Page 23 of Extreme Danger

Smile, he mouthed.

She tried, lips quivering, tugging at the corners. She couldn’t quite make it, but it was good enough for him. She tried to speak.

He covered her mouth again. Leaned in close. “Whisper.”

“Can’t I just run away?” she squeaked. “I’ll never say anything. I never saw anyone. I’ll just disappear. I promise.”

He considered it. Yeah, maybe she could. And then they would rip his guts out for the security breach, like they’d done to Sergei. “Do you have your own boat?”

She shook her head. “I have to call the taxicat at Shepherd’s Bay.”

It would take the catamaran a minimum of forty minutes to get to Frakes Island from Shepherd’s Bay, assuming it had no other jobs lined up. More like an hour, realistically. He couldn’t cover her for that long.

He shook his head. “Sorry,” he whispered. “Won’t work.”

She reached out, and gently prodded his sore nose. “Are you going to be OK?” she whispered. “Is it broken?”

He was taken aback. “No,” he said, almost flustered. “No big deal.”

“It looks terrible,” she said. “All that blood. He hit you so hard.”

God, she was innocent. He’d taken worse from his dad for letting the coffee boil over. “Nah. Guy hits like a girl.” He shoved her ahead of him, herding her into the huge kitchen. “Well?” he said. “Cook, then. Impress me.”

Her green eyes narrowed. “First, wash off that blood,” she said. “It’s unhygienic, and unappetizing. Are you still leaking?”

He dabbed at his nose gingerly as he turned on the faucet, and glugged dish soap into his hand. “It’s stopped,” he said, leaning to splash and rub, splattering pink drops all over the sink. Becca joined him, scrubbing at her own blood-smeared hands and face.

“Sorry I got blood on you,” he said. “You don’t have to worry about it, though. I’m HIV negative, last I checked. Which was recently.”

He turned away before she could snag him in those big green eyes. He grasped a roll of paper towels, ripped off a wad to sponge off.

“Me, too,” she whispered.

He jerked his head around. “Huh? You’re what?”

Her face was hot red. “HIV negative. Just so you, um, know. Guess we should have had this conversation last night, but we didn’t.”

His hand tingled with sense memory, the slick heat of her pussy tight around his finger as she came. His hands clenched.

Great. Now he could walk this tightrope over the flames of hell with a hard-on, too. Just to make things a little more interesting.

“That’s great news, baby,” he growled. “Can we get to work?”

She scooped her hair back, twisted into a rope, and knotted it at the nape of her neck in a loose bun. Swirly brown bits came loose, swinging under her chin.

He dragged his eyes away. “What did you say you’d cook?”

“Soufflé, and crepes a l’orange,” she said. “I need eggs. Milk. A lot of butter. A pinch of flour, for the béchamel. Some grated nutmeg, and an assortment of good cheeses. Pecorino, parmesan, asiago, gruyère, anything flavorful. Fresh fruit to purée, Prosecco to mix with it, ham to grill, and some bread, to complete the menu I proposed. For the crepes, more eggs, more flour, more butter, some sugar, orange-flower water, kirsch, Cointreau and a dash of cognac. And coffee, of course.”

Nick stared at her. “You really can cook.”

“I can do a lot of things, Mr. Big,” she said acidly. “Face down killers and whip up a tasty brunch? No problem. I do it all the time. So, what don’t you have? I can fudge some ingredients…but only some.”

Mr. Big?Right. He had never told her his name. “Ah…” He shrugged, lamely. “I’m not sure.”

She flung the fridge open. The inventory didn’t take long.

Eggs he had, because they were the type of food that he could prepare. Even scorched, they were edible. And when he was in one of his moods, he just cracked one over his open mouth and gulped down the cold, mucusy glob like a protein pill. He figured it would be a funny joke if he croaked from salmonella poisoning one day.

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