His hand tightened around hers and her eyes flew up to meet his shimmery green and yellow gaze. His eyes dipped to her lips for a moment and when he met hers again, the heat she saw made her glad she was still sitting down as her knees weakened.
Katia inhaled deeply, willing herself to break eye contact long enough to find the strength to get out of the truck. It took longer than she thought possible, and the whole time, both of them stood completely still, locked in each other’s eyes.
It was a passing car honking its horn that finally did it, and she quietly blew out a breath as she stepped down. They were quiet as they went inside, and her mind was swirling with so many thoughts and questions that she forgot to stop him from renting a room.
“I hope you don’t mind that I only got one room,” he said quietly as he led her to the elevators, his deep voice caressing her nerve endings. “I don’t want to take the chance that we were followed, though, and leave you to fend for yourself. I got two beds, and I promise to stay in mine. You’re safe with me.”
Well, that was a damned shame.
For one horrifying moment, she feared she said the thought out loud, but when she risked a glance up at him, he gave no indication that she had. Breathing a sigh of relief, she followed him to the room in silence.
When they were inside, she set her backpack on one of the beds before saying what she’d meant to earlier. “I agree that we need to figure out a plan, but we didn’t need to stay the night to do that.”
Shrugging, he put their bags down and sat on the edge of the other bed. “I thought it was for the best, and we can get a fresh start first thing in the morning. Besides, I didn’t sleep very much at all last night. I was too busy looking for Justin. I didn’t want to miss him if he checked out.”
“You spent the night in your truck?” she asked, eyebrows high. “But you had a room at my hotel.”
“Like I said, I didn’t want to miss him. When I checked in, I put my stuff in my room and when I came back out, the car was gone. I panicked and drove around in circles, and when I got back, the car was there again. I didn’t want to risk missing him for good the next time.”
A fresh wave of guilt washed over her, and she exhaled softly as she sank down onto her bed, facing him with their knees almost touching. “And you ended up missing him for good anyway, because of me.”
Brow twitching, he immediately shook his head. “Technically, I missed him when I ran inside to use the bathroom and get my phone charger. He’d already left by the time I got back out there. You had nothing to do with it.”
“I still feel like it’s my fault, though. If I’d let you into his room sooner, or not freaked out and needed calming down, you might have been able to catch up to them.”
“You were following the rules by not letting me in, and I would have thought there was something wrong with you if you weren’t disturbed by what you saw. You did nothing wrong, Katia.”
Hesitating, she sank her teeth into her bottom lip as she glanced at her folded hands. Maybe he had a point with that, but it didn’t stop her from feeling like she’d screwed everything up—just by virtue of being there. If she’d only worked at one of those places that day, maybe her involvement could have been avoided, and he could be tracking his cousin right now.
Praying for courage, she inhaled deeply as she looked back up into his eyes. “I think we should go back to my hotel.”
He frowned as he shook his head. “No way, not this soon. I told you that you needed to stay away from there until this was over. They could still be in the area watching for you.”
“Exactly. It gives you the perfect opportunity to find your cousin and take care of the assholes who have him.”
He cocked his head as he studied her, and then his frown deepened. “Tell me you’re not suggesting I use you as bait.”
Narrowing her gaze, she studied his eyes closely. There for a moment, it looked like his pupils flickered and elongated before shrinking back down to normal. She thought she was hallucinating from stress or something the first time she saw it—although that was a weird as hell thing to imagine—but why would she do it twice?
It didn’t make any sense at all.
Filing it away to puzzle over later, she refocused on Colton. “That’s exactly what I’m suggesting.”
“Have you lost your mind?” he asked, voice saturated with disbelief. “You saw what they’re capable of, Katia. And that was probably just the tip of the iceberg. Yet you want to put yourself right back in their crosshairs.”
“Do you any better ideas for finding Justin? If you had some way to track him, you wouldn’t have slept in your truck, so you didn’t lose him. If I go back to work and they’re watching me, you can be there to get answers.”
Mouth tightening, he shook his head. “It’s way too fucking risky.”
“You’ll be there to protect me and keep them from actually getting to me. I’ll be fine. And then you can get one of the bastards and make him tell you where your cousin is.”
“It’s still a no.”
Narrowing her eyes, she blew out a breath with exasperation as she contemplated how to get him to agree. She hadn’t really expected him to fight her on her plan, especially since he could find his cousin if they went back—but he wasn’t even willing to consider it.
Despite the frustration she felt that he wasn’t giving this more thought, her heart still warmed over his resistance. The only person on the planet who’d ever cared about her safety and what happened to her was her uncle Sergei. Lord knew, her mom never really had, and she didn’t remember her dad at all, since he left when she was still a baby.
Yet there Colton was, sitting across from her looking more delicious than a man had a right to, refusing to do the one thing that they knew could get his cousin back. She’d sensed right from the start how much he cared for Justin, and the fact that he was willing to put her safety first…