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He felt her weight leave the bed and heard the door close behind her. He put his t-shirt back on but didn’t immediately follow her. He’d give Raketa a few minutes, or maybe the rest of the day. What he’d done had been unfair. How could she believe anything other than that he was trying to manipulate her?
—:—
Raketa went outside and walked behind the house, in the direction of the woods. She wondered if Gunner would stop her or come after her, but he didn’t.
Would it really have been that hard to simply tell him she trusted him? She’d lied thousands of times as part of her job. Tell them what they want to hear in order to get what you’ve been assigned to deliver. It didn’t matter how you got the information, all that mattered was that you did.
He asked her if she understood that sex wasn’t part of his plan to get her to talk. She’d told him she did, but she’d lied then, not being absolutely certain. It was only when he directly asked if she trusted him that she couldn’t bring herself to lie again.
She’d never used sex to get information because, until she’d been with Gunner, she’d never had sex at all. Or since. Why couldn’t she bring herself to tell him that?
When she reached the edge of the woods and saw the shore ahead, she sat on a fallen log.
Trust would always be an issue for her. Always. She likely wouldn’t be here at all if she’d trusted Gunner enough to tell him why she hadn’t wanted to leave Petrov’s compound. Maybe he would’ve even helped her.
She hadn’t heard Gunner approach until he sat next to her. The bastard was known to be a stealth god; he’d just proven how much of one he was. She was trained to hear and react to everything, yet here he was, beside her, close enough that he could’ve slit her throat or killed her in a myriad of other ways.
“I said I was sorry earlier, but I want you to know why I’m sorry.”
Raketa nodded. “I know.”
“Do you think I don’t want you?”
She shook her head. “You’re a good man, Gunner. In our world, we don’t meet many who are.”
“You’re an honorable woman.”
She tilted her head and looked at him. “What do you mean?”
“You didn’t lie to me.”
“But I did. I told you that I understood when I didn’t.”
“I would never use sex to get you to talk, Rocket Girl.”
She nodded.
“I want you to give me the answers because you want to. You trusted me enough to come to me about leaving United Russia. That’s a start. When you’re ready to tell me why you’ve had a change of heart, or the real reason you want to return to Moscow, let me know. In the meantime, I have a workout to finish.”
He stood and looked down at her. “Wanna join me? I wouldn’t want you to get soft out here on my island.”
She smiled and stood too. “As if I would ever get soft. Wait, did you say this is your island?”
“Tiny as it is, it’s all mine.”
Raketa waited for him to tell her more, but he turned and walked into the woods. There was so much about Gunner Godet that she knew nothing about. She couldn’t explain her attraction to him, but it was as strong now as it was the first time their eyes met. It hadn’t lessened even a little.
She almost wished it would because then she’d know that he wasn’t different. He was just a man she was attracted to, and not someone she could risk trusting.
8
It wasn’t just that Gunner was being noble with Raketa, he believed the words he’d said to her. Sure, there had been women he wasn’t in a relationship with that he’d had sex with. There’d been no question in his mind that they knew the score and didn’t expect anything more from him.
With Raketa, though, it was different. Just like it would’ve been different with Lena, not that they’d ever been intimate. They’d come close, back before her accident.
“Paps?”
He looked up from the newspaper he was reading while he waited for Lena to finish her breakfast.
