He’s rugged and rough. The tattoos that cover his arms aren’t the only marks on his skin. There are scars on his chest and back. I recognize a few as gunshot wounds, and I imagine the others are stab wounds of some sort.
“The same work where you got those scars?” I ask, gesturing toward his chest. “Is what you do dangerous?” Of course, what he does is dangerous. It’s also highly illegal. I don’t expect him to divulge all his secrets, but it wouldn’t seem natural if I didn’t ask.
Any sane woman sleeping with a man who has a dozen scars is bound to ask something.
His answer is gruff and short. “I got them in war,” Mikhail says.
“Oh.” I exhale a soft breath. “I didn’t realize that you were in the military.”
He doesn’t answer me, and I decide that I’m done pushing the questions, at least for now. I need to get information out of him, but he doesn’t seem to want to discuss it.
“I need to take this call. Do you mind if I go to the other room?”
“Sure, you can use my bedroom if you want some privacy,” I say.
“Thanks.”
It isn’t difficult for him to figure out which room is my bedroom. This is a one-bedroom, single-family bungalow. It’s cute and cozy, but not practical for a family. It’s perfect for me and my cover story.
Mikhail heads out of the kitchen, down the hallway, and I can hear him briefly until he shuts the bedroom door.
While I can’t hear a word that’s being discussed, my team will have his entire conversation recorded and accessible to them on the cloud server.
I just hope for my sake he doesn’t brag to one of his men that he just got laid.
There’s a sharp knock on the front door. I turn the water on the stove down. It’s not quite boiling yet, and I don’t want it to boil over while I’m away from the kitchen.
No one knows I live here. Whoever’s at the door can’t be for me. It’s probably some kid selling cookies or a neighbor introducing themself.
I glance through the peephole and groan.
Aaron Moore is standing on the opposite side of the door.
I pull the door slightly ajar. “Now isn’t a good time,” I say.
“Were you planning on telling me you moved?”
I scoff under my breath and consider slipping outside onto the front porch when I realize I’m wearing nothing but Mikhail’s dress shirt. I pinch it shut with my hand to keep Aaron from getting an eyeful.
“You followed me home.”
I’m quite surprised that Mikhail failed to notice the tail on him, but Aaron is incredibly good at not being seen. If he watched me pull up in the driveway, then he saw that I had company over.
“I didn’t know you were seeing someone,” Aaron says. “You could have just told me. I’d have backed off.”
I don’t believe him. “Really? Because here you are, bothering me again. It’s not bad enough you came to my work, but now you’re showing up at my house!”
Mikhail clears his throat from behind me, and I jump. I didn’t hear him exit the bedroom or come up behind me at the front door.
How much of the conversation did he hear?
Mikhail grabs my arm and pulls me back, away from the door. “You heard Madisyn. Get off her property, or I’ll forcibly remove your ass,” Mikhail says. His Russian accent is thick, and his words are gruff.
I swallow the lump in my throat. Does Aaron recognize Mikhail?
Aaron hasn’t previously worked with the transnational organized crime division. His division specializes in white-collar crime and handles a multitude of fraud-related cases and investigations.
Mikhail shuts the door and locks it. He folds his arms across his chest. While he’s wearing his boxers, he’s not wearing anything else, and he is stunning.
“Does your ex-boyfriend bother you often?” Mikhail asks.
I open my mouth to say that he’s not my ex-boyfriend, and it’s a lot more complicated, but I don’t want to give Mikhail any more information than he needs to know. If Mikhail finds out Aaron is FBI, I don’t want it coming back to him that I’m also an agent with the bureau.
“He showed up at work today,” I say, careful with my choice of words. “I told him to leave me alone.”
“Clearly, he doesn’t know how to listen, Kisa,” Mikhail says and exhales a sigh. “I’ll make sure he won’t ever bother you again.”