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“Is that how you’d categorize it?”
Now he sounded downright pissed, so she switched tactics. “Can we talk about that later? Right now, I’d really like to focus on getting my paperwork in order so I can go home. Isn’t that the reason you’re here?”
He didn’t look pleased, and Karis wondered why he wasn’t breathing a sigh of relief that she’d let him off the proverbial hook.
“All right,” he said finally. “Have you talked to resort security? Thepolicía?”
“Yeah. Apparently, there are no security cameras in the hallways, so they can only see people coming off and getting on the elevators, but I was gone during a three-hour window and a lot of people were milling around my floor during that time. So I don’t expect anything will come from the police report. I spent part of last night printing out the forms on the State Department’s website so I can get a new passport. Thankfully, I still had my driver’s license in my pocket, so all I needed was the passport picture. Thanks for bringing it to me. FedEx would have worked, too. But I can take it from here.”
“Look at you go, Miss Independent,” he quipped, shaking his head. “But that’s not how this works. I’ll be staying with you until you fly home.”
She gaped at him. “It will probably be a couple of days.”
“All right.”
A terrible thought occurred to her. “Where do you think you’re sleeping?”
With a glance around, he took in the room—the unforgiving tile floors, the sofa that was way too short to accommodate his six-three frame, and the king-size bed. He nodded at the mattress. “Next to you. It’s not as if we haven’t slept together before.”
Karis stepped back. It was one thing to resist him for a couple of hours, but he looked good enough to nibble, eat, slurp, suck, and lick. How would she outlast him for a couple of days? Her willpower wasn’t that strong, especially because she remembered how mind-blowing he was in the sack.
“No. Absolutely not.” She shook her head.
“Your sister made me promise I’d stay with you, get to the bottom of this, and escort you safely to your plane. I’m a man who keeps his word.”
She almost snorted at that, but he hadn’t actually made her any promises when they’d rung in the new year together buzzed and naked and orgasmic.
With a sigh, she slung her fist on her hip. It was on the tip of her tongue to ask him what the hell he was up to, but she refused to get into this now. She simply wanted to go home.
“Can’t you get another room?”
“If this thief broke in once, what’s to say he couldn’t do it again?” Cage glanced back at the door. “I don’t see any sign of forced entry. And since they don’t have electronic key cards, I’m guessing he picked the lock with a little finesse. What’s to stop him from coming back for seconds?”
Nothing. Which was why Karis hadn’t slept a wink last night. “Fine. You can sleep here. Keep your hands and any other roving parts of your body to yourself.”
He shrugged and flipped her the kind of annoying half smile that made her want to scream and climb his body all at once. “We’ll see, cupcake.”
* * *
After dicking around at the US Embassy for most of the day and getting Karis’s paperwork in order, Cage helped her into a taxi and they headed back to the resort. The officials said they would do their best to process her passport in two business days. He was hopeful that would happen, but he wasn’t holding his breath.
Once they’d reached the upscale land of palm trees, umbrella drinks, and crystal water, Cage all but carried Karis up to her room. By the time they got through the door, she looked ready to fall over.
“Take a nap. I’ll order us some room service.”
She shook her head. “I’m going to find a lounger by the pool and some food. You can stay and nap if you want.”
A biting quip streaked through his brain, but he swallowed it back. Not for the first time, he wondered what was up her ass. Their New Year’s fling had been everything. Ground-shaking. Life-altering. Heart-bending. The next morning, he’d gotten tied up in an unforeseeable situation that had taken a long, sad week to extricate himself from. He’d called Karis the moment he could. She’d wanted absolutely nothing to do with him then—or now. Even repeated calls to his brother hadn’t shed any light.
“Wherever you go, I’m going, too.”
She looked exasperated but too exhausted to argue. “Suit yourself.”
He almost told her that he always did—then she started peeling off her T-shirt and shimmying out of her shorts to reveal the tiny bikini beneath. Yeah, he’d seen it through the short, lacy getup she’d been wearing earlier, but now there was absolutely nothing to disrupt his view of her lean, sun-kissed body. The top barely contained her lush breasts. He didn’t mind seeing her cleavage and healthy swells at all…but he didn’t want some other guy looking at them.
As she reached for a cover-up and a pair of flip-flops, he grabbed the room key and thrust it in his pocket. “Lead the way.”
When he opened the door, she sidled past him, looking over her shoulder. “You don’t have to babysit me.”
