“Wait…” My nails dug into his skin. “Not yet…”
He stopped for a moment, his eyes locked and focused. But he obeyed and started to move again. “Yes, baby.”
Three
Heath
I flipped the chicken in the pan as I stood at the stove. Catalina looked out the floor-to-ceiling window to the city at her feet. She was in one of my shirts, so big that it fit her like a blanket. I glanced at her as I listened to the food sizzle in the hot oil, staring at her long, curled hair as it trailed down her back. She looked good in my shirt, and she looked even better in my house.
Like she belonged there.
When the meat started to sizzle louder, I turned back to what I was doing and flipped it again. The asparagus cooked in a different pan, so I flipped that too. “It’s almost ready.”
She flinched slightly at my words, as if she’d forgotten I was there, forgotten what she was doing. She slowly turned around and looked at me, her expression tight, like there was a demon locked inside her chest, haunting her.
I turned off the burners and set down the spatula, knowing whatever she was about to say next was important.
She came close to me, her eyes defeated, her posture poor like she’d been beaten in combat. She dropped her gaze, thinking about her words before she said them. “I need you to do something for me…”
Without knowing what the request was, I already knew my answer. “Anything.”
She dropped her gaze again, opening and closing her lips like she wanted to speak but just couldn’t get the words out. “Promise me you’ll never hurt my brother…no matter what happens with us.”
I hadn’t asked her if she’d visited her family today because I preferred not to think about them, to see Catalina as her own woman with no attachment to my enemies. But she must have seen Damien today, saw the bruise on his head, witnessed his rage after his plan unraveled with a simple phone call. She probably felt guilty that she was the reason her brother had lost the battle, knowing he would have won if she’d kept her mouth shut.
She searched my gaze as she waited for an answer.
“He’s not going to let it go, is he?” I gave Damien so many chances, but he was emotional and stupid, holding a grudge like a knife in his grasp. I did everything I could to spare his life, found other ways to punish him when I never would have considered them in the first place.
She shook her head.
I turned away, frustrated that this motherfucker was making my life difficult, making me shoot one of my own men to protect his pathetic life.
“Please,” she whispered. “I saved your life…”
I stared at the stove as I took a deep breath, frustrated by her words. “Baby, I would make you that promise even if you hadn’t done what you did.” I straightened and turned back to her.
She moved into me, cupping my face as she pressed her forehead to my chin. “Thank you.”
I abandoned the food altogether and wrapped my arms around her waist, pulling her close so I could hold her in the kitchen, feel her soul, smell her scent. Every moment of the day, I felt like a strong man, but whenever she was in my arms, I felt inexplicably weak. She was my undoing, the rose petals to my thorns.
She clung to me in relief, like my promise meant the world to her because she knew I would keep it. Maybe she thought it balanced the scales for her brother, since she’d betrayed him. Her arms circled my neck, and she held me in my kitchen, the sexiest woman to stand there, the only woman to ask me for something and actually get it.
When I’d answered the call and she confessed the truth, I didn’t have much time to dwell on her decision. I had to act fast. Otherwise, I would die anyway. But when everything was said and done, I still didn’t think about it, and I didn’t ask her either. Her feelings were pretty clear. Why talk about them?
She pulled away slowly, her arms sliding down until her hands cupped the back of my neck. But then she took those away too, looking at me with the softest green eyes. She hardly showed her fire anymore because she was completely tame. I was no danger to her, no threat whatsoever, so she changed…let me see her in a new way.
She seemed embarrassed by what she’d just asked me to do. Timid, she stood there and tucked her beautiful hair behind her ear. Her lips were plump and full, the single freckle on her face so damn sexy. “Can I help?” She turned to the stove.
If she wanted to pretend that moment hadn’t just happened, fine. But it did happen—and we both knew it. I turned the burners back on. “Grab a couple of plates.” I heated the chicken and stirred the vegetables, and once everything was done, I scooped the meal onto the dishes.
She carried the plates to the table right next to the window, a table that could easily hold ten people. Then she looked through my cabinets, probably searching for a bottle of wine. “Wow, you’ve got a lot of vodka…”
“I’ll take a glass.”
She grabbed a bottle and searched my fridge for a mixer. When she found a bottle of cranberry juice in the fridge, she mixed it. Then she picked a bottle of wine and poured it for herself. “Why do you like vodka so much?”
“Because I’ve drunk a lot of it.” I sat at the table and watched her place the glass in front of me before she took the seat across from me, the view of the city in her line of sight. “I used to live in Russia.”
She
