Page 20 of The Primary Pest
Shit, shit, shit. If Bartosz had seen what transpired between them, he might call Zhenya and have Dmytro reassigned. Or worse, Bartosz might take Ajax up on what he seemed to be offering.
Dmytro needed to find solid ground again. He had to fight this dangerous attraction to his client. He had to run from the appealing empathy on Ajax’s face.
“Get back in the sauna, or we return to the room. Your choice, Mr. Fairchild.”
This is your job. Ajax Fairchild is your job.
Best to remember that, for everyone’s sake.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Ajax
Ajax Freedom.When you think you’re safe, I will tear you apart and look upon your insides where the rot and filth reside.
“Sorry,”Ajax said stiffly. He jerked the door to the sauna closed behind him. It felt like summer in Denver inside—hot and dry and relentless. He was still thinking about Dmytro, about his losses. How had he survived losing his wife? Sounded like she was the love of his life.She was like an armful of sunflowers.
Ajax gave her a moment of silence, much like he did for Anton every now and again. He wished for better things, a better future for Dmytro and his little girls, but he’d never been good with long silences or tight places, and this was no exception.
“You ever been to Denver?” he called through the door.
Dmytro’s one-syllable answer might have been yes, or it might have been no. Maybe he was on the phone again.
Despite Dmytro’s physical strength and toughness, Ajax had a hard time picturing him trail hiking or rock climbing in theMile High City. It was too friendly. Too amiable and open for a guy like Dmytro.
He could picture Dmytro in Budapest or perhaps Prague. Those cities seemed like a natural fit for a man whose life was a romantic tragedy; perfect for a dangerous, repressed man like the one sitting outside the sauna doors in a skimpy swimsuit, holding a gun in a towel.
Ajax stepped out only to find Dmytro had moved one of the heavy iron chairs as far away from Ajax as possible. From there he could avoid conversation. Ajax didn’t need subtitles to read the man’s mood. He put his phone away.
“Was that your daughter?”
“None of your beeswax.”
“That’s not subtle.”
“Do I appear to be a subtle man?”
Ajax toweled sweat off his body. “Do you always answer a question with a question?”
Dmytro glanced away, presumably to give Ajax some privacy while he rinsed off under the shower before getting into the hot tub. Dmytro should worry about his own privacy. His Speedo showed every vein on what appeared to be a long, thick cock.
Bad enough Ajax’s godfather Zhenya was such a beautiful man. Zhenya’s late business partner Anton—Ajax’s childhood bodyguard—had been gorgeous too. Anton was the manly statue come to life who played with him and made his lonely nights a torment of inexplicable longing. He’d died before Ajax was old enough to understand what he’d yearned for, but Ajax had never forgotten his first love.
Dmytro had the look of Anton—a similarly hewn jaw and an equally narrow, sharp nose. But Anton’s hair had been lighter, and where Anton’s eyes had been the color of Ajax’s mother’s Wedgewood bric-a-brac, Dmytro’s eyes were the color of the sky on a cloudy winter day.
He slipped into the hot water with a gasp of pleasure. “Why aren’t you coming in again?”
“Because I can’t shoot from under water?”
“Was that a question?”
“I phrased it as one, so yes?”
“That doesn’t make it one.” Ajax swam the short distance from one side of the hot tub to the other and back. “How long have you worked for Iphicles?”
“Long time.” Dmytro didn’t relax one iota.
Ajax sat on the bench in front of a jet and let his arms fall on the deck to either side. Nice to feel the water pulse against his stiff muscles. Hilarious how it blew up his trunks and made him look like he was farting. He laughed.
