Roan (The Henchmen MC 17)

"He's out of town," I finished for him, knowing he wouldn't be back until the next night, then not in the office until the morning after. I'd been counting down to when I would have to set my spine to steel, lift my chin, find my grown-up voice, and have a talk with him about how I would be spending some nights out.

But if it sounded as bad as Mikhail's body language was making it seem, then, well, it would be too late by then. And I knew my uncle's secretary. There was no way she was going to release a single file until after he got back and signed off on it.

"I, ah, I can get your file for you. I mean, it's yours. I'm sure he wouldn't mind."

"Yeah?" he asked, still facing away, and none of the tension seemed to release even though I was offering an out.

"Yeah. It's not a problem." I was in and out of my uncle's office all the time since he let me use it when I couldn't find another empty desk to situate myself at all day. "Does it have your name on it? Or is it under your business' name?"

"Business," he said, voice an odd croak. "It would be filed under Beeker Investments."

Beeker.

That was a strange name for a business.

But then again, my uncle's bank was called IDEcon. So what did I know about such things?

"Okay. Not a problem. I can get it tomorrow morning. You will have it by lunch. No big deal."

"Thank you," he told me, voice heavy, rough.

Still, he hadn't turned to look at me, something that had my brows lowering.

"Do you... want to order dinner?" I asked, shuffling my feet.

"Not yet. Do you... wanna hit the pool?" he asked, shrugging as he turned. "I'm wound up."

"I can think of better ways to deal with that than swimming," I told him with a smirk. I was getting pretty good with the flirtation thing, if I did say so myself.

"No," he said, grabbing my hand before I touched him, grip a little hard, pinching my fingers. "Not right now," he said when I shocked back at the fierceness in his words, at the rejection they held. "A swim first, okay?" he asked, pulling my hand up to kiss my palm before dropping it, grabbing something out of a drawer, and going into the bathroom.

To change, I figured.

Which was strange.

He never hid his nakedness from me.

Uncertainty, suspicion, discomfort rose up, strong and unmistakable before I forced them back down, buried them, told myself I was an idiot to feel them in the first place as I found my bag in the closet, digging through it to find my bathing suit.

We'd gone swimming a few times after large meals when I made comments about needing to work them off.

We'd always found the hotel pool abandoned, letting us have room to play, him cutting water as well as me, out maneuvering me at times, then overpowering me, pushing me up against a wall, slipping his fingers inside of me right there in plain view of anyone who looked out their windows, something that made it all the more heated, made me come so much faster, biting into his shoulder to muffle the sounds.

Something told me as I stripped out of my clothes that tonight would just involve swimming.

I would turn out to be right. Because we swam laps until my arms felt like jelly, until my stomach muscles screamed in objection. Even as I hauled myself out to dry off, he pushed harder, faster. Almost like he was punishing himself, like he needed to take something out on himself.

And, well, I had been there before, swimming laps in my teens until I could barely crawl out of the pool, needing that purge.

Who was I to think it was strange that he needed that out every now and again? I had no idea what kind of stresses his business brought into his life.

"Order whatever you want," he told me later, closing himself into the bathroom, locking the door.

Locking the door.

There was no denying the sense of dismissal as I peeled off my wet suit, as I got into clothes, something I was almost never in around him, as I ordered food for just myself since he said he wasn't hungry.

Then I ate.

Alone.

While he stood in the shower until the water ran cold.

"Um... do you want me to go?" I asked when he finally came back into the room in a pair of black lightweight pajama pants and a white tee.

He stopped mid-stride, turning back to me from the opposite side of the bed, looking at me for a long moment, eyes unreadable, making me miss when I could tell what he was thinking when his gaze was set in my direction.

His shoulders fell, his head shook.