M shoved the silly thoughts from her head. She wasn’t here to have a relationship with Loki. She was here to work and to get her coveted promotion. That was it. No matter how good the sex had been, no matter how nice it had been to wake up in his arms and see him looking down at her with that sappy expression of… No. She wasn’t going to call it love. Loki didn’t love her, any more than she loved him. They barely knew each other. Hell, half the time they couldn’t even stand each other. But still, there’d been something there, in that look. Affection, admiration. Yearning.
Loneliness tugged at her chest before she pushed it aside and ducked, narrowly avoiding the hard uppercut Loki threw her way. At least she’d give him that. He never pulled his punches with her just because she was female. He treated her as an equal, both personally and professionally and that was a rare thing these days. Especially for a guy with his background.
And speaking of his background…
“Tell me about your parents,” she said. She’d seen his dossier, researched him just as he’d researched her, but she wanted to know what wasn’t on the page. There’d been precious little about him as a baby, which was odd. “Who were they?”
He didn’t say anything, just turned and started pummeling a nearby bag hung from the ceiling by a chain. He mumbled something she didn’t quite catch between jabs.
“I’m sorry?” she said, walking around behind the bag to steady it for him. “I didn’t catch that.”
Loki performed an impressive roundhouse kick to the bag that knocked M back a few steps, then turned away, sweat dripping off his hair and running down his bare chest and spine. Naughty girl that she was, M couldn’t help watching that slow trickle, wishing she could trace it with her tongue, taste the salty tang of his skin, hear his moans of pleasure once more.
“I don’t know,” he said at last, so quiet she would’ve missed it if she hadn’t been paying such close attention to him. He cracked open a bottle of water and gulped down half the contents in one shot. She couldn’t tear her eyes away from the way his muscles worked in his sleek, tanned neck as he swallowed. Damn, the man was fine.
Then his words sank in and she frowned. “What do you mean you don’t know?”
“I mean I never met them. My real parents.” He finished off the water then tossed the bottle into the trash bin across the room, scoring a perfect hit. “My dad walked out on my mom before I was born. After she had me, my mom couldn’t cope, so she left me at a fire station one night with a note and never looked back. I have no idea who either of them are.”
He looked so sad and broken standing there, messing with his gloves instead of looking at her, that M wanted to hold him close and comfort him any way she could. But judging from the hard set to his jaw and features, her sympathy wouldn’t be welcome right now. So she stayed put. “I’m sorry,” she said, the words inadequate, but nothing else came to mind to say. “I didn’t realize.”
Loki gave an unpleasant snort. “Well, it’s not exactly the sort of thing you talk about much. Hey, my parents didn’t want me so they gave me away.” He shook his head and rolled his shoulder. “No big deal. I’m over it now. Been over it for a long time.”
She nodded, though it was obvious his hurt over it hadn’t gone away at all. “What happened after that?”
“I went into foster care.” He glanced up at her then, gaze narrowed. “And please, spare me your pity. It was fine. I was never mistreated and I got to live all over the country with a bunch of different families. It taught me a lot and I learned to be self-sufficient.”
“That explains your cavalier attitude.” She grabbed her towel and wiped off her face. “You don’t seem to let anything bother you.”
“Oh, things still bother me.” He chuckled and leaned back against the wall. “I just don’t sweat the small stuff. I learned that from my big brother when I was seven.”
“You’ve got a brother?”
“Not a biological one. This guy was part of that program Big Brothers and Big Sisters. The lady I was fostering with at the time was divorced and she thought it would be good for me to have a positive adult male role model in my life. So, she set me up with the program.” He shrugged and grinned as M moved in beside him against the wall. “Gus was awesome. Big guy, mid-thirties. He was a cop in Detroit where I lived at the time. At first I was a bit defensive, with my background and all, but he won me over. Used to play baseball with me and buy me the best deep-dish pizza in the city afterward. It was great.”
“Sounds like it.” M couldn’t help smiling along with him. “How long did he mentor you?”
“About five years, until my foster mom got remarried and I was assigned to a new family in Arizona.” His mention of Phoenix back at the bar popped into M’s head, but she didn’t want to ask him about that just now. Learning more about this enigmatic man was too precious to jeopardize right now. “Anyway, one day Gus had to stop at his apartment for something on our way to get pizza. He got a phone call so I started looking around and found a box of old pictures in his closet. He wasn’t the same Gus I knew as a cop. He was younger, and richer too, if the fancy car in the photos was anything to go by.” Loki shook his head. “Gus caught me looking at them and when I asked about it, he told me he’d been forced to go into Witness Protection because of some bad things he’d done in his past.” Loki shrugged and stared into the distance. “I suppose that’s where my fascination with undercover work and changing personas started. I thought that if a guy like Gus could remake himself and begin a brand-new life, why couldn’t I?”
“Good point.” M twisted the towel between her hands, wanting to keep this newfound intimacy between them going for as long as possible. It was so nice to have someone she could talk to, share things with. She had Marcus of course, and her adopted parents, who loved her like their own, but this was different. This was something she and Loki had in common, awful as it was. Another shared bond. Another connection. She cleared her throat and blurted out the words before she lost her courage. “We, uh, both have that then. Being unwanted.”
At his inquisitive look, she continued. “You know I was adopted by the Walkers when I was just a baby. But I’ve always wondered what my birth parents were like. Why they gave me up.”
“Hmm.” Loki nodded, staring down at the mat beneath their feet. Once more, the place was deserted except for them. Another advantage of being a night owl and working out in the wee hours. Privacy. “Have to say I’m a bit jealous of you, growing up in such a stable environment, M.”
“But you said you weren’t ever mistreated.”
“I wasn’t. Doesn’t mean I didn’t want more.” He closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the wall. She fisted her hands at her sides to keep from embracing him and snuggling close into his warm solid chest. He rolled his head to her and peeked one eye open. “All right. I’ve shared my secrets with you. Now it’s your turn.”
Her nails dug into her palms as nervousness ate a hole inside her. With most people, she wore her indifference like a shroud, never letting them see past her staunch defenses to the real woman beneath. But Loki seemed to scale all her barriers without even trying. Which meant she needed to be even more careful around him. He could destroy her with no effort at all, she felt that vulnerable to him. “What do you want to know?”
“What’s the M stand for?” he asked.
She laughed. “Are you telling me that in all your research you never found that out?”
Loki gave a one-shoulder shrug. “I know already. I want to see if you tell me the truth. Humor me.”
“Fine, since you already know. But you have to promise you won’t make fun.”