Page 69 of Kept in the Dark (Hitmen of Ulysses #2)

Nicole

It’s sort of a term of endearment

“Okay, so, do they have code names for each other? Like, is James Eagle Eyes or something?” I ask in a low, conspiratorial voice.

Next to me on the couch, a tipsy Eleanor huffs a laugh as she takes another gulp of her champagne.

Her cheeks are flushed with it, and I keep catching James looking over with a funny expression on his face.

It warms me that he keeps an eye on her, even though it makes me feel like I’m witnessing something private when his gaze shutters as she purposefully ignores him to pour herself another glass.

He’s pissed, and she’s egging him on. This is going to blow up. Soon.

“It’s so funny to me that you call him James. It takes me half a second to realize who you mean every time.”

“Sorry,” I laugh. “I guess it’s hard wrapping my mind around the nicknames since Dimitri never uses them. Except for me, I guess.”

“Really? You have a nickname?” Eleanor asks, swiping her bangs out of her eyes with the back of the hand clutching the flute. “Not that you don’t deserve one or anything, it’s just… out of character, I guess?”

“That’s what I thought,” I admit.

“What’s out of character?” Wesley asks, taking the seat on Eleanor’s other side and refilling her champagne glass before his own.

“Dimitri gave Nicole a nickname,” she tells him.

“Should I feel flattered?” I ask, rolling with the vibe .

“Dimitri gave Nicole a nickname?” James repeats, only a few steps behind Wesley. He reaches down and swipes Eleanor’s glass and drains it for her while she scowls up at him. He turns and throws Dimitri a look over his shoulder. “You gave Nicole a nickname?”

“No.”

I narrow my eyes at him. Was I not supposed to talk about this? It’s not like he hasn’t used it in front of them… Wait, has he not? “What do you mean?”

“What do you mean?” he counters with a quizzical frown.

He closes the distance between us and pulls me up off the couch.

There’s only one seat left, so he settles back down and brings me onto his lap.

My face heats as I fall into the space between his leg and the arm of the couch, leaving my thighs draped over him.

I feel my face flush, but mine isn’t from champagne. “Um… You call me your ‘med.’” His lips purse, and I feel even more confused. Am I giving away some kind of secret? “Because I’m like your personal medic. Right?”

At the sound of a muffled laugh, I glance over in time to see Wesley grin and James raise taunting eyebrows at Dimitri. For his part, Dimitri scowls at them, like he’s daring them to say something. He drapes an arm over my legs, curling a possessive hand around my knee.

“What? What did I miss?”

“It’s sort of a nickname, but it’s sort of a term of endearment, too,” Wesley explains. “He’s not referring to your profession; med means honey in Russian.”

Eleanor gasps, “Aw!”

I feel my body tense as chills erupt all over me and tears prickle behind my eyes.

He slides his hand to that spot on my neck—it’s a practiced motion now—and I tilt my head up to meet his eyes before he can even put enough pressure in the right spots to do it for me.

I grab his wrist. The rest of the party falls away, and it’s just the two of us .

All this time, I thought he was calling me “nurse” or making a teasing joke about how we first connected when I sewed him up. And sure, it felt a little reductive at first, but then it felt like something secret we shared, like a nickname born of an inside joke.

“It is your coloring,” he murmurs, low. His gaze sweeps across my face, pausing on my cheeks, my lips, my brows, then settling back into the intense eye contact. “You are like golden honey. My sweet med .”

I try not to gape. He wasn’t calling me “med,” he was saying med.

All this time, he was being affectionate.

All this time, he was being open about how he felt, but I was too stubborn to see it, and he was too oblivious to realize he needed to explain it.

It makes me want to laugh because if that isn’t just the perfect metaphor for our relationship so far, I don’t know what is.

I laugh, and he cocks a brow at me, but smiles in response.

“I love you, too, honey.”