Page 26 of Captured

What else is he good at?

Lauren gripped her fork a little more tightly, determined to stab herself if she didn’t straighten up. “So, what are we going to do today?” she asked. She could have kicked herself for not demanding more details from Emmaline about her own idyll, but her escape with Dimitri already seemed vitally different. Kristos was far less...dangerous than the rough, uncivilized captain of the ONSF.

“Eat. You’ll need your strength.” He grinned at her and nodded at the plate. “Unless it tastes bad?”

“Oh—oh, of course not. It’s delicious.” Sudden awkwardness engulfed her, and she glanced at her plate. Food, at least, she could manage. “Thank you.”

He snorted. “Delicious, it is not. But it is local fare, and it’ll fill you up, I promise you.”

He continued with an animated description of the island’s cuisine, clearly trying to put her at ease. Unfortunately, she found herself focusing less on the food and more on his face, his mouth, his eyes...anything to stop looking at his naked chest. She flushed as she realized what she was doing, and she reconsidered her idea of stabbing herself with a fork. It was as if she’d never seen a man before.

Dimitri, fortunately, didn’t seem to notice. At least he didn’t until she realized he’d stopped talking, while she sat there with her fork poised over her plate, her focus on his pecs. Gently, he reached over and took the fork out of her hand, laying it on the table. The touch of his hand galvanized her, her entire body quivering with anticipation, but he didn’t do anything further. Merely sort of patted her fingers, then stood.

It wasn’t until he turned away that she got it. She narrowed her eyes, pushing out from the table.

“You’re doing this on purpose, aren’t you?” she snapped.

He looked at her innocently. “Doing what?”

“This! That!” She pointed at his naked chest. “Something has happened, and you’re shielding it from me, distracting me with the whole He-Man routine. What is it? Is it my family? Henry? Have they made calls? Are they on their way here?”

His eyes widened in what appeared to be genuine alarm. “Not at all. I told you I’ve had no contact?—”

“Oh, bullshit. You’re a captain of your country’s security force. Of course you have a real phone on you.” She threw her napkin down and strode toward him. He backed up until his hips met the sink, and she still kept coming. Standing this closeto Dimitri was dangerous, but she could control it. She could control her reactions too. She knew that, but that didn’t stop her from standing a little too close, leaning in a little too far. Dimitri smelled of spices and heat and—Focus!“What is it you’re not telling me?”

He didn’t answer right away, and she flapped her right hand in front of his face. “Hello? I asked you?—”

“Enough.” He moved so quickly that she didn’t see it coming, but he grabbed her hand and there was that jolt again, the vital leap of energy between them, that at once grounded her and made her blood feel too fizzy in her veins. “You keep coming after me, princess, and sooner or later, you’re going to catch me. Do you have any idea what you’re going to do when that happens?”

“You’re disgusting.” She tried to pull away from him, but he held firm. He stared down at her, laughter in his eyes.

“Disgusting? That’s really what you think of me?”

“I—” Lauren blinked as he pulled her hand toward his lips, brushing the fingertips as all the blood drained out of her head. “I don’t—stop that.”

“Stop this?” He pressed her hand more firmly to his mouth, his warm lips drifting down to the hollow of her palm until his mouth slipped over the edge of her hand, and she felt the pressure of his teeth bite down.

Need shot straight through her and exploded in a burst of panicked lust.What the hell was happening here?They’d kissed and she’d enjoyed it, sure, but this—this—was off the charts. This didn’t make sense. The ocean outside suddenly sounded like it was roaring. The sunlight seemed to beam like lasers, filling up the room with its radiance. Her insides spontaneously melted with a speed she’d never experienced before, and she gasped, her right hand trapped, her left hand pressed againstDimitri’s chest, his eyes riveted on hers, tempting her, taunting her…

A crackling voice rang out with abrupt authority. “Dimitri! You’re—oh!”

The spell shattered. Lauren turned, her right hand captured in Dimitri’s, as an old woman pushed into the kitchen from the front room of the villa, her arms laden with food. Though stunned for exactly half a second, as soon as the woman saw Dimitri and Lauren together, she burst into an excited, shocked, or certainly startled flood of Oûrois, her accent so thick that Lauren couldn’t follow her words. She asked practically fifty-seven questions all at once, one on top of the other as she dropped the loaves of bread on the table along with dark purple fruit.

Dimitri startled Lauren by kissing her hand once more, firmly. Then he squeezed her fingers and pushed her away.

“Hello,Grandmother,” he announced with an almost odd emphasis on the word, striding across the room. The old lady’s eyes widened as she took in his lack of a shirt, then she batted at him ineffectually while he picked her up and swung her back and forth like a plump doll. The two devolved into another conversation while Lauren braced herself against the sink, willing her brain to come back online. The woman was laughing and crying at the same time, back to speaking a million miles a minute, and as Lauren watched, a new realization struck her.

No one was paying attention to her. At all. She might as well not be in the room, a situation that hadn’t happened to her in—forever. Far from being offensive, it was wonderful. Freeing. And made Lauren suddenly feel safer than she had in longer than she could remember.

She turned toward the sunshine, and walked out.

Sixteen

Dimitri shook his head slightly as Calista stumbled in her nonstop patter. With a gesture, he urged her to keep it up as they both watched Lauren drift down the porch. His sister’s eyes rounded as she babbled on, but the moment Lauren stepped down the short staircase and onto the sand, she sucked in a deep breath—and punched him in the arm. The strike was remarkable strong for an eighty-year-old woman.

“Yourgrandmother?” she protested, glaring at him. “Has it come to that?”

Dimitri grinned. “Well, what else could I say? Lauren Grant is a guest of the royal family, a xénos. And she’s leaving on the first boat we can put her on. It’s not like I’m going to spill my entire life history to her.”

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