Page 94

Ryan stopped nuzzling his way between my breasts just long enough to look up. “What?”

“Back there, in the woods. I slowed you down. Dakota even carried me at one point.” I sighed. “You guys were right, I shouldn’t have come.”

“You’re forgetting, you were also the one with the good ears,” Ryan told me. “You heard and saw them coming. If it weren’t for you, we might not have had time to run.”

That part I hadn’t considered. It made me feel immeasurably better.

“Also,” he said, sliding his arms around my legs, “you make a lot better company than Dakota. You smell better, you feel better, you taste better…”

His fingers ran up and down my ribs, tickling me so badly I jumped back with a giggle.

“You sure know how to make a girl feel better.”

“I know how to romance them too,” Ryan offered. He waved one arm around the room grandly, like a game show host. “Just look at this place.”

Dakota eventually emerged in a tiny, threadbare towel that barely covered anything. Immediately my eyes traveled down his broad shoulders, crawling over every curve of his gorgeous, well-defined arms. His chest was still rising and falling from all the exercise. Steam radiated upward from his unblemished skin, making him look like a sexy phoenix rising from the ashes of some minuscule shower-stall.

“Water’s hot at least,” he shrugged.

“You look like a stripper,” laughed Ryan.

“Fuck you.”

“No, seriously. You look like—”

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK!

Everyone froze. The room went from playful mockery to deadly serious in just three sharp knocks.

Ryan was nearest to the door. He inched over, somehow without making a sound, and bent to peer through the tiny peephole. For three long seconds, the world stood still. Then he turned back to us, his expression crestfallen.

“Ah, fuck.”

Fifty-One

SAMMARA

Ryan opened the door with all the enthusiasm of a pall bearer. No less than five men stood on the other side, all armed, all with one hand resting on holstered weapons.

The one in the middle was Markus Ladrone.

“You guys move fast,” he said. “Like a bunch of ninjas.”

Ryan stood his ground, relaxed but ready. I knew firsthand how fast he was. How quickly he could move from a complete standstill, when he needed to.

But there were five of them. Five mercenaries, too.

Armed mercenaries.

“So you ended up betraying us anyway,” Dakota spat from behind me. “After all that bullshit talk, you sold us out.”

Markus smiled. “Oh I wouldn’t say that,” he said slowly. Moving boldly, he stepped through the doorway. “Actually, it’s probably not as bad as you think.”

He still had his hand on his gun. None of us had anything. Shit, Dakota wasn’t even dressed.

“You scheduled your meeting before we even got there,” said Ryan. “And you alerted Goddard ahead of time. You had his men waiting for us.”

I watched Markus’s expression carefully. There was definitely some amusement there. But also something else. Something… different.