Page 17 of One Secret

He doesn't even hesitate.

Ugh.

I want to scream. I used to like the fact that Cyrus could keep up with the verbal gymnastics as masterfully as he did the sexual ones. But this bickering is getting us nowhere.

Whilst neither of us has shared anything personal before, this seems the time for a few necessary revelations.

'I'm not Italian, Cyrus,' I explain. 'And my—'

I clam up as one of the kitchen porters comes around the shelving in search of something. He skids to a halt and stares at us—a hulking man with the aura of cool death looming over one of the bar staff—with a look that says he knows he's interrupting.

I curse under my breath.

Cyrus stays silent but gets handsy again.

With a fresh grip on my upper arm, he wheels me around and through a side door with a porthole window.

'Er, hey, excuse me—' With one look from Cyrus, the porter shuts up and disappears. I think I actually hear the poor guy squeak.

My hero, I muse, rolling my eyes.

As the door to the storage room swings shut behind us, a light comes alive overheard. When the aged bulb struggles to hold its brightness, flickering unhealthily, Cyrus punches a switch on the wall and shuts it off completely.

The porthole light from the main kitchen is, at least, enough to see by.

We're in the stores. A room that's more like a large-scale pantry than a cupboard. Almost as big as the kitchens themselves, shelves stretch along every wall, and tall racking units divide the space into a grid of aisles. There's a small, open space in its center in which sits a pair of tables in roughly hewn wood. Cyrus deposits me against one and then braces his very nice ass against the other. This gives me a little breathing room. Perhaps a half foot between us. But when he braces his hands on the tabletop behind him and his shoulders brace forward to look twice their already impressive width, I'm suddenly grieving the loss of that closeness. I can see the tendons of his neck funneling into the curving valley of his collarbone beneath his sweater.

My mouth waters.

I want to touch.

The sweater is grey and casual, loose-fitting and comfy. Paired with pale, distressed jeans. Cyrus might have looked like a teenager if it wasn't for his size and the severe angles of his face. His only hint of color is a leather jacket of desaturated bottle green.

And those eyes, of course.

He looks good. Very good. Cyrus might not demand notice the way some men—some lions—do. But, once your eye lands on him, it's hard to steer away.

I try not to feel self-conscious in my bleak and drab uniform.

'You were saying?' he suddenly prompts.

I blink at him.

'What?'

'"Not Italian"?' he repeats.

Oh, right.

Jesus, where did the old Darcy go? The one who could simultaneously bark orders, read complex navigational charts, and maneuver a Humvee under fire?

Lost in a sea of hormones, apparently.

'Right…' I say, getting back on track. 'I'm not from here, Cyrus. Though, I'm guessing you already know that…?'

'No.'

'No?' I blink, thrown off-course for a moment.

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