“Don’t you dare make fun of me, Nikolai—”
“We could argue about money,” he suggested. “I think that’s a big classic. Or maybe we could just, I don’t know. Have some dinner?”
“Dinner?” She squinted at him. “Are you being facetious?”
“I wouldn’t mind dinner,” he said innocently. “Got any food?”
She started shaking, with jittery laughter. It was too weird. A feral, mythical being from that dangerous otherworld she’d accidentally visited was smashing through the barriers of her bland little life. Sitting down at her kitchen table, and demanding to be fed.
“What do you want to eat?” she asked, at a loss.
“Anything’s fine,” he said. “I’m not fussy. As long as it’s not cheese soufflé, or crepes a l’orange.”
She burst into tears, so abruptly she shocked even herself, and stood there sobbing in the middle of the kitchen, embarrassed beyond belief.
“Becca! Oh, Jesus. I’m sorry. I was just joking. Bad joke. I didn’t mean to—aw, shit!”
Suddenly, he was hugging her. Which was wonderful. Her body drank in the sudden, delicious contact with his big, solid body, loving it.
She jerked away before she could disgrace herself further. “No. No, I’m sorry. I’m OK,” she babbled, wiping her eyes with the sleeve of her nightgown. “Really. Fine. Just kind of shaky.”
“I didn’t mean to—”
“Of course not. Don’t worry about it.” She tried to smile, and skittered backwards until she hit the fridge when he reached for her again. “Don’t worry. How about an, um, omelette? And some toast? I think I even have some orange juice. Would that do it?”
He sank slowly, reluctantly into the chair again, looking worried. “Fine,” he said. “Are you sure you’re—”
“Fine. Great. Really.” She scurried around, yanking out bowls and utensils. As always, being busy helped. She pulled eggs out of the fridge, cracked the two she would cook normally for herself, and glanced over to where he hunched in his chair, black-clad, elbows on his knees, eyes gleaming like a panther poised to leap.
Four more eggs. She cracked them into the bowl. Stuck six pieces of bread into the toaster oven. Butter into the skillet, herbs, cheeses, a slice of ham to brown, that last handful of cherry tomatoes. Slice and dice, grate and toss, and by the time the toast was on the table and the omelette sizzling in the pan, she was feeling much more herself.
He’d already devoured all the toast before she even slid the omelette onto the big serving platter she’d chosen for his plate. She tossed in another six slices of bread without comment.
He dug in, sighing with appreciation at the first bite, and stopped with the fork halfway to his mouth, frowning. “Aren’t you eating?”
She shook her head, thinking of all the Oreos she’d devoured in her last desperate attempt at mood management. “Not hungry.”
He looked uncomfortable with that. “You have to eat,” he protested. “Here. Eat half of this.”
She suppressed the rush of tenderness. Tenderness with this guy could only end in disaster. She was already pushing her luck by feeding him. It was like giving food to a wild animal. It upset the balance of nature. To say nothing of the balance of her own shaky sanity.
“Go ahead,” she said. “Bon appetit.”
He gave her a long, slitted look, and gave in, going at the food before him with focused enthusiasm. In a couple minutes, he was wiping his highly polished plate with the last triangle of toast.
“You’re still hungry, aren’t you?” she asked.
He shrugged. “I’ll live,” he told her. “It’s lots better now.”
She got up and peered into her fridge. She didn’t have much food that was fit for a creature like him. He wasn’t the type to appreciate a no-fat lemon parfait yogurt, or a handful of sliced cucumbers. There was cream cheese and there were bagels. Good chew toys for wild beasts.
She hit pay dirt in the freezer when she found some of her frozen homemade lasagna. One of them was good for two meals for herself when she was alone. That should do it for him. She set one to nuke.
In the meantime, he finished off her bagels and the cream cheese, polished off the ham and drank every last drop of her orange juice. She set the lasagna before him. He practically inhaled it.
She regarded him with something approaching awe. “You are a bottomless pit,” she said. “Have you been starving yourself?”
He scraped out the last bit of pasta and chewed it, looking blissful. “Haven’t eaten in a while, I guess. And nothing tasted good. Everything tastes great, here, though.”
“What’s ‘a while’?” she demanded.
He pondered that for a second. “Couple days, maybe? Can’t remember.”
She sucked in a breath. “Days? Why? Have you been sick?”
He frowned. “I just forgot, that’s all. I had a lot on my mind. Don’t you ever forget to eat?”
“Um, no,” she said baldly. “Not a chance in hell.”
“I’ve been busy,” he said, sounding vaguely defensive.
“With what?”
He swiped the butt end of a bagel chunk all around the inside of the cream cheese container to wipe up the last smear, stuck it into his mouth, chewed. Deliberately not answering her.
She busied herself by rummaging through the freezer. There it was, the very last lasagna. An offering to lay upon the altar of idiocy. She peeled off the foil, flung it into the microwave, and turned to him.
“You’re trying to find that guy, aren’t you?” she accused him.
His gaze flickered, and slid away from hers.
“Why?” she demanded. “Why not cut your losses and let him be?”
“And if you run into him or one of his goons at a rest stop on the interstate?” he asked. “How do you think that’s going to play? You want to stare over your shoulder for the rest of your life?”
“Oh, please. Don’t even try. This is not about me,” she snapped. “I’m a bit player in this drama, and you know it.”
“Let it go, Becca,” he said. “We’re not discussing it.”
A lump rose in her throat. It ached and burned. She couldn’t justify this emotion, couldn’t explain it or reason with this tangle of pain and fear and confusion. She just felt lost, scared. In the dark, in the fog.
She turned her back to him, to hide the hot liquid sting in her eyes. “Then why the hell are you even here?” she forced the words out around the choking lump. “Did you just come to torture me?”
She let out a sharp gasp as he grabbed her from behind, yanking her down onto his lap, with her back to him. Omigod. Her chest locked.
She tried to twist, get off, look him in the face—she wasn’t even sure what her intentions were, but she couldn’t move in any direction. He held her fast, arms clamped around her waist, pinning her elbows to her sides. He pressed his face between her shoulder blades.
His body vibrated with tension. His grip was almost painful. His breath bloomed, rhythmic against her spine. A moist, pulsing beat that came into focus as if he were kissing her. Or licking her.
He didn’t speak, just held her, hiding his face against her back. She felt awkward, perched on his lap, her nightgown draped over his knees. Unable to take anything more than the shallowest breath.
Another emotion unfolded slowly in her. An aching desire to give him the tenderness he so clearly needed. But he wouldn’t let her turn, or embrace him, or kiss him. He wouldn’t talk to her. This tight, shaking, silent embrace was the only way he could ask for it and all he would accept from her.
He reached out to her, and hid from her. In the same moment.
She was afraid to speak or stir, unwilling to end the fragile intimacy. They were finally together, even if they were balanced on the head of a pin. She finally pried one of his hands loose and pulled it up to her face. She kissed his scabbed knuckles. They sat there, in that silent, magic bubble, until the microwave started to ding.
He sighed, and his arms loosened. She slid off his lap and stumbled across the kitchen to stab the button to make that sound stop. She slid the steaming dish out of the microwave, laid it on the counter. “Nick,” she began gently. “Can you tell me—”
“No,” he said. “So don’t ask.”
She flinched, then took a deep breath and tried again. “But I—”
“I’m not talking about it.” The harshness of his voice was like a blow, and of course, she was wide open to it, now that he’d coaxed her into feeling like this. Fragile and unshielded.
She pressed her hands to her face. How many times would she have to go through this same torture before she got a clue?
“I’m sorry,” he said in a halting voice, after a moment of dead silence. “It’s not that I don’t want to. It’s that I just can’t. It’s not safe.”
Nothing’s safe anyway, you idiot. Nothing will ever be safe again.
She wanted to scream the words at him, but she just dragged in a shuddering breath, and opened her mouth. “Tell me the bastard’s full name,” she said, her voice savage. “I deserve to know something about the guy who wants to rape, torture and murder me. He must have a record. Or something—”
He was silent for so long, she was sure he would blow her off again. Then he cleared his throat. “You won’t find it. Anyway, it’s Vadim Zhoglo,” he said. “Ukrainian mafiya kingpin. Very bad, evil motherfucker. But you know that.”
“Yes,” she whispered. She knew that.
Now that she had that scrap of information, she was at a loss. It wasn’t as if she had anywhere to put it, anything to do with it.
She thought of another random detail. Maybe he was on a roll, maybe he’d tell her more. “How is it that you speak Ukrainian?”
“My mother came from there,” he said. “And my father’s family. He was second generation. My great-grandparents came over in the teens, before the first world war. My dad was bumming around the world in the seventies, after he was discharged from Vietnam. He made it all the way to Kiev to see where his grandparents had come from. He met my mother, married her, brought her back here. I learned Ukrainian from her. Russian, too.”
“Oh.” The sudden influx of personal information was dizzying.
The lasagna was steaming on the counter. She placed it on the table in front of him. “That’s it for my larder,” she said. “Eat.”
He looked alarmed, but he dug right in. “I cleaned you out? Damn. I’ll take you to the supermarket. Buy you some groceries.”
The idea of doing something so mundane as grocery shopping with him struck her as both surreal and wonderful. Her heart twisted.
Anger soon followed. She stared at him, polishing off her food. Just look at her. Fatuous fool. Cooking for him, getting all soft and teary over pathetic crumbs of attention from him. Shame on her.
“Stop it, Nick,” she said crisply. “We’re not shopping for groceries, any more than we’re going to have sex. Stop jerking me around. Is that why you came here? For entertainment? To get me wound up, watch me bounce off the walls? Is that a stress reliever for you?”
He rubbed his eyes, shaking his head slowly, and she noticed how red-rimmed and shadowed his eyes were. His face was drawn.
“I’m not here for entertainment,” he said. “I don’t understand it myself. I’ve been trying to stay away from you—”
“Trying?” She was utterly baffled. “Away from me? But I thought…it seemed like you never wanted to see me again.”
“Yeah. I tried. It was convincing, huh? I shouldn’t be anywhere near you.” The volume of his voice was low, but its raw intensity slashed across her nerves. “Zhoglo’ll get a line on me soon. Not many guys answer my description who can do what I do. I’m more findable than you. Harder to kill, maybe, but easier to find.”
“Thanks for that heartening observation,” she muttered.
He ignored that. “When he finds me, he’ll want you. You’re not a bit player in this drama, no matter how much you want to be. Not anymore.” He grabbed a handful of her nightgown in his fist and pulled it until she stumbled closer. She grabbed his shoulder to steady herself. “So I should stay the fuck away from you. Simple, huh?”
She stared down into his eyes. Her fingers dug into the muscles of his shoulder. “Evidently not,” she whispered.
He grabbed her other hand, and laid it on his other shoulder, shaking his head. “I just wanted to be with you,” he said, sounding almost bewildered. “Just for a little while, to make sure you were OK. I drove around for an hour, trying to make sure I wasn’t followed. I’m reasonably sure I wasn’t. But even so. It was stupid. I’m sorry.”
“Oh, Nick,” she whispered. She could hardly breathe.
“Do us both a favor, Becca. Throw me out. Tell me to fuck off. I can’t seem to do it on my own steam. I need help. So help me. Please.”
The contradictory double level of his plea was exquisitely painful. Tears slid out of her eyes. “You’re asking the wrong girl.”
He let out a rough sound and jerked her closer, between his knees. He pressed his face against her breasts.
Her arms slid around his neck of their own volition. Her hands cradled his head and her fingers slid through the silken brush of buzzed-off hair. She dragged in a breath, inhaling his scent.
“I will not have sex with you.” She whispered the words, slowly and deliberately. “You hear me, Nick?”
There. The gauntlet was flung down. Even though the melting heat between her legs made her almost certain that she was lying.