Page 11

It’s a fifteen-kilometer ride out to Mum and Dad’s. Lately, despite the brutal heat, I’ve begun to relish the ride home. Or rather, the memories that come once I start pedaling.

The ride home is where I find Dimitry.

I never know what memory will come. It’s like a delicious lottery, where every vision I see is a winner.

Today, it seems my mind wants to go right back to the start.

Malaga, Spain

Two years ago

“Hey, Skippy.”

I look in the mirror behind the bar, and my stomach does a happy little flip at the crooked smile and sloping gray eyes looking back at me.

My groin does something entirely different, but I do my best to drown out that particular urge. My groin, or any other part of my libido, is not at all to be trusted when it comes to men.

Particularly not when it comes to men like Mr. Tasty Bodyguard. He comes into the café every morning with Roman Stevanovsky, who is supposedly the CEO of the gleaming Hale Property offices across the road.

I know they’re both involved in far shadier shit than property. I’ve seen enough criminals I can pick them out at a thousand yards in a fucking snowstorm.

And I’ve seen enough of what criminals are capable of to know that the smart thing to do is to run from them. More than a thousand yards. Preferably in the opposite direction.

Groin spasm or no groin spasm.

“You need to stop calling me Skippy.” I put his coffee down on the bar, trying not to stare at the ridiculous biceps bulging through the white T-shirt or the tattoos twining down hisforearm to hands the size of dinner plates. “To start with, that TV show has been over longer than I’ve been alive. And second, there is not the girl alive who wants to be named after a talking kangaroo.”

“I dunno.” He grins.

He’s lethal when he grins.

“I always thought kangaroos seemed pretty cute. But like I’ve been saying for months now, if you just give me your name, I’ll start calling you by that. Even better, give me your number.” He raises his eyebrows at me as he sips his coffee.

How is he so damnedbig?

I’m used to big men. I grew up around them in Australia. In southern Spain, however, the men are usually slender and short, a leftover from years of Moorish occupation. Tasty Bodyguard, on the other hand, is six foot five of serious fucking muscle, and the kind of thirst trap that should come with a written warning.

Especially to an Australian girl who has been away from home for way too long and been sleeping with seriously inadequate men for even longer than that.

“What are you doing in here without your lord and master, anyway?” I wipe the countertop next to him, which is a mistake, since it puts my hand close enough for him to grasp.

I go very still, my heart thudding like a jackhammer. His hand is warm, calloused, and feels so good covering mine that I want it all over me.

“You’re avoiding the question.”

I look up to find him grinning at me.

“You avoided mine,” I counter, but I don’t move my hand.

“I came to giveyourfriend something frommyfriend.” He waves an envelope in the air with his free hand, nodding at where Lucia is standing at the coffee machine.

“Hm.” My eyes narrow. “I’m not sure that your friend is a good idea for my friend.”

“Want to know what I think?” Tasty Bodyguard turns my hand over beneath his and slowly traces his index finger down it, from the top of my central finger to the pulse point on my wrist.

I quiver, my entire body taut as a drawn bow.

“I think that friends should support their friends. Given that your friend and mine appear to be getting on very well, it makes sense that you and I should too, don’t you agree?”