She considered it, but slowly shook her head. “It would be too obvious that it’s just performative.”
“Why?”
“An unmarried member that we’ve never met dies and we magically say they were our third? It will be apparent that we’re callously using someone’s tragic death to avoid the trinity marriage. The thing our society is founded on.
“Let me put it this way. As an admiral I’d object, strongly, to this flagrant disregard for our rules and traditions as well as the blatant abuse of power.”
Eric thunked his head against the wall. “Fuck.” He thunked it again and she reached up, putting her hand behind his head so he wouldn’t hurt himself.
“Protecting me?” he said with a smile.
“Trying to.”
“Okay.” He exhaled as he crossed his arms. “No dead person third. Tell me more about Angus McAngus.”
“Scottish. Thirty-seven. A UX engineer specialist.”
“What the hell is that?”
“It involves computers.” Feeling relatively certain that Eric was not going to keep whacking his own head against the wall, she dropped her hand into her lap and leaned against Eric’s arm. “We’ve run extensive background checks, financial records… Zoran has the reports.”
Eric shook his head. “Later. I wantyouto tell me about him.”
“He’s…kind. Empathetic. Easy to talk to. Mindful of his size.”
“What do you mean?”
“He kept kneeling down rather than sitting or standing. When I mentioned it, he said something like ‘I do it on purpose so I don’t intimidate people.’”
Eric grunted, staring into the middle distance. “Or he does it so people will underestimate him.”
She hummed her agreement. “He also said that he kneels unless he wants to scare people, but that might have been a joke.”
Eric looked over. “Why, exactly, was he kneeling?”
“At one point, he said it looked like I was going to cry so he knelt next to my chair.”
“He made you cry?” Eric’s voice was so low and dangerous, she felt it more than she heard it.
“I didn’t actually cry, though it was close. I was telling him about my past. My father.” Eric’s arm was rock-hard against her. Nikolett shifted, molding herself to his side. “He got the facts-only version.”
Eric softened, just a little, so she kept going. “He speaks English, French, Hungarian, Spanish, and Mandarin, though he’s not fluent in all of them. He has a thick Scottish accent when he speaks Hungarian.”
Eric was still tense.
“He mispronounced charcuterie. He calls me ‘lass.’ Brought me flowers. Didn’t run screaming out of the hotel when Iacob and Maxim gave him a pat-down and poison-tested the flowers.”
Nikolett frowned for a moment, a thought there and gone again before it could grab hold.
She forced herself not to get distracted. “And when he helped me take my cast off, he accidentally pressed on my leg. It hurt and I made a noise. The mood died.”
Eric let out a bark of laughter. “What?”
“He squeezed my leg and he pressed on the exact wrong spots. He apologized and after that, he was so worried about hurting me, unlike some people…”
Eric snorted and wrapped an arm around her. “First of all, you’re tougher than you look. If you’re alluding to your ass, I was a perfect gentleman and used plugs to make sure you were ready.”
Nikolett squeezed her legs together, remembering the feeling of his hot, hard cock inside her there. Stretching. Filling.
