A Spy Like Me (16 page)

In less than three seconds, I slammed the
laptop shut and crawled into the tiny closet that wasn’t meant for
people. Just as I slid the doors shut, they waltzed into the
room.

“Soooo,” Malcolm drawled. “Would you like a
drink to top off the evening?”
Was he
drunk
?

“Sure,” oozed her sugary voice.

Glasses clinked. I had to separate my
emotions from the job at hand and be heartless so the ache in my
chest would go away.

“Why don’t we have some fun and play a game?”
Malcolm’s voice was sultry and suggestive. I doubted he had Connect
Four in mind.

The voice that had once caused my heart to
flutter now made it race with fury. Man whore.

“Ooh, sounds naughty,” the blonde replied. “I
love it. What do you have in mind?”

Cringe.
All I could picture was strip
poker.

“It’s a game I call Truth or Lie,” Malcolm
said, and I could picture the gleam in his eye and the curve of his
lips.

“Poo. That doesn’t sound like fun.”

“Let me explain.” Chairs moved against the
floor. I was sure she didn’t need much convincing. “I say something
about myself and you have to decide if it’s the truth or a
lie.”

“Ooh, and if I’m right, then you take off an
article of clothing.”

“And take a shot.”

Great. I knew it. A stripping, drinking game.
The kind I’d never played but had fantasized about. Savvy Bent is
not the kind of girl who strips. With the lights on anyway.

“You start,” Malcolm said.

“Okay.” More giggles. “Last summer I climbed
Mt. Everest.”

That was so obvious. She clearly just wanted
to get naked.

“Lie,” Malcolm answered.

“How’d you know?” Giggles.

There was silence as I was sure the shot was
poured and an article of clothing cast to the floor. She probably
didn’t start with her socks. I hoped her bra was old and ratty.

“My turn.” Malcolm paused, probably trying to
subdue the temptation to rip off all her clothes and skip the
foreplay. “I come from a long line of spies, going back hundreds of
years.”

My mouth opened slightly in shock. A family
of spies? Right. I taught him everything he knew about being a spy.
Or so I’d thought.

More giggles. “Lie.”

“How’d you see through me?”

I tried my hardest not to picture him ripping
off his shirt and revealing his impeccable pecs, which I’d seen
before.

“I’d love to move the game to the bedroom,”
she said.

“Tsk. Tsk. It has to be something about
yourself.”

Silence. As I’m sure she racked her empty
head for something to say.

“I giggle when I’m nervous.”

No, really?

“True,” Malcolm said.

I sat through various questions about family
pets, siblings, childhood, embarrassing moments. I could have
learned more about Malcolm, but most of the words dribbling from
his mouth were lies. Eventually, it all became white noise as I
studied the grime on the inside of the door.

When they stopped rambling and laughed and
moaned, heading away from the kitchen and toward the bedroom, I
couldn’t take it anymore. The doors eased open without a sound, and
I crawled out, my body stiff and sore. With a scathing look toward
the bedroom, which I hoped Malcolm felt burning a blister onto his
probably naked butt, I snatched the laptop from the table and put
it back on the counter.

“I think you might be taking Spy Games a
little too serious.”

I jumped a mile then whipped around. Malcolm
stood at the edge of the kitchen, like a cat about to eat his
favorite meal.

Where the hell was a frying pan?

“I. . . um. . . stopped by to talk about Spy
Games. Then you showed up with her.” I jerked my thumb toward his
bedroom. “And I felt stupid, so I hid in the closet.”

Malcolm flashed a wry grin. “First, I don’t
think there’s anything left for us to talk about.”

“Well, when you weren’t here, I decided to
download the info to your laptop.” So lame.

“Where’s the flash drive?” he asked.

I smiled and cheese practically fell out my
mouth it was so fake. “Darn. I forgot it. I’ll have to get it to
you tomorrow.”

“What is going on?” the blonde said in her
cute little French accent and slung her arm over his shoulder in an
attempt to drag him back to the room.

“I have something I need to take care of.
Maybe we should call it a night.” He leaned back and whispered in
her ear. She gave me the evil eye before kissing his cheek.

“You live close enough to walk?” Malcolm
asked as he walked her to the door.

“No worries. I will call friends.
Bonsoir
.”

The blonde left and the door clicked shut.
Malcolm turned and blocked the doorway with his body.

“We can do this the easy way or the hard
way.” He almost looked bored, the way he leaned against the
doorjamb and studied his fingernails.

Major adrenaline kicked in, causing my body
to tremble. What did he mean by that? Somehow I had to get him away
from the door so I could run and run fast. I swiped the counters
looking for something to throw at him but he was too clean. A
cupboard hung partly open. I grabbed a plain white dish and held it
out like a shield.

Malcolm stepped closer. “We need to
talk.”

“Yeah right,” I said.

His kind of talking probably meant torture of
some kind. I threw the plate at him. His eyes widened in shock
right before he ducked. The plate shattered against the wall and
dropped to the floor.

“Nice throw,” he said. “For a girl.”

I threw about five more but he dodged each
one. Every time I reached back into the cupboard he stepped closer.
After the last throw and he was almost to me, I sprinted around the
other side of the table and headed to the door. The smell of old
carpets teased me from the hallway. It was the smell of freedom. I
was almost there.

Until he grabbed my ponytail and threw me to
the ground. The floor came fast and it felt like a cement truck had
plowed into me. I wheezed for breath, shocked. He kneeled on the
floor, and leaned close.

“Where do you think you’re going?” he
said.

In a flash, during which I may or may not
have thrown a few punches, I was tied to a chair. Not the comfy
armchair, mind you, but the hard wooden one. Minutes later,
late-night coffee percolated. The smell filled Malcolm’s small
kitchen and I kept thinking about the words I’d overhead from the
freezer in Jolie’s. Malcolm said he could handle me just fine. They
talked about my mother. And the
maitre d’
had said, “If she
causes any more trouble, we’ll have to get rid of her.” Did
breaking into his apartment and trying to take him out with dinner
plates constitute as trouble? I decided to play completely
innocent, which actually, I’m pretty good at.

“I figured it out,” I said.

He peeked over his laptop in which he was
probably catching up on his daily blog reading about how to be a
jerk.

“This is revenge for tying you up in the park
on our date.” I wiggled my hands in the ropes but to no avail.

He lowered his eyes and kept reading.

I tried again. “Okay, then it must be revenge
for making you spy on Peyton when I should’ve been training
you.”

This time he didn’t even look. Instead, with
controlled motions he closed his laptop, and in two steps he was at
the coffee maker pouring a cup. Just one cup. So much for keeping
your hostages from getting a caffeine headache. Or maybe that was
his form of torture.

I sniffed the air and sighed. Blueberry
coffee. Yum. I stared longingly at the steam rising in the air
hoping he’d get the hint, hoping I’d live long enough to drink
coffee again. Then he went one step too far. He pulled a cream puff
from the fridge. Kill me now. I couldn’t stand any more torture. He
sat in the chair, crossed his legs, and sipped his coffee. I
studied the chipped white paint on the walls. I’d been meaning to
drop a few pounds anyway.

Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore, and my
eyes wandered over to him. As he bit into the flaky pastry and
licked frosting off his upper lip, his eyes raked over my body. My
heart rate spiked. Jiminy crickets, he was spying on my family and
could kill me at any time. How could he look at me like he wanted
to kiss me? Or was that the look of
I’m-about-to-murder-you-and-dump-your-body-in-a-river? I couldn’t
tell. But I needed to use it to my advantage.

“You’re quite cute when you blush. What’s
wrong?” he asked, with a sly grin.

“He talks. Amazing,” I said, my voice
dripping with sarcasm.

I hated lies. And the number one reason to
hate him was that he’d lied to me from the very start. Number two?
He was eating a cream puff and I wasn’t.

“Are you hungry?” he asked.

“Not really.” I sent up a fervent prayer my
stomach wouldn’t growl. “But I am wondering how a guy can be so
hard up for attention he has to tie up the boss’s daughter.”

He laughed and amusement flickered in his
eyes, except the amusement slowly turned into something hot and
steamy. “I’m pretty sure you were the one snooping around in my
apartment, not the other way around.”

Bringing his pastry with him, he moved into
the chair right next to me. He pulled it up, so his knees
surrounded my legs. I closed my eyes and groaned.

He whispered, “I’m known to have that affect
on the female race.”

I opened my eyes. “Actually it’s the smell of
cinnamon from your pastry.”

He smiled then took another bite, inches from
my face. “Savvy.” His voice was low and husky and caused my body to
react in all sorts of ways that would land me smack in the middle
of a smut novel.

My body and heart were traitors to what I
knew in my mind. I struggled to keep my breathing even. I
discovered a new mantra.
Don’t crush on boys who want to kill
you. Don’t crush on boys who want to kill you.

He brought his lips inches from mine. “Do you
still have that damn serving tray up your shirt?”

Nothing registered on my face, but he’d gone
too far mocking my highly refined methods of defense. I’d wanted to
play dumb the whole time, but I needed to push and get a reaction.
It had nothing to do with the fact that he had my insides tied into
knots and I didn’t know whether he was going to kill me or kiss
me.

He stared into my eyes, not saying anything.
He didn’t need to. His eyes said it all: “I’m about to ravage you
in all sorts of sinful ways.” Hopefully, mine weren’t answering:
“In about three minutes I’ll have you tied up, wishing you’d never
met me.” He was playing with the wrong girl, and he should’ve known
that.

“I’ve got an idea.” I teased, pushing my
chest forward the best I could.

His breath caught. “What’s that?” He leaned
forward and skimmed his lips across my neck.

“Why don’t we play a game?”

He murmured something against my skin that
sounded like a yes.

“It’s a game I like to call Truth or
Lie.”

His head jerked up. I’d upset him. Bull’s
eye. But he covered by moving his kisses from my neck up to my
face.

Breathless and a bit woozy, I fought the urge
to give into him. “It goes like this. I say something and you have
to decide if I’m lying or telling the truth.”

His legs closed in on mine, and his hands
burned into the sleeves of my shirt, which was just about the only
armor I had left. He brushed his lips against mine. I sent
rapid-fire messages to my body trying to convince it that it was in
the arctic, alone, running away from a rabid polar bear, but it
didn’t work. The shivering and trembling of my lips gave me away.
But it was probably to my advantage.

My voice shook. “If I’m lying then you can
keep me tied up, and I’ll tell you anything you want. But If I’m
telling the truth, then you have to let me go.”

He pulled on my bottom lip with his teeth and
then pressed his lips up against mine. The taste of cinnamon and
spice made his kiss that much sweeter. No more messing around. God
help me, but I responded. He was too delicious, and this warm,
tingly sensation was creeping over my skin. His hands burned a
trail up to my neck and he broke off the kiss, leaving me
breathless. Damn the new mantra. It wasn’t working.

My words came out broken and shaky. “And one
more thing, the loser has to take off an article of clothing.”

He brought his hands to both sides of my
face. His eyes were wild and his lips a deep red.

The anger and hurt I felt bubbled up, and I
spit out the words. “I know you work for Jolie and you’re keeping
secrets. And you probably kidnapped Aimee too.”

My words spurred him on as if he didn’t care
I knew his secrets. That’s where my plan went wrong. He reached
around behind me, pressing his chest against mine. With a flick of
his wrist, he untied the ropes from my arms.

“You win,” he said, a note of urgency in his
voice.

He picked me up off the chair and put me on
the kitchen table. With one suave move, he whipped the serving tray
out and let it clatter to the floor. Then he pushed me back and
kissed me hard and long. My plan was backfiring. He was supposed to
get mad, not get turned on.

I gave in and kissed him back. Shaking, he
fumbled with the elastic in my hair and pulled it out. Our lips
melted together and every inch of my skin burned with
sensation.

“So you admit it?” I got in between kisses as
he lay on top of me, his elbow next to my head, so he wouldn’t
crush me.

I prayed Dad hadn’t planted any cams in
Malcolm’s kitchen. If he did, he was in for an eyeful. Malcolm
pressed into me and buried his face into my neck. His lips played
with the skin behind my ear, and his other hand dug into my hair
and pulled my head back. He dropped his kisses to my
collarbone.