“I don’t,” he said quickly then added, “sleep. I don’t sleep.”
She ran the words back, sure she’d misunderstood them. “Of course you need your sleep.”
“No. I don’t.” He was so matter-of-fact that she was starting to second-guess tiny pink drinks two through five.
“Of course you will. You have a very dangerous occupation and sleep is essential for motor function and reasoning and decision-making and—”
“Take the bed, Zoe.”
“No! You need your—”
“I. Don’t. Sleep. I never sleep. Ever.”
“Ever?” Moonlight filtered in through the curtains and surrounded him in a shimmering glow. She saw pain on his face but no worry. This was just his normal, as odd as that may be. “That is biologically impossible,” she told him.
“I sleep some.” Sawyer gave a shrug. “But not a lot. So please. Take the bed. I’ll sleep just as well on the floor, trust me.”
Zoe wanted to fight but knew she wouldn’t win, so she crawled beneath the petal-less sheets and stretched out in her basically nonexistent nightie. She turned off the sconces and all that was left was the moonlight.
“Are you a vampire? A zombie? If you are in any way undead, I have the right to—”
“No.” The word was hard but the tone was soft. She might have even heard a chuckle in the shadows.
“Are you a werewolf? Is there a full moon?”
“Good night, Mrs. Michaelson.”
But she couldn’t stop from rolling over and staring down at the man who had taken off his shirt and lay bare-chested on the soft carpet beneath a blanket that still smelled like roses. In the glow of the moonlight, his skin looked soft but his muscles looked hard, one arm crooked behind his head, bicep bulging, like at any moment he might spring to his feet and take on the world, and Zoe was tired just thinking about it.
“You can take the night off, you know.” She wasn’t teasing anymore. “You don’t have to be on duty.”
She actually thought he might have drifted off because it was a long time before she heard, “I’m always on duty.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Her
Maybe it was the jet lag or the three-hour nap or the many, many, many pink beverages, but sometime in the night Zoe had to get up and use the bathroom. Sure enough, eyes were staring back at her in the dark. She would have apologized for waking him, but as she made her way back to bed, he was smirking, a look that said told you so. So Zoe stayed quiet as she crawled beneath the covers.
It was her first memory of silence. There had always been shooting or running or talking. Even the sounds of the ship—room service carts, and guests passing in the halls—had gone dormant in the middle of the night. But now Zoe could hear her own thoughts. She wasn’t sure she liked them.
Because the longer she lay there, the more they piled on top of one another, a wall of questions with no answers. Like where was she supposed to be sleeping, and what was she supposed to be doing, and, most of all, who was she supposed to be doing those things with? She couldn’t stop wondering if someone was out there—missing her, needing her, wondering why she hadn’t come home? What if—at that very moment—there was someone going crazy without her?
Or, worse, a tiny, terrible part of her wondered, what if there wasn’t?
“You okay up there?” Sawyer asked because clearly the CIA had next-gen brain reading technology implanted in all their operatives.
“Yes. No.”
“Well, that’s clear.”
She didn’t turn. Didn’t look. It was enough to feel him, a calming presence in the night. He was four guns, three knives, and six-foot-two inches of dangerous. And he was on her side. But this wasn’t something he could kill, so she just whispered, “It’s nothing.”
“Hey.” His voice was gentle. “That doesn’t sound like nothing.”
Her eyes were a little too wet, all of a sudden. “It is. It’s silly.”
“Then you should definitely tell me. I could use a laugh.”
But she was the one who giggled softly. “I . . . It’s just . . .” She’d been terrified the night before, stumbling through the snow and the shadows, but lying in that beautiful room, something about the darkness made her brave. That’s the only reason she had the strength to ask, “Do you think I’m in love?”
It sounded so silly when she heard it, and immediately, she wanted to take it back, roll over. Pretend like she was asleep, but it was too late. She heard the rustle of the blanket as he sat up. “What?”