“I think you were just hangry,” I remarked as we left the cozy café a few blocks down from the hotel.
“Excuse me?” He frowned down at me. “Hangry?”
“Yeah. You know. Hungry. Angry.”
He snorted. “Maybe.”
“Definitely,” I replied, certain I had figured it out.
“Do you need to stop anywhere on the walk back to the hotel?” He placed his hand on my lower back and gently steered me around a couple of men smoking and bullshitting outside the café. His touch burned through my shirt and jacket, and I wanted to pout with disappointment when he removed his hand.
“I need to buy a new phone charger. I left mine at Agnesa’s farm.”
“Is that why you haven’t been answering Aston’s call and texts?”
“There was hardly any service in the mountains. Once I got to Valbona, my phone was dead. Luckily, Andres had a charger he let me borrow.”
Besian made an annoyed sound at the mention of Andres. I waited for him to ask the obvious question, but he never did. Maybe he didn’t want to know. Strangely, I found myself wanting to reassure him that, despite the chaste kiss at the bus stop, there was nothing between us but flirtation and friendship.
“He works in The Woodlands,” I said, wondering if he would take the bait.
“Who?” he asked, playing dumb.
“Andres.”
“Oh.”
“He’s with Repsol.”
“Good for him,” Besian muttered. “Up there,” he said, gesturing toward a shop. “You can get a new charger there.”
I let the discussion of Andres go and stepped into the shop ahead of him. The man behind the counter greeted us, and Besian took the lead. I enjoyed the sound of his language, the way it rolled off his tongue in that melodic way. Albanian was a curious, perplexing language with some words that were familiar and similar to Spanish. I wanted to learn it, but it seemed daunting to say the least.
Besian glanced back at me. “Apple or Android?”
“Apple.”
He relayed the information to the shopkeeper who motioned toward a display near the rear of the store. I followed Besian to the display of chargers and chose the one I needed. He wandered over to the selection of ultra-cheap phones while I made my way to the cashier.
“Is this all you need?” the man behind the counter asked. “No SIM card?”
“Just this,” I said, taking my wallet from my purse. After carrying my backpack everywhere, it was a welcome change to only have the light weight of my purse on my shoulder.
“Not waiting for your husband?” he asked, his fingers hesitating at the register.
I blushed, not quite sure why it made me feel so suddenly hot to be mistaken for Besian’s wife. I started to correct the man, but decided not to since I couldn’t be sure Besian hadn’t called me his wife when they were chatting. “No, I’ve got this one.”
The man shrugged and gave me the total. I slipped my card into the machine and waited for it to prompt for my pin. After entering it, I waited for the transaction to be approved.
Besian joined us at the counter just as the machine made a strange noise. “Is your card not working?”
“I don’t know,” I said, confused. “It’s been a few days since I’ve used it. I had cash for the hike, and I prepaid my hotel reservation.”
“Your bank probably put a hold on it.” He tugged my card out of the reader and handed it back to me. “I’ll get it.”
“No, I have some cash.”
“I’ll get it,” he insisted, already putting his items on the counter.
“Thank you.” I returned my card to my wallet and tucked it into my purse.
He nodded and finished the transaction. I took the bag with our merchandise while he slipped his card back into his wallet and into his blazer. We left the store together and crossed the street to get to our nearby hotel.
Unable to keep my curiosity at bay a moment longer, I asked, “Did you tell him I was your wife?”
Besian seemed suddenly hyper-focused on the traffic. “He assumed, and I didn’t correct him.”
“Why not?”
He glanced down at me, holding my gaze for an intense moment. “Because I liked the way it made me feel.”
Before I could ask him how it made him feel, he was pressing my lower back and guiding me across the busy street. I decided weaving through tourists and locals wasn’t the best time to press him about his feelings. We walked another block and entered the lobby of the hotel.
This was as far as we had gotten earlier. As soon as Besian had a room arranged, he had left our luggage with the front desk and taken me out to find something to eat. We rode the elevator to the top floor, and I leaned against the wall, feeling tired after that heavy meal and my long day of travel.
“You should rest when we get to the room. You look exhausted.”
I studied him for a moment. “You don’t look much better.”
“Jet lag,” he said offhandedly, but I could tell there was more to it than that. Did he have the same nightmares I did? Terrible dreams of him bleeding out on the dirt after taking a bullet meant for me? Horrible nightmares where he was killed trying to rescue me from the Triad?
When we made it to our room, I noticed two things. One—it was a very, very nice suite, probably the most expensive in the city. Two—there was only one bed.
“This was the only suitable room they had available,” he said as if reading my mind. “And, no, we aren’t getting separate rooms. I want to keep an eye on you.”
I suspected he wanted to keep more than an eye on me. “Well, I’m not sleeping on the floor.”
“Neither am I,” he replied, locking the door. “If you want chivalry like that, you’re with the wrong man.”
“Last night I wasn’t,” I muttered and instantly regretted it.
“What?” Besian narrowed his eyes.
“Nothing.”
“Oh, I see,” he grumbled. “So, Andres is a gallant, chivalrous gentleman then?”
“Actually, yes,” I said, tossing my purse and the store bag onto the nearest chair. “I got drunk. It was storming. My hotel was all the way back up the hill. He offered to let me crash in his room, and he slept on the floor the whole night.”
Besian’s expression turned dark. “You went to a hotel room with a man you hardly know and you were drunk?”
“Yes,” I said, not glancing away from his irritated glare. “I made a mistake.”
“Fucking right you did,” he swore, surprising me with his angry outburst. “You could have been raped! You could have been trafficked! You could have been murdered!”
My first instinct was to raise my voice in the same manner and argue. My second was to admit that he was correct. I could try to defend myself, to point out that everything turned out fine, but that was because I had been extraordinarily lucky. Andres was a good man. He was honest and respectful, but not all men were.
“I know,” I said finally.
All the fight left him. With a sigh, he closed the distance between us with powerful strides. He took both my hands and walked backward toward the bed, tugging me along with him. He sat down and pulled me closer, holding me captive between his legs. He let go of my hands and flexed his fingers, almost as if he didn’t trust himself to keep touching me.