“Maybe.” He took up another sandwich from the endless pile.
“The trouble is that I don’t know what other career I’d want to do. I’m not sure what would make sense.” She didn’t have another career in mind beyond accounting. She had only a dream.
*
The afternoon with Sophie was nice, and she’d asked him to help her with physical therapy. It mostly involved helping her to a space open enough for her to do a bunch of core strengthening exercises without putting any weight on her ankle. She did a few Pilates exercises and several sets of “superman / banana” followed by what she referred to as “bow to boat.” The boat portion of that exercise required her to roll onto her belly and reach back to grasp her ankle, though, and he hadn’t liked her putting odd strain on her ankle in the medical boot. But she managed to elevate her heart rate and work up a fine sheen of sweat.
Since she was focused on working out, he busied himself with his own set of exercises. Otherwise, he would’ve tried to have his way with her right there on the living room carpet.
She might have had similar ideas, though, because she’d been sneaking sideways glances at him as he executed push-ups and burpees. She even helped him count out his burpees, laughing as he tried to keep up with her as she called out the numbers for standing, crouching, shooting his feet out to a push-up position, back to crouching, then jumping upward to land in the standing position again. He was glad he was in good shape because he’d enjoyed the enthusiasm she had for making him work to keep up with her, and it would’ve sucked if he couldn’t keep up. He’d come away from the workout trembling, though, so he decided to take a shower.
When he came out of the shower, he was presented with a very nice view of Sophie’s rear.
He came to a halt. “Whatcha doing?”
She rose up on her hands and knees on the bed and curved her back toward the ceiling. “Yoga.”
“On the bed?” He moved forward quietly, hoping not to startle her but wanting to be closer.
She breathed in slowly and exhaled, arching her back and looking up toward the far corner of the room. “There’s actually a few articles online describing how a couple of these simple stretches help you sleep better. I can’t do the more challenging routines right now, but doing these simple stretches really feels good.”
He tipped his head to examine her rear. “It really looks good, too.”
She froze then straightened so she was kneeling on the bed, her upper body turned so she could glare at him. “Naughty.”
“Oh, I’ll give you naughty.” He tossed the towel aside and lunged at her.
She giggled and let him topple her over on the bed, but squirmed as he tried to gently pin her. She’d taken several self-defense seminars at Revolution MMA, so she had some fundamentals for grappling. They tussled for a few minutes until he got inside her guard and took the opening for a kiss instead of pinning her.
Her legs locked around his waist and her hands ran over his biceps and deltoids to his shoulders.
He continued tasting her, feeding from her mouth, and enjoying the feel of her body under him. She nipped the corner of his mouth and he growled at her playfully. She pulled his head down for another long, lingering kiss.
Then his disposable phone beeped a notification.
Damn it.
He came up for air. Her legs tightened around his waist.
“Tempting, snuggle monster, very tempting.” He tapped her hip twice. He had never imagined he’d be tapping out just when things were getting hot. “The phone is probably important.”
She sighed and let him loose. She gave him a momentary pout then wrinkled her nose and smiled. She was so cute sometimes, his heart stopped.
This better be important.
He grabbed the phone and took a look at the text, or texts, in this case. “It’s from our new friend, Raul Sa. Looks like his teammate, Arin, made it to Europe just fine.”
He didn’t expand on the fact that Sa’s teammate had a replica of Sophie’s passport with her photo transferred onto it. Sophie wouldn’t have wanted someone to cross the legal line because of her.
But he would, and he worked with people who had.
“Arin will be headed back soon.” Under her own identity.
Sophie rolled onto her side and propped herself on her elbow. “So, I didn’t like the decoy plan when you told me about it during the drive down here. But I’m glad she made it there okay. Was there any trouble?”
He shrugged. “Possibly. Nothing she couldn’t handle if Sa didn’t mention it in the text. Rojas will get a full debrief, and I can follow up with him if we need it.”
Sophie sighed. “I didn’t like the idea of someone going out there to draw the threat away. What if she’d been hurt?”