Free Into My Arms by Lia Riley Page A

lip. Her eyes are spaced a fraction more narrowly. But still, the likeness is uncanny, as if I’m staring at a twin I never knew I had.
    “What are you doing?” I startle to my knees. Z looms above me, lean hips encased only in a gray towel. I can barely stand to look at him, even though another part of me longs to memorize each carved ridge and dip of his abdominal muscles, muscles that are clearly defined as he holds himself utterly rigid.
    “I said what the fuck are you doing?” His accent is thicker when he is angry.
    I inhale sharply and push to my feet. “I woke and you weren’t here so I decided to clean up a little. Your wallet fell out of your pants pocket and a few things scattered. Including this.” The photograph shakes between my trembling fingers as I hold it between us, the tension so thick it threatens to choke me. “Who is she?”
    He tears the image from my hand and storms across the room, crumpling it into his fist, a fist that he slams into the wall.
    Where’s that phone? I have an out. He said all I had to do was call Katya and I could leave. No questions asked. No reprisals. And right now I’m scared. He hits the wall again and the force is enough to crack the plaster. I let out a muffled shriek.
    I stumble backward when he spins around, chest heaving, and swipes hair off his face.
    “Bethanny. Wait. Remember how I promised you honesty.” He closes his eyes. “Know this before you walk out that door. I’m not a danger to you. I would cut off my own hand before lifting it in the direction of a woman.” He cocks his head with a tight smile. “I do not make the walls the same promise.”
    “I am so confused.”
    “Maryska,” he mutters with a heavy breath as if the word costs him physical effort. “Her name is Maryska. She is sick. Dying. I am flying to see her in the Ukraine on Monday, ergo why you cleared my schedule. I’ve known her since I was a boy.” He trembles even though he sounds like the epitome of calm control. “She was my first love.”
    “I’m so sorry.” And I mean it. I can’t be jealous over a dying young woman. “What is the matter with her?”
    Shadows cling to him. “A long illness. There has been…much suffering.”
    “Is there anything I can do?”
    He eyes the bed.
    “Not that,” I reply firmly.
    “You are intent to peer into things that you shouldn’t see, that no one should. But I will tell you everything and then you will know at last the sort of monster who pursues you.”
    “You aren’t a monster.” He’s troubled, angry, and deeply wounded, but not a monster. I don’t know why I feel that with such certainty, but I do.
    “Do you think the devil looks like a demon? No, he appears as a man.” He cracks his neck and grips the edge of his towel. “If you want to know everything, meet me outside, by the cliffs in ten minutes. The fog won’t burn off this morning, it’s too thick, so dress accordingly.”
    I turn away to leave when he calls, “One more thing.”
    “Yes?”
    He grimaces as if his words taste bitter. “If you were debating whether to call Katya and leave this place, leave me, now would be the optimum time.”
    The pleasant postsex humming of blood through my veins increases to a roar. I’m overwhelmed by wanting to put as much distance between us as possible but also wanting to crawl into his lap, press my forehead to his, and regain the closeness we’d just shared.
    When I get inside my room, I shut the door, lock it, and lean against the wood, breathing hard. The phone in question lies on the center of my untouched bed. All I need to do is press a few buttons and within an hour I’ll be flying to Silicon Valley. I could crawl into my bed in my small room. Ignore Courtland and his lube and kick serious ass at my app presentation next week. If that gambit fails, I could continue to serve out the debt-repayment sentence I didn’t ask for or deserve.
    But I would be in control.
    If I go out that door, go to meet Z, I