Kiss Me While I Sleep cs-3 Read online

  “We’ll have to tell the hotel there are now two people staying in your room, instead of just one.”

  “I’ll just say my wife has joined me. Not a problem. Keep your sunglasses on and don’t let any of the staff see your eyes, and we should be in the clear.”

  “I’ll look pretty silly sitting around a hotel room wearing sunglasses. Colored contacts will be easier.”

  “It isn’t just your eyes that are so identifiable. It’s the entire package, the color of your hair, your facial structure. Just duck into the bathroom when room service is delivered. Other than maid service, that’s the only time we’ll be interrupted.” He logged off, then gathered all the pages that had been printed out. He paid for the service while Lily logged off her computer and did the same.

  They stepped out into the street, and the wind whipped at them. Though the day was sunny, it was cool enough, and the windchill cold enough, that a lot of people were wearing hats and scarves. Lily pulled her own hat down so it covered all her hair as they walked to where Swain had parked the car. He seemed to have remarkable luck in finding parking space in a city that was notorious for difficult parking, but she was beginning to think Swain was just one of those people born under a lucky horseshoe. If he’d leased a Hummer, somehow he’d have found a place to park it.

  He forwent making any more disparaging comments about the Fiat, though she heard him making that high-pitched whining noise under his breath a few times. The days had gotten really short, with winter only a few weeks away, so the sun had already set by the time they got to the hotel and twilight was fading fast, making Lily’s sunglasses unnecessary. She pulled them off but remembered that she still had a pair of pink-lensed sunglasses that she’d used as part of her disguise in London, and fished them out of her bag. The tint was light enough that she could see with the glasses on and wouldn’t look like a total idiot for wearing sunglasses at night but was sufficient to hide the color of her eyes.

  She slipped them in place and turned to Swain. “How do I look?”

  “Sexy and stylish.” He gave her a thumbs-up. “Just keep your eyelids at half-mast, as if you’re jet-lagged, and we’re home free.”

  He was right; no one paid any attention to them at all as he carried her bags through the lobby with her trailing behind. When they were in his room, he called the front desk and told them his wife had arrived, so there were now two occupants in his room; then he called housekeeping and requested extra towels. Lily busied herself unpacking, putting her clothing away in drawers or hanging it in the closet beside Swain’s clothes, and her toiletries in the bathroom.

  She got a jolt as she set a pair of her shoes beside his in the bottom of the closet. There was something intimate about the sight, her shoes so much smaller and daintier than his, that brought home to her the fact that she was now, for all intents and purposes, living with him.

  She looked up to find him watching her, reading her discomfort.

  “It’ll be all right,” he said gently, and opened his arms to her.

  25

  Lily went to him, burrowed herself close to the comforting warmth of his body, nestled her head in the hollow of his shoulder, and felt some of her tension ease as he wrapped his arms around her. He kissed the top of her head. “I repeat, we don’t have to have sex tonight. If you’re that uncomfortable with the idea, we can wait.”

  “Can we?” she asked softly. “Normally I’d wait a lot longer than this, because two kisses and one grope do not a relationship make—”

  He gave a bark of laughter. “I guess not, but even though logically I know we’ve known each other only a few days, part of me feels as if it’s been a lot longer than that. A week, maybe,” he teased. “Have I really groped you just once?”

  “Once is all that I remember.”

  “Then it’s definitely just once, because you’d remember my gropes.” He rubbed his hand up and down her back, coaxing her tense muscles to relax.

  “Tonight may be the only night we have,” she said, trying for a matter-of-fact tone but unable to keep out a hint of wistfulness. The truth of that had been in the back of her mind all day. She couldn’t afford to take her time, get to know him, ease into a relationship. Seen in that light, her decision was simple: she might well die tomorrow, and she didn’t want her last night on earth to be spent alone. She didn’t want to die without having made love with him, without sleeping so close in his arms that she could hear his heartbeat. She wanted him to be her love, even if she wouldn’t have a chance to discover if he was the love. At least she would have the hope that he was.

  “Hey,” he chided. “Remember the power of positive thinking. Tonight is the first night, not the only night.”

  “Have you always been a Pollyanna?”

  “Pollyanna saw something good in everything. I see nothing good at all about that Fiat.”

  Taken by surprise at his abrupt change of subject, she snickered. “I do. I got a good laugh out of your reaction to it.”

  He stiffened. “You mean you deliberately picked out that car just to jerk my chain?”

  She didn’t bother denying it, just gave a satisfied sigh as she rubbed her cheek against his chest. “I wanted to see you drive it for just one day. It’s a perfectly good car; I once owned a Fiat, so I know how reliable and economical they are, but you act as if you’re in agony.”

  “You’ll have to pay for this,” he said, shaking his head. “And not with all that massaging you promised, either. This is big. I’ll have to think about this one for a while.”

  “Just don’t take too long.”

  “You’ll know tonight,” he promised, tilting her head up for a warm kiss that lingered, multiplied, deepened. Unlike the night before, he took his time stroking her breasts, cupping them, thumbing her nipples through the layers of clothing. Lily half expected to be tumbled onto the bed, but he didn’t even slip his hand under her top. She was glad; she wasn’t anywhere near aroused. His caresses felt good, though, and when he released her, she was warmer and more fluid than she’d been before.

  A brisk knock on the door signaled the arrival of housekeeping with an armful of towels. Swain went to the door and took the towels in the same motion with which he handed over a tip, not letting the maid in, though she would have gladly arranged the towels in the bathroom for them.

  “Let’s read over all these papers and see what we’ve got,” he said after he put the towels away, indicating everything they’d printed out at the Internet café. “There’s a lot of extra stuff in the articles that we won’t need.”

  She liked that he wanted to take care of business before fun and games, so she joined him in the sitting area, where he had all the papers scattered out on the coffee table.

  “Ebola . . . Marburg . . . We don’t need all this,” he muttered, dropping page after page on the floor. Lily picked up a stack of paper and began sorting through it, looking for any information on influenza.

  “Here,” she said a moment later. “ ‘How influenza viruses are treated in the laboratory.’ Let’s see . . . ‘laboratory-associated infections aren’t documented,’ but watch out for ferrets.”

  “What?” he asked, startled.

  “That’s what it says. Evidently infected ferrets pass the virus along to humans fairly easily, and vice versa. They make us sick, we make them sick. That’s fair,” she said judiciously. “What else . . . ‘a genetically altered virus . . . unknown potential. Biosafety Level 2 is recommended.’ What’s Biosafety Level 2?”

  “I have that here . . . somewhere.” Rapidly he flipped through a section of papers. “Here. Okay. The threat is considered moderate. ‘Laboratory personnel must be trained in handling the viruses, access to the lab is limited when work is being done,’ but I guess we can safely say access to the Nervi lab is limited at all times. ‘People have to wash their hands . . . no eating or drinking in the area . . . wastes are decontaminated before disposal’—that’s good to know. I guess we could have safely gone in the sewer, after