I am on my feet faster than I’ve ever moved before. “Okay, let’s get one thing straight here, buddy: just because we had sex on your dining room table does not mean you know me. It definitely doesn’t give you the right to therapize me.”
He just stays where he is, looking up at me with cool amusement. “Sounds like I hit a nerve.”
I glower at him. “You think you’re so different? What makes you think fucking a different girl every night is any different than staying away from relationships altogether? Just because you’re surrounded by people all the time doesn’t mean you’re not lonely.”
“Now, who’s trying to therapize whom?”
“Am I wrong?”
Uri rises to his feet slowly, getting taller and taller until I have to crane my neck back just to look at him. His expression is unreadable, so I have no idea if I’ve hit a nerve or completely missed the mark. He crowds closer until his bulk and his scent is all I can take in. “I fuck because I want to fuck. End of story.”
Is it possible that all that calm confidence is a mask? I decide to test the theory by hedging a little closer and glaring up at him as though the proximity doesn’t bother me at all.
Sidenote: it totally does.
“Please. You think you’re so complicated to figure out? Well, I’ve got news for you, Uri Bugrov: there’s a reason you sleep with every woman only once.”
That finally gets a reaction out of him. His eyes narrow and his mouth pulls back in a dark scowl. “I’d stop right there if I were you, little one.”
I should be scared. But right now, the adrenaline is pumping and getting in the last word is higher on my priority list than self-preservation.
Step back. Mama’s coming in hot!
“I may in fact stay away from men to keep myself from getting hurt—but you keep your revolving door turning in order to stop any woman from becoming more than just your bedwarmer. So if I’m terrified—so are you!”
Aaand… boom. Drop the mic.
Uri stares down at me, his jaw clenched and his irises pulsing with heat. It takes about thirty seconds for my sense of victory to subside. It takes another thirty seconds for my palms to start sweating.
What the hell am I doing? My five-step plan has flown right out the window. It’s like I’m asking for my fingers to be cut off.
“Um… listen—”
“Are you hungry?”
The pivot is so sharp that I feel as though I have whiplash. “H-hungry?”
“Come.” He doesn’t really give me much of a choice so I follow him into the kitchen. It’s roughly the size of every house I’ve ever lived in put together.
“Jeez,” I mutter, turning on the spot to take it all in. “You can get lost in here.”
He’s already pulling out pots and pans and a large wooden chopping board. “How about a little light linguini with scallops?”
I raise my eyebrows as he starts opening up the fridge to grab an armful of ingredients. “Um, correct me if I’m wrong, but are you going to cook?”
“Didn’t think I lifted a finger around here, did you?” he accuses with an amused laugh.
Blech… again with the fingers.
“You did mention earlier that you are an egotistical bastard,” I remind him. I inch back out of his way as he starts to heat up pans and boil water. “In my experience, egotistical bastards find someone else to do the cooking for them.”
“I’ve told you twice now that I’m not most people,” he says in a dangerous growl. Then he smirks and the effect goes away, like clouds parting to reveal a rainbow. “I’m not most egotistical bastards, either.”
As if to prove his point, he pulls out a black apron emblazoned with a picture of a sausage speared on a fork. Beneath it, it reads, My meat is a hundred percent going in your mouth today.
I stifle a laugh that would’ve surely sounded insane if I’d let it loose into the real world. Safe to say I did not peg him for the kind of guy who would wear a funny apron.
“You’re blushing,” he observes.
“Yeah,” I mumble under my breath. “What else is new?”
But despite my better judgment, I find myself relaxing. He gets to work, sautéing, chopping, basting. It’s strangely thrilling. I’ve never been much of a chef myself, so I’ve always viewed cooking as something of a superpower.
He doesn’t ask me to do anything other than pass him things or keep time. He cooks in calm silence and I watch in nervous silence and somewhere in the middle of this very surreal night, I realize that it’s been ages since we last spoke to one another. As bizarre as it sounds, I’m okay with that. I don’t feel uncomfortable or awkward or squirmy.
Strange things are happening.
I’m in awe when Uri finally sets a plate of pasta down in front of me. The scallops look plump and juicy, the linguine melt-in-your-mouth good. And as it turns out, both assessments are one hundred percent accurate.
“Jesus H. and all his friends,” I gasp when I take my first mouthful. “You can cook.”
He winks unsmilingly at me. “I’m not just a pretty face.”
I can only shake my head in bewilderment. He’s got me totally confused after only a few hours together. He’s definitely no Boy Scout and I’m willing to bet that a healthy portion of the rumors I’ve heard about him are true. There’s no smoke without fire, as they say.
But no man who can cook like this can be a cold-blooded killer. I mean, that just doesn’t compute.
You’re forgetting the finger in your fridge, wise one.
Sure, but it was sent to him. It’s not like he has any control over the packages he receives… right?
Slippery slope, Alyssa. Slippery dang slope.
9
URI
I should just leave her where she is.
The sofa’s perfectly comfortable. Alyssa doesn’t need a bed. And yet, I find myself staring down at her, unable to leave her on the couch. And just as suddenly as I’ve decided that she must have a bed, I’ve also suddenly decided that I can’t abide the thought of her in anyone else’s bed but mine.
Which is how I find myself carrying her upstairs to my room.
When I mount the landing and pass through the door, I set her down on my feather-down mattress. She stirs and moans quietly until she finds a comfortable position. Then she lets out a deep sigh and now, it’s my cock that’s stirring. It gives me this weird sense of satisfaction seeing her in my space. That’s not a thought I’ve had very often.
Or at all.
About any woman.
Ever.
And there have been a few. The little narushitel was right about one thing—the revolving door hasn’t stopped in a long time. The question is, was she right about everything else, too?
There was a moment back there when I was caught between the heat of her body and the heat of her words. No one has ever held a mirror up to my face before and fought back.
It’s enough to force me to amend my opinion of her. That’s new, too. No woman has ever surprised me. No woman has ever intrigued me. No woman has ever made me feel like a second meeting was necessary.
But this woman…
She fights fire with fire. Her words were sharp, direct, entirely too confident. Confident enough to make me wonder if her assessment of me was accurate.