Chapter 7 #2
“Yes, yes, I need medical treatment!” Simone declared, voice passionate. “I was drugged! Who knows what was in that smelly cloth?” Her hand flew in the air. Did a little spin. Then dropped back to her side.
Based on the reaction she’d had to the cloth, he strongly suspected she’d been chloroformed, and Ryan was sure he’d mentioned that fact to her before. “Do you have other injuries? You, ah, fought Alexei pretty hard in the van.”
Now her hands went to her hips and balled into little fists. “Of course, I fought him hard. What was I supposed to do? Go meekly along with my own kidnapping?” She spun, giving him her back, as she began to pace the length of the abandoned cottage.
He stalked after her. “You told me to run.”
Her head turned. Her gaze cut over her shoulder. “Did I?”
“Yes, you did. When I first saw you, when Alexei had you at the van, you said for me to run.” Talk about something that had pissed him off to his core. “Why the hell would you do that?”
“Uh, to save your life?” She squinted at him. “To keep you out of trouble? To be a good person?”
He really wanted to touch her. He needed to touch her.
Ryan closed the last bit of distance between them, and his hand extended. Carefully, almost hesitantly, his fingers curled around her shoulder. Her bare, delicate shoulder.
A shudder worked over him.
“What are you doing?” Simone turned to fully face him. “Are you having some kind of medical episode? Maybe you’re the one who needs medical treatment?”
No, dammit, he was not. He just needed to touch her.
Because he’d been terrified that Alexei would kill her, right in front of him. The stark terror was new for Ryan. He never became afraid on missions. He rode adrenaline highs. He kicked ass. He…dammit, his muscles were still twisted with tension at the thought of anyone hurting Simone.
“I have no idea what happened to you while I was unconscious.” Now she edged closer, and her left hand rose to press to his cheek. Worry darted over her pretty face. “That is one hell of a black eye.”
“Got it when you collapsed in the van. Had to get to you.” And he had. “I picked you up. I held you on the drive. They weren’t touching you.”
Her lashes—normal lashes, not the longer, thicker, fake ones that she’d had before—flickered. He liked her normal lashes. They made her eyes seem bigger. Softer. More innocent. “You held me?” Simone seemed surprised.
“Yeah, I did.” And Alexei had held a gun to Ryan’s head the whole time, but that didn’t seem like a point to share at that particular moment.
“Until we got to the stables, yeah. I kept you in my arms.” He’d been reassured by her steady breaths as he cradled her in the back of that damn van.
“Then they pulled you away from me.” It had taken five of them to do the job.
“They tied me in one chair. Put you in the other. Then they left us.” He’d watched her, struggling to see in the dark.
Straining to speak behind the duct tape.
He’d been so sure she would be terrified when she woke.
And instead, when the sun had finally started to send streaks of light through the wooden slats of the stables, Simone had opened her eyes and shown zero fear.
“I’m sorry that you were hurt trying to help me.” She rose onto her toes, and her lips brushed lightly over the skin around his left eye. “You really should have ran.”
“Screw that.” His hands locked around her waist. He lifted her up, wanting to make sure she avoided the glass shards that he’d just spotted near her.
He took three steps, and he had her caged between his body and the wall.
“There’s something you need to understand about me right now.
” He released her waist, but then his fingers immediately moved to curl around her wrists.
With his grip, he lifted her hands and held them against the wall.
“Is it that you’re big and bad and a super dangerous spy? Because you already made that shocking reveal to me.”
She was stunning to him. A faint smile on her lips. Zero fear in her eyes. Trying to quip with him when she should have been shaking in her shoes. She isn’t wearing shoes. “I will not abandon you,” he growled.
And…
Fear.
It came fast. Blooming in her eyes right before she blinked.
“Yes, you will.” A smile curved her lips.
“I think you’re planning to arrest me for some made-up crime and then toss me into a cell someplace while you go about your merry way.
” She licked her lips. Cocked her head to the side.
“Tell me, how does an American spy even have the legal authority to arrest someone here in the UK? I mean, do you have the authority or were you just threatening me for fun?”
“I’m working with MI6.”
She absorbed that info with a slight nod. “The Secret Intelligence Service. Sure, why not be working with them? Because my day and night had not been bad enough before.” She did not try to break out of his grasp. And his gaze just dropped to her mouth.
He loved her mouth. The shape of it. The feel of it beneath his. The way her lips would part, and she moaned ever so softly when he kissed her.
Ryan swallowed. “It’s for your protection,” he muttered.
“What is?”
He wanted her mouth. He wanted her.
She pulled her lower lip between her teeth. Nibbled a bit. Then let go. “See something you like, Mr. Spy?”
His gaze flew up to catch her gaze. “Don’t play with me.”
“Sorry. Is that what I’m doing?”
He was quite sure it was.
“Let’s blame it on the adrenaline, shall we? My emotions are out of control. I’m not quite in control.” A deliberate pause from Simone. “Are you?”
“Am I what?” His body pressed to hers, and, even through that billowing skirt of hers, she probably felt his dick shoving against her. He eased back, a little, but didn’t let her go.
“Are you in control?” Simone asked him.
“I’m always in control.”
Her brows climbed. “You don’t sound that way. You sound like adrenaline might be pushing you to the edge, too.”
Adrenaline. Fury. Desire. The remnants of fear that he never, ever should have felt.
“Do it,” she dared.
He sucked in a breath. “Do what?”
“Kiss me. You know you want to do it. I want you to do it. What will one tiny kiss hurt?”
There was not going to be anything tiny about their kiss, dammit. That was insulting.
She rolled one shoulder. “Not like we’re going to kiss and then frantically rip each other’s clothes off, am I right?”
She should not tempt him that way. Ripping off her clothes seemed like a fabulous idea to him.
“I’m filthy.” Her nose scrunched in a way that he found too adorable.
“Your fancy extraction team is coming any minute, and I’m thinking that when you valiantly came to the rescue last night, you didn’t stop to grab a condom so…
” An exhale. “A kiss is all we get. A real kiss. No pretending this time. Just you and me. Just the two of us actually kissing. Actually letting go and seeing what the desire between us is really like before, well, before your associates try to arrest me for some crime that I don’t even remember committing. ”
She needed to stop fascinating him. “I’m pretty sure you’re a thief.”
Her lips parted. “That is insulting.” Yet, somehow, her words came out like a sensual temptation.
“You’re definitely a liar.” His head was lowering toward hers because there was no way he could hold himself back. He was going to kiss Simone.
“Me? I think you’re the liar. I believe that lying is the way of life for a spy.”
He was a breath away from her mouth.
“Also, should you just be confessing that you’re CIA?” She made a little tut-tut click with her tongue. “Your spy status doesn’t feel like something you should tell the world.”
“You’re not the world.”
“No.”
“You’re mine.”
“What?”
He took her mouth.