Page 56 of Savage Assassin

Levin, unsurprisingly, keeps his distance from me throughout the rest of the day. I keep the blanket tucked around me like a beach towel as I wash my clothes in the salt water and lay them out to dry, studiously not looking at him as I drape them over rocks.

“The salt is going to leave those stiff as boards,” Levin notes from where he’s sitting on a boulder near our makeshift camp, fiddling with the damaged radio. “They won’t be very comfortable.”

“Better than blood-soaked and filthy from sweat,” I retort, still not looking at him. “I was thinking of cutting the jeans shorter, actually. If I could borrow your knife–”

I hear him get up, crossing the sand to me as he holds it out, pressing the handle into my palm. “Careful,” is all he says before retreating back up the beach.

Gritting my teeth, I slice off the fabric slightly above the knee on both sides, jerking the blade across it a little harder than necessary. I toss the leftover material aside, leaving the now-shorts to finish drying as I stalk back to the campsite and give Levin his knife back.

I’ve never wished so much for something to do. Even back at home, on afternoons when I was meant to stay in my room because my father had visitors that he didn’t want to see me or Isabella, I had my books to keep me busy, or the gardens to sneak out into. Now there’s nothing but the day stretching on, and the newly strained tension between Levin and I to try to ignore.

As soon as my clothes are dry, I snatch them and walk off a little ways down the beach to get dressed, half-hoping that Levin won’t be able to resist sneaking a glimpse as I tug on my newly cut-off shorts and slip the blouse over my head.

The clothesarestiff, just like he said they would be, but it’s still better than the shirt being half-soaked in blood. The cut on my side stings from the salt water earlier, and I wince as I shrug into the shirt, feeling the tug on the stitches. I hadn’t noticed earlier when we were swimming–I’d been enjoying myself too much–but now I can feel the soreness creeping in.

I go for a walk down the beach anyway, mostly to avoid the awkwardness with Levin while he tries to work on the radio. When I come back, it’s nearly twilight, and he’s starting a fire with a fresh bunch of kindling, two of the MRE pouches ready and waiting for our dinner.

“There you are,” he says, sitting back on his heels as he watches the twigs catch fire. “I’ve been slaving over a hot stove for dinner,” he adds, nudging one of the pouches towards me with a smile that tells me that he’s trying to smooth things over.

I reach for the packet of food, resolving to let it go for now. Nothing is going to be made better by the two of us fighting–I know that. If thereisa way off of this beach, we’ll have to find a way to work together to figure it out–or at the very least, we’ll need to be getting along.

“I want to hear more about what you used to do,” I tell him as I poke at the food, forcing it down bite by bite. “You don’t have to tell me any of the really gory stuff if you don’t want to. Just–I don’t know. Something adventurous.”

Levin chuckles from where he’s sitting by the fire. “There’s a lot of stories like that,” he says, taking another bite of his own ‘dinner.’ “You’ll have to be a little more specific.”

“How many countries have you been to? All of them?” I cross my legs, leaning forward as I muscle down another bite, too, reaching for the bottle of water sitting between us. “Or just most?”

“Most,” Levin says, taking the water bottle when I’m finished with it. “I’ve been to just about every continent, though. Nothing in Antarctica–the penguins don’t put out contracts on folks often.” He grins at me, and I feel my mouth twitching in response, a smile spreading across my face in spite of myself.

“What was your favorite country?”

“Hmm.” Levin considers, taking another bite and setting the tray aside. “Russia was home, so that’s pretty far up the list, even if there were a lot of mixed good and bad things that happened there. France is beautiful. I particularly liked going to Japan, too, but I didn’t end up there often. Their own organizations tended to snuff things out before we got to it.”

“Not a fan of Mexico?” I tease him, and I see his jaw tense.

“It’s nice enough,” he says, his voice more clipped than before, and I know I’ve pushed him a little too far once again.

“Did you ever go anywhere just on vacation?” I ask curiously. “Just for fun, not for–business?”

He laughs quietly, his face softening again, just a little. “Not often,” he says ruefully. “I used to not have the time. The Syndicate didn’t like us wandering off too far. And then–”

His voice trails off again as he goes quiet, and I sit there, watching him on the other side of the firelight.There’s so much I don’t know about him.So many times that I seem to trip over a topic that makes him shut down, and I suspect it has to do with his late wife.

Everything about him intrigues me, makes me want him more–to know him, not just physically, but who he is, too. He’s older than me, but in a way that makes him seem worldly and sexy, that draws me in instead of repelling me.

He’s the only man I’ve ever met who makes me feel like this.

“It’s been a long day,” Levin says finally, when we’ve finished eating. “We should both try to get some sleep.”

I nod, smoothing out the blanket that we used as a makeshift bed last night and laying the one that I used earlier–dried now–atop it. I glance over at him, and I can see his hesitation. I know he’s thinking of sleeping on the other side of the fire, in the sand again, instead of being so close to me.

“Keep me warm?” I ask softly, and I see the momentary tension in his jaw before he nods.

He joins me on the blanket, tugging the top one over both of us. I can feel the inch of space he’s left between us as if it were a gulf, pointedly keeping us from touching as much as he’s able to, as if he’s not sure what will happen if he so much as brushes against me.

Ironically, that makes it even harder to stifle the desire simmering through my veins. I’m hyper-aware of him lying behind me, the warm scent of his skin lingering on the blanket, the memory of how good he felt last night curled up close to me. I want him in a way that I’ve never wanted anything, and I can feel it almost vibrating through me, until I have to clench my hands in fists against my chest to keep from reaching for him.

“Elena?” Levin’s voice carries towards me through the darkness, a low murmur. “You’re fidgeting.”

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