The Espionage Effect(12)
I gasped softly as I fell onto the bed, but by the time I bounced up from the impact, laughter bubbled out. My unstoppable grin surprised me.
Unadulterated joy filled my darkened heart for the first time since…well, since I was a little girl. A man who I hadn’t expected had crashed over a barrier that I’d built to be impenetrable. But instead of launching additional defenses, I’d let my guard down a little.
And was rewarded. A lot.
“Well?” The sexy-as-hell man with a questionable, unknown background dared arch a black eyebrow at me.
Blowing out a shaky breath, I admitted the naked truth out loud, for once.
“Devastating,” I whispered.
I had no idea how I would survive more than his all-consuming kiss. But the grueling anger and relentless pain that I’d always carried with me had gone blessedly and unexpectedly silent the moment he touched me and for every heartbeat after.
Alec Marquez made every cell in my body vibrate with aching need to discover more.
Alec stared down at me, gaze hungry, the muscles of his bare chest tense. But even poised as he was to lunge forward, he waited. For a sign from me?
In those seconds where his sensual touch didn’t obliterate every torturous thought in my mind, logic seeped in. What was I doing with a complete stranger? How could I let him past my defenses when every other person had been relegated an outsider? Even my parents. Even Anna.
They were among the handful of people who knew the facts, in varying degrees. But no one knew everything about the horrific incident. No one held on to the images in my head, my eidetic memory becoming a curse unlike any could have imagined. I’d never let them understand the depths of my rage. Nor had I left any clues about the driving force of my need for vengeance.
To have done so would have painted a different picture about me, the brilliant mind who they’d predictably expected to be emotionally handicapped. They all saw what they wanted to see: the next Einstein or Gates—their finely honed world destroyer, or potential economic rainmaker. All my life, I’d portrayed the two-dimensional genius I wanted them to see.
Not one of them knew my real destiny.
But right in front of me, delivered by fate, stood a six-foot-two corporeal representation of all I’d ever wanted to be. Only he’d also shown me something else.
That I craved more than I’d ever imagined.
One word. All it would take to have him all over me. Inside of me.
Tension wound so tight in the negligible space between us, all it would take would be one word to ignite the newfound powder keg deep inside me that desperately needed to blow.
I opened my mouth, prepared to spark the fuse.
An odd sound penetrated the silence. I blinked, glancing over my shoulder toward the source. On the nightstand beside the bed, my iPhone vibrated against the wood surface, its screen illuminating a soft whitish glow.
“Anna,” I whispered, recognition and common sense dousing my arousal. I flipped over and lunged toward the pillows, reaching for the phone.
The number that appeared was unfamiliar, but I swiped the screen and answered it anyway. “Anna?”
“Hey, Dev. Did I wake you?”
“What?” Mind frazzled, I dropped my forehead to my hand and scrunched my brows, trying to focus. “No.” Only interrupted potential amazing wild sex. “Where have you been? No note? You’ve been gone awhile.”
“Sorry. The plan was a quick moonlight run on the beach, and you were out cold when I left. I had a little…accident.”
“Oh my God. What kind of accident? Are you injured?” I pushed upright and perched on the edge of the bed. The serious warnings about kidnapping for ransom flew into my mind, making a night of gunshot grazes and stitched-up puncture wounds seem insignificant. “Where are you?”
“The hospital.”
Two words. No further information. “Annaliese Brianne Johannsen. You will give me every single detail about what happened, by whom, and where you are at this very moment, or I will rain hell upon this country you swore to me was a vacationer’s mecca.”
“You’re slipping, Brainiac,” she teased. “You forgot ‘how’ and ‘why’ and ‘to what degree’ and ‘trajectory’.” In the background noise of the mobile phone, a muted rhythmic beeping sounded out accompanied by the murmur of a woman’s voice. “I have to go. They want to take an X-Ray to make sure nothing’s broken. It’s not. I’m positive. It’s only a little ankle sprain.”
“Are you sure?” Only. Little. Trivializing words that a religious runner like Anna would utter. No coded phrases were given, not that we’d decided on any. But her barbed humor seemed like normal, everyday Anna. Besides, what choice did I have? It wasn’t like I had a car to drive. “When will you be back?”
“Not sure.” Her tone altered, and the pause that followed made me listen more closely to the background noises, analyze everything she’d said and what hadn’t been said. “I want to see what they can do to get the swelling down,” she continued. “I’ll be damned if this ruins our plans. We’ve got snorkeling to do.”
Over the phone, a tense male voice grumbled.
“Gotta go, Dev. I’m fine. Go back to sleep. I’ll call you tomorrow or later tod—” A loud click abruptly ended the call.