Chapter 29
OLIVIA
I clung to Ethan, still recovering as his lips returned to mine. His kiss was slow and passionate, drugging me again and making honesty spill from me before I was ready.
My hands slipped inside his suit jacket to bring him closer, bumping the gun and . . . what was that? My fingers dipped into his interior pocket and closed around something tiny. A bottle?
It was the drug he’d tried to get me to use in South Africa.
“Do you always carry that with you?”
“Yes.”
I drew my hand away and my head thudded back against the wall, the buzz in my body fading. In the quiet moments that followed, reality began to take hold, gripping me painfully. This was all too much. Too intense. Panic threatened to overwhelm me.
“Is . . . something wrong?” He studied me intently.
My throat tightened, and I set my hands on his broad shoulders. “No. I think we’d better get back outside before someone catches us up here.”
He pulled his chin back, surprised. “I thought you wanted me to talk.”
“We can do it later.”
Stupid. He could tell when I was lying.
For a split second, an emotion I hadn’t seen from him washed over his face. Hurt. But he said nothing.
It was like someone had parked a 747 on my chest. What was this reaction? It was just fooling around and sex between us, right? But if I slept with him more than once, it meant I couldn’t write him off as a one-night-stand. Especially when I hoped it’d be more than just twice . . .
I bolted away from the wall, and although he didn’t seem prepared for it, he had incredibly fast reflexes. Ethan’s thick arms locked around me, squeezing me in a vise. There was nowhere else to look but up into the dark pools of his eyes.
“What happened?” he asked. “What did I do?”
“You didn’t do anything. Can you let me go?”
“I will, when you tell me why you’re looking at me like that.”
It was nice to feel annoyance rather than the other emotion, the one that wasn’t possible. “How am I looking at you?”
“Like I’ve royally pissed you off.”
Pressed against him, I could feel the rigid grip of his gun against my shoulder, and it was uncomfortable. Everything was uncomfortable. The room seemed arctic, and yet I felt feverish.
“I’m not pissed at you,” I said. “I’m pissed at myself. Now, let me go.”
When he released me, I had to stifle the disappointment that the connection to him was gone even though I’d asked for it, and that made my anger worse. A frustrated sound welled up in my throat.
“I told you,” I snapped. “I don’t do relationships.”
And even if I did, how could I build one with him? He had a fake identity and killed people.
So do you, the voice in my head whispered.
His face was blank. “Yeah, you mentioned that.”
I needed to put some distance between us immediately. He was too close. If I didn’t stop it, he’d work his way in deeper, and he’d get hurt when I couldn’t reciprocate his feelings. Since that dark night in Afghanistan, I wasn’t capable. “I just wanted to make sure you heard me about that.”
There was no response, not until the faintest hint of a smile teased his lips. He didn’t believe me. “I heard you, loud and clear.”
I couldn’t stay here in this room with him where I was choked by my feelings. Even though I wanted to talk, there was no other option but to flee and head for neutral ground. To find a place where I had some control over myself.
“We should go,” I said, staring at the line of buttons on his shirt.
“Yeah.”
He strolled silently to the door and unlocked it, holding it open and gesturing for me. When I stepped through it, he caught my hand in his, and when I tried to shake it off, he refused to let go.