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She looked down, trying to hide a smile. “Shut up,” she said without any rancor.
A few minutes later, she rubbed her eyes and blinked owlishly. “Enough,” I said. “Time to take a break.” A glance out the window told me it was an hour or so before sunset. “Let’s grab a bottle of wine and take a ride on the airboat,” I suggested, cutting off any arguments.
She perked up, agreeing right away, and I was sorry I’d kept her cooped up until now. She ran upstairs to change from the t-shirt and sweats she’d worn to bed and put back on this morning. It turned out I found her just as sexy in the baggy clothes as I did in the skimpy dresses as I watched her bounce up the stairs.
In the kitchen, I took a bottle of white wine from the fridge and put it in a cooler bag. Then I decided I might as well go all in with a picnic and packed an assortment of cheese and lunch meat, adding some crackers and olives for good measure and finally tossing a few brownies the cook had made that day onto the pile. I was searching the pantry for a basket when Evelina found me.
Pulling my head out of the pantry, my jaw dropped at the sight of her in cut-off denim shorts that skimmed her hips and showed almost every inch of her legs. Her ample breasts were barely contained by a red checkered halter top tied behind her neck. Already I imagined pulling on that neat bow so I could stroke her rosy nipples.
“That’s a lot of skin,” I said, finding a bottle of bug spray and tossing it to her. “You’re going to be eaten alive.”
She gave me a look that was full of mischievous promise. “I might not mind that so much.”
Thankfully she had on practical sneakers, and with the picnic sack slung over my shoulder, we headed out to the airboat dock.
“I didn’t see this path when I—” she stopped and searched around for a way to save her slip-up.
“I know you went exploring,” I said. “You’d think someone so adept at working with security cameras would have noticed I have them everywhere.”
“Oh,” she said. “You’re not mad?”
“Not anymore. Because you showed good sense in not doing it again.”
She grumbled but didn’t argue, probably too excited about the prospect of flying over the water in the airboat. After I ensured she was securely strapped in, I couldn’t resist showing off a little and sped across the swamp, reveling in her squeals of glee. Her hair was windblown by the time we pulled up to the area I’d had cleared, intending to build a guest house.
I pointed out where everything would eventually be, dismayed at how quickly the Everglades was reclaiming the land. There was still enough space to spread the blanket, and we soon had our picnic meal set out between us. She kept casting the waterline suspicious glances until I assured her most of the time, alligators didn’t attack.
“Most of the time,” she said distrustfully. “That leaves some of the time. And what about snakes? Or all those giant lizards people import illegally and then dump?”
“I’ll wrestle them if they dare to crawl up here,” I said.
She knew I was teasing but beamed all the same. We sat out there far too long, watching the birds come home to roost in the nearby trees. We didn’t speak about anything consequential, mostly just trading gossip about people we both knew back in Moscow. However, everything she said kept me riveted just because she said it. When I pulled her up to go, she hung back, wanting to drag out our time together as much as I did.
“Fine,” I said, pretending to head to the boat without her. “I’ll be back to look for your bones tomorrow morning.”
Even as she laughed, she hurried to my side, and I wrapped my arms around her. I had to stop this, whatever this was, but not just yet.
“This place is always dangerous, but more so at night,” I said, hustling her onto the boat. “We’ve dawdled too long already.” As I jumped up after her, I couldn’t help but draw her close again. “You’re the most dangerous to me,” I said close to her ear.
She shivered. “Don’t say that.”
I kissed her neck. “It’s true, though, Evelina. You know it is.”
She held me tight and didn’t answer. As the sun dipped lower behind the cypresses, I slowly extricated myself from her hold and motioned for her to buckle up. She still didn’t say anything, and we rode back to the house in silence. She knew as well as I did that this had to end. Just not yet.
Chapter 15 - Evelina
If a ruthless crime family didn’t have a hit out on me, I would have thought I was living out a perfect dream. The past week was nothing short of incredible.
My project had a few setbacks, mostly due to software glitches that would have taken much less time to fix if Leo had been around. As much as I missed my brother, he would have been a glitch in my dream, keeping me from acting out any fantasy I wanted with Mikhail now that he had finally given up all pretense of trying to resist me. Another annoying inconvenience was not being able to put bugs in the Novikoff’s places of business so I could hear as well as see.
When I told Mikhail how I’d used Kristina’s many wigs to go around New York and set my listening devices, he’d gone pale, telling me I was lucky I wasn’t already fish food in the East River. It was funny how I didn’t mind his protectiveness now, but I also had no possible way to do what I normally would have done. If I was currently in New York and he pulled his bossy act, we’d be having some major arguments.
But I wasn’t in New York; I was in dreamland.
Ivan and my other cousins had tightened up their security, sending me word through Mikhail that I should sit tight and not worry. I was more than happy to do that, especially with Mikhail hovering around while I worked. He pretended he still didn’t trust me, but it was because he couldn’t keep his hands off me for long. Another thing that had me bouncing around as if I didn’t have a price on my head. The way he was doting on me was the best part of the dream.
Every once in a while over the past few days, I wondered how it could possibly last. Sometimes I tried to play out different scenarios in my mind but usually had to abruptly stop altogether because none of them ended happily. How could they?
