Chapter 3
Daria
I was fuming as Ian twirled me in his arms, but my body was on fire for him at the same time.
Our bodies brushed tantalizingly close and then parted as we dipped and twirled in a slightly unusual dance style that matched the music nonetheless.
A cross between a waltz and a foxtrot maybe, and then he did this thing with his feet, sliding a leg between my thighs sensually.
Nope, that was definitely not a move from any of the ballroom dances I knew.
“Why did you do that? We don’t even know each other!
” I hissed beneath my breath at the infuriating man holding me.
I had been this close to getting the pin from my target’s lapel; a dance would have been the perfect cover.
Good old Darryl wouldn’t have suspected a thing.
He always had a soft spot for the daughter of his closest ally.
My stomach soured thinking of my father, an even higher-ranking general. I could have gone to him to steal this information too, maybe, but it would have been much harder, and much more dangerous. He would have suspected in a heartbeat that his disappointment of a daughter was up to no good.
“Don’t we?” Ian drawled at me in his sinfully dark voice.
His gray eyes were even more impressive this up close, sparkling inside their black rings.
The dual colors of his iris, black and gray, made them exotic with their sharp contrast. His gold lashes framed them, the fine hairs long and delicate, too pretty for a man.
“No, we don’t,” I said firmly, but that just made him smirk, and a dimple popped in one cheek that made my stomach swoop.
Damn it, I wasn’t a wilting virgin. I was a woman of the world, dating handsome men by the fleet whenever I felt like company.
They were at my beck and call, not the other way around…
A man had never affected me the way that this one did, and I didn’t like it.
“I think we do,” he retorted, still smiling that sexy smirk with the dimple.
He was completely unaffected by my scowl, and it jerked me back from that edge of anger.
The general would notice if I wasn’t happy dancing with Ian, and he’d investigate because he now thought this man and I were dating.
I should have corrected his assumption, I wasn’t sure why I hadn’t.
“You’re in danger, that’s why,” he added after another twirl in time to the music.
I’d spun away from him, then straight back into his arms, colliding with his chest, too close to him to be decent in this kind of company.
“You’re being watched. Whatever you have planned, you must abort if you value your safety. ”
His words were a splash of cold water in the face, and fear shivered up my spine.
I vividly recalled the dead rat I’d found on the doormat inside my apartment that morning.
The threat was obvious. It meant someone knew that I was up to no good, that I was going rogue.
I’d assumed that whoever was threatening me wasn’t part of the government, or I’d already be whisked away to some black site, never to be heard from again.
I thought I’d been paying attention, despite his distracting presence, but clearly, it hadn’t been enough.
Even after he’d told me about the watching eyes, it still took me a good minute to catch them.
But he was right. I was under scrutiny by several eyes in this room.
Guards, undercover and in uniform. How had I missed it?
It was chilling to think I’d been so fixated on this theft that I’d forgotten the most basic parts of my training.
But what choice did I have? I still had to go through with this.
It was my only chance, my last chance before they got to me.
Even if I didn’t steal the data tonight, I doubted they’d let me get close enough for another shot.
If I wanted to know the truth and reveal it to the world, stealing the data tonight was my only option.
How had this stranger, this soldier in a tux, known what I was up to though?
He had as much training as I had in this game, or he wouldn’t have seen what I’d missed.
Did he know, even before we spoke, what my plan was?
The way he talked, and the language he used, made it obvious that he was a soldier to the bone.
“I can see your mind working,” he said when I had yet to respond to his statement.
“You’re trying to balance the risk and the reward.
Figure out if you can still get away with it.
Don’t. You’ll be dead before the night is over.
Don’t you want to see the new year?” His exotic eyes flicked from my face to the countdown display on the other side of the dance floor.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said with a dry mouth. When in doubt, deflect; that was my mantra. Usually, playing dumb was just the ticket, but Ian was too clever for that. He gave me an amused smirk that said it all, he knew I was lying, and he thought it was cute that I even tried.
“Yeah, you do, darling,” he said, spinning us to a stop at the edge of the dance floor.
His hands glowed against my sides, spanning my waist far too much to be civilized.
He was a big guy, tall, broad-shouldered, and if his hands and feet were any indication…
No, I didn’t even have to guess on that front.
Standing as close together as we were, I could feel the outline of his cock press against my stomach.
A hot brand, shamelessly hard, and he did nothing to even hide it.
“Stay away from the general,” he warned me, his voice turning commanding in a way that made me want to bristle.
I was never good with authority, that’s why I did well in the spy game when thinking outside the box saved lives.
It had driven my handler absolutely wild, but that was all par for the course.
“No,” I said, “He’s a friend. That would be rude.
” That made him laugh, of all things, shaking his head at me, gray eyes glittering while they crinkled charmingly at the corners.
I stepped out of his arms and to battle the urge to ball my fists, I crossed them over my chest in a closed-off posture.
“Excuse me, I have better things to do.” I didn’t bother to make up a reasonable lie for leaving, he didn’t need one.
He didn’t stop me when I stalked away, but I could feel his eyes linger on me all the way across the room. It should have felt threatening, and I should have been more worried about who he was and why he was there. It felt like a caress instead, it almost, but that was crazy, felt like protection.
That was why his betrayal later that evening hurt when I should have been expecting it.