Page 185 of House of Cards

“Smith.”

I stop, turn. There’s a deep frown on his brow. “You think it’s him? Elonzo?”

“Who the fuck else?”

It’s dark in Zoey’s room, but there’s enough moonlight shining through a chink in the drapes that I can see the shape of her under the covers.

The villa’s guest rooms are twice the size of my hotel room back at the Devil’s Luck, furnished with a king sized sleigh bed in dark walnut, leather wingback chairs, forest green wallpaper, and a cream carpet.

Seeing her curled up on that massive bed, so tiny, so still, makes my heart kick hard against my ribs. Even though it’s happened once before in my life, I still can’t believe someone can have such a visceral effect on me. That she can command my attention so completely.

I haven’t slept since we found that note in her diner’s jukebox. Since I set fire to her world and told her it was a mercy that I was the one holding the match.

Exhaustion crashes down on me in that moment, making my feet drag as I step closer to the bed.

Troy is right—we can’t leave in the middle of the night. We’d be too exposed out there on the road. In here, we’re protected. It would take a fucking army to reach us.

With him handling the security, there’s nothing to do but wait until dawn. Then we can make sure if the threat I imagined was real or just paranoia.

Nothing to do but wait.

So why not wait right here with her?

I’m already toeing off my shoes. Unbuttoning my shirt. Unclipping my suspenders.

It feels like I rubbed sand in my eyes, so I let them drift closed, relishing the sting as I slide over the cool sheets, seeking Zoey’s warm body.

There’s a moment where I imagine I’ll feel nothing. That the shape under the covers was a bundle of clothing or some spare pillows. That she’s gone, escaped, and all of this was for nothing.

But then my hand glides over her hip, and her heat cascades against my torso, my thighs, my cock.

I’m already slipping away, sinking under, by the time our bodies are flush. I’ve barely nuzzled my nose into her hair before I’m asleep. But just before the dark claims me, I hear a faint sound out in the hall.

Troy pulling the door closed.

I flinch as I wake up, immediately grabbing the arm draped over my chest, on full alert before my eyes have even adjusted to the dark. And dark it is, with barely enough moonlight shiningthrough a chink in the drapes to illuminate the figure on the bed beside me.

Zoey wrinkles her nose in her sleep, and lets out a happy little sigh, in no way indicating she is, or ever can be, a threat.

I place her arm gently along her side so I can sit up without waking her. Rolling onto my side, I slip on my glasses and check my phone for the time.

Three in the morning.

The witching hour.

Christ. I haven’t had this much interrupted sleep in years.

I scratch my ribs, push my glasses up my forehead so I can rub my eyelids, and resist the urge to scrub at the itching marks Zoey left in my cheek. Lousy attempts to wring some motivation into a body that still feels weighed down by sleep when all I want to do is spoon Zoey and go back to sleep.

Switching on the nightstand lamp doesn’t help.

Zoey’s convoy will move out in two hours. The last thing I should do is go back to sleep.

But I can’t make myself stand. Can’t make myself leave.

I feel weak and pathetic and so fucking needy as I lie down and roll back over to Zoey’s still form. If she woke up at any stage of the night, I don’t remember it. In fact, I don’t even think I turned over once in my sleep either.

She’s just as tired as I am.

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