Page 26 of The Truths that Deceive

I’m uncomfortable but humming at the same time.

It’s a low-level buzz that inflames all my nerve endings. The dislike and want for this man moves through me in viscous, equal measures.

He hasn’t kissed me, but he’s touched me, felt me up, and performed lewd acts that on paper don’t amount to much at all. On paper, they could be construed as wrong. But how can it be nothing much, and how can it be wrong when it shakes meto the core, when it sets off a heavy beat of need and longing in me?

I don’t know. I don’t know anything right now other than the fact that I like his little power play games. “Get off me.”

“How come I think you want more?” He strokes my hair, the lightness of his touch sinking down into my depths.

“I don’t.”

He leans in. “You like to be hunted, chased. But, little girl, you’ve found the wrong predator. Because I won’t stop. If you manage to get away, you better be willing to hide the rest of your days because I’ll track you, find you, and destroy you.”

My head spins.

I don’t think he’s talking about killing me or me escaping. Or if he is, it’s on another level completely. A place of sex and bones and teeth and blood. Somewhere I can revel in lust and?—

“Get off me.” I can’t go there. Because I’m shaking.

The chase. Running. Fighting. Going down with him.

This is so new. It’s frightening. Exhilarating. It’s coming home.

I try to breathe. Calm down the beating center of me. Stop the heat that rises from my pussy.

“This is how it’s going to go. You’re going to do what I say, when I say it, or you’re going to wish?—”

“What?” I snarl the word. “That I’d met you sooner?”

“I’m your worst nightmare, Calista. No, you’ll wish you’d made more of an effort in toeing the line. For your brother.”

“You bastard.”

He just laughs softly and gets off me, leaving me there.

It takes a while to realize he’s not coming back. It takes longer to get that he’s leaving me here, on the floor.

One polished shoe lands near my face, and the fine wool of his dark suit pants falls inperfect lines.

He crouches over me and fingers of one hand with silver rings brushes hair from my face, a gentle touch that riles every inch of me.

“I’m going out now. Punishment and reward, Calista. We can get you back and into the right hands the easy way or the hard way. It’s up to you. I get paid either fucking way.”

And then he’s up, and his shoes move to the door. It opens and he’s gone.

“Fucking bastard!” I say. Then I pause. And I scream. “Fucking perverted asshole!”

And the sound echoes throughout the room as I’m left completely alone.

Gettingfree’s no easy feat. I can’t shake the feeling that it’s nothing more than a warning, a test.

If a man like Smith doesn’t want me free, there’ll be no way I can do it. Even though I kept my wrists loose, but fists pumped, the slack is only in the length between the wrists, not in how the plastic wraps my flesh.

Getting up is less than dignified, as is finding a knife, but at least I’m free now. I’m in the middle of systematically pulling the place apart when someone speaks behind me. I jump and twist around.

My heart sinks. Blond and gorgeous. I’m pretty sure she’s Marta Krause, high up in German intelligence, the BND. I always made it a point to know discreet international operatives because they can be the most dangerous.

She’s effortlessly cool, one of those ageless types who could be late twenties to forties, and she oozes sophistication.

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