Page 71 of Lethal Torture
“No.”
“Me either.” Her sapphire eyes have darkened and no longer dart away from mine. “Or rather, I don’t remember being there. My mother died when I was born.”
“I’m sorry.”
She shrugs, her lips curving slightly. “I’m not looking for sympathy.”
She turns on the stool, glancing into my bedroom, then back to me. “That photograph by your bed,” she says tentatively.
“Is it Liana?” I grin. “Yep. And the terrorists she calls kids. Tommo, her husband, took it. He’s a good mate.”
“Oh.” She takes a deep breath, then settles back on her stool, all trace of restlessness suddenly gone.
It takes a minute for me to put the pieces together.
She thought Liana and the boys were mine.
That’s why she’s been so off since I got here. Why she wouldn’t meet my eyes.
She thought I was married.
And she didn’t like it.
The adrenaline of a few minutes ago hits me again, but rather lower in my gut this time and infinitely darker.
Anatoly is waiting outside.
I silently curse whatever stupidly responsible part of me gave that order. I can’t rescind it now, not if I plan to keep looking Anatoly in the eye.
But nor do I want Zinaida to leave.
I like having her perched on a stool in my apartment. I like the way she looks in here, and I like the way my apartment smells of her, heady and rich. I like leaning across the table and talking to her.
I’m suddenly very conscious that there’s only a table between my skin and hers.
The urge to lay her across it and eat every fucking piece of her, slowly and deliberately, sends a bolt of pure lust through me.
Zin looks up at me in the instant before I shut down that fucking thought.
Something of what I feel must be visible, because she looks away quickly. “So you’ll be there.” Her voice is slightly hoarse. She clears it and starts again. “At Avonmouth.”
I tilt my head, trying to ignore the lightning racing through my body. “I won’t get in your way. But we have to assume that whoever is trying to kill you knows your every move. So yes, I’ll be there.”
Zin shifts on the stool, turning so the downlight casts a shadow up the lean musculature of her thigh. I try not to think about how much I want to touch it. The urge to round the table and slide my hands beneath her dress, press my thumbs to the part of her I can almost taste, is excruciating.
Don’t do it, Luke.
But that doesn’t mean I can’t exact a little revenge for all the moments of torture that have kept me hard and aching since I met her.
Oh sure, Macarthur. That’s what this is.
“Speaking of every move.” I leave my drink and walk slowly around to her side. Standing next to her, so close her scent fills my senses until I can barely breathe, I lean back on the counter, my arm barely inches from hers. My hand is close enough to stroke the exposed length of her thigh.
Andfuckdo I want to touch that thigh.
I don’t miss the way her breath hitches, then stops, nor her sudden, quivering stillness.
She wants this. She wants it badly.
