Page 14 of The Primary Pest
Ajax wanted the family life he’d never had. He didn’t see anything wrong with that.
He’d always been ahead of his peers, leapfrogging through school, getting what he wanted from life. His mother said the kids his age would catch up, but… no one would look twice at him after the Ajax Freedom debacle.
Bartosz brought their luggage. He left Ajax’s bags strewn around passive aggressively. Dmytro’s duffel sat neatly on his bed. While Ajax arranged his things, Dmytro shot him a smile that made him shiver all over. Again, no fair.No fairhaving a bodyguard who was a walking wet dream.
Between the two guards, Bartosz was probably logistics, and Dmytro was… Well, if this were a spy movie, a man with eyes as cold as Dmytro’s would be the assassin—the man with a talent for marksmanship, close-quarter combat, and poisons.
Mother always said if it looks like a duck, and it walks like a duck, and it quacks like a duck, make sure you have plum sauce on hand.
Dmytro looked like a mercenary, and he was utterly silent when he walked across the room. He was controlled, focused, dangerous, economical. He never wasted a movement. Never said an unnecessary word.
That his smile was sometimes a sweet aberration gave Ajax both a shiver and a secret thrill. Something genuinely feral growled deep inside him.
Despite how forbidding Dmytro was, Ajax felt struck by lightning every time he met Dmytro’s gaze. He was smitten. Smote. Whatever. His gut did a little happy dance whenever Dmytro’s eyes landed on him. His cock wanted to stretch and fill. Ajax was ready to plead for the merest touch of one of those big hands on his skin.
Sure, Dmytro seemed angry. He was hard as forged steel. But Ajax had played with every dangerous thing he could get his hands on all his life. Now, he itched to get his hands on lethal, perfect Dmytro, with his bull-like shoulders, trim waist, huge arms, and silent confidence.
Dmytro was heroin to Ajax. One whiff and he was hooked.
Bartosz came back halfan hour later with burgers, shakes and fries. They came in an anonymous white bag and the kind of drinks carrier everyone used, so Ajax couldn’t begin to identify which restaurant they’d come from. Beggars couldn’t be choosers, though. Plus he’d gotten about a hundred little ketchup packets. He was apparently not the only hungry one because the three of them inhaled their food in silence.
Bartosz nodded to Dmytro, who jerked his chin, and left them alone in their room together.
What did Dmytro keep checking on his phone? Was he with someone? And if so, was that person a woman or a man? Were they nice or dangerous like Dmytro?
“What are you staring at?” Dmytro asked abruptly.
Caught, Ajax had no choice but to go on the offensive. “Aren’t you supposed to be calling your office?” He glanced up. “There’s probably asbestos in that ceiling. Mother would pair your liver with fava beans and a nice Chianti if she saw that popcorn.”
“She could try.” Dmytro hummed to himself while he continued to scroll.
A full minute passed. Dmytro said nothing
Ajax hated the very nature of silence, and Dmytro had mastered the art of creating the most uncomfortable silences ever.
Each minute lasted forever.
When Ajax couldn’t take it anymore, he asked, “What are you looking at?”
“None of your beeswax.” Nearly colorless eyes bored into him.
“No need to be hostile.” Ajax sat on the bed, stung.
“I’m not hostile. I’m private.” There went that smile again—the one that wasn’t shared by Dmytro’s eyes. Ajax got up and wandered the room, opening drawers, poking at the ancient four-cup coffee maker. He turned the television on and off.
When he went to play with the clock and phone, he wound up behind the Ice Man and glanced over his shoulder to see his phone screen. Facebook? Two of the most adorable little girls Ajax had ever seen hugged each other in a photograph, each wearing a furry headband with ears.
They were so precious his chest hurt. “Oh my God. It’s Pooh and Tigger. I can’teven. Who are they?”
At first Dmytro didn’t answer him, and actually, Ajax was glad. It gave him a brief ache of time in which to imagine they were Dmytro’s nieces, and he and Dmytro would get to the bottom of this whole death threat thing together. Dmytro would then confide he had some profoundly conflicted feelings for men, after which they’d take the girls to Disneyland.
The screen went black. “They’re my daughters.”
“I see.” Ajax’s heart sank. All the really hot onesweretaken. “So their mom is, er… with them now?”
“None of yourbeeswax.”
Ajax went back to playing with the motel phone and accidentally dialed the front desk.
