Agent (CENTURIES series: Book #3)

7

"You owe me ten dollars."

"I'm getting real fucking tired of waking up to your face. Did you drug me?"

Groaning, I worked my shoulders around and clicked my neck when my body felt stiff. It could have something to do with the fact that I was tied up to a chair and had been sleeping in an uncomfortable position, or it could be that the sour, chemical smell in my nostrils had something to do with it. My guess was chloroform.

"Only a little," Vince replied while tying his boot. "I found you easier to carry when you weren't trying to writhe out of my arms."

Don't ask me how he did it (because I had been out the whole time), but he somehow managed to escape from the CIA again, with me somehow on tow. I wasn't going to feed his ego by asking him how he did – the retelling would only guarantee that stupid smirk of his to return. I could live without that.

So I chose to take a look at the environment instead. I was in some dingy motel room, probably one of those where the shower turned cold when you flushed the toilet. The bedsheets looked dirty, as did the walls and floors, not to mention the rest of the furniture. Under my boots, which were tied to the chair around the ankles as well, I could feel the floor being sticky. Yeah, we had to be in a dive motel downtown.

"So where did you take me this time, Aladdin?"

"You really have a hard time calling people by their names, don't you?"

"Says the guy who keeps using Italian endearments."

Vince chuckled and stood up from where he had been sitting on the edge of the bed and grabbed a blue shirt that had been lying next to him. "They are affectionate, mia cara. Your nicknames are coated in sarcasm. Mine comes straight from the heart."

"More like straight from your dick," I mumbled, mostly to myself. He had begun the unbelievably ordinary, yet still mind-blowingly sexy task of buttoning up his shirt and fixing the collar. My mind had many funny quirks, and watching a man tilt his head up as he fixed his collar was something I really loved to gaze upon. I mean, come on. Jawlines, anyone? Not to mention that Adam's apple and those black stubbles that defined him so beautifu—

There you go again with the fantasizing. Could you maybe be professional for a second?

I snapped right out of it. I wasn't the kind of stupid girl to fall for the wrong guy, and Stockholm Syndrome could kiss my ass. He might've had an infatuation with me (or maybe he just wanted to fuck me), but I wasn't going to let my own stupid, misplaced, dirty thoughts get in the way of what really was the plan here; to get the USB back, which I now had the perfect opportunity to do since he had brought me along.

If only I could get out of these fucking ropes.

And that was unlikely. As I twisted my hands and tried to wiggle my elbows, I could feel this being the all-too-classic elbow harness bondage knot – meaning the ropes went all the way up around my arms and elbows, even around my waist. My only other option to get free would've been to maybe break the chair, but that was pointless since he'd taken his precautions by tying me to a steel chair.

I therefore just leaned back and gave him a flat stare. "You think you got enough knots on this rope?"

"For you not even a Gordian knot would be enough," Vince chuckled, smoothing down his fresh shirt. "That one will just have to make due."

I snorted again. "Right, so besides keeping me from going to the bathroom, what's your big plan? Where are you taking me, why are you taking me, when are you taking me..."