Asylum

Chapter 26: Awkward

"Elena will show you to your room," Emilio told us once on board, now beaming in his role as the gracious host. He snapped a short command in Spanish, and the woman in the fluorescent green string bikini next to him beckoned for Ivan and me to follow her down the narrow, dark wood-paneled hall. "Take a moment for yourselves, then come to me by the pool. We should be on the way out to sea by then." He clapped Ivan on the shoulder again, then headed in the opposite direction, his two bodyguards – and our luggage – trailing after him.

Within a few steps, we heard the sound of voices up ahead – female voices, two of them, arguing in Spanish, one a low-pitched voice of urgent reason, the other raised in ringing indignation.

Ivan stepped to the side of the hallway, pulling me next to him, just as two women erupted from a doorway in front and to the left of us. Peeking over the rims of my sunglasses, I saw that one of the speakers was Emilio's earlier companion, who had rushed off the pier after I joined the party. The other appeared to be wearing nothing but a hastily donned bedsheet wrapped around a lithe, bronze naked form. She launched a parting curse at the first woman, pushed past Elena where she stood in front of us, and glared pure venom at Ivan and me as she half-stormed, half-stumbled past us. With a glower that vicious, I might have been genuinely frightened, had the woman not been so obviously unarmed.

"Lo siento," the first woman apologized, her head downcast and her hands clenching and unclenching in front of her smooth, flat stomach. She waved her arm awkwardly, indicating that we should enter the room. "Alguien estará aquí con sábanas limpias en solo un momento (I'm sorry, someone will be here with clean sheets in just a moment)."

Ivan nodded. "Y dos botellas de agua (And two bottles of water)," he ordered, then walked into the room. I slipped in after him, returning Elena's contrite smile with a fast, shy one of my own. Ivan closed the door after me.

Our cabin was small, but lavishly appointed. The dark wood from the hallway continued onto the walls in the tidy room, broken periodically by illuminated fine art prints. The window looking out onto the pier was large and clearly freshly cleaned; I craned my neck a little to see if Mateo and Marsh were still out there, waiting by the car, but from this window I couldn't see that section of pier. A large flatscreen was mounted to the wall opposite the bed above a shallow chest of drawers, and a comfortable-looking upholstered chair and two side tables with lamps completed the elegant furnishings. The magazine-spread look was only spoiled by the torn-up bed, its pillows all plumped into a single pile, its crisp white duvet in a heap on the floor, and the top sheet conspicuously missing.

Ivan took my hands in his and smiled ruefully. "Are you regretting this yet?" he asked softly.

"Absolutely not," I whispered. "I don't want to think how her little surprise might have played out if I hadn't been here. That was some rather explicitly ... personal ... entertainment being offered." I stepped closer, barely touching his chest with mine. "Are you regretting this yet?"

He slipped his hands from their tangle with mine and slid them around me to stroke my ass possessively. "Absolutely not," he growled softly and kissed me, the barest feather's touch against my eager lips. "As long as you stay safe and happy, I regret nothing."

"With you, I'm both," I assured him, and proceeded to kiss the smile back onto his face.

"Вы очень особенная женщина (You are a very special woman), Alexis Bryant," he murmured.

I ignored the sharp pang in my chest from hearing a dead girl's name on his lips instead of my own. "И ты очень особенный человек (And you are a very special man), Ivan Alkaev."