The metal clicked as she unbuckled and stood, and two steps later she was seated in my lap, a leg on either side of me.The chairs were spacious, but it was still a tight fit—not that I was complaining. One of her hands slipped under my sweater so her warm fingers were on my skin.
“What are you doing?” I asked, hearing the smile in my voice.
“What do you think I’m doing?” she purred into my ear and her sultry voice shot straight to my groin. “Where are we going?”
“South.” I smoothed back her hair. When she turned to look out the window, it opened her neck to me and I set my mouth there.
“Why are we going south?”
Beneath my lips, I felt her pulse increase, and mine mirrored it. She’d changed me. I never used to get nervous when setting a plan into motion. “I’ve met some of your family. I thought you could meet mine.”
“The spy’s family,” she said, looking more than a little surprised.
“You’ve got three days to gather as much intel on me as you can. Good luck,” I whispered.
Her eyes were all seduction. “Tell me what you said in Croatian in Vitale’s office.”
I cupped a hand to her soft cheek, brushing my thumb over her full lips while setting my other hand on her waist. I stared at her, looking at the flecks of hazel in her green irises. “I told you that we belong together.”
She pulled back, and a mixture of excitement and unease washed over her face. “What? Why would you say that?”
“Because it’s true, and you know it. Does it look like I’m lying?”
She studied my expression, but all she found was honesty. The muscles in her legs tensed when she rose off me and climbed away, and I allowed it because there was nowhere to go on this plane. She couldn’t run from me.
Her breath went shallow as she stumbled back to her chairacross the way, and her accusing eyes cut into me, but I was prepared for this. It was about to get worse.
“Are you aware,” I said, “that you’re in love with me?”
Her eyes went so wide they were mostly white, and then anger curled them down to slits. The words came out like she was spitting bullets, that what I’d just said was borderline offensive. “I am not.”
I stood, stepped forward, and leaned over to set my hands on the armrest of her chair. My shadow fell across her as she peered up at me. Like the night in her loft in Munich, my face was only inches away. “Liar.”
Before she could protest, I kissed her.
I could taste the tension and doubt in her as she sat stock-still beneath me, and I used all I had to convince her to respond. Not just respond, but to see the truth she refused to accept. She was alive. She was capable of loving.
“I can’t,” she whispered, her eyelids falling shut, and she sounded more wounded than I’d ever heard her.
I held her face in my hands, tilting her back and when her mouth parted with a sigh, I took full advantage. I used my tongue to trace her lips and then venture deeper inside, possessing her, filling her mouth as I tried to fill her head with thoughts of me. I ghosted my fingertips down over the curve of her neck, her pulse racing a thousand miles an hour.
“I’ll show you that you can,” I promised.
43
OLIVIA
My stupid heartaccelerated so fast it felt like I was pulling negative Gs. I was in big trouble. Ethan was just piling on the feelings now, until I was drowning in them.
He kneeled between my parted legs, and we made out for an embarrassingly long time. I let it happen. It felt like we’d been apart for months and not just a week. At one point, he grasped my waist and yanked me down so I was slumped in my seat and encouraged me to wrap my legs around him, our lower bodies pressed together.
His hands settled on my stomach, just below my breasts, and his thumbs lingered dangerously close, filling me with torturous anticipation. I should have cared that my potential future coworkers might see, but I was mindless with desire.
“Have I mentioned you make me crazy?” he said in a low, hurried voice when I shifted to get his hand where I wanted it, the warmth of his palm soaking through my thin sweater.
“Yeah, right back at you. You wouldn’t come home with me last night, and it’s been forever, Ethan.”
“I’m aware.” He nibbled on my ear, giving me delicious chills.
