Page 32 of Beautiful Beast

There is no pause button in life.

Change happens and the world keeps turning whether someone is paying attention or not.

The kitchen is laid out so intuitively that it doesn’t take long to get my bearings. I find a fancy wooden cutting board and a ridiculously sharp, deadly-looking knife that would be sufficient to disembowel someone.

The handle says Miyabi, and I’m guessing it costs more than my rent.

“Do you have a girlfriend?” I ask without preamble, as I start slicing vegetables.

“You don’t do subtle very well, do you?”

At least he’s smiling.

“Oh, hi, pot. My name is kettle.”

He leans a hip against the island and watches me work, which makes me infinitely more nervous. I’ve prepared this simple dish a million times, and that’s exactly why I chose it. I don’t want any room for error or to need access to my inaccessible brain.

Adam is so sexy that it’s nearly impossible to think, and everything is more intense when his gaze is on me.

It’s like a weighted blanket if weighted blankets made your insides quiver.

“You wouldn’t be in my apartment if I had a girlfriend,” he says. “I’m a one-woman man.”

Now that’s an answer I can get behind.

“Before Syria, I did a tour in Nigeria. As far as I knew, I had a long-term girlfriend. But I guess she didn’t like being alone for weeks at a time because when I came home to surprise her, she was fucking her best friend.”

“Oh, shit.”

He shrugs a massive shoulder. “If there’s one thing I demand in my life from anyone I allow into it, it’s loyalty. Let’s just say they had to figure out a way to get home naked.”

I giggle because I can picture the scene perfectly. “What did you do in all these foreign countries?”

The thought of Adam with another woman sends sharp pangs of jealously shooting from my gut into my chest, and I would much rather talk about why he was away in the first place.

The knife works ridiculously well, making a task that I usually dread so quick and easy. I toss the vegetables into a cast iron skillet and start to sauté them while waiting to see if he will actually answer my question.

“I was a private military contractor,” he says after too many beats to count. “Pays a lot better than the government.” When I turn to give him a blank look, he continues, “A solider-for-hire? It’s a group of elite warriors who go into foreign hell holes to fight battles for other countries.”

Maybe Adam just had to show me his face and realize that I didn’t care about his physical deformity to somewhat trust me. People often assume I’m shallow or vain because of how I look, but I actually prefer interesting, unconventional faces.

And now the floodgates are open, and we can have an actual conversation.

“Like… what kind of battles? I mean, what did you actually do?” I ask.

“It depends where we were. We provided security for oil companies, engaged in counter-terrorism, helped to stop genocides, fought drug cartels, trained other government’s operatives, and protected foreign dignitaries.”

“You killed people.”

There’s something about Adam that makes me sure of the statement to the point that I don’t need to ask a question.

His bearing, his eyes, his attitude…

There’s a killer inside.

With a steady gaze that never leaves mine, he answers without hesitation. “Yes.”

Maybe I should be scared, but I’m not.

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