All the Lies We Tell (Quarry Road #1)(12)
“Yeah.” He gave her a curious look and held up a six-pack of beer from the local craft brewery and a pizza box. “I thought you might want some dinner. I called your cell, but you didn’t answer.”
She looked at the clock, surprised to see how late it had gotten. She put a hand on her stomach, which let out an oddly convenient growl, and checked her phone. “I had the ringer off when we were in Babulya’s room and forgot to turn it back on. How’s she doing?”
“She perked up just after you left. They gave her some IV fluids, said she was a little dehydrated, but she was coherent. She was happy to see Theresa.” Nikolai paused to put the pizza on the desk. “Crazy about her showing up, huh? I haven’t seen her in years.”
“We’re friends on Connex, so I keep in touch with her now and again. I figured she’d want to know what was going on. Oh, God, you got anchovies? Nobody likes anchovies on their pizza!” Grinning, she looked up at him, surprised and touched that he’d remembered. “Other than you and me.”
His slow smile matched hers, and for a moment they stared at each other. The tick of the clock became very loud in the silence. This was Nikolai, Alicia told herself.
He only wants you because you remind him of your sister, and you’ll never be able to take her place.
Damn, the memory of his words still hurt. Fierce and pointed. He’d always known just how and where to sting her.
“There are paper plates in the cupboard there.” She pointed. Her voice had come out hard and cold; the grin vanished.
Nikolai shot her a glance over his shoulder. “Ilya went home. Said he was going to crash for a few hours, then head back tomorrow morning unless something happened overnight. I told him I’d be back at the house later. Figured I’d see if you were still working, since obviously he’s not.”
“Thanks. I’m starving.” She lifted a greasy, dripping slice from the box and settled it onto one of the plates he handed her. Then another for herself. Watching him take the empty chair across from the desk, Alicia leaned back in hers. “Fox’s still makes the best all around.”
Nikolai bit into the gooey cheese with a sigh of bliss. He chewed, swallowed. Wiped his mouth like a grown-up, not a caveman. “I’ve dreamed about Fox’s pizza. I mean, literally dreamed.”
“Get out of here.” She laughed, not easily but genuinely.
“It’s the truth. You can’t find American pizza like this in Israel. And when I was in Antarctica, I craved pizza like you wouldn’t believe. Thick slices, greasy cheese, the salty anchovies . . .” He shivered with pleasure and took another slice. His tongue swiped along his lips as grease slipped over his sculpted chin and down his throat.
Mesmerized, Alicia watched the slow, glistening trickle move over his skin. How would that taste, to lick it away? He’d caught her staring. She covered it up by leaning over the desk to grab a beer.
When she looked up, she’d caught him staring.
“You look good without my brother’s ring on your hand.”
Heat rushed so fiercely up the column of her throat and into her cheeks that she swore she was about to burst into flames. She opened her mouth to castigate him, to really let it fly.
Every part of her tensed at his expression.
Narrowed eyes, slightly parted lips. Intensity in his gaze that had nothing to do with disapproval or lacking or anything but everything to do with pure, raw male appreciation. It wasn’t the first time she’d had a guy look at her that way, but it had been a long, long time since any guy’s look had made Alicia feel this way.
What was that old saying about keeping your enemies close? She wasn’t sure she could call Nikolai an enemy, exactly. But all at once, keeping him close had become very appealing.
Still, there was that small and stubborn part of her that remembered how vocal he’d been about his disapproval when she and Ilya had announced they’d run off to Vegas and eloped. Looking back, she’d known as well as anyone—better, even—that she and Ilya had made a mistake, but you couldn’t have made her admit that. Not at nineteen. Barely at twenty-nine, when at last she’d left him after one too many nights staring up at the ceiling wondering how she could spend the rest of her life being so miserable.
Based on her reaction to Nikolai’s look, she seemed on the verge of making a brand-new mistake. A bigger one, this time. You’d think she’d have learned her lesson the hard way from Stern brother number one.
She drank some beer to cool herself down. “Well, I don’t know if that’s something to say thank you for. But thanks.”
“It was meant as a compliment, but I sounded like a dick. Sorry.” Nikolai grimaced, then grabbed his own beer and took a long swig. “I’ll blame my lack of social skills on all the time I’ve spent alone in the wilderness, if you believe that story.”
“I can tell you, being alone in the wilderness has nothing to do with why you’re still such a colossal doofus.”
It was easier after that. Less awkward, anyway. It wasn’t that she forgot, exactly, that Nikolai had turned into the sort of guy who could turn her head so fast it gave her whiplash. It was more like she was forcing herself to remember to look past the arms, the thighs, the chest, the abs—oh, Lord, the abs. Rippling, rimmed ridges of delicious muscle she glimpsed when his shirt rode up as he stretched while regaling her with a tale of his adventures on a kibbutz in Israel.