That was the second time she’d made him laugh in one night. It had to be some kind of record. But man, he really liked that he couldn’t get away with a damn thing around this girl. “I’m twenty-eight.” He turned toward her in his stool. “Didn’t waste any time getting to Vegas once you were the legal drinking age, did you?”
“The trip wasn’t my idea.” She crossed her killer legs and he harnessed every iota of willpower to keep his eyes locked above her neck. “My best friend, Olga, has a…what is the word here for female erection?” She waved her hands before he could answer that he didn’t have a clue. “She loves Elvis, that one. All her life. This is where she wanted to get married since we were little girls and tomorrow we will make it happen.”
“What was your plan if you got arrested?”
“You saw my boobs, da?” She waggled her eyebrows. “Maybe I would have charmed my way out.”
She probably could.
What was the weird, acidic bite in his chest?
Surely not jealousy. Over a situation they’d already averted.
Elias cleared his throat hard, grateful when the drinks arrived and he could wet his dry throat. Over the rim of his pint, he watched her take a huge gulp of her drink, diving right in without knowing what it tasted like. That told Elias more about her, but it wasn’t enough. He wanted to know every damn thing and he didn’t understand why. Why it felt essential on some higher level that he learn all there was to know about Roksana.
He’d been hard pressed to even pay attention on those blind dates he’d gone on a while back. With Roksana, he was almost afraid to miss something.
For years, he’d carefully kept his teammates at arm’s length. Been indifferent to their interest in his life and kept his nose out of theirs. That’s how he operated. That was the example he’d been given in his household growing up. In the place where he’d been born and raised, there was a sense of community, but a lot of the time, that community rallied around each other after a loss of life due to violence. Nothing had ever gotten better, the cycles always seemed to continue, but Elias learned to avoid the pain everyone put on display by being a loner. Keeping to himself.
Only one friend had slipped through his defenses—and Elias often wished like hell he’d listened to his own philosophy before letting him in.
Relationships made a man vulnerable.
Yet here he sat, more defenseless than he could ever remember being in his life. As if his armor had melted away the second she walked past his poker table. And he couldn’t seem to talk himself out of exposing himself, exposing her.
Diving as deep as he could.
“When did you get to Vegas?” Elias asked, taking a drink of his beer and setting it down.
She settled her martini glass on her knee. “Yesterday.”
“What have you been doing, if not gambling?”
“Dancing,” she replied, as if that should have been obvious. “And eating. We’ve been kicked out of two buffets already for trying to sneak crab legs back to the room in our purses.”
“Really.” He leaned closer, gratified when she did as well. “You didn’t try for lobster?”
“No, but there are still three days left of this trip.”
“Three days.” A heaviness settled in his stomach. “Then back to Russia?”
She nodded slowly, a little bit of her smirk fading. “What about you, Elias? Why are you here?”
The insides of their knees brushed and he couldn’t tell if she’d done it on purpose, but every nerve ending in his body seemed to expand, throb painfully. He was grateful for the low lighting of the bar, because that one little touch made him hard as nails. Christ. She made him feel like he’d spent a lifetime deprived.
Kenny and Latte were always talking about that moment they knew their wives were the one. He’d always been skeptical, but…is that what this was? If so, they’d been underexaggerating. There was a gravity to tonight he couldn’t explain. Like if he didn’t carefully thread the needle of the time they were spending together, he’d rip the fabric.
“Elias?” she prompted him, bumping their knees together, definitely on purpose this time. “Why are you in Vegas?”
“Our team is on mandatory leave for a week. We participated in a large-scale raid a few weeks ago. Most of us discharged our weapons. There were causalities taken on the other side.” Tension crept into his neck and he reached back to massage it away. “Essentially, the department shrink has way too much power and thinks he knows what’s best for us. He decided we needed a break, so a few of us drove up for the weekend.”
She was silent for a beat. “Did you cause any of the casualties?”