Read Online Lie to Me by Tori St. Claire - Free Book Online Page A

to clue me in.” She snorted. “Oh, that’s right, you were too busy between my legs.”
    Sasha ignored the forced cough from the front seat and stared at Alexei, demanding a response.
    He raised a solitary eyebrow. “If you’d told me your real name in Moscow, I wouldn’t have been between your legs tonight, and we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
    Grigoriy cleared his throat. “Ahem, kids—”
    “My name?” To Sasha’s consternation, her voice raised half an octave. “You needed my
name
after…after…”
    She stopped, his blank expression filling her with shame and embarrassment. He hadn’t recognized her. Hadn’t shared the same surreal sense of familiarity she experienced in his hands tonight, and he had full use of his vision. All this time she’d been unable to forget the nights they spent together, had believed he had truly felt something on the last one they shared. And he couldn’t remember what her body looked like. True, back then she’d been malnourished and as skinny as a rail. But filling out to her natural curves couldn’t possibly make that big of a difference—nor could the blindfold.
    What a damn fool she’d been.
    “Yes, goddammit, I needed your name!” In a shocking display of temper, Alexei thumped a balled fist into the padded armrest on the door. “I sent someone to—”
    “Hey!” Grigoriy barked. “While this is entertaining, we’ve got company up ahead.”
    As Alexei’s attention snapped to the blinking lights in front of the Mercedes, his hand automatically going for his gun, Sasha blinked. Several kilometers ahead, bright light illuminated three plain-faced buildings. Men in typical Arabic garb hurried out of doorways to cars, which zipped down a wide paved driveway and onto the road. One by one, they lined up across the two paved lanes, forming a stout barricade. But it wasn’t the hustle-bustle and imminent danger that held her attention. Behind the blockade sat a nondescript black helicopter. Its rotors were still, yet its heavily guarded presence loomed like a sleeping dragon, waiting to arise and swallow her whole.
    Old apprehensions surfaced along with repressed fear. Quietly, she asked, “Where are you taking me?”
    Alexei leaned forward to better see the blinking red, blue, and white lights a mile ahead. His normal calm returned as he instructed Grigoriy. “They’re watching the road. Cut the lights and turn around.”
    Grigoriy’s grin flashed in the dim light. “Plan B? Or are we on C now?”
    Sharing an inside joke Sasha didn’t understand, Alexei shook his head with a similar wry smirk. “Try Hail Mary.”
    Exasperated by both men’s inappropriate humor, and fed up with being ignored, she repeated more loudly, “Where are you taking me?”
    As Alexei arched his hips and tucked his hand into his front pants pocket, he tossed her a brief, annoyed frown. “To your father.” He pulled his cell phone free, settled back into the seat, and pressed a button that lit up the touch screen. His gaze drifted back to Grigoriy’s reflection. “I’ll make the call.”
    Sasha stared at Alexei’s busy hands. Her father? The floorboards beneath her feet shifted sideways. She clutched at the seat, her nails pricking into the supple leather upholstery. The last person on this earth she wanted to see was her father. She’d given herself over to slavery to escape him. Now Alexei intended to take her back?
    Like hell.
    She would never again make bombs for her father. Not that he would ask something that simple now. No, for betraying him she’d die. Which left her one alternative—escape.
    A s the line rang, Alexei clenched his free hand into a fist. He couldn’t control his anger. He tried like hell, employed all the tricks he knew—drawing in measured breaths, redirecting his thoughts to trivial matters like the alignment of the stars. But nothing would stop the intolerable pounding of his pulse and the white-hot fire in his bloodstream. He was