Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
Something was wrong.
Simone’s breath seemed too fast. Her skin too pale. And her frantic gaze had locked on the elevator doors. Her body was way too tense, and he did not like this shit.
“Simone?”
She jumped.
And the elevator…stilled.
“Ohmygod.” Her body swayed. “I cannot get stuck in this elevator. That can’t happen. Not now.”
“Are you claustrophobic?” Simone sure as hell seemed to be acting that way.
She surged toward the panel on the right. Her hand flew down, and she started hitting buttons, just as the elevator had begun to move again.
Unfortunately, when her hands frantically flew over the buttons, the elevator jerked to a halt. A hard halt.
“No!” Simone tried to punch the buttons again.
He caught her hands. “It’s okay. Give the system a second.” Actually, he thought she might have accidentally shoved the stop button. An alarm was sounding nearby, and that was not good. “Simone? Look at me.”
Her gaze crashed toward him. Her pupils were too small. Her body trembled.
Static crackled from the elevator’s speaker. A female voice inquired, “Is everything okay in there?”
“We’ve stopped!” Simone cried out. “Get us moving, please.”
“Of course. Please stay away from the doors. Movement will resume shortly.”
Ryan pulled Simone away from the control panel and the doors. “You’re terrified.”
She didn’t deny the charge.
She’d laughed in the face of torture, but the elevator ride made her nervous? She’d seemed fine in the elevator earlier. When he’d been kissing her, she’d certainly seemed, um, more than fine.
Something had changed. Something had set her off.
Her family? Had his questions about her past stirred up old fears? “How did your family die, Simone?”
A shudder worked her delicate frame. “Not now. I can’t talk about them now. Not while I am in here.” Panic underscored the words. “I can’t breathe.”
He’d done this to her. He knew it. He’d brought up pain for her, and now she was hurting when he’d sworn that he would not hurt her. Ryan’s hand flew to cup her jaw.
“Ryan?” Confusion. Pain. Fear.
He needed to distract her from her terror. Needed to give Simone another focus.
He took her mouth. Took that precious, gorgeous mouth and kissed her with all of the passion and hunger surging through him.
As soon as their lips touched, a long shudder raked over her body.
She grabbed for his shoulders, holding on tightly, as if he were a lifeline when he wasn’t. He was the problem.
Her nails bit into his shirt and coat. Her body pressed hard to his. His touch on her jaw remained light, but his mouth kissed her with undeniable intent. Driving passion. Burning lust. His tongue thrust past her lips. He tasted her, and she met him with a greedy, desperate lust.
The elevator began to move again, but he wasn’t sure she realized what was happening. She’d pushed her body even closer to his. Her mouth was wild against his.
Ding.
He forced his head to lift.
“Thank you,” Simone whispered. “I really, truly needed that.”
He’d needed it, too. Ryan had a feeling that he might always need her. A sobering thought especially since he was using her.
His hand lowered, but Simone immediately caught it in her grip. She threaded her fingers with his. “My fiancé should at least hold my hand,” she explained with a cheeky grin as they turned for those open doors.
Her fear seemed to have passed as quickly as it appeared, but Ryan wasn’t about to let the matter drop.
Simone is too good at wearing a mask. At showing the world a bright and shiny surface while pain lurks inside.
They exited the elevator, and, because he was watching her so closely, he saw the slight exhale that she gave, as if sighing in relief.
They’d arrived in the hotel’s lobby. A quick glance around showed him the MI6 agents and the CIA operatives who were lounging around. Appearing casual, but, after the recent attack upstairs, Ryan knew they would all be on high alert.
“Oh, look, there’s Harry.” Soft words from Simone. “I guess I’m not supposed to wave at him, am I?”
No, she was not. “Act like you don’t know anyone here.”
“That’s easy enough to do.” She strolled along the marble floor. Her head tipped back as she peered up at a massive crystal chandelier. “I really only know you. And we’re still just surface-level, aren’t we?”
“Sweetheart.” He brought her hand to his lips. Kissed her knuckles. “I fucked you less than an hour ago.”
Red flashed in her cheeks as her head turned toward him.
“I’d certainly call that more than surface.
” From the corner of his eye, he saw Harry put down the book he’d been reading.
Harry would follow them when Ryan and Simone left the hotel.
When he’d gone to collect his gun and to finish dressing, Ryan had paused to text his team and let them know that he would be taking Simone on a short stroll.
Considering the attack that had just happened in the suite, Jezebel had been less than pleased with his plans. But…
Simone needs air. She’d been having a panic attack or close to one. She needed to get out, desperately, so he’d get her out. He’d keep her safe outside. And the other agents knew to keep watch over them.
Besides, a cleanup crew needed to get the suite back in shape. Those bullets had to be removed from the wall. All signs of a struggle should vanish. The crew could do their work faster and better without him and Simone present.
“Stay close to me,” Ryan told her, as they passed the doorman and walked into the night.
“No,” she murmured back as her gaze darted to the left, then to the right. “I plan to flee from you at the very first opportunity. Do not trust me for a moment.”
Her words held a teasing edge, but his whole body tensed.
He stopped just holding her hand. Ryan wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her against him.
Both to protect her and to keep the woman from fleeing because he feared she had been all too serious with her words. “It’s safer for you to stay with me.”
Her hand brushed against the side of her body as they moved away from the hotel’s entrance. “Because you’re the big, bad spy?” A gust of wind slid against them.
“Because plenty of people want you dead, but I happen to want you to stay in the land of the living.” He very much wanted that. With all of his being.
She turned to the right, and he realized that Simone had a destination in mind.
This wasn’t just some mad dash into the darkness in order to escape her anxiety.
As he turned with her—and kept her tucked against his body—Ryan was fully aware of the fact that Simone could be leading him straight into an ambush.
What had she said before? That they were only surface level? “What’s your real name?”
Her heels tapped as they walked into the night. London at night was always a special sight for him. Fog had started to roll in, as it so often did. A little spooky, a little sinister. He liked that sinister edge.
Simone appeared to be heading toward the nearby Wellington Arch. It was hard to miss the massive structure, and he’d always been fond of the bronze sculpture that rested atop of the Arch. The Angel of Peace, surging on to the Chariot of War.
Ryan knew way too much about war, and, some days, far too little about peace.
Lights illuminated the Arch, and, despite the fact that tourists normally flocked to the place, he didn’t see anyone at all near the structure. Maybe it was the deepening fog. Or the light rain that he could feel beginning to fall…maybe that was why they had the place to themselves.
A black cat suddenly rushed right in front of them.
His arm tightened around Simone’s shoulders. “I don’t like this.” Hello, bad omen.
Soft laughter. Real laughter spilled from her. Damn but he enjoyed the sound of her laughter. The look of her smiles. Her scent. Her taste. Fuck, he enjoyed everything about her.
Like that doesn’t spell trouble for me.
“Oh, come now, Ryan,” Simone chided. “Dark-and-dangerous you can’t be afraid of a little kitty.”
It wasn’t that he was afraid. He was simply cautious. “Black cats are bad luck.” Didn’t everyone know that?
“In France, they are actually viewed as good luck.” She crouched. “Here, kitty, kitty.”
No, she was not calling a black cat to her. Was the woman just trying to invite bad luck? After the danger she’d already faced?
“Kitty!”
With a soft meow, the cat bounded back toward Simone. The thinnest, roughest looking cat he’d ever seen. One complete with a scraggly ear that looked as if a bigger animal might have tried to claw it off at one point.
She offered her hand to the cat, and Ryan could have sworn the black cat nodded before it allowed Simone to stroke its head. “Aren’t you beautiful?” Simone cooed to the harbinger of darkness.
All right, fine, the cat was probably not the actual harbinger of darkness but… “Do you need to pet it? Now?” Ever?
“Yes, I do. Because my mother was French and, as I told you, in France, black cats are good luck. There is nothing bad about this beautiful darling.”
The cat was purring.
Ryan glanced around, searching for threats. As far as he was concerned, the cat was just a sign that this side trip out into the night was about to take an unfortunate turn.
As if the attack in the suite had not been bad enough.
“Good luck, good fortune, and maybe even a bit of good magic for you in life.” Another careful pat on the cat’s back before Simone rose to her full height. “I had a black cat when I was a child. When I was with my parents. His name was Lucky.”
Unlucky would have been more fitting. Now that she was talking about her past, he found that he could not move. He wanted to hear every detail, though he feared the story was going to be painful. Dark.
The rain began to fall a bit harder.
The cat ran away.