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She glanced down at him, and noticed that something didn’t look right. Wasn’t that his bare skin she was looking at? “Speaking of responsibility, you put on the condom, right? Of course you did. I saw it.”
He looked down and saw the same thing she’d noticed: no condom. “Shit.” They both looked around the elevator floor. No sign of the missing condom. It wasn’t in her dress, or in his pants, or his boxers.
Their eyes met. She knew hers were going wide with alarm.
“Did it come off inside you?” he asked.
Come to think of it, something did feel strange inside, but since all of this was new to her, she’d thought maybe it always felt odd afterwards. She reached down, but he touched her forearm gently. “Let me. I have a better angle right now.”
A moment later, she felt something slip from her vagina, and he held a limp, fluid-filled condom before her.
“That’s not good,” she said numbly.
“Not ideal, no. If it’s any comfort, I get regular tests of all sorts and I’ve never tested positive for anything. I’m cautious as hell.”
His definition of caution was different from hers. For her, caution was when you avoided sex completely because of all the risks and ramifications. “Have you ever had a condom come off before?” She heard the nervousness in her voice.
“Not that I remember, no. I’ve heard of it happening, but I figured it was some kind of urban legend.” He frowned down at the latex dangling from his fingers. “Little fucker. Still, I’m not worried. We shouldn’t worry. It’s one time, and the chances of anything happening with just one time…”
“I can’t have a baby.” Starting to panic now, she scrambled to get her dress back on. “Not when I have international assassins threatening me.”
Was that a snort from Granger? She frowned at him. He sobered.
“You’re right, that’s no way to bring up a child,” he said gravely. “But don’t you think you’re getting ahead of yourself? Where are you in your cycle?”
Such a personal question. And yet he asked it so matter-of-factly that it didn’t offend her. “I haven’t been tracking it too closely. My period ended about a week ago, I think?”
“There you go. A week ago. If it was two weeks ago, then we’d have to worry.”
But he didn’t understand. Her periods lasted a while, sometimes more than a week. They were unpredictable. She’d gone on birth control pills for a time to stabilize her cycle. Too bad she hadn’t stayed on them.
She pulled out one of her sunshiny life’s-a-dream smiles. “I guess there’s no point in worrying yet.”
“That’s right. Let’s worry about one thing at a time. Right now, how about that international assassin? How about we focus on that hypothetical problem?”
He was making light of it, she knew, trying to ease her tension. She allowed it to work on her. After all, her sister had just gotten married, and she’d just had sex for the first time in her life. This was a big night, an important night. She shouldn’t ruin it with worries about things that might or might not happen.
They both dressed quickly, and then Granger pressed the open button on the elevator.
As the door slid open, he stiffened, and motioned for her to stay back. “Something’s wrong.”
She froze. Moses! Was he okay?
He stepped carefully toward the door, which, she saw as she peered past his large form, stood partially open.
Her breath nearly left her body when Moses came bolting out. His little body trembling, he dashed toward her and stood on his hind legs in his favorite pick-me-up pose.
With her arms full of the little Chihuahua, she managed, “Be careful, Granger.”
He disappeared inside the suite. A moment later, he called, “It’s clear, but someone’s been in here. The place is trashed.”
Holding Moses, she rushed inside the suite. All of their belongings were tumbled every which way across the floor. Everything was mixed together—his stuff and hers, the pots and pans from the kitchen, the remains of the Triscuits, even the last bit of chili that Alvin had given them. It was cold, too, winter air coming in through an open window.
“What the hell? Were they looking for something?” It didn’t make sense. Obviously she had her phone with her, and she’d already given the video to the State Department. It lived in the cloud now. There would be no point in trying to hunt down her copy of it.
“I don’t think so.” Granger frowned down at the mess. He hadn’t fully fastened his belt buckle, and his shirt was partially unbuttoned. It was a very sexy look on him. “I think it’s more of a message.”
“A message?”
