Handing him the key, she waited until he unlocked the door, then with a smile, stepped back so he could precede her inside.
The laughing glance he shot her was wicked, sexy, and filled with sexual intent.
She’d learned in the past week that he could be incredibly sexual, even more so than she had imagined. It never failed to amaze her just how inventive he could get, how hot he could make her while he was doing it.
Suddenly, the need to be alone with him was like a fever in her blood. The minute they were inside and the room was swept, she had half a mind to demand what she wanted. All of him. Inside her, around her, burying himself deep between her thighs while the world around them simply faded away.
Just a few more seconds, she thought. Just a little longer, and then she could escape the games, the lies and the reality she knew she was going to have to face soon.
CHAPTER 12
AS THEY STEPPED THROUGH the bedroom door, Bailey came to a stop and stared at their visitor as John locked the door behind them.
Tehya was now in disguise as Catalina Lamont, Jerric Abbas’s ex-lover and partner. Her red-gold hair was now a dark, stunning brown, thicker and longer, falling nearly to the middle of her back. Her eyes were a dark chocolate brown, her eyebrows more defined, her cheekbones higher and sharper, her lips a shade plumper.
Dressed in a snug bronze silk dress that barely passed her thighs, with matching heels, she looked like the seductive, dangerous woman she was, both as Catalina and as Tehya.
“Room’s clear.” Tehya held up the small electronic bug sweeper and waggled it in her hand as she propped the other hand on her hip and stared at them with raised brows. “I would have expected them to at least leave one bug. I mean, hell, how else are they supposed to know what the two of you are up to?”
“Give them time,” Bailey snorted as she stepped out of her high heels and moved to the small seating area where a white-noise box was activated. The small black box emitted a low-level static that would interfere with most listening devices.
“Give you time to get lazy?” Tehya harrumphed as she took the chair across from the love seat that Bailey was sitting in. “John doesn’t get lazy.”
“No. John does get irritated, though,” he stated.
Bailey glanced up at him, seeing the irritation that did fill his gaze now.
“Samuel and Ronald?” she asked.
He gave a brief, hard nod before relating their conversation to her and Tehya.
Bailey watched as he spoke and wondered if Warbucks would have approached him so blatantly.
“They approached Jerric in a similar manner,” Tehya revealed when he finished. “They could be fishing to see who snaps up the job faster.”
Bailey shook her head. “It would be a test, no more because I still have to submit my choice. It follows Warbucks’s methods, though. He’s been known to approach potential brokers with other jobs, especially new ones to test them on reliability as well as their ability to avoid any traps he sets for them.”
“We’re not playing that game here,” John stated as she watched him shed the jacket he had worn and lay it across the back of the love seat. “Jerric can play the games if he feels the need to. In the end Warbucks will go with Bailey’s choice.”
Bailey stared at him, seeing the confidence and lack of concern in his expression.
“How can we be certain?” she asked. “Warbucks always tests the brokers he has lined up. If they don’t play the games, then they’re out of the running for the job.”
John shook his head. “I have you. As you stated, you have yet to submit your choice, but all the players here know you’ll choose your lover.”
“I expect Raymond or Myron to make their move on me soon,” she mused. “They’ll need to test my loyalty in some way, whatever choice I make.”
“We have another problem as well.” Tehya leaned forward and stared back at Bailey. “Do you remember Alberto Rodriquez?”
Bailey stared at her in surprise. “Alberto is a major Colombian drug runner. Very fanatical, a psychopath. He was captured about three years ago by the Colombian police and imprisoned.”
“Well, he’s out of prison,” Tehya said. “He’s in Aspen and looking for you. Somehow he discovered your identity and decided you’re going to pay for the death of his brother.”
Bailey was aware of John leaning forward almost protectively as she stared back at Tehya.
“Alberto should have never been able to discover who I was,” she said quietly. “No one there knew, not even the authorities. His brother, Carlos, was a bloodthirsty son of a bitch who deserved to die. He killed two young mistresses in two months and he was working on a third when we moved into the hut he’d taken her to in the jungle. He was killed when he turned his weapon on us.”
“He’s blaming you for the hit.” Tehya shrugged.