Hard Limits(6)

"Nick?"

Nothing. Paige leaned closer, trying to see if his chest rose and fell, but she couldn't tell. Oh Jesus, had the guy died while she sat there and gathered stupid strawberries and carrots? Alarmed, she leaned over him and put her finger under his nose.

"Still alive," he growled, his eyes closed.

Thank God. Then anger spiked inside her. "You jerk. I thought you'd dropped dead on me. Why didn't you answer when I called you?"

This time around, he lifted his lids. Those beautiful blue eyes stared at her. "I wanted to see your reaction."

Ass. "Next time I have you unconscious and in need of stitches, I'm going to sew your mouth shut for good measure."

Then something happened. His stern lips quirked up. It was a flash, disappearing as fast as it appeared. A smile. "I'll keep it in mind."

"You hungry?"

He sat up, clenching his teeth and holding his side. She moved to help him, but he managed on his own. He looked at the food on the trays. "So we broke in and stole their food."

Her snort couldn't be stifled. "Sure, let's order in. I can check if there's enough pepperoni on the pizza while you hold the delivery boy at gunpoint. Would that be a better option?" He didn't seem used to people talking back to him, but that didn't deter her. "I've been to some of their parties. These people can afford to lose a couple of frozen canapés. The food's gone cold but it's entirely your fault, so suck it up."




 

 

Nick limped to the cabinet, where the gun lay in plain view. He checked the clip.

"I'm not totally comfortable around guns," she said. The "totally" was of course for his benefit, because she was in fact extremely uncomfortable.

"I prefer to have it close by. Old habits die hard."

"What? You plan to shoot me if I eat an extra slice of pizza?"

He offered her another half smile. Man, the devil was handsome, especially when he let his guard down. "Let's compromise. Out of sight, out of mind," he said, tucking it under the table.

Suddenly she realized she'd been worried all this time because he'd been unconscious, when she should have been more worried about the alternative: having him conscious. He was dangerous. And armed.

He ignored the fancy canapés and went for the pizza.

"Is it Nick or Nico?"

"Nikolai."

So Nico it was.

"Are you Russian?"

"Yes."

"How's Russia? I've never been there."

"Cold."

My, wasn't he in a chatty mood.

The uncomfortable silence stretched for a long while.

Paige took a napkin, and after wiping the cap on a bottle of water, she opened it. Cleaning before opening and every time she drank was one of those stupid OCD habits she couldn't shake. Her hands did it almost automatically.

She handed him another bottle of water, battling with herself not to clean it too. It was one thing to inflict her OCD on herself, another to inflict it on unsuspecting bystanders.

"Do it. I know you want to," he suddenly said.

"What?"

"Wipe the cap."

"How do you know about my quirks?"

"It's my job to notice even the smallest things. I saw it in Rosita's, but there was the possibility it was a work-related habit." As if realizing he'd said too much, he fell silent.

That was her opening. "You came to Rosita's scouting for information on Elle, right? That's why you struck up a conversation with me."

He didn't comment on that. "When you left just now to get food, you checked three times that the door was closed."

Guilty again.

"Weren't you half-dead by then?" she retorted, annoyed. Although in all honesty, once she'd cleaned off the blood and stitched him, the damage hadn't looked as extensive as it had at the beginning.

"Blood loss makes you sleepy. Plus the pills they slipped me made me drowsy as hell, but that's no excuse for not paying attention."

Really? If that wasn't an excuse, she didn't know what was. "Why were you drugged?" 

"People trained to kill offer less resistance if drugged. The whole thing worked against them, though, because whatever they gave me helped coagulate my blood, preventing me from bleeding to death."

She wasn't sure he was going to answer, but she asked nevertheless. "What exactly happened to you?"

He took a second to reply. "A bit of a misunderstanding with some associates."

"What kind of misunderstanding?"

"They believed I should die. I begged to differ."

No shit. "They sure did try hard."

He shrugged. "Had worse."

"What's worse than being drugged, stabbed, and shot? You were burned at the stake and thrown into the sea with cement shoes last time?"