She couldn’t possibly walk out looking like this, but on the other hand, there was a drumbeat inside her, insistent and loud.Get out now. Get out now.Before he woke up, because she had no clue what she could possibly say to him.
Dress and go, now.
She slipped into the bathroom, leaving the door open, so that a little of the faint morning light could seep in. If she turned the lights on in the white-tiled bathroom, the glare could wake Sam up.
A splash of cold water on her face, a quick wash between her legs—and oh my god, the nap of the washcloth felt incredibly rough against her super-sensitized flesh—a comb hastily pulled through her hair was all she allowed herself time for. Bra and dress went on in under a minute.
Holding her sandals by the straps, she tiptoed her way to the front door. On the floor was a silky mauve slash of material. Her panties. Her beautiful La Perla panties, ripped apart. And how she’d reveled in Sam tearing them off her, because they’d been this unacceptable barrier between her and Sam’s hard flesh.
She closed her eyes for a second, then opened them, intent more than ever on getting out as fast as she could, like someone fleeing from the scene of the crime.
The door. She eyed it warily. Last night, getting in had been like getting into some secret room at the Pentagon. Palm print, keypad, five-digit code. She had no idea what the numbers were. Her mind had been utterly lost in mists of lust.
If she needed a secret code to get out, she was in trouble.
The idea of having to walk back into the bedroom, wake Sam up and ask for a code made her focus, concentrate. She studied the door, narrow eyed. A door had to work both ways, didn’t it? You have to be able to get out, not just in.
There was no security panel. No door handle, either, for that matter. She stared at the door, willing it to yield up its secrets.
Did it open by remote control? Did she have to go back into the bedroom and root through Sam’s pants? That would be the last straw.
There was one button on the wall next to the featureless door. She held out a hesitant finger, hovered over it, then gathered her courage and pressed it, hoping it wasn’t connected to something dangerous, like a siren. Or a bomb.
A crispclickand the lock disengaged, the door sliding open.
Yes!
Nicole tiptoed through, then quietly slid the door closed behind her.
She stood in the hallway, breathing heavily, as if she’d just engineered a jailbreak. Her heart was pounding so hard it was a miracle the sound didn’t echo in the quiet corridor.
It was utterly ridiculous, but she couldn’t do anything about the way she felt—panicky and broken, as if running away from something dangerous.
Mindful of the clickety-clack of her heels on the shiny hardwood floor of the corridor last night, she walked to the elevator and called it up, wincing at the little ping as it reached Sam’s floor. It sounded so loud in the silence.
In the elevator, she clutched her pochette tightly, like a shield, and stared mindlessly at the elevator doors.
When they opened, she stepped out into the huge, glass-encased lobby. The sky was now a dark pearly gray and she could see the beach not fifty feet away, the small waves curling like lace on the sand.
“Miss?”
Nicole jumped and barely managed to suppress a scream.
“Miss? Can I help you?” The tone more pointed, with a slight Hispanic accent.
A security guard, dressed in some security company’s livery, surrounded by a circular polished-wood barrier with lots of video screens showing empty hallways, looking at her with a frown.
Nicole heroically refrained from looking down at herself in dismay but she knew exactly what he was seeing. A disheveled woman who had obviously been up to no good, tiptoeing away from a night of excess in one of the apartments.
This was just sounfair. Nicole was the epitome of a proper lady. Even in the midst of a hot affair, she always kept her decorum; it had been drummed into her. She prided herself on the fact that a casual observer would never know what she was thinking, what she was feeling.
Right now, she might as well have hadbabe after a hot nighttattooed on her forehead.
The only thing to do was brazen it out. She straightened, put on her best ambassador’s-daughter polite smile and lifted her head.
“Good morning,” she said evenly. “I wonder if you could call me an Uber?”
“Sure thing, ma’am,” the guard said, punching out a number on the phone keypad without taking his eyes off her. Presumably in case she made off with one of the stone planters that must have weighed three hundred pounds each.
