Stoking the Fire (Salus Security #1) - Teodora Kostova Page 0,66

fucked. As if he’s afraid I’ll reject him. Or regret it.

Or maybe it’s just me projecting my fears onto him.

I smile at him and see him visibly relax. When I step toward him, his arms open for me, and I walk into his embrace as if I belong there.

His body’s always so warm, and when his arms close around me, I feel cocooned in this perfect bubble I never want to leave.

“Hi,” I say, my lips against his skin.

“Hey.” He runs a hand through my wet hair, tilting my face upward.

His kiss is sweet and tastes of bacon.

I moan. He tries to deepen the kiss, but I pull away. Confused, Alec frowns at me.

“What’s wrong?”

“Bacon.”

Alec’s frown deepens. “What about it?”

“I want it. All of it. Let’s go.”

I extricate myself from his arms and—clothes forgotten—head for the kitchen. With a surprised chuckle, Alec follows me.

“I think I’ll be sick,” I moan, holding my stomach as I lie on the sun lounger Alec dragged out of storage and onto the shoreline.

Alec snickers from the lounger next to me. “Well, maybe next time don’t eat all the bacon? Especially if you hadn’t had it in years. Does your body even know how to process saturated fat anymore?”

I groan. “You should have stopped me.”

“And get my fingers bitten off? No, thanks.”

I groan louder.

Alec laughs, his hand coming to rest on my thigh.

My stomach cramps again. I close my eyes and try to breathe deeper. In and out, in and out. Focusing on the birds chirping nearby, the water lapping at the shore, Alec’s breathing next to me, his warm hand on my leg.

I must have drifted off because when I next open my eyes, the sun’s nearly behind the tree tops. My body feels stiff from being in the same position for so long. I sit up with a grunt, rubbing at my eyes.

“Jesus, how long did I sleep for?”

“Three hours,” Alec says without looking up from his book.

“I don’t even know what time it is. Or what time it was when we came out here.” I look around, again stricken by the beauty of the place.

“Does it matter?”

“Not really. It’s not like I have anywhere to be.”

Alec closes the book, his finger between the pages. “Wanna go for a walk?”

I stand experimentally, and I’m happy to discover my stomach’s feeling nearly back to normal.

“Let’s go.”

The temperature in Vermont in August is a good twenty degrees cooler than in Manhattan. Snuggled in Alec’s giant hoodie, because I completely forgot to pack warm clothes in the sweltering heat wave in the city, I’m trailing after Alec as we walk along the shore.

The sun’s nearly down by now, but the moon’s bright, and the stars… The stars are so vivid, gleaming in the dark sky like millions of fireflies.

“The sky is so beautiful.”

Alec hums in agreement, bending down to pick up a stone and throw it in the water. It ripples, distorting the reflection of the moon and the trees. It’s strangely hypnotizing.

“So—” Alec begins, casting a nervous glance in my direction. “What happened this morning.” It’s a statement rather than a question, so I don’t respond. “We have to talk about it.” There’s an edge to his voice that makes me turn to face him fully.

The sharp lines of his face look even more striking in the moonlight, all shadows and edges, as if he isn’t even from this world.

How could I have ever let this man go?

“I know,” I say around the lump in my throat.

When I don’t elaborate, Alec’s full lips thin before he speaks. “What do you want from me, Zach?”

There’s a note in his voice so broken and so vulnerable that it knocks the breath out of me.

Nothing.

Everything.

You.

“I…” I can’t find the words to express how I feel.

Alec’s rough voice sounds out of place in the serenity of the nature around us. “I need to know if this…” He takes a deep breath, composing himself. I can’t look away from the anguish on his face. “If I am just a convenient fuck for you right now. If this is nothing but convenience. Something safe and familiar. A way to pass the time.”

I can’t speak. So many thoughts whirl in my head that I don’t know which one to grab first.

“It’s okay if it is,” he adds quickly. “I just need to know.”

“No!” The word tumbles out, too raw to contain it.

Alec’s lips part, but he doesn’t speak. His eyes, too dark in the stillness of the night, search mine for the