Page 62 of Shadow Lies

“I’m sorry. I just never got around to coming up with a new code. It doesn’t mean anything,” she defended.

“Doesn’t it?”

“It doesn’t. I swear. So stop looking at me with all that pity.”

He shook his head. “Not pity. Pragmatism. I’m finally listening to my common sense, the way I should have been all along.”

“No. Everything is fine. Nothing has changed.”

Kane scoffed at her claim. She couldn’t blame him. She didn’t even believe it herself. Everything had changed.

As he looked poised to bolt, she said, “It’s been a long day. I’m going to order dinner. We’re going to eat, and then get a good night’s sleep. Tomorrow we’ll both feel a whole lot better and be able to think more clearly.”

She didn’t wait for an answer and instead moved to the desk to pick up the room service menu.

“Here. Pick anything you want. Charley’s paying the room bill and after what you accomplished today, you deserve it.” She handed the menu to him and held her breath until he finally took it.

Menu in hand, he raised his gaze to her. “I’m sleeping out here on the sofa.”

She kept her expression neutral even as her stomach clenched. “Fine.”

He nodded and bowed his head to study the offerings.

One step forward, two steps back. She could see any ground she’d gained toward winning Kane had been lost. All because of her stupid passcode.

She’d just have to work doubly hard to make him realize they were meant for each other. She had all night to do it.

ChapterTwenty-Three

Kane had slept in far worse places than the wide, sprawling sofa in the hotel suite, both in the SEALs and while with the Shaolin.

It wasn’t the accommodations that had him lying awake. It was his own mind. He couldn’t turn it off, which was extra frustrating given the countless hours he’d studied and practiced doing exactly that.

Perhaps the monks’ meditation didn’t account for situations like this one. Having sex with an ex-girlfriend’s little sister who had been obsessed with him since she was not much more than a child.

But she was far from a child now. Alexis was all woman, which was another reason why he couldn’t sleep.

The sofa in the living area wasn’t far enough away from the bedroom where she slept in that enormous king-sized bed all alone.

He could envision her there. And that thought ultimately led to memories of his body covering hers. Of her writhing beneath him. Of his sinking himself deeply into her—the first woman he’d touched in a year.

This suite was two small for the two of them. He should have walked back to the Olympic housing and took his chances that they’d allow him back in to be with his brothers.

The note he’d left explaining his absence probably only worried them, rather than assured them. It was a lie anyway. He’s said he’d gone sightseeing, like a tourist. It was the best he could come up with.

It wasn’t as if he could tell them the truth. He couldn’t even believe that himself.

Movement in the bedroom had him stilling. Holding his breath and his thoughts as he listened with heightened awareness. Alexis was walking around.

Hopefully she was just going to the bathroom. Then she’d crawl back into bed and he could go back to his mental self-torture.

That hope flew out the window when the bedroom door eased open ever so slowly. He heard her footsteps as she crept across the room, each footfall padded by the carpet.

She thought she was sneaking up on him but he heard every step. Every breath. By the time she reached where he was and stood over him he was braced and waiting.

What was she going to do? Stare at him while he slept? After the passcode thing, nothing would surprise him.

But true to form, Alexis wasn’t good at doing nothing. She really wasn’t good at waiting. Never had been. It was no surprise it took about fifteen seconds for her to kneel on the carpet near his head and lean toward him.

---