she turned the key in the lock. “Wait. We don’t want a repeat of Belgrade. Are you sure there aren’t alarms?”

“No. I didn’t think there would be in Serbia, either, but the response time for such a thing would be longer here. Plus, it’s much more remote.” She shrugged. “Let go in and check. If we see anything suspicious we’ll leave, but I could really use a shower.”

“With me?”

“Tempting.” The hitch in her breath and the spark in her eyes betrayed her desire. “But we have less than half an hour until dinner, and Xander abhors tardiness. I’d need way more time than that to be done with you.”

I groaned. “You just had to add the last part, didn’t you?”

“You’re fun to tease.”

“I’m going to make you pay for that later,” I murmured, running my fingers down the back of her neck.

“That had better be a promise.” She stepped away from me with a saucy grin, then stripped off her shirt on her way down the hall. “Check the living room for cameras, will you?”

She wandered into the other room and my eyes scanned the walls and ceiling, finding nothing that looked out of the ordinary. There weren’t vents in this house, given that there was no central heat or air, and the ceiling fans would be the only place to hide anything like a camera or motion detector. The room appeared clean, too, at least to my untrained eye.

I heard the shower come on in the other room, and assumed Blair hadn’t uncovered anything suspicious, either. The kitchen was empty, dustier than either of the other places we’d stopped, and smelled like stale air. No refrigerator or microwave. Nothing to suggest Neil or anyone else had been here in some time, though this world was simpler than most to begin with.

It made me wonder exactly what kind of caretaker this Xander was, since this property didn’t appear to need much support, and my instinctual nerves over meeting him ratcheted up a couple of notches. Anyone who had worked for Neil for twenty years had to know enough about his business to at least suspect criminal activity. Which pretty much ensured Xander was some kind of criminal himself. I was going to shove what was left of my cash into my underwear before we sat down to dinner.

The shower went off in less than ten minutes, followed by the sound of Blair’s voice hollering that it was my turn and to hurry up. She was gone from the bathroom when I walked in, which disappointed me, but the spray of lukewarm water took my mind off her naked body for the seven or eight minutes I stood underneath it.

A record since we’d left Melbourne, probably.

“I have to say, I’m not a fan of the towel.”

I startled, my heart leaping into my throat, when Blair spoke from the shadows outside the bathroom. “Christ.”

“You’re jumpy.”

“I’m sorry, after having to jump off a balcony at our last checkpoint, should I not be?”

She didn’t answer, just held out a pair of jeans and a yellow button-down. “Here. My dad and you are about the same size. They should fit, and they’re clean.”

Once my heart rate returned to normal, I noticed she wore a gauzy red sundress that tied at the shoulders with little bows. It dipped low enough in the front to show off the cleavage that had so intrigued me last night, and the sun from the day had kissed her skin with a golden hue. She’d twisted her wet hair into a braid that hung down her back.

I stepped forward, snagging her into a hug. “You look like the most beautiful devil in hell.”

“What kind of devil would I be if I couldn’t seduce you,” she joked, swatting me away. “You’re getting me wet.”

“That’s the point.”

“Get dressed, would you? I promise not to ask you to put clothes on for the rest of the trip.”

“Fine.” I shut the bathroom door after stealing a kiss, because getting naked around her would lead to us being late for dinner, no matter what she said. Her eyes betrayed her.

The clothes fit fine, and the comb, toothbrush, and toothpaste under the sink combined to make me feel almost human again. The deodorant in my pack took me the rest of the way, and for two people who had been halfway around the world and through most of Europe in a little more than week, we looked damn good.