Page 88 of You Betrayed Me (The Cahills 3)

He moaned.

Spasmed.

His eyes flew open.

Sophia was astride him again.

James grabbed her hips, forced himself not to throw her off him. The room was semi-dark, and her eyes were shut, her head thrown backward, blond hair falling past her shoulders. Her back was arched, her naked breasts shining with perspiration, her nipples protruding. “Oh, God,” she whispered hoarsely. “James, oh, oh, ohhh . . .” And then she stiffened and cried out in ecstasy or pain or a little of both.

Dear God, he thought, why did she keep slipping into bed with him? How did this keep happening? Why didn’t he wake up? How did she get in and—

She fell forward and lay atop him, breathing hard.

“Sophia, what’re you doing here?” He dropped his hands from her hips.

She wrapped her arms around his neck. “Loving you.”

“This can’t keep happening.”

“Sure it can,” she said, her warm breath ruffling the hairs on his chest. “I came back for my bracelet, and I saw you and couldn’t resist.”

“You have a key?”

“From the main desk.”

Of course. Because she sometimes worked the front desk and had access to the computer and all the skills needed to make a second key card.

He untangled her arms and slid her off him to one side. “You can’t keep coming in here like this.”

“Why not?” She looked at him with luminous and slightly wounded eyes.

“A million reasons,” he said.

“You worry too much.”

“You don’t worry enough.”

She snuggled close, her head against his shoulder. “Hold me,” she whispered breathlessly. “Oh, James, just hold me for a little while . . .”

He lay quietly and stared at the ceiling, remembering the yawning chasm of his dream.

* * *

Willow waited in the shadows.

As she always seemed to do.

The hotel was quiet in the predawn hours while most of the guests were sleeping. The few people on staff were at their posts, one receptionist in the office behind the lobby, probably looking at porn on his phone, the lone person on janitorial staff locked in his small room in the basement.

The doors of the rooms were closed, locked for the night, the hallways hushed.

She was alone, and she knew where the cameras were.

On the third floor, she stared at the door of the executive suite, where James Cahill was now recovering and where, she knew, Sophia Russo had made her way inside. Willow thought about creeping closer to the door, even using her passkey to crack it open, but there was the dog, who would put up a ruckus if a stranger entered, and James was probably not sleeping anyway.

She imagined what was going on in that room. Despite his injuries, despite his recent hospital stay, despite the fact that his supposed girlfriend had gone missing, James was fornicating.

With Sophia.

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