I nod. “So much better.”
“Good.”
The silence beats on, and I know I have to go soon, and for the first time in a long time, I’m happy right where I am. Random questions are always the safest. You can discover thingsabout another person without getting too personal. “What would you do if you won the lottery?” I ask.
“We don’t have enough time for that question tonight,” he replies. “What would you have done if I had pulled you to my chest and danced with you inside the bar?”
I swallow hard. “I would have danced with you.”
“Noted. What would you do if I asked you out to lunch tomorrow?” Leif asks. I started the harmless game, but he’s giving it a life of its own, taking it to dangerous places.
“I’d say no.”
“Why?” He looks at me, and I feel his gaze boring into the side of my head.
“I work tomorrow,” I reply, turning to take the full-on seduction of his eyes. My breaths quicken and my pulse skyrockets—I can feel it slamming against my neck. “So I can’t go to lunch with you tomorrow. I would go to lunch with you on another day.”
He leans back on his elbows. “I’ll take that.”
“You’ll take what? I’m the one accepting a lunch date with a serial killer.”
He pulls me back so I’m on my elbows next to him, and my body buzzes where my arm skin meets his. “A hot serial killer,” he admonishes.
“How could I forget?” I add, my tone sarcastic. “You are a horrible dancer, though. It makes me trust you a little more.”
“I don’t trust you at all,” he returns.
I laugh. “You shouldn’t.” Running my hand through my hair, I catch him watching my face. “What would you do if I asked you to come home with me? Hypothetically, of course.”
Leif tilts his head to the side, and his brows tilt inward. “I’d tell you yes and probably make it halfway to your house before I would turn around and decide it was a bad idea.”
“Huh,” I say, nodding thoughtfully. “Interesting. Why a bad idea?”
“I don’t even know your last name, Malena. What kind of man do you think I am?” Leif stands and clasps his hands behind his back, looking like that picture of a gentleman he was when he introduced himself.
He’s grinning as he extends one hand down to help me stand. I take it and make an effort to stand closer to him when I rise. “Winterset,” I say, pulling my bottom lip in with my top teeth. “My last name is Winterset.”
THREE
Leif
When I toldMalena I would have turned around instead of following her to her house, I wasn’t being completely honest. I would have loved nothing more than to see that woman naked and writhing underneath me, but I have unfinished business at the office. I have to keep my priorities straight, even if sex is on the menu and I haven’t had a cheeseburger that juicy in a long ass time. Even now, while I’m sitting at work reading through the reports, trying to pick apart what went wrong—where the weak points reside and how I can catch the bastard next time—half of my brain is still back at the beach with that woman.
I shake my head. “Task at hand. Task at hand,” I mutter, no one to hear me in the dark, empty building. He’s on the East Coast, in my territory. Or that’s what intel is pegging, and I want him for myself. I start making mental bets with myself. If I get the motherfucker this time, then I get Malena. Something to work toward. A goal. A prize no one will know about except me. I hate that my next thought is whether my sisters would approve of her. Probably not. It would be too easy if they did. Focusis what I need if I’m going to be successful with the mission this time around. With so much focus, there won’t be room for anything or anyone else.
I stay at my desk longer than I planned, and it’s well past midnight when I creep across the porches to reach my house. I grin when the faint hint of cigarette smoke hits the wind right as I pass my neighbor’s residence. Upon entering my house, the acrid smell is erased by the delicious meals Eva cooked earlier. Stacked in my fridge and labeled are my dinners for the week. There’s a note on the counter in Eva’s scrawl saying that I’m in charge of securing a location for Mom’s birthday party and she’ll call me tomorrow. “Great,” I say, sighing.
Popping the top off a beer with my forearm, I meander toward the front door and out to the dock. Leaning over, I brace myself with one arm and listen to the noises of the ocean. It’s calming. After hours of racking my brain, it’s imperative I empty it.
Sleep doesn’t come easy for me. It never has. On my light complexion, the heavy, deep bags under my eyes are a signature trait. It has less to do with me being tired, because there have been times I’m nothing except exhausted—it’s because my mind won’t stop. Alcohol helps a bit. Sex, too. But nothing is a consistent trigger for a restful sleep. The team doctors poke us and prod us. They wire us up, study our blood, our body composition, our minds, organs, and sleep patterns. Most of us have problems sleeping to some degree. We can’t take any sort of sleeping pills because that’s not a healthy dependency when we’re awoken in the middle of the night to head on a spur-of-the-moment mission. We need clear, fogless minds and accurate trigger fingers.
I drain the rest of my beer and toss it in the mini trash can Eva put out here for exactly this reason. She was tired of seeing empties lined up on the wooden railing.
Showering is the first step to sleep, even if I’ve already showered multiple times during the day after workouts or diving, it gives me the best chance of decent shut-eye. Unwinding happens slowly. I think of Malena instead of missions and bad guys. I think of her deep brown eyes and the way her eyes crinkled at the corner when she smiled wide. Just once, though. She doesn’t smile that big for no good reason. There was definitely something about her that I connected with on a base level. Maybe it was her mother, her family, affecting her life to such a degree that it dictates her time without permission. I know how that feels.
As I stumble through my bedtime routine, I let my mind wander to past relationships. While fleeting, they all did have something in common. Nothing. I didn’t have anything in common with those women. Sometimes it’s the opposites attract type of chemistry, and now I have to believe maybe that’s why I haven’t been successful in finding someone to stick around. I need someone who has monsters that play well with my own. The same breed.
Ironically, thinking about this kind of coincidence thwarts my mind from spinning too precariously, and when my head hits the pillow, I fall blissfully asleep, my dreams lighter than they’ve ever been.
