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“And the appointment?” I asked, holding my breath for I didn’t know what.
I wanted to be done. To be reassigned.
I was torn between proving to myself that I could handle Bastiano Romano and begging not to have to. My stomach churned with the weight of my conflicting thoughts, and I was tempted to vomit the lunch I had eaten before my shift.
I’d chosen to be an undercover agent because desk assignments bored me, but I’d rather be pushing papers in a cubicle than buried in an unmarked grave somewhere in Jersey.
Wilks’ breath came through heavy on the other end. “Remains the same, but—”
Footsteps pounded outside the door, and I straightened up.
“My boss is coming. I have to go.”
I hung up before Wilks could speak, his “but” lingering in the air like a noose around my neck, one whose knot I couldn’t unravel. Graham’s head peeked inside the doorway, and he looked both ways.
“I could have sworn I heard talking in here.”
I faked a guilty smile and waved my phone in the air.
“My doctor called to change my appointment time.”
“Don’t let Mr. Romano see you with that while you’re taking the test. He’ll think you’re cheating.”
My eyes burned with the need to roll them.
God forbid I piss off Master Romano.
Graham raked his gaze over me and continued, “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. No medical emergencies to worry about.” At his face, I straightened. “Oh! You meant the test. Yeah, I’m on question eighty-six.” I rested my back against the leather chair again.
Bastian’s chair—mostly because it was the most comfortable one in the room, but also because I could.
Graham walked over to where I sat, placed his palm on my shoulder, and leaned over my head to peek at my test.
“You’re almost done? Damn, Ari.” A whistle soared past his lips. “It normally takes a lot longer for us mortal folks.”
I eyed where Graham’s hand rested on my shoulder. Unlike Bastian’s touch, it repulsed me.
Bastian and I fought. We were never-admit-defeat cataclysmic, can’t-be-in-the-same-room-without-fighting disastrous, tear-your-clothes-off hungry.
What we weren’t was a hand on the shoulder.
Obviously, Bastian jerking off in front of me was far less innocent than Graham’s hand on my shoulder, but it certainly didn’t feel that way.
Bastian was porchetta-feeding, verbal-sparring, eye-fucking, thought-stealing, breath-robbing.
He was I-dare-you-to-fail unrelenting, fight-me demanding, can-you-or-can’t-you provoking, tell-me-you-don’t-want-me goading, lift-your-skirt-up taunting.
Graham was hard to get a read on, but I knew without a doubt he—and no other man—would ever be any of those things. Anything that set Bastian apart from other men only served to remind me how woefully unequipped I was to handle this legend.
The hand on my shoulder squeezed again. Graham was either super comfortable touching others or too comfortable touching me.
The first was innocent enough. The second would result in a broken wrist. Depending on which I settled on, there could be hell to pay.
“Ariana,” I corrected. Boundaries were never a bad idea, I reminded myself, even though I’d introduced myself as Ari to Bastian. “No one calls me Ari.”
Wilks and Aunt Nadia did, but Aunt Nadia had breathed her last breath a few years ago. I’d been under at the time, but Wilks had allowed me to break my legend to attend her funeral.
