The Espionage Effect(13)
Closing my eyes, I imagined single-minded Anna would insist our plans continue uninterrupted. Still, I scowled at the phone, irritated that I could do nothing to help her. Or confirm anything she’d said.
The bed dipped, causing my weight to shift as Alec sat beside me.
“Everything okay?” Genuine concern laced his words. His eyebrows were slightly raised.
“Yeah. I mean, I think so. My very brave but mildly stupid friend went running at night in a foreign country and twisted her ankle. She said she’s at the hospital.”
“Do you believe her?”
I turned toward him. Had he detected my doubt? Masking emotions to get others to believe what I wanted had been an art form I’d mastered over a lifetime. Yet being around Alec had thrown my world into a tailspin. And apparently my keen senses right along with it.
“I have no reason not to.” There were plenty of reasons. But shielding my true thoughts had become second nature, and the minuscule control I’d found around a man who’d so far made me feel completely out of it gave me a small degree of comfort. “How far is the hospital from here?”
“Twenty-six kilometers,” he replied. About sixteen miles.
Suddenly distracted as a stray thought coalesced, I stared down at the phone in my hand. “I’m from the States. Don’t you have to activate your mobile phone with your communications provider to receive calls and texts here?”
“Yes,” he replied.
I frowned. I hadn’t activated my service for use outside of the United States. Anna had? And my service provider hadn’t required account-holder identity verification?
“Would you like to go?” His tone had softened.
Confused on multiple levels, I frowned and glanced up at him. “What?”
His warm hand slid over my bare thigh until it rested midway between my hip and my knee. “Would you like me to take you to the hospital to see your friend?”
“No.” I shook my head. “Anna said she needed to get X-Rays.” And I doubted they’d let us see her in the middle of the night. Unless visiting hours weren’t strictly enforced.
Clicking the phone’s function button again, I checked the time: 2:07 a.m. Then I imagined milling about a hospital in a third-world country, germs and diseases sprouting like weeds on every surface. “Maybe later?” Postponement didn’t make the idea more palatable, but it would allow time for Anna’s condition to be assessed and for me to consider subsequent options.
“Sure. You let me know.” The weight of his docile hand changed, the strong pressure easing as he spoke. His voice had lowered, growing huskier with every successive word.
On a hard swallow, I glanced down as his hand feathered over my upper thigh that had erupted in goose bumps. When his long fingers reached the hem of my cotton boxers, his slow advance stopped. He tucked them under the edge until the fabric pulled taut, then his middle finger began to draw tiny, slow circles on my skin.
He leaned closer, broad chest pressing against my arm, until his warm breath danced over the outer shell of my ear. “I’m at your disposal.”
Why? Didn’t he have things to do? Or had his plans been derailed with being shot at?
Now that he’d volleyed the decision into my court, dripping with heavy sexual innuendo, my head whirled with the implications of having a man “at my disposal.”
Heart thumping harder with every passing millisecond, I abruptly jumped up from the bed. The sudden movement knocked him back and jarred his hand away from me.
“I…have to go to the bathroom.” Get some air. Think things through. Take a breather away from a man who clouded my judgment, overwhelming typically logical thought processes by his mere proximity.
As I fled the darkness and burst into the brightly lit bathroom, I sucked in a deep breath. I raced across the cool tiles and sought refuge within the toilet area, the only place in the entire hotel suite with a door. That locked. The click of the throw bolt as it secured into the frame provided some semblance of calm in a raging storm of uncertainty. I backed up, then sat on the closed toilet seat.
The muffled deep rumble of his chuckling sounded out. “You hungry?”
Brows drawing together in confusion, I stared at the carved wooden panels of the door that separated us. Was his inquiry some kind of a prelude-to-meaningless-sex courting convention? Feed the woman to placate her? The only sexual frame of reference I had consisted of calculated mutual agreement and drunken lost inhibitions.
My traitorous stomach rumbled. Likely all of the excitement of Anna leaving, Alec appearing, and the temptation of mind-blowing sex at my mere command had burned through calories at an increased rate.
“I could eat,” I replied loud enough for him to hear. Middle of the night snacking had never been a compunction. But on a spur-of-the-moment vacation that showed promise in rewriting my dull world into a sensual adventure, going with the flow of events seemed prudent.
I tumbled his casual words over in my head: Sure. You let me know. And somehow my mind twisted the offer into something more erotic. No pressure. Everything possible to gain me physical release, which he offered. And due to the way my body responded to the mere thought, I clearly needed. In fact, my pulse began to make itself known as a cadent throbbing ache between my legs, pounding the point home in demonstration.
I stood, took a cleansing breath, then lifted the toilet lid and sat on the inner seat, deciding to make use of it since I’d hidden on it; I was nothing if not logical and efficient.