“We’re having vodka with cheesecake?”
“Of course.”
When we returned to the master bedroom he pulled back the indigo blue down comforter on his bed, and we settled in against the stack of pillows. He took the desserts from me and set them on his nightstand, then pulled a remote from the drawer and pressed a button. A huge flat screen TV rose silently from the top of a console across the room. Another button turned on the TV, and he began flipping through an on-screen menu. “Do you mind if I pick what we watch?” he asked.
“That depends. Does your taste in movies totally suck?”
“Of course not! I have impeccable taste in all things. Which is why you’re in my bed,” he said with a smug smile.
I grinned at that and started to reach across him for my dessert, but he stopped me by lightly grabbing my wrist. “You can’t have that yet. You can have this.” And he put the bottle of vodka in my hand.
“Control freak. You’re really not going to let me have the dessert until you say so?”
“Nope. And here’s why. I’m going to make the argument that this is, in fact, the world’s most perfect cheesecake. But you won’t believe me unless you let it come to room temperature first, so you can taste it at its absolute best.”
“I suppose you had it flown in from Italy,” I quipped.
“Brooklyn, actually,” he said with a smile as he hit a couple buttons on the remote.
“The world’s best cheesecake comes from Brooklyn?”
“Turns out yes.”
I looked at the vodka bottle in my hand. “Oh, here’s a surprise – it’s all in Russian.”
“Naturally.”
I glanced at him. “Am I meant to drink straight from the bottle?”
“Yup. This is an informal slumber party.”
“Alrighty then.” I took a long drink of alcohol. Normally straight vodka wasn’t my thing, but this one was undeniably good.
Dmitri pushed another button on the remote and the lights all around the room dimmed as the theme from Star Wars enveloped us in brilliantly clear surround sound. “Ok, you’re officially awesome,” I said, then took another swig from the bottle before handing it over to him.
He laughed and took a long drink as well, then put his arm around my bare shoulders and pulled me close to him. “Does that mean you approve of my taste in movies?”
“Absolutely.”
“Well, good,” he said with a smile. “There’s still the cheesecake test, but it’s looking like I’m going to have to keep you.”
“Promises promises,” I said as I snuggled against him.
We’d both seen Star Wars way, way too many times, so after a while we started reciting the dialog along with the characters. He took all of Princess Leia’s lines, and I took Han Solo’s, with pretty hilarious results. And then maybe halfway through the movie, he hit pause on the remote and said, “It’s time.”
“Great! Are you finally going to fuck me?” I joked.
“Almost as good.” He reached for a plate and broke off a bit of cheesecake with a fork and fed it to me.
It was insanely delicious. “Oh my God,” I murmured as my eyes slid shut. “How can anything be that good?”
“Yup. Definitely keeping you,” he said happily. “More?”
“Please.” He ended up feeding me the whole piece, and being fed like this was equal parts sweet and surprisingly erotic. And then he turned the movie back on and fed me most of his slice as well as we snuggled under the blanket.
He finally fell asleep partway into the third movie of our Star Wars marathon, his arms around me and his head on my chest. I turned my attention away from the screen and just stared at him. Dmitri was stunningly beautiful, but he was so much more as well. He was sweet and kind and fun and smart and a million other good things.
How the hell could this man be a criminal? How was that even possible? There was nothing about him that was cunning, or ruthless, or cold – all of which seemed to be job requirements for a drug lord. Unless he had a serious split-personality disorder, I just didn’t see how he could possibly be guilty of the things he was suspected of.
But then, maybe he wasn’t really a criminal, I told myself hopefully. After all, the reason I’d been sent in undercover was because the department had no real evidence against him. Ok, there was plenty of circumstantial evidence, but nothing concrete. So maybe they had the wrong guy.
Yeah, I should be so lucky.
I sighed and lightly ran my hand over his silky dark hair, and he made a little sound of contentment in his sleep and snuggled against me. First thing Monday morning, I was going to resign from this assignment. I didn’t want to spy on Dmitri, and I didn’t want to lie to him. Even if he was done with me after tonight, I already felt too much loyalty to him to continue this deceit. Captain Halpern was going to be pissed, but I didn’t care, even if it meant spending the next ten years in uniform working swing shifts.