Page 107

I shook my head.“In Siberia, the balls would get lost in the snow.”
“Then I guess I’m giving you a golf lesson.”
I’d spent a lifetime learning.From a young age, I’d been expected to pick up new skills every week.Medical training taught me how to save a life if I felt so inclined, though that was rare.Sniper training meant I could put a bullet through a man’s medulla oblongata from a thousand yards.Masters had drilled me through hand-to-hand combat skills, and I’d developed mental stamina as well as physical.Games of chess had taught me strategy and patience, while psychology lectures gave me clues as to what my opponents were thinking.I knew how to fly a plane and parachute out of one if necessary, and I’d conquered any hints of claustrophobia when I spent a month on a submarine.I could ride a horse, handle a dog sled, and track a wolf through a frozen forest.I hadn’t enjoyed all of the lessons, not by a long shot, but I’d understood why they were necessary.
Which brought us to golf.
There was a ball.
There was a hole.
And rarely the two did meet.
There was also walking, but the walking was interrupted at regular intervals by frustration.People paid money to do this?I thwacked another clump of grass out of the fairway and cursed, but only in my head.Out loud, I giggled like the vapid idiot I was pretending to be.
“Straighten your left leg a little,” Alex said.
“If I straighten it any more, my knee will bend the wrong way.”
“Like this…”
That was another thing nobody had told me about golf.It involved a lot of touching.Alex moved my shoulders, adjusted my hands, corrected my feet, and nudged my hips into a position he deemed to be suitable, which felt exactly the same as the position I’d been in before he started.To me, this whole…rearrangement was foreign, but it must have been normal because ahead of us at the tee, Blok Novak and his companion didn’t bat an eyelid.No, they just carried on with their conversation as I strained to hear.
I didn’t recognise the other man.His accent was American, and he spoke with a Texas twang, mainly, it seemed, about women.First, he bitched about his wife, and then he bitched about his girlfriend.Blok made sympathetic noises in the right places, subservient, which meant the Texan was in charge, or at least, Blok was giving him that illusion.
But who was he?
We still didn’t know, but he sure played golf better than I did.And yes, that annoyed me.I hated being second best—something Rad had called a flaw, but I didn’t understand why.What was wrong with wanting to be good at things?
The Texan had already teed off, his ball sailing into the air in the direction of the green.Blok followed suit, and the two of them ambled out of earshot while I was still carving up turf.
“I think this thing is faulty.”
Gerald had lent me his wife’s golf clubs, which came in a baffling array of woods and irons and were apparently designed specifically for women.Men required longer, stiffer shafts, according to Alex.Surely there was a metaphor in there somewhere?Or maybe they just liked tucking their egos away in their golf bags.
“You’re too tense.Relax.”
“You realise that when you tell somebody to relax, it has the opposite effect?”
He wrapped his arms around my body and closed his hands over mine, engulfing me.And, okay, I had to admit that his shaft felt reasonably impressive against my ass.
“Relax.”The word whispered across my ear, followed by a brush of his lips, and I ended up tenser than I’d been before.But then he raised my arms, andthwack, the ball finally got off the mark.
“I detest golf,” I muttered as I speed-walked after it, taking long strides so it didn’t look as if I was in too much of a hurry.At least Alex was tall.He only had to stroll.
“Really?”His smile was more of a smirk.“I’m beginning to feel the benefits myself.”
If any other man had tried that stunt, they’d have lost body parts.But this was Alexei, and I found I didn’t hate the liberties he took.An unfamiliar weight settled in my stomach.Was that guilt?I thought it might be.Guilt that I liked the way Alex felt around me.Which was completely irrational.Rad was gone, and he was never coming back.What was I meant to do?Stay celibate for the rest of my life?My dry spell had already lasted four years, which had to be a long enough mourning period by societal standards, didn’t it?
And in those four years, I’d had time to think.To observe.To learn.I’d always believed that I’d been in love with Rad, and when he died, my world had certainly fallen apart.Everything changed in an instant.I’d lost my home, my job, and my partner.But our relationship had been far from conventional, and now that I’d seen how Brooke and Luca acted around each other, and Colt and Brie, and Aaron and Romi, I realised that what was between Rad and me had fallen short of the all-consuming love they shared.Oh, we’d liked each other well enough, but we’d only ended up together because there was no other option.
Yes, the heaviness was definitely guilt.
Guilt that whenever Alex touched me, my blood heated.And we were in the middle of a job, for fuck’s sake.
“We need to find out who that guy is.”
“The cyber team is running him through their facial recognition program.”