But I didn’t want to keep living my life waiting for the pain to explode again. Protecting myself against what might or might not come. I bit down on the inside of my cheek as I stared at the perfectly folded clothes on the dresser from one of Dmitri’s other dalliances.
So maybe I wasn’t the only one. Maybe, he served up dinner for all the other girls, and his eyes lit up when they said something funny.
All I knew was that he was the one man who I actually felt safe with. A man who kept protecting me, but more than that made me feel safe withjusthis presence. Someone who I felt like I could breathe with. A man who whenever I saw the hints of his inner thoughts, left me yearning to dive beyond the hard unknown of his expressions, and make his eyes glimmer with humor.
Sure, maybe I’d end up getting hurt. I uncertainly pressed my hand to the doorframe.
No, almost certainly I’d get hurt.
But maybe the easy moments of happiness in between would be worth it.
I took a deep breath and opened the door. Dmitri glanced up from the dishes with a frown.
“What do you want, Alisa?” he said, wariness apparent in his tone.
“Can’t sleep,” I said with a small smile.
His eyebrow arched at that. I’d probably been in my room for less than ten minutes. Still, he remained silent.
“Do you want to have a drink?” I asked, my eyes falling on a full bar cart that probably cost more than my entire rent.
“Did you just ask me if I want a drink in my own house?” he said, his eyes dancing with laughter.
“Yes.” I threw him a smile before approaching the bar cart.
Dmitri leaned against the island, his shoulders losing some of that tension that he’d had when I’d walked into the room.
With a small grimace, I poured myself some vodka. Dmitri shook his head and wordlessly grabbed it from me. He expertly mixed the vodka with spices and juice.
Delicious. Exactly, what I didn’t know I needed.
“Thank you.”
Dmitri didn’t reply. He fixed his own glass of vodka on the rocks before motioning me to sit on a cloud-like couch. Dmitrisat in the large wingback chair across from me, and sunk into silence.
His eyes were assessing as he took a sip of his drink. He looked at me like I was a koala that had broken into his house and decided to flop onto his couch.
Still, I couldn’t remember the last time I felt safe within silence. On missions, I was watching the reactions of the men I’d need to kill. Always on alert for any type of disruption in their happiness which meant that my physical body might be at risk.
With him, I could enjoy my drink without monitoring every microexpression on his face for danger.
“Where’d you get this couch?” I muttered as I slurped up the delicious drink. “It feels like I’m sinking into a cloud.”
“Bought the place furnished,” he said. “Everything here is whatever the place came with.”
“How long have you lived here?” I said.
“A couple years.”
I blinked, surprised.
“Wait, but you-”
“Are you really about to criticize my decor when your couch looks like someone backed over it before they delivered it to your house?”
I snorted. “It definitely wasn’t delivered. I found it on the curb.”
A frown graced his perfectly chiseled face, and he looked like he was about to say something. Instead, he took another long pull of his drink.
