Chapter 15

Bathed in a wash of brilliant sunshine, Lauren lay awake the next morning, glaring at the whitewashed wall of the bedroom, the dark tile gleaming at the edge of a thick white rug. It wasn’t opulent, and it definitely wasn’t the palace of the crown family of O?ros. That was where she should have woken up.

She hadn’t. Instead, she was in a world of wrong.

She had to get out of here.

Sitting up in bed, she swiped for her phone, which was always no more than five feet away from her—and came up with nothing. She bit out a tight curse, remembering the most infuriating part of her predicament. No phone. No money. And she knew virtually nothing about this rock where they’d landed. Hadn’t Dimitri said this island was a dive spot? There had to be some sort of Internet café here then, right?

The smell of something obscenely good finally permeated her foul temper, and she turned her head. Bacon? The scent of grilled meat and spices filled the air, and she swiped again for her phone to check the time.

Nope.

No clocks either anywhere in the room, though light poured in from two sides, giving her a stunning view of the pristine white sand beach and shockingly blue waters of the Aegean far beyond. Still, none of that could compare to knowing what was actually going on in the world.

“Neanderthals,” she muttered, throwing off the covers. She was wearing her clothes from last night, and as she padded out of her room, she realized the room opposite hers was a tiny bathroom, and there was...nothing else. Just these two rooms tucked up at the top of a narrow staircase. So, a villa, then, not some kind of bed-and-breakfast or inn, which was what she’d assumed the night before. Whose house was it, Dimitri’s? A friend’s? The questions crowded into her mind, but she had no way of answering them. After washing her face and hands in the sink—without a mirror, she noticed, so she also had no way of knowing what she looked like—her stomach insisted she head downstairs to explore the smells of breakfast.

Seconds later, she wheeled into the kitchen, and stopped cold.

Dimitri stood in profile at the stove, his body clad only in loose sweatpants that hung low on his waist. It was the first time she’d seen him anywhere close to partially undressed since that first day on the beach, when he’d been wearing a sweat-soaked T-shirt and shorts. That had been amazing enough, but this…

She stared at the tattoo that covered his shoulder and spread onto his back. A roiling mass of clouds, detailed and inked in a dozen different shades of gray, with the jagged streak of lightning slashing through it?—

“You sleep well?” he asked without turning, and Lauren blinked, trying to get her bearings.

“I—yes. Can I borrow your phone?”

“No service out here.” He waved the spatula. “We’ll head into town later today, and you can make contact.”

“No service?” she turned and looked out the windows that lined the wall. “How is that possible?”

He chuckled, apparently unconcerned. As if a lack of cell coverage weren’t grounds for immediate meltdown. “The island has always been pretty sketchy with phones and Wi-Fi, but tourists don’t seem to mind. We have sat phones for safety, should we need them.”

“Oh—well, give me that, then.”

“That’ll have to wait for town as well, I’m afraid. Phone’s dead, and I don’t have a charging unit here. We left too quickly for me to round up supplies. It’s only us this morning.” He brought the pan over to the table, which she saw had been set for two. “You hungry?”

“No. Yes. Sure.”

His warm laugh rolled through her, setting off whorls of panic within her that she couldn’t quite process. Dimitri wasn’t the threat here. Sure, he was half-naked, but that wasn’t a threat. Really.

She sat at the table, and he served the meal, meat and roasted vegetables and hummus and bread and olives. As he padded back to the sink, she couldn’t help but stare at his back. The tattoo covered only the very top of his shoulder and ended mid-back, and the slashing thing was a trident, cleaving the swirling water as if it’d been thrown from a great distance. Muscles rippled on top of other muscles, and his powerful shoulders tapered down to narrow hips before flaring out again to thighs the size of Thor’s. There was a strange mix of scars as well—nothing terrible, nothing horrifying, but she got the impression that Dimitri’s body had been used, and used well.

He’d used it last night to help protect her.

An unexpected wave of emotion swept through Lauren, startling in its intensity. Dimitri had moved quickly and decisively at the Raptis mansion, pulling her out of danger without any concern for Henry and his money or power. He’d whisked her away to safety, and when they’d stood together on the boat, he’d held her. Simply held her, surrounding her with his strength and solidity, as if trying to show her that nothing and no one could harm her, not while he was on the job.

She’d let him hold her, too. She’d done it to stoke his attraction, to try to control him, but...but if she was honest, a part of her had simply wanted to be held. A part of her had simply wanted someone strong to stand in the breach with her, to offer a united front against a terror she’d carried around so long that it was like a second skin.

But she couldn’t afford to be weak and needy. Not now. Not ever.

No one else could get hurt because of her.

Lauren managed to return her gaze to her food again before Dimitri turned around and caught her staring, but it was a near thing. And then he sat next to her again, all skin and heat and strength. She opened her mouth to protest, but he was already focusing on the enormous platter in front of him, digging in as if he hadn’t eaten in days.

She picked up a fork and eyed the food, spearing a few vegetables that looked at least reasonably familiar. Since Dimitri was wolfing down his food, she occupied her time with eating as well.

It was...heavenly. Apparently, Dimitri could cook too.

What else is he good at?

Lauren gripped her fork a little more tightly, determined to stab herself if she didn’t straighten up. “So, what are we going to do today?” she asked. She could have kicked herself for not demanding more details from Emmaline about her own idyll, but her escape with Dimitri already seemed vitally different. Kristos was far less...dangerous than the rough, uncivilized captain of the ONSF.

“Eat. You’ll need your strength.” He grinned at her and nodded at the plate. “Unless it tastes bad?”

“Oh—oh, of course not. It’s delicious.” Sudden awkwardness engulfed her, and she glanced at her plate. Food, at least, she could manage. “Thank you.”

He snorted. “Delicious, it is not. But it is local fare, and it’ll fill you up, I promise you.”

He continued with an animated description of the island’s cuisine, clearly trying to put her at ease. Unfortunately, she found herself focusing less on the food and more on his face, his mouth, his eyes...anything to stop looking at his naked chest. She flushed as she realized what she was doing, and she reconsidered her idea of stabbing herself with a fork. It was as if she’d never seen a man before.

Dimitri, fortunately, didn’t seem to notice. At least he didn’t until she realized he’d stopped talking, while she sat there with her fork poised over her plate, her focus on his pecs. Gently, he reached over and took the fork out of her hand, laying it on the table. The touch of his hand galvanized her, her entire body quivering with anticipation, but he didn’t do anything further. Merely sort of patted her fingers, then stood.

It wasn’t until he turned away that she got it. She narrowed her eyes, pushing out from the table.

“You’re doing this on purpose, aren’t you?” she snapped.

He looked at her innocently. “Doing what?”

“This! That!” She pointed at his naked chest. “Something has happened, and you’re shielding it from me, distracting me with the whole He-Man routine. What is it? Is it my family? Henry? Have they made calls? Are they on their way here?”

His eyes widened in what appeared to be genuine alarm. “Not at all. I told you I’ve had no contact?—”

“Oh, bullshit. You’re a captain of your country’s security force. Of course you have a real phone on you.” She threw her napkin down and strode toward him. He backed up until his hips met the sink, and she still kept coming. Standing this close to Dimitri was dangerous, but she could control it. She could control her reactions too. She knew that, but that didn’t stop her from standing a little too close, leaning in a little too far. Dimitri smelled of spices and heat and—Focus! “What is it you’re not telling me?”

He didn’t answer right away, and she flapped her right hand in front of his face. “Hello? I asked you?—”

“Enough.” He moved so quickly that she didn’t see it coming, but he grabbed her hand and there was that jolt again, the vital leap of energy between them, that at once grounded her and made her blood feel too fizzy in her veins. “You keep coming after me, princess, and sooner or later, you’re going to catch me. Do you have any idea what you’re going to do when that happens?”

“You’re disgusting.” She tried to pull away from him, but he held firm. He stared down at her, laughter in his eyes.

“Disgusting? That’s really what you think of me?”

“I—” Lauren blinked as he pulled her hand toward his lips, brushing the fingertips as all the blood drained out of her head. “I don’t—stop that.”

“Stop this?” He pressed her hand more firmly to his mouth, his warm lips drifting down to the hollow of her palm until his mouth slipped over the edge of her hand, and she felt the pressure of his teeth bite down.

Need shot straight through her and exploded in a burst of panicked lust. What the hell was happening here? They’d kissed and she’d enjoyed it, sure, but this—this—was off the charts. This didn’t make sense. The ocean outside suddenly sounded like it was roaring. The sunlight seemed to beam like lasers, filling up the room with its radiance. Her insides spontaneously melted with a speed she’d never experienced before, and she gasped, her right hand trapped, her left hand pressed against Dimitri’s chest, his eyes riveted on hers, tempting her, taunting her…

A crackling voice rang out with abrupt authority. “Dimitri! You’re—oh!”

The spell shattered. Lauren turned, her right hand captured in Dimitri’s, as an old woman pushed into the kitchen from the front room of the villa, her arms laden with food. Though stunned for exactly half a second, as soon as the woman saw Dimitri and Lauren together, she burst into an excited, shocked, or certainly startled flood of O?rois, her accent so thick that Lauren couldn’t follow her words. She asked practically fifty-seven questions all at once, one on top of the other as she dropped the loaves of bread on the table along with dark purple fruit.

Dimitri startled Lauren by kissing her hand once more, firmly. Then he squeezed her fingers and pushed her away.

“Hello, Grandmother,” he announced with an almost odd emphasis on the word, striding across the room. The old lady’s eyes widened as she took in his lack of a shirt, then she batted at him ineffectually while he picked her up and swung her back and forth like a plump doll. The two devolved into another conversation while Lauren braced herself against the sink, willing her brain to come back online. The woman was laughing and crying at the same time, back to speaking a million miles a minute, and as Lauren watched, a new realization struck her.

No one was paying attention to her. At all. She might as well not be in the room, a situation that hadn’t happened to her in—forever. Far from being offensive, it was wonderful. Freeing. And made Lauren suddenly feel safer than she had in longer than she could remember.

She turned toward the sunshine, and walked out.