Nick
She slept maybe four hours. I know because I slept around three.
The rest of the time, I laid on my side of the bed with my eyes closed and listened to her breathe, paying attention to every shift and sound she made.
She’s a restless sleeper, twitches a lot.
Twice, she made a sound in her throat—not quite a word, not quite a cry.
It made me want to pull her against me the way I used to.
Obviously, I didn’t. But I don’t think I fought harder on the floor than I fought myself to keep my hands off her in bed.
Morning light is pushing through the curtains now. It doesn’t seem like Prague believes in sunshine, but that’s fine. I’m not in the mood for it, anyway. I have her with me, but I don’t have her back. Not yet.
Will I ever?
I have to sit up. Lying here, thinking about that question isn’t helping anything. When I look over at her, I find her watching me. She was awake, but then I knew that. How? Because she quieted down, went still. She doesn’t know what a restless sleeper she is, I guess.
It means there’s no trace of sleepiness as she tracks me with those sharp eyes of hers. She’s watching me the way a cat watches a bird. Patient. Ready to move the second an opportunity shows itself.
“Morning,” I murmur, running a hand through my hair.
No response. She settles for watching.
“We need to get moving. The jet will be ready for us soon.” I stand and test my weight on my left leg. The bleeding stopped overnight, though it’s stiff and sore. “First things first. We need to shower.” I’ll have to tape over the stitches to keep them dry, but this isn’t my first rodeo.
It’s unnerving, the way she stares at me almost without blinking when I pull the handcuff key from my pocket and round the bed.
Her only reaction comes when I reach for her wrist, and she tenses.
Like a spring being compressed. She doesn’t fight me when I unlock the cuff, because why would she stop me?
The red mark on her wrist is darker now, a thin band of irritated skin.
I’ll have to find some kind of cream or balm for it.
Granted, she’d probably hurl it at my head, but the thought is there.
She watches me with those clear green eyes as she rubs her wrist. Once again, she says nothing, sitting up smoothly, fluidly. I can’t shake the feeling of being studied. What’s going on in that head of hers? I’m sure I’ll find out before long.
“Come on,” I urge, nodding toward the bathroom. “We both need to wash up.”
“I’ll take a shower by myself,” she murmurs from the edge of the bed.
“You forfeited your privacy last night.” My vision is still slightly blurry, though I wouldn’t admit it for anything. She doesn’t need to know she’s got an advantage.
“Then wait for me to get in and stand in the bathroom for all I care.”
“This isn’t a negotiation.” When she only stares at me, I decide to hit below the belt. “It’s not like I’ve never seen you naked before.”
Her jaw tightens. Something brief and brutal flickers behind her eyes before she can smother it.
She wasn’t expecting to hear that, which means part of her is still adjusting to the idea that I might actually know her.
That this isn’t a con. Some stubborn part of me is determined to make her understand, which is why I add, “You have a birthmark on your hip. Shaped like a crescent moon. You used to hate it, but I always thought it was—” I stop, because this isn’t the time. “The point is, I’ve seen it.”
The surprise sharpens now. She covers it fast, the way she covers everything, but she isn’t fast enough. A birthmark isn’t something available in a file. It’s not something the Russos would’ve told me about. It’s the kind of detail that only comes from intimacy, and she understands that.
She never confirms or denies the birthmark. She stands from the bed without another word, rolls her head from one side to the other, and walks to the bathroom without looking at me.
I follow.
There’s barely enough room for one person in this bathroom, let alone two. She stands by the sink and looks at me in the mirror, wearing an unreadable expression. Then, without a word, she pulls her black sweater over her head.
She’s not shy or hesitant. She strips the way someone strips when they don’t attach any meaning to nudity: efficiently, like removing a layer of equipment. Sweater first, then the tank top underneath. She reaches for the button on her pants.
And I see the scars.
They start on her upper arm, just below her shoulder.
Mottled, textured skin. It stretches down to her elbow—an old scar, healed but permanent.
The explosion. I wondered about that without letting myself push too close to the question, because it would mean having to consider just how badly she was injured.
How close she came to truly being killed.
Landing in the water was probably the best thing that could have happened to her, but the damage was done.
Damage that’s further revealed when she pushes her black pants down to her ankles. Scarring down her hip, along her outer thigh, almost reaching her knee. Not disfiguring, but there. The skin is tighter, slightly discolored. Like a map of trauma, her body has carried for more than a decade.
She catches me looking, and something flickers across her face. The closest thing to self-consciousness I’ve seen from her yet. She angles her body slightly, turning the scarred side away from me. A subtle move, almost unconscious. The kind that comes from years of doing it without thinking.
She doesn’t want me to see.
My chest aches at that. Not because the scars bother me. They don’t. They’re evidence that she survived something that should’ve killed her. If anything, they make me want to put my hands on every inch of damaged skin to show her none of it changes a single goddamn thing.
What aches is knowing they bother her. Because this is a woman who stares down the barrel of a gun without flinching, and kills with the same ease most people use to order coffee, and she has a wound that isn’t physical.
Somewhere underneath the training and the cold professionalism, the scars make her feel something she doesn’t want to feel.
I don’t comment or stare. I pull my own shirt off and step out of my pants, then turn on the water for her to step into the tub while I apply more tape over the gauze covering my stitches.
When I look up, I notice something has changed.
I feel it before I see it. A shift in her energy, in the way she holds herself once she’s stepped into the small tub.
The tension doesn’t leave. It only transforms into something else as I join her under the hot, steamy spray.
She reaches past me for the soap and brushes my chest. It wasn’t an accident. There’s nothing accidental about her.
“You’re staring,” she murmurs.
“I’m not.”
“You are.” She turns to face me under the spray.
Water runs down her shoulders, her collarbone, tracking paths I’m trying very hard not to follow.
She tilts her head back to let the water soak her hair, and a half-smile plays at the corners of her mouth.
It’s the first time I’ve seen anything close to a smile on her face, and it hits me like a fist.
“Like what you see?” she asks. Low. Almost playful.
I do. God, help me, I do. She’s leaner than she used to be. Harder, defined in ways that speak to years of physical training.
Underneath it, though, she’s still Laura.
The same lines. The same grace. The curve of her neck, the slope of her shoulders.
Even the shape of her breasts, the rosy pink of her nipples.
My body remembers her even if her mind doesn’t remember me.
Twelve years of grief, and my hands still know exactly where they’d go if I let them.
But I won’t. Not like this.
Because I see what she’s doing.
She’s good. I’ll give her that. If I didn’t know her—what she is, what she’s been trained to do—I might fall for it.
The way her posture softens. The way she angles toward me instead of away.
The brush of her fingers against my arm when she reaches for the shampoo.
The way she holds eye contact a beat too long.
She’s running a play. The oldest one in the book. Lower his guard with proximity and the promise of something he wants. Make him think she’s warming up to him. And when he’s distracted, when his brain is fogged with desire and his defenses are down? Time to strike.
I know this because I’ve seen it before, if not from her. People in this world understand sex is a weapon, and the body is a tool. It’s textbook, and it’s effective.
And it tells me something else about what the Russos turned her into. Something that makes my blood run cold in a way it hasn’t yet when I think of her as an assassin.
But I play along. Not because I’m stupid enough to drop my guard, but because two can play this game. I need her to believe she has the upper hand. If she thinks her little plan is working, she’ll keep me close. If she keeps me close, I can get her on that plane.
I let myself look. I let my gaze travel where it wants to go, and I won’t pretend it doesn’t matter, because she would see through that in a heartbeat. What I do is keep my hands to myself and my weight balanced. Always balanced. Ready to move.
“You’re different than I expected.” The water runs between us now, a shared stream. She’s close enough that I can feel the heat of her skin through the steam enveloping us. “Most men I’ve met in this life take what they want. They don’t wait.”
“I’m not most men.”
“No.” Water clings to her lashes when she looks up at me. Her hand comes up, fingers light against my chest, tracing a line along my collarbone. “You’re not.”
My pulse spikes, but it isn’t the hand touching me I’m concerned with. It’s her other hand. The one by her side. The one curling into a fist.
She moves fast. Her knee drives upward, aimed precisely where it would end this conversation fast. It’s vicious, and it’s well-timed, and if I hadn’t been waiting for it, it would’ve landed. And I would be in a world of pain.
But I was waiting. My hand catches her knee before it connects with my balls, redirecting the force sideways. She’s already pivoting, throwing an elbow, but the wet tub works against her. I use her momentum, spin her, and pin her back against the tile wall.
The water beats down on both of us. Her back is against the cold tile, my forearm across her collarbone, my hand still gripping her knee. She’s breathing hard, but I’m breathing harder. Her eyes are wild with fury, but underneath it, there’s something else. Something she doesn’t want me to see.
We’re pressed together with nothing between us. No clothes, no weapons. Just skin and water and the kind of tension that could go one of two directions.
“Nice try,” I murmur roughly. My heart’s racing and my cock is doing what my cock does when it’s this close to a wet, naked woman.
Her chest heaves against mine, but she doesn’t look away. Her cheeks flush pink with what could be anger or what could be our nearness. Deep down inside, I think her body remembers me.
“Let go,” she grunts, shoving her hands against my stomach.
“Why would I do that? When you can’t play nice.
You really must think I’m an amateur.” I’m not sure if I’m hurt or insulted.
I’ll go with insulted, because the pain—and the pain is there, pulsing under the surface—would be too much to live with if I gave it any space to exist. The thought of how many times she must have run this play. My Laura.
Despite knowing it’s not her fault, part of me wants to be angry at her. Angry for leaving, angry for living this life, and furious for everything she did while we were apart.
Anger, jealousy, and grief about all this lost time mingle in my chest, threatening to explode out of me. A deep-seated need to touch her body and her mind overcomes me. I want to make her remember me… remember the way I used to make her feel. Maybe the memories will come back if I show her.
That thought has me moving quickly. Dropping my arm from her body and letting go of her knee, I bring both of my hands to her hips. Holding her in place, I lower my head and press my lips to hers.
She freezes in shock, her body stiffens, and her lips are unmoving for less than two seconds before she slaps her palms onto my chest and tries to shove me away.
Her fight has me pressing her against the wall harder, my cock rubs onto her wet skin, and my balls ache to be inside of her. Not now, though. This isn’t about me; this is about her, and making her feel good.
Letting my fingers trail over her skin, I bring them between her legs. She gasps, and I use the small parting of her lips to deepen the kiss and push my tongue inside her hot mouth.
She tastes just like I remembered; sweet and sinful.
Her fingernails dig into my chest as a sound of displeasure comes from her throat. I press my thumb against her clit and let my fingers slide between her slick folds. This time her groan takes on a different tone. One of enjoyment.
I take this as a win and rub circles over the small bundle of nerves while burying my middle finger into her tight hole. I’m quickly rewarded by her teeth sinking into my lip until blood drips into my mouth, and I hiss out in pain.
As soon as she stops biting, I pull my face away and bring it to the crook of her neck, where I press my busted lip against her warm skin.
She has the audacity to chuckle, but I make her shut up quickly as I force two digits into her small cunt and grab one of her tits roughly. I know she likes a little bit of pain during sex, so I pinch her nipple and press my thumb down hard.
As I expected, she moans, her pussy clamps around my fingers, and the hands that were pushing me away a moment ago seem to want to draw me closer now.
I continue teasing her, kneading her breasts, pinching her nipples, while finger-fucking her pussy and playing with her clit until her back arches. Her already tight channel clamps down, a guttural moan fills the space, and her thighs quiver with her release.
Feeling her legs giving out, I quickly grab her waist to hold her upright. Lifting my head, my eyes find hers. I was hoping to find recognition, an awakened memory, or at least a sense of something familiar. I find neither.
All I see is confusion.