Free Her Spy to Have (Spy Games Book 1) by Paula Altenburg Page B

hundred percent intrigued. He’d known she was bold and had shaky ethics. The big question now was whether she was snooping or stealing. In all fairness he’d searched her room first, so he couldn’t cast stones. Since all of his files were password protected, if she were snooping there’d be no real harm done. Stealing was a different matter, but he didn’t think that was on her agenda.
    He opened the door to his suite. She was curled in a ball on the sofa with her hands clasped under her cheek, her breathing even and deep, as if she were sound asleep. Pink flip-flops, with flowers that fit between the toes instead of thongs, peeked out from beneath the edge of the sofa.
    He didn’t believe she was sleeping. Not for a second. But, wow, he admired her boldness and ingenuity, although maybe not the insult to his intelligence.
    He didn’t try to wake her. Instead, he strode over to his laptop bag. She’d searched through it, he could tell at a glance. He always kept the flap in a particular position so he’d know. His laptop was inside, but he didn’t bother to check if she’d tried to use it. If so, she’d have wasted her time.
    He went to stand beside the sofa. Dark lashes dusted her cheeks. Caramel streaks from the sun mixed into the natural deep brown of her hair. She wore it loose, but right now it was twisted away from her face in a knot to expose the slender length of her neck. With the skirt of her thin dress smoothed over her buttocks and tucked between her thighs for modesty, she looked like a barelegged angel. So young and innocent. If anyone saw her right now, they’d never believe for a second she could survive the back streets of Southeast Asia on her own, simply by using her brains.
    Friendship, be damned. He wanted her. It amazed him how much. Desire, hot and liquid, swirled in the lower regions of his abdomen. It rushed through his veins. He wrestled it back.
    One thing at a time.
    “Did you find whatever you were looking for?” he asked.
    She rolled to her back and opened her eyes. She stretched her arms over her head. Her skirt hitched a few more inches up her legs, but that part of her act might be accidental.
    “Are you CSIS?” she asked in return.
    If she’d hoped to catch him off guard with her question, she’d be disappointed. She was hardly the first person to try. “Why would you think I’m CSIS?”
    She stared up at him. Her gaze was very direct as she recited her list. “The ugly tourist clothes you were wearing when I met you in Bangkok that are so not your style. You see every little thing happening around you. You got me out of a country currently under military rule on very short notice, no questions asked. You had an RCMP friend meet me in Ottawa and take my passport. I conveniently end up at your sister’s. Now you show up for a month’s vacation, when your sister tells me you rarely take one for more than a few days, and usually during the Christmas holidays.” She presented her final item with a faint air of triumph, the pièce de résistance. “You aren’t annoyed to find me in here.”
    “Are those the only reasons you’ve got?”
    “You need more?”
    He didn’t ask if her suspicions about him had more to do with her father’s activities than his clothes and connections. If he wasn’t admitting to anything, he couldn’t expect honesty from her. He perched on the cushions beside her, his hip against hers, resting his hand on the back of the sofa so she couldn’t escape.
    He leaned forward so that his lips hovered a few inches above hers. “I’m a government program officer. One who kissed you, just this morning. I went running with you, which I hate. I let you coerce me into yoga, which I hate even more. I believe I’ve made my interest in you very clear. So why would I be annoyed to find you in my room tonight?”
    Amusement, not caution or fear, backlit her eyes and spread to her lips. She tried to push him away. “That’s one more reason I think