Page 54 of Kept in the Dark (Hitmen of Ulysses #2)

Nicole

Hitman Witness Protection

Last night changed something. I’m not sure I even realized there were still walls up between us until they were torn down.

After we cleaned up, we went to bed. Just as I was almost asleep, he slid his cock between my legs and took me from behind while we lay on our sides. With relentlessness and urgency, he stroked me to another mind-numbing orgasm. He was still inside me as I fell asleep.

And I loved it.

Sex with him is so… uncomplicated—I want him, he wants me; we act on it.

It’s never easier for us to communicate than when we do it with our bodies.

And because it’s easier, I’ve been completely focused on the temporary gratification, avoiding what happens next.

So, I’m totally unprepared for its inevitability.

Something is going to happen. Something did happen.

Dimitri was gone by the time I woke, and he’s been holed up with James and Wesley in that office all morning.

Initially, I assumed there was no decision to be made—that we were oil and water; there was no way for us to mix except temporarily—and all roads ended with me leaving.

I assumed it was what we both thought was for the best. I assumed it was what we both wanted.

But after last night, I don’t think it’s what either of us wants.

Say the word, and I will be your monster .

The memory of those words makes me shiver and brings a faint smile to my lips, even now. So, I think I owe it to myself to find a way to stay. And to do that, I need to gather information.

I find Eleanor covered in flour and engrossed in a project. The kitchen smells like fresh bread and tomato sauce today, and my mouth waters the second I open the sliding door.

“Hey,” I greet her.

She straightens in the act of shutting the oven, a mitt on each hand, and flour streaked across her face. “Hey, Nicole! Want some pizza? I’m experimenting.”

I glance over where she gestures with her elbow and burst out laughing.

Half of the enormous island is covered in flatbreads of various shapes, sizes, and colors on cooling racks and cutting boards, and the other half is a mess of bowls and floured surfaces and dirty pizza paddles.

“Love some,” I say, taking a seat at the island.

“Excellent. Okay, so you’re not going to want the prosciutto or the sausage ones, but…” she mutters to herself, looking over the various pies with her hands on her hips. Selecting a few meatless options, she cuts me some slices, places them on a plate, and hands it to me.

She watches me take my first bite with a keyed-up expression. “It’s great,” I say around a mouthful of hot cheese.

“Oh, yay! Okay…” she trails off, searching the notes she made on a legal pad covered in flour and red sauce, “that one had the sourdough crust and an overnight proof. I thought the sourness would play off the umami of the mushrooms and the hint of sweet caramelized onions and goat cheese.”

I nod, eagerly taking another bite. “I’ll eat pizza in most forms, but I’d ask for this one specifically.”

She beams, and her enthusiasm to please people with her food is as endearing as it is fortunate for me, the recipient. “Really? How’s the ratio of toppings to crust? Good? Okay, yay. I can add that one to the list as a vegetarian option. Lactose-free, too,” she adds, sounding proud of herself.

“So, Eleanor,” I begin slowly, hoping by the time I finish her name, I’ll know how to start this conversation with her. “Do you like living here?”

“Love it,” she replies, distracted as she writes something down.

“Do you miss anything from your life before ?”

She taps the end of the pencil against the paper. “Hmm… I guess I miss the freedom of, like, leaving my apartment and getting to go anywhere I want. Not so much the apartment itself, but the concept of just getting up and leaving, of doing whatever I want to do, whenever I want to do it.”

“You can’t do that? You can’t just get up and leave if you want to go shopping or something?” I ask. I feel like I’ve seen her come and go way more than anyone else, but it’s not like I’ve quizzed her on where she was and what she was doing.

“Not really. I mean, it’s not like I’m stuck here; I can leave. Mac prefers I don’t, but I’d go crazy stuck here all the time, and he knows that. There are just some stipulations.”

I feel my brows come together. “You have to ask permission to leave?”

“No!” she shakes her head, hopping up into the chair next to mine and taking a bite of her own slice.

“No, not permission. It’s not like I ask and he says no—well, I guess one time he said no, but that was because he was worried about an active shooter in the area that I didn’t know about.

We just decide together on the specifics, like how long I’ll be gone.

It’s more like sharing a car than asking for permission, if that makes sense.

You have to consider what the other person needs. There are… stipulations, like I said.”

“Like what?”

She ticks them off on her fingers. “Well, there’s a tracker in my car and my phone and my purse.

And in something I wear, because he’s paranoid and overprotective.

We can’t leave together, and we can’t have routines like Wednesday date night or something.

We do go out, but it has to be somewhere we won’t be seen, or most people won’t recognize either of us. It’s not like a normal relationship.”

“But you don’t care,” I guess, observing the faraway, dreamy look in her eye.

“Nope,” she says brightly, taking a bite of a different slice on her plate. Her eyes widen, and she drops her jaw to breathe emphatically around the bite. “Fuck. Hot.”

“So, you have to be careful about being seen together?”

She nods, fanning her open mouth, then chews and swallows quickly.

After washing it down with a few gulps of her Diet Coke, she continues, but her voice is a little strained.

“When you’re in love with a dangerous man, sometimes you have to take it on faith that he’s doing what it takes to keep you safe.

Plenty of people want Mac dead, or they’d try to hurt him by hurting me.

Took me a while to come to terms with that, honestly, but here I am.

At terms. Again, it’s just part of what you sign up for. ”

“And the other stipulations are designed to keep this place a secret, right? So, no one can link this location to those guys.”

“Yup. If I had friends, I wouldn’t be able to invite them over—”

I straighten in my seat. “Wait. You don’t have friends? You can’t have friends?”

“I mean…” she grimaces. “I probably could if there were someone important to me I really wanted to go see. But truth be told, I’ve always been kind of a loner.

My sister lives in Pittsburgh, so we always had more of a phone-based relationship.

I drifted apart from my friend Harrison, I suppose, but he got a girlfriend, and it probably would have happened anyway.

He and Mac didn’t get along—bad first impressions on both sides,” she confesses.

“So, you moved in, you left all your friends behind, and you quit your job? All to live here and be with him?” I ask.

I know I sound judgmental, but I never realized any of this.

Even knowing about the dangers, what she’s describing sounds more like being in a cult than being under someone’s protection.

If I lived here, I couldn’t have friends at work? I couldn’t have my own space or adventurous hobbies or leave whenever I felt like it?

In the name of safety, sure, but… I’m a nomad.

I’ve lived on my own since I was 18. I value my freedom.

I know I told Dimitri that the goal was always to settle down, but I never thought twice about having the autonomy to choose where that was and move if I wanted to.

I’ve built my life intentionally, depending on no one but myself.

Living the way she’s describing seems stifling. Even the thought of sharing a car with someone is making me itch, and that was just the metaphor she used.

She winces, correctly interpreting my tone. “Well… yes, but not in the way you’re implying. I didn’t just drop everything to be with him because he made me or something. He’s a controlling asshole sometimes, don’t get me wrong, but he doesn’t make me do things I don’t want to.

“I didn’t mind quitting my job—I hated that place.

Same thing with my apartment. It was tiny and crappy, and I was stoked to move out.

Mac’s the one that encouraged me to start my business.

Living here honestly feels like a dream sometimes; this place is, like, a million times better than anywhere I would ever have been able to afford.

He didn’t take my independence either. I chose to be with him, and we work around the limitations the way you would in any relationship.

The limitations are just… different, because the stakes are higher. ”

I turn that over in my head, trying to see how the pieces of my own life compare against the broken remnants of what hers used to be. “Could you have kept your job and your apartment if you wanted to?”

“Um…” she scratches underneath her bangs, leaving them in disarray. “Maybe? I’m not sure. It’s not something we had to talk about. ”

I drop my eyes to my plate and grab another slice, but I don’t lift it to my mouth. I’m not sure I’d be able to taste it right now.

“Why?” she asks, eyeing me and taking a bite. “You thinking about moving in?”

“Maybe,” I admit.

She gasps and immediately begins choking on what was in her mouth. “Oh my”—cough—“God! That’s”—cough—“so amazing!” She dissolves into a fit that ends with her running to the sink and pouring a glass of water.

I watch her to ensure she’s not going to actually choke, alert and ready to administer back blows or abdominal thrusts. She’s probably fine because if you can cough, you can breathe, but it never hurts to be ready. “You okay?”

Having gotten herself mostly back under control, she wipes some tears from under her eyes and joins me back at the island. “Yes, fine,” she sputters. “But oh my God, what?! You’re going to live here?! Yay! ”

“No, no… It’s not like that,” I object, grimacing because I’ve gotten so far ahead of myself that I’m all the way moved into the pool house without an invitation.

“I was just… um, thinking about what happens next for me and Dimitri. Logistics and stuff. Obviously, it makes sense for me to stay here while they deal with the bad guys, but I don’t know what happens after. Like a transition back to reality.”

She nods, goes to take a bite of her pizza, then eyes it like it offended her and sets it back down. “It’s a tough situation, for sure,” she says. “It’s definitely easier living here than anywhere else.”

“I guess it’s a moot point until I’m out of Hitman Witness Protection, anyway.”

“Right. Yeah, until then it’s definitely more… um…”

“Suffocating? ”

“I was going to say confining , but sure. Don’t worry, though—those three are the best at what they do. You won’t have to be in lockdown forever.”

“Right,” I agree, chewing on my lower lip.

“Nicole? Could you come into the study? There is something I think you will want to see,” Dimitri’s deep voice cuts through the swirling storm of worried thoughts.

We both turn, finding him in the doorway to the kitchen, eyes on me, and hand outstretched. I glance at Eleanor, who gives me a blank smile, so I know she didn’t hear the strain in his voice or see the slight pinch in his brow. Not as attuned to him, obviously.

“The USB?”

He nods.

I inhale sharply. “Time to find out what someone was willing to kill me for. It’s kind of like knowing what my life is worth.”

Eleanor reaches over and squeezes my forearm encouragingly. Heart racing, I hop off my stool and make my way down the hallway, pausing only briefly to take Dimitri’s hand and accept the kiss he places in the center of my forehead.