He’d told her she needed to get a life. Of course, it was his effort to see she had one that had prompted the salt in his coffee. He’d fixed her up the night before with the most boring, obnoxiously intelligent man she’d ever met. To make matters worse, they’d gone on a double date and while her brother was having fun with his not-so-brainy arm candy, Danusia had spent the evening arguing quantum physical theory. Not discussing, but arguing.
Her blind date had been an opinionated cretin.
“Do I have to worry you’re going to sabotage the kitchen?” Max asked, proving Roman had been telling tales.
“I don’t know. Are you going to try to fix me up with the most obnoxious man on the Eastern Seaboard?”
“Is that what Roman did?”
“Yes. And when you’re contemplating murder, salt in the coffee doesn’t seem like such a harsh retaliation.”
Max laughed out loud. “I can promise you, I’ve got no plans to fix you up with anyone while you’re here.”
“Good.” She had her own plans and they all revolved around the gorgeous black man whose laugh made her thighs clench.
Weird. Was that a primal reaction, she wondered, or an evolutionary one? Whatever it was, there was an ache between her legs that would not go away.
“You’re doing it again.”
“What?”
“Thinking about something that puts that alarming expression our eyes.”
“Do I worry you?” she asked in disbelief.
“More than you know.” With that, he spun on his heel and headed out of the room, stopping at the doorway. “I’ll make dinner tonight.”
“You don’t trust me to cook?”
“Let’s just say I’ll be sure what goes into it if I make it.”
“I’ll have you know I’m a very good cook.” It was basic organic chemistry and she’d had that particular subject down before she’d been out of training bras.
“When you aren’t switching ingredients on the unsuspecting.”
“I told you, he deserved it.”
“And I don’t.”
“Not yet,” she couldn’t resist saying.
He laughed again and she decided that sound could become more addictive than McDonald’s French fries.
CHAPTER 2
Max julienne sliced the carrots while he reminded himself of all the reasons why the sexy little doctoral student currently studying in the living room was off limits.
One—despite her advanced education, she was six years younger than he. Two—that education disparity was just another reason that nothing between them could work. After barely graduating high school, he’d gone directly into the Marines and learned how to kill people. No amount of reading and online courses since then could bridge the gap between the two of them.
And hell, why bridge a gap for a casual fling?
Which was the next biggest reason he needed to keep his hands to himself. Three—Max didn’t do serious and Danusia Chernichenko deserved more than a casual roll in the sack, no matter how hot it was. And it would be desert at high noon hot too.
He wanted to undo the dark brown hair she always wore in either a long ponytail or braid down her back and bury his fingers in the silky strands. Damn if it didn’t make him some kind of walking cliché, but he wanted to see that long dark hair spread out under her while he drove into her small but curvy body over and over again.
While she shared the rest of her family’s pale coloring with almost black hair, unlike the rest of them, Danusia wasn’t more than average in height. She couldn’t be more than five and a half feet tall with bones like a sparrow.
Too fragile for a man like him, but that didn’t stop him wanting her.
Hell, if she didn’t deserve more than he could ever give, though.
The biggest reason she was off limits? Four—she was his friend and team leader’s baby sister. A smart man did not play with that kind of fire. It was likely to burn him to ashes for his trouble.
And five—if he needed a five—they didn’t even live in the same state. Not that he spent a lot of time here, but it was home.
Which again implied he was thinking long term, which he wasn’t. Because he never did. He’d lived his whole life watching his mom struggle with what amounted to single parenthood while his daddy spent weeks on the road as a long-haul trucker.
Max’s job not only took him away for weeks at a time, but there was no guarantee he’d come back. His missions were dangerous, though necessary.
He wasn’t putting a woman throuh that kind of pain, or himself through the struggle between his job and his family. His daddy’s weeks on the road had taken their toll on him as well and he’d died young from a heart attack.
Max wasn’t following that path, no way, no how.
But, damn, he wanted Danusia. Had wanted her at Elle’s wedding, and the hot need had only grown since. He might not have seen Danusia in the intervening time, but he’d dreamt about her. A lot.
Which was just plain crazy.
Even crazier, he’d pictured her face on more than one woman’s body as he was screwing a one-night stand. It didn’t make him proud either. He might not do serious, but he respected the women he had sex with and knew it was wrong to bury his cock in one woman’s body while thinking of another one.
Which went a long way toward explaining why he’d gone without sex for longer than he had since his first time with the divorcée who lived across the hall when he was fifteen.
His agitated thoughts did not stop him from noticing the muted sounds the moment she stood up and started moving around in the other room. He knew she’d come into the kitchen before her sweet, floral scent told him she’d moved into his personal space.
She leaned around him. “Looks good. Can I help with anything?”
“I’ve got it.”
“I really am a decent cook.”
“You’re a Chernichenko. I doubt there’s anything you don’t do well.”
She laughed, but the sound was more sad than humorous. “Isn’t it obvious? I’m not like the others.”
Sliding the carrots into the steamer, he fought the urge to turn around. And lost. He put the lid on the cooking vegetables and then turned to face Danusia.
She was mere inches away and it was all he could do not to reach out and pull her the remaining distance so their bodies connected. “What do you mean?”
She rolled her eyes and stepped back. “You don’t have to pretend to be nice. I know my limitations.”
What the hell? “Don’t you know how proud of you Roman is?”
“Sure. I’m the freak among freaks, right? My siblings are so smart, they scare people and I’m even smarter. That’s really something great, isn’t it?”
“I guess it depends on what you do with that big brain of yours.” But he didn’t like her sad, almost weary tone.
“My cranium capacity is no larger than average for a woman of my height.”
He shook his head. “That’s not what I meant.”
The amusement now lurking in her grey gaze said she knew that and was teasing him. She didn’t dwell on whatever bothered her and while he found that admirable, he didn’t like the idea that she carried a burden like that about herself.
“You are something special, Danusia.”
“I’m a freak.” She shrugged. “But we take the bad with the good, right? If I can be like Matej and develop something to make the world a better, or safer, or healthier place, then it’s worth it to be such a bad fit with other people.”
“You fit just fine with me.”
“And you are a good friend to my brother.”
“He’s not here now and I still like spending time with you.”
“So, give me something to do.”
“Tired of studying?”
“You could say that. The latest batch of research I downloaded from Luminescent Pharmaceuticals isn’t making sense. I think I’ve been staring at the printouts too long.”
“Are they one of th
e companies experimenting with the use of nanotechnology in medical treatments?”
“Yes. They’ve had some breakthroughs too, or so some of their research would suggest. But the reports I’ve been looking at today don’t back it up. I’m not sure exactly what they do say, to be honest.”
“If anyone can figure it out, it’s you.”
“Right. I’d rather slice vegetables.”
“All done, but if you’re intent on manual labor, you can start on the dishes.”
She looked over to the nearly empty sink. “You’re a clean-as-you-go kind of cook, aren’t you?”
He shrugged. He liked order. Nothing wrong with that.
She grinned, as if she knew a joke she wasn’t telling, but headed over to start on the dishes.
He put the red snapper covered in Cajun spices into the melted butter in the cast-iron frying pan. The fish started to sizzle immediately, the scent of chili powder and crushed red pepper seeds filling the kitchen.
“Smells delicious,” she said as she washed the pan he’d used for the sauce. “You’re a really good cook, aren’t you?”
“It’s a hobby.”
“A pretty serious hobby, by the look of things.”
“It relaxes me.” Cooking blackened red snapper with mango-lime sauce was a far cry from MRE rations and helped him to distance his home time from that in the field.
“I like to cook too, but my roommate says I’m too keen on experimentation for my own good.”
“How can you help it?”
“That’s what I tell Rebekah.”
“A fully stocked kitchen’s an irresistible temptation to someone with an intimate working knowledge of chemistry. Or so Roman says.”
“Roman experiments in the kitchen too?” Danusia sounded shocked by the idea. “Rebekah is more into physics than chemistry, but she is happy to just follow a recipe, you know? I like to try different things. And Roman does that?”
Max nodded, all serious. “They don’t all turn out either.”
She laughed and this time the sound was pure joy. His cock throbbed in response and he would have given it a good thump if she wasn’t looking right at him.
He settled on turning back to the stove and finishing dinner, tossing the now cooked carrots in a chicken stock and butter sauce and plating everything while it was still hot.
She was drying her hands when he finished. “Where do you want to eat?”
He didn’t really care and said so.
She blushed and looked off to the side. “Um, there’s a new show about a superhero family I’ve been wanting to watch. The dad is one of my favorite actors.”
“So, we’ll watch it.”
“Really? You don’t mind, after all the work you put into dinner?”
“Nope, don’t mind a bit.”
It was so worth the grin that entirely lit her pixyish face. And the show wasn’t bad. Even better, though, was her reaction to it.
She blushed. “With my family, can you blame me?”
“I’d say they’d all consider you more the superhero than them.”
“Superbrain maybe, but Elle got the whole package. She’s beautiful, smart and she can kick ass too, just like Electra. Then there’s Matej. He’s not a secret agent like the others, but he’s doing such important work, he might as well be Dr. David Banner without the whole Hulk side-effects thing. Mykola has got the superspy thing going on too and then there’s Roman.”
“A scientist for the Army.”
“Tchya.” The look she gave him told Max Danusia didn’t buy the long-held cover story for a minute.
“Let me guess. You think being a military scientist has some superhero quality to it too?”
“Maybe, maybe not, but you and I both know Roman doesn’t work for the Army—at least not as a scientist. Nope, he’s no more a scientist than I am a cover model.”
“Why not a scientist? He’s got the degree and the brains.”
“And he carries himself like a soldier, a real soldier, not a lab rat. Roman’s too tanned to spend his days in the lab. And he’s got this scary aura, almost as scary as yours.”
“You think I’m scarier than Roman?” That would be a first.
“Yes, but maybe that’s because I see him through the eyes of a baby sister. I know he’d never willingly or knowingly hurt me.” The way she said it made Max wonder if Roman had unknowingly hurt his little sister.
“Who do you think he works for?” The Chief was going to shit kittens when he found out his baby sister wasn’t taken in by his cover.
Not one little tiny bit.
“He told my parents he was speaking at a symposium on polymer sciences in Europe. Funny thing, he’s not listed as a speaker.”
“Maybe they didn’t get his name up in time.”
“Maybe he’s on assignment somewhere else. My guess is out of country, or he would have told them he was going to be somewhere in the States. And he’s not in Europe, because he would never give his real destination.”
Hell, she should be working for the Atrati. “Maybe you’ve got an overactive imagination.”
Hurt flared in her eyes. “Maybe I’m not as dumb as my family seems to think. I realized Elle was some kind of government agent before her first husband died. I didn’t tell anyone else. Little sisters find secrets, they don’t share them. I knew when Mykola was working undercover on that drug case. I even knew where he was living, but I’m not about to tell him that. When he couldn’t save everybody, I knew he’d be broken up and when he showed up at Elle’s company, it was obvious there was more going on than anyone wanted to admit.”
“What the hell?”
“I use my brain for more than studying.”
“I think maybe you’re the scary one.”
She shook her head. “I’m just a little sister who wants to know more about her siblings than they’re willing to tell her.”
There was pain in Danusia’s voice he understood all too well. He’d heard it often enough in his mother’s tone when his daddy had refused to talk about his weeks on the road, saying that when he was home he didn’t want to think about his timen truck.
“They all love you.” He knew that much from things Roman had said.
“They keep secrets. They share with each other, but think I’m too young to know, or something.”
“They’re just protecting you.”
“They think I’m a security risk.”
“You are telling me stuff I doubt they want others to know.” Not that he considered her a risk, but she needed to be more circumspect, especially when it came to Roman.
Who was in Africa right now on a black-ops mission commissioned by the Army. But Danusia was right, neither Roman nor Max worked for the military anymore. They were agents for the Atrati, a paramilitary organization that did a lot of work for the government, but was not under the government’s official aegis.
“You’re one of them, if not a spook, something super secret.” He opened his mouth, but she put up her hand. “Don’t. Don’t lie to me. Just don’t say anything if all you’re going to do is deny it.”
He had an insane urge to tell her the truth, which was absolutely not going to happen. “You sure this isn’t your superhero obsession playing tricks with your brain?” he asked instead.
She stood up, grabbing her plate and his. “Never mind. I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“But you did.”
“Right. So, I guess I am a security risk.”
Well, shit.
CHAPTER 3
Danusia adjusted the hand towel on the rack after wiping down her brother’s marble countertops.
She’d insisted on cleaning the kitchen on her own, telling Max that it was only fair since he’d cooked. He’d seemed like he was about to argue and she’d given him the look, the one she used on her big brothers and sister when she was absolutely adamant about getting her way.
Max took the hint and left.
Thank goodness for small favors. She co
uldn’t believe she’d set herself up for disappointment like that. He’d been right about one thing—she’d let her imagination run away with her.
Oh, not about her sibs, but about the connection she’d thought she’d made with Max. He might find her sexy; he didn’t have a reason to lie about it anyway. But they weren’t friends and even if they had sex, they weren’t about to become lovers.
Men like him did not have full-on relationships with women like her. The fact was she knew most people didn’t want to. No matter how hard she tried to fit in, her intelligence made most people give her a wide berth. It was hard to make friends, even in the academic community. She was lucky her roommate had stuck with her through college. Even though Rebekah was four years older than Danusia, she’d never let that get in the way of being the younger woman’s friend.
Rebekah was the only person in Danusia’s life who didn’t push her away or treat her like she was different or a freak. In fact, she treated Danusia more like a little sister than her own siblings. The main reason for not going to Rebekah when Danusia realized she didn’t want to stay in the apartment alone had been her fear of finally wearing out her welcome with the other woman.
So, she’d come to what she’d d to be Roman’s empty apartment and ended up sharing with Max. The one man she found more interesting than even her doctoral thesis.
Max was no more interested in being real with Danusia than her brothers and sister. So what? She was used to being lied to and kept at a distance, wasn’t she?
If they weren’t smothering her with protectiveness, her family kept her as far away as possible. Even her parents and baba had insisted she attend a university too far away from them for her to live at home.
For her own benefit of course—the physics and chemistry departments were second to none. Thank God she’d been placed in a room with Rebekah her first semester. Homesick and terrified by the campus living, Danusia had glommed onto a kind and extremely patient Rebekah, who helped the younger girl navigate her strange new world.
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