Burn: A Novel (26 page)

She moved smoothly, easily, taking her time, listening carefully to his breathing in case the rhythm changed. The room was too dark for her to make out his expression, but still she watched for signs that she was disturbing him. She wasn’t exactly still at night, so subconsciously he might already be used to her movements. He might be accustomed to sleeping with someone anyway; Tiffany came to mind. After all, they’d been sharing a stateroom before he forced his way into hers.

Gradually she lifted herself onto her elbow. He didn’t stir, didn’t grumble. He wasn’t snoring, either, and she wished he was, because then she’d know for certain he was asleep. She balanced there on her elbow for what seemed like fifteen minutes, giving him time to sink back into deep sleep if she had disturbed him.

Slowly, careful not to touch him, she reached over and across his bare chest, her fingers stretching toward the drawer handle.
Crap
. She wasn’t nearly close enough.

She shifted position, got a knee under her for balance, lifted herself higher. All the while she struggled not to tug on the handcuffs, because that would wake him for certain. Or would it? If he’d awakened any of the times she’d changed positions, he hadn’t said anything.

Hovering over him, she stretched even more. She could almost reach the drawer. Impatience bit at her but she resisted it. Calm
control was the key to a successful bathroom run. Very gradually she got to her feet, though she had to stay bent over to keep from putting tension on her cuffed arm. Just as gradually she placed one foot between his spread legs, for better balance. The thought of what might get kicked if he woke while she was in this position gave her a moment of unholy glee, and she almost hoped he would.

She waited some more. Thank goodness for all those Pilates and yoga classes! Core strength was important when twisting one’s body into unnatural positions for clandestine purposes.

If she slipped now, she’d fall straight down onto a half-naked Cael, and she didn’t want to know how a man like this one would react to being awakened that way. He wasn’t the average guy; the shape he was in testified to that. She saw a lot of gym rats, and his muscles weren’t like that; they were longer, more sinewed, and she’d seen scars that hadn’t come from falling off the monkey bars in grade school. He was hard and capable, and power was in every move he made.

She was much too close to him in this position. She could feel his body heat rising against her skin, hear his even breathing. For a moment she almost chickened out, almost shifted back so she could lie down beside him again. Yes, she still had to pee. Yes, she’d have to wake him up and ask permission.

No, by God, she wouldn’t. The drawer handle was so close, she couldn’t give up. Besides … enough was enough.

It wasn’t just that she wanted to go to the bathroom without asking his permission; she wanted, needed, to show him that she could get past his ridiculous precautions. She wanted to rub his face in the fact that he wasn’t such hot shit, after all.
Boss
, her ass.

She grasped the handle with her fingertips and held her breath as she slowly pulled the drawer open. The angle was bad, and her muscles were beginning to tremble from being held so tense for a long time. If she could have pulled the drawer straight toward her it would have been a lot easier, but she had to ease it out in a sideways motion that made her arm cramp.

There!
That was far enough. She froze, to make certain the low sound of the drawer sliding hadn’t awakened Cael. He slept on, and carefully she reached out to snag the small key that lay on top of a notepad. She wasn’t home free, she still had to get the cuffs unlocked without waking him, but a pure, sweet sense of victory shot through her.
Gotcha, numb-nuts!

He shot up without warning, grabbing her with his cuffed arm, flipping her onto her back, then his heavy body crashed down onto hers and they bounced. Before she could do more than squeak, he easily pried the key from her clenched fist.
What the hell
? His breathing had never changed; he’d given her no clue that he was awake. That wasn’t fair; it wasn’t
right
.

“Going somewhere?” he asked in a slightly gravelly voice.

True desperation made her push frantically at his shoulder. Oh, God, he’d jostled her around and—“I’m going to pee on you!” she cried frantically.

He froze for a second, then said in a musing tone, “I don’t think I’ve ever been threatened with that before.”

“It isn’t a threat!” She pushed again. “Let me
up!”

Finally he seemed to realize she wasn’t joking, and he practically vaulted off her to stand beside the bed, which of course pulled her with him. Gritting her teeth, she fought for control. “Stop bouncing me, you moron, and unlock these cuffs!”

Quickly he turned on the lamp and unlocked the cuffs. As soon as she was free, she rushed to the bathroom and slammed the door. She barely made it, as she was sure he was aware because he’d probably followed her and was waiting just outside the door.

A few minutes later, having thought the situation over, she shoved the door open and barreled out, fire in her eyes. As she’d expected, he was standing right there, and she plowed into him before he could do more than get his hands up to catch her around the waist. She dipped her shoulder and drove it into his mid-section, not that she had to dip it very far, and not that it did a lot of good, but at least he fell back a step before catching his balance.

“It’s all your fault!” she said furiously, so angry and embarrassed she was almost jumping up and down. “I didn’t want anything to drink, but no, you thought I needed a teeter-totter to make things look good, so of course I had to pee! Then you handcuffed me so I couldn’t get to the bathroom. I swear, if you
ever do
that to me again, I’m just going to pee on you as soon as I wake up and save myself the wear and tear.”

A slow smile began to curve his mouth.

“Don’t laugh,” she warned him, tucking her chin and clenching her fist. “Don’t you dare laugh.”

He reached out and caught her fist before she could swing it, and, damn him, snapped those damned cuffs around her wrist again. Seething, she let him lead her back to bed. If he made a joke about it, she’d kill him with her bare hands.

He didn’t stop smiling, but at least he had sense enough not to say anything. She crawled into bed and he flipped the covers off the floor where she could reach them. He turned out the lamp and got back into bed beside her. They were both settled before he asked, “Why didn’t you just wake me?” Maybe it took that long before he could get his voice under control.

“Because a grown woman shouldn’t have to ask permission to go to the bathroom,” she shot back. She wasn’t anywhere near being settled down, and the way she felt now, a couple of months would come and go before her temper cooled.

“Under these circumstances, for now, the grown woman most certainly does.” Exasperation crept into his tone. “Did you really think you could shake the bed, crawl on top of me, and steal the key without waking me up? Just shaking my shoulder would have been a lot faster, and a lot less, uh, dangerous.”

“I didn’t want to touch you. Jackass.”

“You ended up touching me a lot, so I’d say your plan didn’t work.”

She didn’t want to remember those moments when he’d crushed her into the mattress, his heavy, mostly naked body on hers in a perfect sexual position. Her legs had even been spread,
and for a few heart-stopping seconds the hard bulge of his penis had pushed against his groin.

Did it say something about him that he hadn’t taken advantage of the situation? She hadn’t been afraid that he would, she realized. She hadn’t been afraid at all. Sometime during the past day, she had stopped fearing him.

J
ENNER WOKE STILL IN A BAD MOOD
. F
OR THE SECOND
day in a row she was alone in the bed, and she’d slept through the removal of the handcuffs when she hadn’t even been able to retrieve the fricking key without waking Cael. He seemed to delight in proving to her again and again that she wasn’t in control of even the smallest thing, that she was completely helpless. It had been a very long time since she had been dependent on anyone for anything, and she didn’t like it at all. But, like it or not, Cael was forcing her to be dependent on him for everything until the cruise was over and she got off this damn ship.

The jackass was probably sitting out in the parlor, slugging down the last of the coffee and eating the last croissant, rather than waking her so she could eat, too. If he wasn’t here, one of the others would be, to make certain she didn’t poke her nose outside the suite without a guard by her side. She hoped he was gone, because dealing with Faith or Bridget would be easier right now than dealing with him.

She took her time showering, then dressed in one of her favorite outfits, cotton and silk blend teal capris with a skimpy white top trimmed in the same teal. Little sandals, which cost more than
she used to earn in two weeks, decorated her feet. From her jewelry roll she took out platinum earrings, a couple of bracelets, and a tiny diamond toe ring. The outfit gave her confidence, because she knew she looked good in it.
He
wouldn’t know it, but how she was dressing was a sort of flip-off to him. She was damned if she’d give up, damned if she’d try to fade into the background,
damned
if she’d be Miss Meek and Mild. Oh, she’d play along with him in public, because she had to—
Remember Syd
, she reminded herself—but in private … that was a different matter entirely.

She sailed out of the bedroom and found Cael seated at the dining table, a round pedestal table with four upholstered chairs grouped around it. A large oblong serving tray sat on the table, filled with coffee service and two covers. A mostly empty plate sat to his left, a cup of coffee to his right. Directly in front of him was the laptop, and his earbud was in place.

He looked up when she entered, tapped a command on the laptop, and removed the earbud. “Breakfast,” he said, indicating the two round covers on the tray. “Still fairly warm. It was delivered while you were in the shower.”

She didn’t know which was worse, not having any breakfast, or having a breakfast that he’d ordered without consulting her. Opting for coffee first, she upended the second cream-colored porcelain cup—no polystyrene for the
Silver Mist
—and filled it with coffee. He watched in silence as she sipped appreciatively before lifting the covers to check out the food.

The ordinariness of the meal was a little disappointing: whole wheat toast, scrambled eggs, potatoes, bacon. She’d been expecting something disgusting, like cold oatmeal, or soft-boiled eggs. Oatmeal was okay when it was hot, but there was nothing that would ever make her like soft-boiled eggs, no matter how fancy the little utensils used to crack the
egg
and scoop out the contents. She wouldn’t have put it past him to have burdened her with both cold oatmeal
and
a soft-boiled
egg
, but he’d surprised her. The plain old breakfast was almost a … peace offering?

“Have a seat,” he invited genially, getting to his feet and pulling
out a chair for her. She gave him a suspicious look as she sat down; she’d become accustomed to good manners, but she didn’t expect courtesy from him. On the other hand, there was something … Continental about him, little things that were somehow different, like his clothing. As well as he dressed, her life was filled with people who dressed well, and expensively, so it wasn’t that. It was more the cut of the clothing, the fluidity and drape that spoke of … Italy, maybe? His accent was pure American, but she couldn’t identify the region. It was as if he’d traveled so much that his original accent had long since evolved into something more homogeneous.

“Where are you from?” she asked as she began buttering her toast.

He didn’t answer, merely gave a half smile as if acknowledging her effort to dig information out of him.

“Not where you live now,” she explained. “Originally.” She started to add that she meant what area of the country he was from but at the last second some little frisson of instinct had her saying, “What country?”

His blue gaze lifted, and the smile was gone now.
Bingo!
She barely hid her sudden satisfaction; a blind thrust had hit home.

“What do you mean?” he asked softly.

It occurred to her that Cael Traylor could be a very dangerous man, that prying into his affairs might not be a smart thing to do. She was teasing the beast, just to show him that she wasn’t some stupid pawn to be moved hither and yon at his whim. At least, she wasn’t
stupid
, because right now she was definitely a pawn.

As casually as possible, she took a bite of toast. “Your accent. There’s something about it—”

“Don’t let your imagination run away with you,” he said, leaning back in his chair. “I’m American.”

Uh-huh. Sure
.

Letting the subject drop, she devoted herself to breakfast. Despite the covers on the food, the eggs had gotten too cold for her to choke down, especially when he sat there watching her. The
bacon and toast were tolerable, because even cold bacon and toast were pretty damn good, but with him sitting there watching every move she made, each bite became harder and harder to swallow. Finally she dropped the slice of toast on the plate and said, “Stop staring at me! I’m not a monkey in a zoo.”

His mouth quirked. “Then there’s no reason for me to duck?”

“I didn’t say that.” In fact, she wished she had something gross to throw at him. “Just … stop watching me. Don’t you have something more important to do?”

“Nope.”

Maybe going after the key last night hadn’t been such a good idea, because he didn’t seem inclined to cut her any slack. Continuing to eat was impossible, though, so she grumbled, “Show’s over,” and got up. She refilled her coffee cup from the carafe and took it out onto the balcony, not looking back to see if he was following but certain that he would.

She sat down in one of the deck chairs. She craved a moment alone, a precious sliver of time to take a deep breath and gather her wits about her, but he seemed determined not to allow her any more time alone than it took to shower and dress, take care of the necessities. Bathroom time was important, but she didn’t want to spend hours in there. Besides, she was afraid that if she lingered in the shower too long he’d think she was up to something and walk in to check on her, to make sure she hadn’t found a way to make poison out of mascara and shampoo, or something else even more heinous.