Page 26 of The Primary Pest (Iphicles Security #1)

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Ajax

Ajax had fallen into a deep sleep. Now he woke from the heaviness of alcohol-induced slumber without knowing exactly where he was or what roused him. He held his breath and kept still because he sensed he wasn’t alone.

He opened his eyes halfway.

Dmytro leaned against the cabin doorway, hands jammed deep in his pockets, saying nothing. Jesus, was Dmytro watching him sleep? Ajax recoiled. That would always be creepy.

“What?” he asked sharply. “What do you want now?”

Dmytro startled. “Nothing. I’m on your side. Remember?”

Ajax fell against his pillows. “What is it? Did you hear something?”

“Just checking to make sure you’re all right. Do you need anything?”

In the moonlight, Ajax felt around to make sure he had his water bottle. “I’m fine. Any new email threats?”

“Not since the last one.” Dmytro smiled wryly. “As you can imagine, we’ve got our hands full with comments since you posted content.”

“I’ll bet.” Ajax patted the side of his bed. “Sit. You’re giving me a crick in the neck.”

Dmytro sat politely, hands clasped between his knees. “Don’t let the comments bother you.”

“Like I give a shit.” Ajax sighed. “I never cared what people say to me, only that they couldn’t look away.”

“That’s one way to define success.”

“Not for me. Not anymore. I want to be real.” He glanced at Dmytro’s strong hands. “I want to like myself. I’m not always so successful at that.”

Dmytro gave a little head shake. “Nobody’s confident at your age.”

“You weren’t?”

“Of course not.” Dmytro covered his face with his hands. “I was a mudak . I thought if I was tough enough to be in the baddest gang, it wouldn’t matter that I failed to please my father at every turn.”

Ajax’s heart hurt for him. “How did you fail?”

“My father and all my brothers were military”—he shrugged—“but I have a massive problem with authority. I never followed the path he chose for me.”

“Anton did?”

“Oh yes. Anton was my father’s shining star until he married Katya. She was like you called your mother. A peacenik .”

Outside, water lapped against the hull. Above them, men talked softly against a backdrop of radio transmissions. Yet he and Dmytro might as well have been the only people for a thousand miles. He drew his knees up and wrapped his arms around them, giving Dmytro more space to spread out if he chose.

“How did Katya change things?”

“She dreamed of America and a new life. Rosy-cheeked children and making a difference.”

“And they got stuck babysitting me. Somehow I feel worse now.”

“You shouldn’t.” Dmytro shrugged. “Your heart is good. I told you, Anton would be proud. Katya too.”

Ajax’s throat burned. “They’d be proud of you too. I know it. I’m sure your daughters are.”

“If they knew what I did for a living before Iphicles, or everything else I’ve done in the past, I doubt it.”

“What could be so bad?” From what Dmytro had offered so far, he hadn’t been an angel. But he was not the monster he sometimes implied he was. Ajax would never believe it.

“I was a stone-cold thug, Ajax. I’ve done things… terrible things…” He closed his eyes. “I don’t want to talk about that.”

“What changed?”

“Yulia pulled me from the gutter and washed the shit off me.” He lowered his lashes.

“I used to believe I was unlucky because I never got thrown in prison. To the men I worked with, prison was a badge of honor. I thought if I died standing, that would be a win. Yulia made me see that what I was doing would be a stain on my soul forever. I didn’t believe I had a soul, but somehow she found it and shined it up. After, I couldn’t be a mudak anymore.”

Ajax grinned. “I’ll bet that hurt like a bitch.”

“Like acid on my skin.” Dmytro resisted another of his smiles.

“That happened to me when someone took my words too far and—” Tears Ajax thought he was over shedding heated his cheeks. “They killed themself. Named me as one of their bullies. It was never personal. Just words I threw into the abyss—”

“And the abyss threw them back.”

“I—I have to do better than that. Life isn’t some game you win with likes and follows. I hate myself.”

“Look. What you did indirectly caused people harm. There’s no denying that. The things I’ve done deliberately would appall you.” Dmytro glanced away. “I look at my girls and imagine that kind of evil touching them.”

“It won’t because you’ll know how to keep them safe, same as you do for me.” That must have been why Dmytro held his phone clasped between his hands, almost prayerfully, whenever he wasn’t tasked with another job. “You’re making up for lost time by keeping others safe.”

“Repentance is futile,” Dmytro deadpanned.

Ajax blinked. “Did you just make a Douglas Adams joke?”

“You caught me.” Dmytro stretched across the foot of the bed like a big dog. Ajax gave him more room. “I joke all the time. You just don’t think I’m funny.”

Ajax met his gaze, and again, something familiar and warm passed between them. He didn’t know what it was, but he didn’t suppose he had to know. He wasn’t in control of his life. Maybe he never had been. Now, especially, he had to let things play out.

“Tell me about Yulia.”

At first Dmytro seemed reluctant to answer. A hollow sadness filled his eyes, and he glanced down again, lost to his memories, maybe.

“I met Yulia in a German bar. Friends took me when I was in town on business for my boss. I was a regular at the worst kind of dives and strip clubs in those days.” He spoke dreamily. “She wasn’t supposed to be a nice girl. She took her clothes off for money and… she did other things.”

Ajax was shocked, but he couldn’t show it. Not while Dmytro was pouring his heart out. He owed Dmytro that much.

“She was older than me.” Dmytro continued. “She saw the things I hid from the world.”

“That you liked men?” Ajax asked.

Dmytro nodded. “And how out of my depth I was. I wasn’t made for the military, like my father and brothers were. I hate orders. Authority. Going by the book just because the book says that’s what you should do. But I didn’t love being a gangster either.”

“I guess the priesthood was out.”

Dmytro laughed.

“So Yulia…”

“ Became my religion. She was better than everything around her and I wanted her to have more.” He shook his head. “She was always, always worth more than life gave to her.”

“So you married her?” Ajax concluded. “And came to America and had babies?”

“Not to America. And it wasn’t easy like you make it sound.”

“I’m sorry—”

“I took my life in my hands to get away from being a thug and turned to work as a mercenary. Better, but not exactly honest work. I often went on long-term assignments, but she made my life softer. Our place was a home.”

“And you had the girls.”

“Yes.” Dmytro swallowed. “And then the bloody part of my life and the sweet part collided. There was a bombing. Nothing related to me, except in war it’s all related, isn’t it?

While I’m home from fighting for mercenary money in Syria, a terrorist bomb goes off in Germany.

I made it out of our apartment with the girls, but Yulia was asleep in the bedroom.

I went back for her. There was a wall of flames.

I let her sleep in that day, made pancakes with the girls. I could only save them.”

“You couldn’t have known.” Ajax bit his lip when the assassin manifested in Dmytro’s eyes. He’d never seen such a look from the man he’d been falling in love with, didn’t want to see it ever again—the blank, cold, shark-eyed stare of a man already dead.

He didn’t dare push further. He’d already pried the lid off Dmytro’s memories, opened him wider—he was certain—than anyone outside his few work colleagues ever had. He didn’t want Dmytro to relive bad memories. Ajax didn’t want to lead him back to a place where he could lose him forever.

He wished he could take Dmytro’s hand, but that would be awful.

Dmytro didn’t want his pity.

Dmytro shocked him by placing a hand on his foot, as though the comfort of human touch had been denied to him for so long and he needed it so badly any kind of contact would do.

Slowly, Ajax stretched out his legs. Dmytro let his fingers drift from his foot to his ankle and up his calf to his knee.

There was nothing intentionally erotic about his touch.

It was sensual but not provocative. Still, Ajax couldn’t breathe.

His heart rattled jackhammer fast. His chest formed a band around his lungs.

Ever so slowly, he turned to his side. Dmytro kept his hand moving up and down his leg.

“If you want, you can rest here with me for a while.”

Dmytro removed his hand to pick up the vodka Ajax had left on the floor by the bed. He uncorked it and took a long drink. “It’s unprofessional. My colleagues will believe I’m in here fucking you.”

“What do you care?” Ajax spoke before he thought. “No. I’m sorry. This is your livelihood. Never mi—”

“I’ll leave the cabin door open. I’m tired anyway. I need a goddamn break.”

Ajax closed his eyes. He waited. Then Dmytro’s body landed behind his, bulky and long. The heat of him was like a bonfire at Ajax’s back. Warm puffs of breath tickled his neck. After a moment, Dmytro pressed his face into Ajax’s skin and inhaled deeply. Sighed softly.

“So tired,” Dmytro muttered. “Need to rest my eyes.”

When Dmytro’s hand snaked around to rest over his heart, Ajax covered it with his.

He didn’t know what this new behavior on Dmytro’s part meant. He didn’t dare guess. He wanted so goddamn much more. More tender kisses, soft touches, and teasing. A good hard fuck.

He’d hoped to take advantage of their quiet cabin—if only to show Dmytro how good it could be between them. But Ajax wanted Dmytro’s heart too, and he doubted he’d get that by pushing things.

Ajax fell under the spell cast by the gently rolling sea and the moonlight coming in from the tiny window, but he didn’t want to ruin things between them before they could get started by pushing.

And making a move, even an awesome one, wasn’t worth destroying his chance to take care of Dmytro—to be there for him and his girls the way Anton had always been there for Ajax. No.

Patience wasn’t his superpower, but he had to let this play out on Dmytro’s timetable. If what was building between them was real, it could be wonderful. It could last. But if it wasn’t, forcing things would kill any other possibility.

Dmytro wouldn’t accept Ajax’s affection, his touch, yet.

He didn’t believe he deserved those things, except maybe from his girls.

That’s why Yulia had been “armfuls of sunflowers.” She’d been kind to him.

Loving. Tender. Maybe empathy was what this anguished, bitter, repentant, decent man needed most of all.

Ajax closed his eyes and drifted, unsurprised to find sleep came easy in Dmytro’s arms.