Page 38 of The Blonde Identity

She saw the moment he drifted from mostly asleep to mostly awake—the second he saw her—that heknewher. The second she was safe.

“Hey, sleepyhead,” she tried to tease, but he didn’t smile. Not even the crooked one that he probably didn’t know he had. “Did I wake you?”

“What...” He shook his head, like he couldn’t quite remember where he was. “What happened?”

“I’m no expert, but I’m pretty sure it’s calleddreaming.” She was more smug than scared by that point. “It happens sometimes. When people sleep, which all people do.”

He was lying over her—onher, technically. His body long andlean and pressing into hers; and she was still wearing the great invisible nightie—a fact that he seemed to remember a split second later because he rolled away. But there was a dark edge to his voice when he asked, “Did I hurt you?”

“No.”

“Are you—”

“I’m sure.” She was careful as she touched him, a gentle brush against his skin. “I’m fine. I feel guilty, though. You take the bed for the rest of the night. I can—”

“No.”

“You exasperating man! You obviously need your sleep way more than I do. Whatever happens tomorrow, I won’t need to shoot guns or judo chop—”

“I donotjudo chop...”

“—bad guys. I’m expendable, so—”

She thought he was scary with a gun in each hand and dead Russians all around him, but she had never seen Sawyer look as lethal as he looked then. “You arenotexpendable. Don’t ever call yourself that. Ever.”

Suddenly, he was too close and his gaze was too hot and it was all way too much. She hated how badly she wanted to look away but she knew he’d see her—he always saw her.

“I’m serious, Zoe. You’re not expendable. And you never will be.”

He was so much closer then, and her throat was so much dryer as his hand cupped her cheek. It was all she could do to choke out the word, “Okay.”

The boat took that moment to rock slightly, and he swayed—away from her and the moment—so she climbed to her knees and said, “Come on. It’s a king-size bed. I’ll put a row of pillows between us. That ought to protect me.”

She gave a saucy glance over her shoulder, but there was a look in his eye—something hot and dark and hungry. And Zoe felt like she had when she was flying off the bridge—like her stomach wasn’t where it was supposed to be.

“Lady, nothing can protect you from me.”

Then he got up and went to the bathroom, flicked on the light, and closed the door. Zoe sat there for a long time, wondering what had just happened.

When the light flickered off ten minutes later, she felt the other side of the bed dip; she heard the covers rustle. And Zoe kept her gaze on the moonlit countryside passing outside their window.

She never said a thing.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Him

Sawyer hadn’t been lying. He really didn’t sleep. Except when he did. It was always like that—bits of the night like black holes where stars used to be, moments where he lost his hold on the present and got sucked into the past. And he hated it. Because, to Sawyer, nothing was more exhausting than what happened in his dreams.

So that was how he ended up back on the floor the next day, shirt off, pushing himself as far and as fast as he could while lying still.

“Eighty-nine. Ninety. Ninety-one...” His arms burned. His chest ached. And he knew he was only halfway through the minimum when the covers rustled, and a small voice said, “You’re up early.”

He lost count and laughed, a sound he didn’t quite recognize when he first heard it. “You’re up late,” he corrected, and she glanced at the clock by the bed.

“Is that three...”

“p.m.? Yes. That’s why the sun is shining.”

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