Page 33 of Gilded Locks
“Shut your eyes.”
“But Ash said?—”
“Ash isn’t here.” He unbuckled his belt and pulled the leather free with a slithering snap.
Her heart raced as he climbed into the bed beside her, his body over the covers.
“Please don’t—” Her words cut off as his cold, black glare snapped to her face.
His laugh was gruff and dismissive. “Mne eto ne interesno, prekrasnaya lgun’ya.” Then, as if recalling she didn’t speak Russian, he translated, “I’m not interested. I am only here because I don’t trust you, prekrasnaya lgun’ya.”
He spoke as if she were a tedious inconvenience. “What does that mean, prekrasnaya lgun’ya?” She butchered the pronunciation.
“Beautiful liar. Now shut your eyes.”
She did as he commanded, but sleep was impossible. Every breath from his lungs reminded her she wasn’t alone and there was an enormous, wild, possibly-killer beside her. It also didn’t help that she was naked under the covers in only a towel.
Weren’t the cameras enough? Did he have to be so close she could smell him? Not that his scent was unsavory. But it was unique enough that she now recognized it as solely his. And he was the one man she didn’t want to be alone with.
She rolled to her side and huffed.
“What is it?”
“Nothing.”
“Do they pay you for lies?”
She glanced over her shoulder and glared at him. “They?”
“The men who sent you here.”
“No one sent me here.”
“Exactly what a spy would say.”
“You seriously think I’m a spy?”
“I know you’re a thief.”
She was done arguing semantics. “Yes, I stole your clothes and broke into your house uninvited. I think I’ve already paid enough for my crimes.”
His gruff laughter was terrifying. “Do you now?”
She snapped her mouth shut before she got into more trouble. “I just want to sleep.”
“Then shut your mouth and close your eyes.”
That sounded like a good plan.
She thought restlessness would keep her awake, but she’d awoken sometime later, well-rested and alone. Her dreams had been a chaotic wash of visions that made no sense. She’d been running through a wild forest, chased by three bears—a grizzly, a gorgeous while polar bear, and a black bear.
Her hand brushed over the covers where Hunter had been, finding the sheets cold. She searched the room for a camera, but didn’t see a brass bear head.
Stone had claimed he’d watched her last night. Ash said there was always someone watching. Who watched her now?
Perhaps all of them. “Oh, god.”
Mortification over her performance in the kitchen returned. She recalled stripping off her wet clothes and changing last night, certain she must have looked like a wet rat on death’s door. Was this the entry to her slow death?
