Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 95080 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 475(@200wpm)___ 380(@250wpm)___ 317(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 95080 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 475(@200wpm)___ 380(@250wpm)___ 317(@300wpm)
Inside, Dimah and I again sat in the back as he gave Danya, who’d been driving earlier, my address in Noe Valley. I sprawled over the seat, head rolled sideways, looking at him as he gently put a hand on my knee.
“Are you afraid to return to office on Friday?”
“No, why? Should I be?”
“No. You have nothing to concern yourself with,” he insisted quietly. “Those men will not come again. I have made certain.”
“Well, no, of course not, they were obviously in the wrong place.”
“Da,” Dimah agreed softly, “in wrong place.”
“Wait,” I said, my brain fuzzy with vodka and the need to sleep. “Tomorrow’s Thursday. How come I’m not working tomorrow?”
“You take day for rest. You sleep, you eat, and that is all. I will have office cleaned up tomorrow while you are not there. Friday, you come back. It will be nice again.”
“Do me a favor,” I said with a yawn. “Don’t replace the picture of the dogs playing cards, all right? I saw some nice paintings at that new gallery down the street from us. Let’s get some actual art in there.”
“Whatever you want, dorogoi. You take card, get what you think.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes. Whatever you want.”
“Can I do that tomorrow if I want? Shop for the office?”
“No, tomorrow you rest. Friday is better. I will have Iosif bring card to you and drive. What time do you plan to get up?”
“I dunno. Noon?”
“You are funny man.”
“That’s what I hear,” I said sarcastically.
It didn’t take me long to fall asleep again in the car, and when we arrived at my place, Dimah gently shook me and shooed me out. I was confused because he’d been so concerned all night, and then to dump me outside my little A-frame house with the wood-planked porch seemed cold. But when I swiveled around, almost taking a header over my white picket fence, I saw Cord sitting on my front steps.
“Why are you here?” I called over to him, trying to keep the annoyance out of my voice.
“I came to check on you.”
“Why?” I whined without meaning to.
“Because I should.”
“That makes no sense,” I mumbled as I opened and closed the front gate and started toward him.
“Don’t mutter,” he scolded me. “If you have something to say, speak up.”
“Does Alex know you’re here?”
“No.”
The gold shield on his belt drew my eye. Normally whatever jacket he was wearing covered it, but tonight he only had a sweater on over a T-shirt, and his holster had pulled up the fabric on that side. I could admit to finding the badge and gun ridiculously sexy. I was as susceptible to the whole danger thing as the next person. “Then why are you here?”
“You notice that your thug partner saw me, right?” he said, changing the subject.
I scoffed at the implication. “My partner is not a criminal.”
“Just—”
“Cord,” I said softly, reaching him, then crossing my arms as I hovered. “He’s not. I would not work with a criminal. Can we give this a rest?”
“Yes, you would work with him regardless, if you thought that underneath it all he was a good guy.”
I threw up my hands, wincing at the sudden pain in my left bicep. “You’ve got to—”
He grabbed my right wrist and yanked me down beside him on the porch.
“For crissakes, Nolan,” I groused at him, straightening up, bracing myself with a hand on his muscular thigh.
“I thought you were going to get married.”
“What?” I asked, taken aback.
“Breckin Alcott.”
“Yeah?”
“Your brother said you were going to marry him.”
“I was,” I said, sniffling. I slid away slightly, putting some distance between his big, hard, warm body and mine. “I still might. We’re taking some time,” I lied because I was annoyed.
“What the fuck does that even mean?”
“Why are we talking about this?” I asked irritably. “Since when do you even care?”
“You smell like smoke and sweat,” he said disdainfully. “And alcohol.”
“Cigarettes and sweat I’ll give you, but what does vodka smell like? Nothing. It smells like nothing, so—”
“You’re hammered,” he accused.
“I am not,” I defended myself, shivering in the chill air.
“Go in if you’re cold.”
“I am,” I snapped at him. “Why do you always have to bark out orders at everyone?”
“Maybe it’s just you,” he said gruffly. “You ever considered that?”
I hadn’t, not really.
“You don’t think about me at all,” he mumbled.
What an odd thing to say. “That’s not true,” I said too quickly.
“No?”
“No,” I answered, my voice much too breathy. But he was so…there, in my space. His height, his presence, the broad shoulders and solid chest, all of him made me want to touch, just once, to see what the muscles that rippled under his clothes felt like. I heard from other people that he intimidated them, but I’d never gotten that. All I registered was heat and sinewy strength. As he leaned close, my shiver was involuntary; there was no way to hide my reaction.