Lining up my shot, I move things into position to give him a fighting chance of sinking at leastoneball before we call it a night. “Do you find that I praise you too infrequently? Are you starving for morsels?”
“Not starving so much as fiending for an illicit substance. I’ve had enough, sure. But I want more, always.”
His wrist is warm under my grasp as I stop his next shot. “Let me try to teach yousomething, at least, before we go to bed.”
“We?”
“I.BeforeIgo to bed. Now, pay attention. Your main problem is your stroke mechanics.”
The effort it takes Thatcher to reel in whatever smart-ass comment he wants so badly to make is evident. When a twitch at the corner of his mouth threatens to undo all his hard work in composing himself, I take pity on him and continue.
“Don’t think too hard about it. Show me your stance.” He tenses again as I move behind him to adjust his hips. “Settle yourweight slightly more forward. There you go. Now think of your arm like a pendulum. Don’t think too much about the ball, just stay fluid as you lead the cue.”
This time, his shot is true, and his whoop of joy is contagious. “I’m done. I’m quitting while I’m ahead. There’s no way I’ll be able to replicate that for an entire game, so I’m going out on top.”
“That’s fair,” I concede as we finally leave the ballroom and head toward our bedrooms. “Still, watching you fail at something was a treat. You’ve improved so quickly in the training gym, you’re an absolute menace in the pool—”
“I don’t know aboutmenace—”
“You gave someone a concussion!”
“Hey,heran intome.It’s not my fault that his skull was no match for mine. If your goal is to be truly impressed by my athletic prowess, what I really need is an ice rink. But since you don’t want me to put one in—”
“Flood!Floodwas the word you used to describe the aftermath of that venture at your parents’ house.”
“Yeah, well,” he sighs as we approach our destination. “One day, maybe we can test how good you are on the ice, and see if I can impress you.”
Thatcher looks as relaxed as I’ve ever seen him, as if tonight’s success was a vindication, proof that he’susefuland not just lazing about my house all day.
“I’ll take you up on a skate one day. I might surprise you, lest you forget that Ididgrow up in Russia after all. But I wanted to thank you. For tonight. It’s obvious you have a finger on the pulse of the men, especially the ones you pointed out that Misha pulled to take care of. It’s made my life a lot easier to know that task is taken care of.”
The shift in his posture as my praise lands is subtle, but he can’t hide the blush that creeps up his neck and settles on his cheeks. I’m far fonder of that blush than I have any right to be,and the insidious pleasure of just how well he’s been slotting into my life lately sinks its claws a little further into my spine. There’s no time to analyzethatfeeling any more tonight, but I have plenty of time to indulge in pleasure of another kind. As Thatcher opens his mouth, presumably to say good night, I nod toward my door.
“I don’t have an ice rink for you. But if you want to impress me…I could use a demonstration of another of your special talents.”
His answering smile is blinding, every bit my solnyskho, and he practically jogs through the door as I open it.
“Yes, Ma’am.”
Chapter 23
“You know, Ireally haven’t told anyone anything. About anyone or anything that goes on here, or in Thunder Bay, or anywhere…you know Teddy is my best friend, and other than that you’re up there these days, big guy. My parents and I aren’t close, and I don’t have any siblings or cousins or anything. The team group chat has been full of pictures of beaches and babies, and I haven’t contributed except to just like what the other guys send—”
“Thatcher.” Misha stops abruptly in front of the massive structure that’s the cause of my rambling. I can’t think of a single reason he’d want to off me, but if this is the structure I’m thinking of…the guys call it “the barn,” and it’s apparently where all the torture happens. Or at least a lot of the torture and “target elimination.”
None of the men talk about missions in detail when I’m around, and I’m not a part of any of the more specialized training they undertake. We’ve all bonded over blood, sweat, and tears in the gym, and I’d considered more than a few of them my friends, but I don’t have the security clearance to know the ins and outs of the operation. Which is fine. I haven’t heard any of the truly gory details from Teddy about what he does off the ice these days, and I don’t need to know about Mila’s and Misha’s day jobs either.
“I’m sorry. Whatever it is, I didn’t mean to. Please don’t kill me—”
“Kill you? Is that why you’re blabbering away a mile a minute? You think I brought you out here to kill you?”
His confusionseemsgenuine, and I’d like to think Misha is a good guy who would shoot straight with me at this point and not toy with me. “Uh, yeah. I thought this building must be the barn. Since it’s out here away from the house, and I’ve never seen it before.”
A heavy moment passes as he closes his eyes, pinches the bridge of his nose, and mutters to himself in Russian. It doesn’tseemlike he’s going to kill me. But then why…
“If I were going to kill you, Thatcher Prescott…I would never just walk you out here…never mind. No, I’m not going to kill you. It’s good to know that you’re so loyal, though. We never doubted you.”
“So this isn’t the barn?”
