by Leslie North
Damian had a long list of people to speak with once this was all said and done. Chief among them would be whoever had been in charge of the woman's replacement wardrobe.
"Would you suffer less if you went hungry?" He kept his tone carefully neutral, even though his words tested the air between them. Volkov's insult had sounded more like a gentle jab after last night's charged encounter, and he didn't think they were in danger of repeating their dispute now. Their conversation felt strangely civil in the guise of being hostile. The sparring might have even been called something else under different circumstances.
But she definitely wasn't flirting, Damian decided, even as Alexa crossed into the room to join him. He moved aside to make room for her inspection.
"What have you done to the bacon?" She sounded personally offended by the sight. "Is that bacon?"
"Don't tell me you're a vegetarian," Damian said, his voice sizzling with judgement.
Volkov shot him an amused sideways glance. "What? Didn't it say as much in my file?"
"Apparently they don't make dossiers like they used to."
She laughed, a near-silent chuckle that gently shook her bare shoulders and made him wonder what banter might provoke a richer sound. At the thought, he nearly scorched his hand on the griddle as self-punishment.
Volkov pulled strips of pink, uncooked bacon off the cutting board to join his. She helmed the frying pan as Damian finished the pancakes.
"If you use butter, the bacon will crisp without getting burned through completely," she informed him. "And I can see you like using butter. There’s enough here to grease the entire New York police force."
Damian smiled. He shouldn’t think a cynical remark about cops should be funny, but her delivery was easy, harmless. She was bold, unapologetic, different from his usual charges who were typically nervous, sweaty-types afraid of their own shadow.
She reached past him for the cooking tongs in the same instant he reached around her for the measuring cup; her shoulder blades brushed his chest.
Damian pretended not to notice.
"You went for a run this morning?" she asked him casually.
"Just checking the perimeter. Sorry I didn't change. I didn't think you'd be joining me for breakfast."
"I don't mind a little sweat."
The casual way she said it, without meeting his gaze, made Damian's pulse thud to a stop before picking up again double-time. He might as well have still been out sprinting around the lake. Other exertive activities sprang to mind. The turn his brain took at her comment was inexcusable.
"I run also," said Volkov. "I mean, before I was housebound."
Totally believable. He made a concentrated effort not to look at the lean pair of bare-footed legs beside him.
"It would be against protocol if I took you with me," he said instead. "I hope you won't be bored here, Miss Volkov."
“Seriously, Stone? In twenty-four hours, you’ve almost kissed me because you thought we were tailed, you oogled my chest, and I had a wild sex dream about you last night. I think we’re past formality. Don’t you?”
Damian dropped his spatula. Two silver-dollar sized pancakes flipped from his grasp. One landed at his feet. The other landed with an unceremonious plop on her cleavage.
His face flushed, bacon-grease hot. She rewarded his misfortune with a hearty laugh—this time with an unabashed note that aligned with her devil-may-care attitude—and a robust bite of the breast-cake. He wanted to protest her oogled comment, but words failed.
Mercifully, she kick-started past the awkward moment by talking around her mouthful. "I find cooking to be a good diversion. In addition to… other things, my family owns a restaurant. I've picked up a few culinary tricks." After a short pause, she added, “I’m kidding about the sex dream. Although—”
"Show me, then." Damian took a step back from the stove. Diversion, Stone. Food was a good diversion.
She laughed off the interruption and the unfortunate school-boy tenor of his request. “I was just going to say that for someone so heavily recruited for the FBI, words sure seem to throw you off your game.”
“Food, Miss Volkov.”
"Fine. You haven't cracked any eggs yet, Damian.” She emphasized his first name with a playful wiggle of her brows. “So I assume you like them sunny side up. But if you scramble your eggs instead in the leftover bacon grease…" She cracked two eggs with one hand and emptied their milky yolks into the pan. "… you bypass any need to find a way to dispose of the grease. And they taste amazing."
"I usually put away four." Damian held up two eggs of his own and imitated her approach to cracking them on the side of the pan.
They were back-to-chest once more. Her hair smelled like the shampoo he kept stocked in the upstairs shower, but her natural scent added more—beach, maybe. A breezy day when things weren’t so complicated. For the first time, her harsh, Russian family name slipped away and he thought of her as Alexa. The name fit—feminine but strong, spirited.
"We might as well make a few more, then," Alexa said, her voice a little quieter than before. They worked together to scramble the eggs, bringing them to a fluffy golden finish that they salted and peppered generously. They were so in sync by then that Alexa was able to pass him a dish without looking. His fingers brushed her much softer hands.
She released the plate with a little jump.
He turned away and fought back a smile, delighted that she appeared as tortured by their arrangement.
"Want me to brew us up some coffee?" she asked him after a moment's recovery.
"Sure."
As the coffee maker percolated, the two of them sat together at the kitchen table, their proximity a ceasefire to the space they had silently imposed the night before. Damian offered her first go at the newspaper, but Alexa declined, preferring instead to talk to him about the house.
"Are all the safe houses in your network like this?" she inquired, pointing toward the loft with her fork.
"Like what?" Damian returned cautiously.
"I don't know. Cozy."
"We like our clients to feel at ease."
"That must be why they hire personable types like you." Alexa nudged his ankle playfully.
A flush of heat rose along his legs. Damian glanced up, mid-chew, from his breakfast. He found himself completely at a loss of what to say.
Thankfully, she rose to attend to their coffee. His eyes averted to the swaying motion of her hips before he forbid himself from looking. Alexa turned back to him, pot raised.
"Ever try butter and coconut oil in your coffee? It's better than it sounds." Alexa turned away again to fill their mugs. "We call it 'bulletproof coffee' in my family."
For a moment, Damian didn't think he had heard her right. After an extended period of silence, he said, "Black, please."
His chair slid out behind him as he stood. Alexa turned with his coffee, but Damian had already put his plate in the sink and taken the mug out of her hand before she could rejoin him.
"Miss Volkov," he said as a way of excusing himself. He quietly exited the kitchen, trying not to notice the hurt expression on her face.
The coffee remained untouched on his bathroom counter as he showered. He leaned his forearm against the glossy tile, dropped his head against his bicep. How long did she have her back turned? What was she doing with her hands while I was staring at her pert little ass like a schoolboy?
Jesus, Stone. Stay focused.
As soon as he got out of the shower, Damian poured out his coffee into the sink.
If there was one thing he learned from losing his best friend, it was to never trust a Volkov.
CHAPTER 5
Alexa sat in the living room’s bay window seat and pretended not to watch Damian move around the yard. Her protector was now dressed in oil-stained jeans and a distressed T-shirt, which wasn't distressing at all—not in the slightest. At least this ensemble had sleeves. She didn't think she could endure another covert glance at his morning jogging outfi
t without giving herself away completely.
She wanted him. Big time. She wanted Damian Stone, the man sworn to protect her—the sort of ex-cop she had avowed herself to hate—the same man who clearly harbored a deep abiding hatred for her family, and by extension, her.
But how else was she supposed to occupy herself? She was bored out of her skull. When she wasn't pacing anxiously or pretending to read one of three hundred and sixteen—yes, she had counted—true-crime novels crowding the shelves near the fireplace, she stared wistfully out at the lake and imagined what the fresh air felt like. She hadn't even been here a day and already she was going crazy. Distracting herself with thoughts of the only other person on the property seemed like a surefire way to keep the cabin fever at bay.
Or a surefire way to make it a hundred times worse.
Damian knelt near the edge of the yard, a hammer held loosely in one hand as he considered a broken fence post. Alexa raised her book once more, but memories of their earlier time together in the kitchen caused the words to swim right off the page in front of her.
She glanced up. Damian, who had been gazing back at the house, quickly preoccupied himself with his toolbox once more.
Hours passed. Alexa reorganized Damian’s beloved novel collection alphabetically by author’s last name and series, baked authentic kartoshka cake balls and sprinkled them with powdered sugar, and scoured the kitchen. By evening, Damian still hadn't come inside, not even for a bathroom break. She pawed through everything in her foreign-to-her wardrobe twice, trying it all on until she arrived at a blue summer dress she had glanced over her first time through. The fabric sported loud red flowers that resembled poppies. She normally didn't like patterns, but she tried it on anyway.
Her reflection in the mirror sent a slight tingle up her spine. What had seemed like a run-of-the-miss dress on the hanger looked completely different hugging her curves and draping breezily across her thighs. She turned to admire herself from behind, enjoying the way the open back plunged down further than she first thought. She imagined the expression on Damian Stone's indifferent face when he saw her.
The chess match just got a whole lot more colorful.
She let her hair down, brushing and fluffing it until it hung in effortless gold waves. She hadn't been provided with any makeup, but she washed her face and applied a dusting of face powder and a smudge of lipstick from the touch-up bag she kept in her purse.
Alexa made her way downstairs.
Damian still hadn't returned.
Was a fence post really that much more riveting than she was? Oh well—the man's disinterest in her was probably for the better. Alexa knew she had no business interacting with an ex-cop, much less flirting with one. If it was his personal aim to kill her through boredom, he was certainly succeeding on that front.
But she wouldn't succumb so easily. There had to be something in this house she could preoccupy herself with.
Alexa moved into the living room. She rattled the gun cabinet handle, but of course, it was locked. The next cabinet over, however, proved quite accessible. She pulled it open, her eyes taking in a promising row of smooth, dark bottles.
"So this is where he keeps the alcohol."
She selected a red off the shelf and turned it over to read the label. Growing up in her family's restaurant had lent itself to quite an education regarding wine. Damian Stone had good taste.
She uncorked the bottle in the kitchen and began chopping ingredients for a homemade wine-based red sauce for a spaghetti dinner. The sky beyond the kitchen window had grown dark by the time Damian entered the front door.
Alexa didn't turn around. She salted the pot of water she’d placed on the stovetop for the pasta, humming to herself and taking frequent sips from a wineglass she found in a glass-front cabinet near the pantry.
"Get that fence fixed?" she asked. “There’s only one activity that benefits from working that slow. Totally different tool.”
"I thought I locked the liquor cabinet."
Alexa tilted her head back over her shoulder, grinning to acknowledge that he had not.
The man's face darkened. "Clients under our protection aren't allowed to drink."
"I'm cooking with it." Alexa shrugged her shoulders as if she clearly didn't have a glass in her hand. “The alcohol burns off.”
Damian shook his head as he exited the room. He wasn't one foot out of the kitchen before she raised the glass once more to her lips.
The shower twisted on in the other room, and she returned her attention to preparing dinner. Her awareness kept slipping back to his body beneath the running water. After the third time she found herself distracted, Alexa set her glass down. Maybe she was drinking too much too fast.
Minutes later, Damian rejoined her in the kitchen, his hair still dripping from his shower.
The cabernet on her tongue went bone-dry. She noticed a bottle of beer in his hand and raised an eyebrow.
“Non-alcoholic.” He leaned against the counter beside her and raised the bottle to his lips.
She turned her attention back to the stove, heaping generous portions onto two plates. The alcohol kicked through her bloodstream. It felt suspiciously like she was blushing, and Alexa was not a blusher. Not when she was sober, anyway.
"Others have had instances of witnesses drinking too much and wandering off,” Damian said. “Never had a problem under my watch, and I don't intend to."
"Ever had an edible meal under your watch?" Alexa teased as she ferried their plates to the table. “Breakfast the exception, of course.”
"Does this morning not count?" His lips quirked as he joined her at the table.
They ate quietly. When Alexa had drained her glass a second—or was it third?—time, Damian reached across the table to take the liberty of refilling it for her. So much for house rules, she thought as she swirled it, eyeing him to see if she could read an intention. The man did not appear conflicted with his decision to top her off—in fact, he rose to get himself another drink from the cooler in the garage. If she held up well enough, maybe she could extract an admission that this situation was nothing but a buy-off by a disgraced cop.
"So you admit that you like having me around," she concluded when he returned.
Damian sank back into his chair and popped the cap off his beer with the edge of the table. "I admit that you are a better cook than my previous guests."
"Were any of your previous guests women?" Alexa asked nonchalantly.
“No.” Damian eyed her as he pressed the bottle to his lips. "Most of the women I know stay out of your kind of trouble."
A hearty dinner saw the wine bottle completely drained. Damian gazed at the bottle wordlessly, turning it over in the light as Alexa took the dishes away. His hand was so large that it covered the label completely.
"How much of this did you put into the food?" he asked suspiciously.
Alexa turned her head once more from her position by the sink. "Enough to make you think I'm the best cook ever."
"I didn't say ever."
“Are you ever going to tell me the real rub?”
“You sound like one of them.”
“Them?”
“One of Volkov’s muscle puppets. That’s not you. You attended the best private school on the east coast.”
“Ahh…the file. Did the file tell you that I walked away from an Ivy League education to save my father’s restaurant?”
“No.”
“My father wasn’t always the best judge of character. He trusted too much.”
“That where you get your cynicism?”
“I could ask you the same. Cops don’t always start out crooked. Some of them get in over their head. Trust the wrong people.”
Damian glared into the empty bottle as if it contained a rolled parchment of tortured memories. Silence settled between them, but it was easy. They had nothing but time to kill.
“What were you studying?” he asked.
“Pre-law.”
Damian le
t out a great, insulting peal of laughter. “Let me guess. Criminal defense.”
“Pro bono.”
“That’s the wine talking.”
“Now who’s the cynic?”
They took the game into the living room. At least, their conversation felt like a game to Alexa—one of them would make a plain and oftentimes not entirely flattering statement about the other, and the recipient would fire back with something clever. This was definitely what one would call flirting in the real world, the kind of high-stakes flirting filled with dangerous-tasting words that threatened a physical disruption at any moment, should one of them cross the unacknowledged line.
But this was not the real world. And as much as she wanted to remember that, seeing Damian beginning to relax back into the arm chair across the room really did feel like a dream. A dream in which she aimed to extract information from him but failed to remember the information she hoped he would confess. It had been important to her, not merely an admission of attraction, but her limbs were liquid and she found that she craved any admission from him, so long as he let down his guard. His reluctance to unwind made her savor it all the more when she finally witnessed him stretch out his long legs and tip his head back against the chair’s high, leather back.
Alexa sat on the floor near the liquor cabinet with her bare legs tucked beneath her, boldly rummaging through the bottles in his presence.
"Can we do a shot of this?" Alexa asked, shaking the heavy bottle of Patrón.
"Absolutely not."
"I'll get the glasses."
Moments later she perched on the arm of Damian's overstuffed chair, bottle and two shot glasses in hand. She had known her dress was too short to be conservative when she put it on, but she hadn't known until that moment just how little fabric had gone into making the whole thing. It bunched around her thighs and pooled in his lap.
His spine lengthened. Chest muscles rose and fell with breaths too expansive, too frequent to be in control.