Page 5 of Tangled

Tristan relaxed farther into his seat. “I never lied to you. That night at the Devilhouse, Sherwood Forest forum decorum dictated that I couldn’t tell you anything else about who I was. And ever since, I’ve had no reason to mention a username that I use on exactly one minor internet forum. So it never occurred to me that you were my debauched Sailor Moon.”

Colleen was glad he hadn’t added,and I’ve had my tongue in your twat.She said, “I was wearing some pretty advanced cosplay makeup that night. And you had on that mask.”

He chuckled. “It got in the way.”

“I still have your tie,” she admitted.

He braced his arm on his knee and turned toward her, a hint of a smile on his lips. “No, you don’t.”

“In my luggage.”

One side of his mouth turned up behind the microphone. “Like serial killers display trophies of their kills on their shelves?”

It was Colleen’s turn to chuckle. “Maybe kind of like a souvenir, I guess. Just something to remember that night by.”

He twisted more toward her. “So it was memorable, then.”

She stifled a laugh. “Yeah. I mean, I obviously liked it.”

“I couldn’t stop thinking about you.”

“Even after you metme?”Colleen asked him, pointing to her soggy dress over her sternum to indicate her Colleen-self.

He chuckled. “I couldn’t getyouout of my mind, even though I was thoroughly infatuated withyou,”Tristan said. “But that night in the Devilhouse was one for the ages.”

She risked a glance up at him, and he was watching her face. “I liked last night more.”

One side of his lips rose, and water slid from his wet hair down the side of his face. “Did you?”

“Yeah. Because it was really us, you know? Not makeup and masks.”

Tristan drew a breath to say something more, smiling as his eyes searched hers, but Micah threw out his arm and whacked Tristan across his chest.

A click sounded in Colleen’s earphones. Micah said, “The pilot wants to know whether to head for LAX or San Francisco.”

“LAX.” Tristan retrieved his phone from the pocket of his suit jacket, shaking off the water. “I’ll have Jian meet us at the airport with the luggage. He’s been driving around for an hour, awaiting instructions on where to meet us.”

Micah raised an eyebrow at him. “Do you think the airport will be safe? Maybe you should come back to my apartment in San Francisco for the night. At least no one will know you’re there.”

Tristan glanced at Colleen. “I think we have other plans.”

She shrugged. “I just want to get into some dry clothes.”

Tristan reached over and took Colleen’s hand in his huge, warm one. “Definitely LAX, then. I’ll text Jian to meet us at the plane.”

And he was holding her hand.

That was awfully . . .intimate.

Rivulets of panic trickled upward from Colleen’s weak knees, infested her belly, and crawled over her scalp.

She jumped, trying to crawl out of her harness and her skin to yank open the sliding door of the helicopter and jump the hell out.

Tristan didn’t need to be holding her hand. Rolling around on a bed and enjoying friction on nerve endings was one thing, butthis—whateverthiswas—thisgrabbingonto her hand like he might dangle her off the side of the cliff was something she hadnotsigned up for.

Before they’d left the hotel, she’d been too wound up by him toying with her body to think about what he’d been saying, but his words had snapped into crystal clear focus on the limo ride over to the restaurant.

She hadn’t been freaking out about them being kidnapped by the Russian mafia, though that was far from inconsequential. Sweet Baby Jesus, these wereVladimir Putin’s henchmen,the kind who forced commercial flights to land in old Russian Federation countries so they could kidnap journalists off the plane and murdered people fighting for democracy and freedom in Russia. They pushed lawyers out of windows and poisoned people who escaped with chemical weapons.