Page 9 of Savage Lies
“You remembered something,” he says. It’s not a question.
“I don’t know what it was. Someone attacking me, maybe? But I knew how to fight back. I knew exactly how to hurt them.” I look down at my hands, horrified by what they know how to do. “Why would I know that?”
“Self-defense classes,” he explains without missing a beat. “You took them after we started dating. You said a woman in your position needed to be able to protect herself.”
“My position?”
“Working late at the gallery, walking to your car alone. Moscow can be dangerous for beautiful women.”
It’s a reasonable explanation, but something about it feels wrong. Self-defense classes teach you to escape, not to efficiently destroy your attacker. What I just experienced was something downright lethal.
“Let me clean this up,” Dmitri offers, but I shake my head.
“I can do it.”
“You’re bleeding.”
I look down and realize he’s right. There’s a small cut on my palm where I must have caught a piece of glass. Nothing serious, but Dmitri’s already pulling me to my feet and leading me to the sink.
“Hold still.” He turns on the water and starts rinsing the blood from my hand.
His touch is so careful it’s almost reverent, and I find myself watching him while he tends to my minor injury. There’s something about the way he moves that reminds me of the flashback—controlled and on alert, like violence is never far from the surface.
“You have scars.” I note the marks on his knuckles and the thin line along his jaw.
“Occupational hazard.”
I hike an eyebrow and ask, “Of the shipping business?”
His mouth quirks up, and he chuckles. “The gray areas I mentioned. Sometimes negotiations get heated.” He reaches for a Band-Aid from a drawer, then smooths it over my palm. “There. Good as new.”
He doesn’t let go. He cages my hand in both of his and presses a kiss to my knuckles. “The memories will come back. The doctors said it might be disorienting.”
“That didn’t feel like a memory. It felt like…” I search for the right word. “Like programming.”
Something flashes across his face too quickly for me to interpret, and he asks, “What do you mean?”
“Like my body knew what to do without my brain having to think about it. That’s not normal, is it?”
“Trauma affects people differently.” He brings my bandaged hand to his lips again. “Don’t try to force it. Let your mind heal at its own pace.”
The gesture should be sweet, romantic even. But something about the way he’s watching me while he does it feels like he’s testing my reaction. His thumb traces the spot his mouth just claimed, and heat jolts up my arm like a live wire.
I squeeze my thighs together, suddenly hyperaware of how close he’s standing. How his masculine scent—cedar and something darker—makes me want to lean into him and breathe deeper.
“Your phone calls,” I say, changing the subject. “They sounded intense.”
“Business is a bit messy right now. Nothing for you to worry about.”
“Are you in some kind of trouble?”
He laughs and rubs the back of his neck. “Kotyonok, Iamtrouble. I thought you knew that about me.”
“Should that scare me?”
“Probably.” He steps closer, backing me against the counter. “But it never has.”
Before. When I was someone else, someone who apparently found dangerous men attractive instead of terrifying.
