I woke up alone in the bed. It felt wrong, as if I’d already gotten used to the feel of him against me. And that was ridiculous, after just one night.
I could feel that the covers were warm behind me, though, so Luka couldn’t have been up long. Without moving, I opened my eyes. The blinds behind me must have been open because the room was bright with sunlight. I was about to sit up to look for Luka when I saw something. On the dresser, right in front of my eyes, was a steaming black coffee mug. And reflected in its shining surface I could see—
I snapped my eyes closed again and then studied the image in my mind. In the reflection, I’d seen myself, lying on my side in the bed. And behind me, sitting in an armchair across the room, was Luka. He was sipping an identical mug of coffee and he looked fantastic in black jeans and a white shirt that he hadn’t bothered to fasten up yet. That glorious strong chest thrust out between the shirt’s open sides and my eyes tracked down, over the hard ridges of his abs and along the deep centerline, then back up over his pecs.
But it wasn’t his body that had caught my attention. It was what he was doing.
He was staring at me. He was sitting there watching me sleeping. Why would he do that? In his phone calls, he’d always seemed like a guy who could barely spare the time to talk to his girlfriends, even when they looked like supermodels. Clearly, I’d slept in—the sun seemed to be high in the sky. Had there been a clock anywhere in view? I searched through the remembered image. Shit! 9:47. What the hell was he doing, still watching me slumber in his bed?
I kept my eyes closed and let out what I hoped was a good fake yawn, flopping over on my back and stretching my arms above my head. Possibly, I overdid it a little because the covers rode down and my boobs popped into view. I’d forgotten I was naked.
I opened my eyes. Luka was up out of his chair and gazing nonchalantly out of the window as if he’d never been looking at me at all. “Good morning,” I said, quickly covering myself.
He turned. His face was back to its icy mask. “I made you coffee,” he said. Then, “It’s good that you’re up. You should go. I have a meeting.”
I nodded, confused, then pretended to see the time on the clock and made a big show of looking surprised that I’d slept so late. I glugged some coffee and ran off to the shower.
Standing under the spray again, I tried to figure things out. He was coming across as indifferent—cold, even. He was giving the impression that it had just been a one-night stand and that now he wanted me out. I would have bought the act completely if I hadn’t seen him watching me so intently as I slept. And why had he asked me to stay the night, only to kick me out in the morning?
The callousness made sense—I knew what sort of man he was. But what he was hiding underneath...that didn’t make sense at all.
Outside the bathroom door, I found my clothes, freshly laundered and neatly folded. He really had got someone to clean them at three in the morning. I dressed and went to find him.
He was standing behind the kitchen counter, reading the newspaper that was spread out across it. That meant that approaching him was awkward. The closer I got, the more the counter seemed like a barrier between us. “Um. I’ll be going, then, I guess.” Was he going to kiss me? Talk about the night before?
I knew I should be thinking of the whole thing as a spy. Analyzing, probing for weaknesses. That’s what Nancy or one of the other professionals would have done. I just wondered, heart aching, if he was even going to look up.
Then he did and I saw that pain in his eyes again, the blue ice burning for a second. “I called you a taxi,” he said. “It’s downstairs. It’ll take you back to your hotel. I already paid for it.”
“Thank you.” Now what? Kiss him? Ask him what’s next? Maybe I’d been wrong, before. Maybe he really was just kicking me out and that’s all there was to it. I was to be just another one-night stand in a long line of them. I hesitated for another second and then stepped towards the door.
I had my hand on the doorknob when he said, “Arianna.”
I turned back.
He stared at me for another beat, his eyes searching my face. In that second, despite his size, he looked...helpless. Then he was storming out from behind the counter, his open shirt flapping with the movement. He covered the distance between us in a few short strides and the sight of him, all muscle and tattoos and those intense blue eyes, made me tense as he drew near. Luka could loom like no man I’d ever met.
I raised my eyes to look up at him just as he brushed my hair back from my face. That conflict in his eyes again. Confusion, as if he didn’t understand his own feelings. I opened my mouth to ask what the hell was going on and—
And he was kissing me, his hand coming up to hold my cheek and then caress it, his tongue pushing my lips apart. His thumb rubbed in slow circles on my cheekbone and I could feel that massive chest moving against me as he panted like some barely-restrained beast. The contact was like an electrical surge ripping through my body. I felt as if I could lift my feet off the floor and I’d float there in mid air. He lifted his mouth and kissed my lower lip, biting it lightly between his teeth, and I went heady.
When we finally parted, we stood there with lips almost touching, as if neither of us wanted to back off. We were so close that I couldn’t see his eyes. “I want you again,” I heard him say.
I caught my breath at the thick lust that had entered his voice. I remembered what he’d said when his head was between my thighs, those words in Russian I wasn’t meant to understand. That he was going to end my innocence, in every conceivable way. I remembered how it had been: brutal and hard, pinned to the bed...and feeling alive, for just a few minutes.
I was meant to be getting involved with him. I was meant to be becoming his girlfriend. But this thing that I’d inadvertently unlocked between us, this darkness in him I was drawn to and the innocence he was drawn to in me...that was something altogether more dangerous. I couldn’t.
He gripped my arm, hard. “I have to have you,” he said.
I felt my legs weaken under me. I swallowed and then, in a voice that didn’t sound like my own, I whispered, “Yes.”
He moved back far enough that I could see his face. “I have to go on a trip for a few days,” he said. “You’ll come.” Not do you want to come? You’ll come.
“A trip?” I asked uncertainly.
“It’s on a yacht,” he told me. He grinned, getting a little of his confident charm back. “We will be away for a few days. I will have to go to a meeting, but the rest of the time….” He kissed me again, slowly but with no less heat than before.
I had no idea what to do. Go away with him?! Where? That wasn’t even vaguely within the scope of the mission. But I was meant to be getting close to him...and the idea of more time with him sent thick, dark tendrils of heat straight down to my groin. “Okay,” I said.
For just a second, he smiled like a child at Christmas.
I stepped back from him and opened the door, thinking fast. I had to somehow find out where we were going, so I could tell Adam. “I’ll have to get something to wear,” I said. “Where are we going? Will it be hot? Cold?”
He smirked. “Cold,” he said. Damn! I needed a location—at least a damn country! But I couldn’t push it too hard or it might look suspicious.
He picked up a pad of Post-It notes from the counter, wrote on the top one and gave it to me. “Tell the taxi to take you there. Tell them I sent you.”
I looked at the note. The name of a store and an address. Luka’s handwriting was all bold strokes and sharp angles, powerful but precise. “Okay,” I said doubtfully.
I backed out of the door. As I reached the threshold, he suddenly reached out and grabbed the collar of my dress, preventing me from moving further. Then he dragged me back inside and kissed me again, hot and long and slow, his lips owning me totally.
“I will collect you from your hotel at three,” he said.
And he gently closed the door.