13. Ofelia
Ofelia
“Ofelia!” It takes several minutes for Teresa’s voice to penetrate the total focus of my practice.
I pause mid-movement, my fingers hovering impatiently over the keys. “Yes?” I’m more than a little annoyed to have the spell of concentration broken mid-piece.
“You have a visitor.”
I frown. Lourdes never stirs before midday, and I don’t know anyone else in Granada well enough for them to just turn up on my doorstep.
More importantly, if anyone tried, Teresa and Julia would normally never let them through the door.
Which means it has to be family.
Dammit.
“Coming!” I try not to let my annoyance show as I push my stool back.
Maybe Darya, I think, smiling despite myself as I head for the stairs. It would be just like her and Abby to play hooky for a day away from their brood of boys and come to take me out.
I’m halfway downstairs when the first hint of dusky leather hits me like an aphrodisiac.
And by then it’s too late to rethink my silk cami set and messy bun, both of which are very comfortable for practice and would be fine for family—but are not even remotely appropriate for the leather-clad figure currently dwarfing my kitchen.
“Mak cleared him for entry,” Teresa says frostily, “but he wouldn’t wait outside because of the security cameras. I did try to tell him you were practicing—”
I take it, by her glacial expression and Alexei’s rather amused one, that her objections were overruled.
“It’s fine, Teresa.” I’m surprised I can manage to speak at all.
Alexei is holding a motorbike helmet and aviator sunglasses in one gloved hand. A red bandanna covers his hair and missing eye. A three-day growth conceals his scarred face, and his leather jacket is open over a black T-shirt that doesn’t expose any of his ink.
I’d thought Alexei devastating in a handmade tux.
But dressed in bike leathers, suntanned and grinning like a cross between medieval pirate and Sons of Anarchy, he’s fucking lethal.
“Ofelia,” he says politely.
“Alexei.”
It takes a moment before I realize I’m still frozen midway down the stairs—and that Teresa is looking between Alexei and me with slow awareness dawning on her face.
“If you’re okay,” she says, tactfully backing toward the door, “I’ll leave you to it.”
“I’m fine,” I say mechanically, unable to look away from Alexei’s lone eye, which is currently traveling over my body like he’s already stripping the silk away.
I barely notice the door closing behind her.
Silence falls over the kitchen, interspersed by birdsong just outside the window and the water feature sending a steady trickle into the pool below.
“Nice place.” It’s Alexei who eventually breaks the silence. His eye rakes slowly back up my bare legs and along my torso, until finally meeting mine. “Very nice outfit.”
“It’s just what I wear for practice. It’s hot now, and I don’t like using the air conditioner because the noise interrupts my playing, so . . .”
His smile widens as I speak, and I taper off when I realize I’m babbling. I’m horribly aware that hectic color is slowly rising up my neck.
“You do look hot.” Folding his arms, Alexei leans back against the table, still grinning. His movement catches the light, and I stare at the dark shadow at the edge of his bandanna.
“You’ve dyed your hair.”
Alexei lifts his chin in acknowledgment.
“And you’re not wearing your eye patch.”
He gives a wry tilt of his head.
“I didn’t know you ride a motorcycle.”
His lips twitch. “And now you do.” He props his hands on the table. “Are you going to come down the rest of those stairs, Ofelia?”
Oh, the way he says my name.
Low and rasping, pronouncing every syllable the Russian way: Ah-FAY-lee-yah.
I take the last few steps slowly, barely trusting my legs to carry me, grateful for the cool tiles beneath my feet. I sidle into the kitchen with my back to the sink and lean up against it, directly opposite him, my hands gripping the edge of the tiled counter hard enough to mark my fingers.
I realize, too late, that the movement pushes my breasts hard against the silk cami, clearly highlighting my hard nipples.
Alexei’s blue eye drops to them like a laser.
I fold my arms over myself, but not before I have the satisfaction of seeing his sharp intake of breath, the sudden hardening of his smile.
“Would you like something to drink?” My voice is slightly breathless. “Coffee or tea? I’ve got juice or wine . . . ?”
“It’s a bit early for wine, even for me.” Alexei hasn’t moved at all, and although his eye is on mine, there’s a dark edge to it that sends heat licking through my body as if he were already touching it. “Water is fine.”
I open the fridge and take out the carafe, horribly aware that my cami shorts barely cover my ass as I bend down to take a glass from the cupboard. When I straighten up, Alexei’s smile has disappeared entirely, and his eye has narrowed and darkened even more.
He doesn’t move when I put the glass on the table beside him, forcing me to be so close that my hand brushes his leather jacket as I pour. I lift the carafe, astonished I haven’t dropped it, given how much my hand is trembling.
When he doesn’t reach for the glass I pick it up and hand it to him.
“Thank you.” His fingers cover mine, remaining there long enough to turn my entire body to liquid fire before I slide my hand away again.
I back away from him like I’m in a drugged haze, pathetically grateful I have a counter to cling to. “I heard that you’re using a fake identity.” I swallow on the dryness in my throat.
Alexei inclines his head. “Ken Thompson, at your service.” He raises his glass, grinning wryly at my choked laughter. “It’s Mickey’s little joke. Ken Thompson was the primary creator of the original Unix operating system, back in the ’60s.”
I shake my head. “My brother and his geek jokes.”
“Yup. Him and Lars together are a dangerous combination when it comes to jokes.” I don’t miss the slight edge to his tone when he refers to Mickey and Lars together. “Anyway, for the next few months, at least, Ken Thompson it is.”
The next few months. A faint thrill goes through me.
“So you’re hiding out in Spain?” I know better than to ask why he can’t go back to the US. You don’t grow up in families like mine without knowing that when it comes to business, there are some questions it’s best not to know the answers to.
“Not in Spain, exactly.” Alexei crosses one long leg over the other. “More like anchored just off the coast. I’m here illegally, as a matter of fact. Came ashore on the tender in the early hours, before Spanish customs officials woke up.”
I laugh softly. “And the bike? Where did you get that from?”
“Lars was thoughtful enough to put a couple aboard for me.”
“Are you here in the Guapa, then?” I’m more than familiar with Alexei’s yacht, having seen a thousand photos of it on the Darkside.
“No. Too conspicuous. I’m on the Quantum Drift, which belongs to one of our shell companies.
We usually loan it out to corporate clients as a perk.
Which brings me to why I’m here, actually.
” He puts the glass down carefully and draws a deep breath.
When he raises his head again, his smile has disappeared.
“Lars sent me a message about the party he promised you. Unfortunately, brilliant as Lars is, sometimes he really doesn’t think shit through.
” His eye settles on my face. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, Ofelia, but there’s no way I can host a party on the yacht.
It would draw too much attention and put both of us in danger. ”
“It’s fine.” I try to ignore the dull disappointment sinking inside me. “I understand.” I do my best to smile. “It was just an idea, anyway. It’s not like I have a stack of friends to party with.”
And since the only party I wanted to have was with you, alone, in a very big bed, that’s not really the point, is it?
A sudden chill rushes through me, and I wrap my arms tightly around myself, staring fixedly at his half-finished glass of water on the table. “You could have just called,” I say quietly. “There was no need to put yourself at risk by coming in person.”
“Less risky in person, actually.” Alexei’s response is flat and immediate. “I don’t know whose phone lines are being monitored.”
So he’s not even here because he wanted to see me.
My heart sinks even further.
A silence falls that I’m not sure how to break. It stretches on, neither of us moving. I watch the condensation roll down the glass and form a ring of water on the wooden surface.
When Alexei finally speaks again, his voice is slightly rough. “Like I said, I can’t host a party. But if you wanted to, you could—” He cuts off abruptly. I look up sharply, but his face is turned away, his mouth a hard line, as if he’s closed it on what he wants to say.
“I could what?” I let my arms fall and move an inch off the counter.
He keeps his eye turned determinedly away.
I take a tentative step forward. “I could what, Alexei?”
He still doesn’t look at me, but I don’t miss the way his hands tighten on the edge of the table.
I take another step toward him, so barely a meter separates us. “What were you going to say?”
I’m close enough to see the pulse beating in his neck, the tension cording the muscles that disappear beneath his T-shirt.
I want to touch him, and I’m terrified to. Afraid he’ll push me away, that the euphoria I feel having him here will be stolen away yet again and replaced with bitter disappointment.
Then suddenly I remember the look in his eye that morning in Paris, when he glanced at me from the door. The naked hunger in it, like he wanted to taste all the parts of me he hadn’t already.
And just like that, I throw caution to the wind and close the distance between us, pressing my lips to the throbbing pulse in his neck before I can second-guess myself. “Tell me,” I whisper.