Honeymoon With A Stranger. Frances Housden

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СКАЧАТЬ they hadn’t counted on him being so tall.

      His second piece of luck was in knowing the make and model. It recorded in monochrome and was triggered by movement, but it didn’t have a facility for sound.

      It irritated him to know that if his mind had been on the job, instead of worrying about Roxie, he would have anticipated its presence.

      It made sense that Zukah wouldn’t expect him to go around talking to himself. That didn’t mean he could discount them having placed listening devices.

      The camera meant he needed to take a much more subtle approach to searching for the little beasties.

      On leaving the bathroom, the first place he’d checked had been behind the armoire. The woodwork was badly scarred and it was too heavy to move without making a noise.

      He’d run his fingers down the small gap between it and the wall next to the bathroom door and found nothing. But the armoire wasn’t as high as the bar he used to do chin-ups.

      As soon as he raised his head above the contoured wooden ledge, he’d noticed where the dust had been disturbed.

      Then again, the wire leading from the miniature camera was a complete giveaway. What bothered him most about the setup was the camera angle. It hit the bed square on.

      Roxie was going to give him problems, or maybe not. Maybe the camera had solved that one for him.

      His mind raced ahead, planning.

      Content with his decision, he took off his jacket, folded it and laid it on the floor by the side of the immense piece of furniture, all this done without moving in front of the camera.

      Roxie had to be in the shower by now and the plastic curtain ought to give the illusion she was safe from prying eyes.

      Clouds of steam engulfed him when he opened the door. Once inside, he saw a neat pile of folded clothes on the white marble counter surrounding the basin, while her black boots sat on the floor.

      Behind the opaque white plastic her shape was a pink blur, an enticing blur. Too bad that the time, the place, the woman and the moment were all wrong.

      It hadn’t occurred to him that she might not have heard him enter as he called out, “Roxie?”

      She let out a whoop of surprise and for a moment looked as though she might slip. He stepped forward to catch her, but all that happened was the plastic curtain ballooned, then resettled.

      Rosy-cheeked, her head appeared around the edge of the shower curtain.

      He hadn’t the heart to tell her that the plastic she was clinging to for protection showed the perfect curve of her breasts with their dusky centers as clearly as if it had been fashioned from glass.

      “What are you doing here? Can’t I have a shower in private?”

      “This is urgent or I wouldn’t have intruded. There’s a camera….”

      “What, in here?” The hem of the curtain skidded across the metal bath as she wrapped it closer. Close enough for him to tell that the hair guarding the apex of her thighs was as brown as the damp strands curling against her cheeks.

      “No. It’s on top of the armoire and aimed straight at the bed.” While he watched her take in the information, he kept his eyes fixed on her face. Her panic would only escalate if she looked down and saw the view he had of her nude figure.

      “Wonderful, we have a permanent Peeping Tom in the bedroom. We’ll never get away with pretending to be lovers.”

      “Yes we will.” He needed to persuade her it was imperative they make the show convincing.

      “Look, I’m not saying it will be easy. This bathroom is the only place we can let down our guard. But once they suspect that we’re playacting…”

      He paused, wondering how he could put it without alarming her more than he already had. “Wouldn’t you enjoy fooling them?”

      Her wet eyelashes were clumped together by small droplets that fell as she nodded emphatically. “I’d like that very much.”

      From where she stood their eyes were level at last, but it only served to emphasize how tiny she really was, and make him wonder once more what had made her go into the spy business.

      But his momentary lapse into empathy now made him even more blunt. “I’m still the man with the money, they need me. If they discover my deception they’ll probably put it down as a hero complex and laugh it off as some stupid act of valor, it’s a guy thing. But you…?”

      He gave it to her straight with the certainty that she wouldn’t thank him for treating her like a child.

      He’d been correct. She shook fear by the throat and said, “Come on, Mac, spit it out. They’ll kill me, won’t they?”

      Reluctant to load her with more bad news, he bit the inside of his cheek, before deciding that this was one aspect of their incarceration he could share with total honesty.

      Hell, she was an experienced agent; she should know the score.

      Sure, he’d had a moment’s aberration when he’d kissed her and gained a response, but they both knew that was a no-go area.

      There was a rueful quality to the sigh that accompanied the shrug of his shoulders. “I hate to admit it, but there is every chance of them taking that way out.”

      Damn, since when had he become so namby-pamby? “Chérie, what other choice have the bad guys got? You’ve seen their faces.”

      “So have you.” She did the eye-roll thing, a flash of silver that made him wish he could promise nothing would happen to her, and asked him, “Aren’t you frightened they’ll kill you as well?”

      He didn’t want to supplant the hope he saw in her eyes with disillusionment, but he had no other choice.

      Once she suspected he wasn’t as crooked as the others—that he was just a guy doing his damnedest to keep America and the rest of the world secure from terrorists—she might let her guard slip, and then it would indeed be curtains for Roxie.

      And not the see-through shower type, still giving him an occasional glimpse of her womanly charms to stir memories of having them pressed close against him.

      “The unfortunate part, chérie, is that I’m the other half of the deal. If they go down, so do I.”

      “I wouldn’t dare identify you, Mac. You saved my life.”

      “So you say now, Roxie. You could change your mind.”

      He couldn’t afford to forget that facet of the operation. Hell, with his training, he couldn’t believe an agent would put accomplishing her mission ahead of everything they’d been taught.

      Of course, Roxie could have stashed some sly tricks up her sleeve. He knew he had.

      They would be just another of the many things that she wasn’t about to share with the crook she believed him to be.

      How СКАЧАТЬ