“Hey! I may have admired the way his chest has all those muscles and the cute little nipples and the six-pack, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to pounce on the man the second you get his pants—Sweet sizzling soupspoons!”
While I’d been speaking, the doctor got the belt unbuckled, the zipper lowered, and jerked the sides of the jeans down to the man’s knees. Unfortunately—or fortunately, depending on how you looked at it—the man’s underwear went with the pants.
“Well, there’s the myth about men and cold water blown all to hell and back again,” I said, staring at the man’s groin before I realized that the doctor was asking for my help. “Oh, sorry.”
Hurriedly I set down the basin and helped the doctor divest the man from his shoes, socks, and pants. The doctor, with a glance at me, tossed a towel over the man’s privates.
“I’m quite in control of my libido, I assure you,” I told him with much dignity.
“It’s no concern of mine what you do with your man,” he said, giving a little shrug before continuing his examination.
I tried to adopt a nonchalant “I don’t care if there’s a naked, seriously hot man in front of me” expression and held the basin in case he needed one of the tools.
He didn’t.
“I don’t see any marks on him,” the doctor said. “Nothing that would indicate he’d been tossed around by the tide, as you said he was.”
“I said I thought he’d been rolled ashore with the tide, but maybe he swam there and then collapsed. Do you think his brain’s okay?”
“I can’t tell without a scan, but I don’t see any signs that there is damage.” He straightened up and peeled off a pair of latex gloves. “Let’s see if we can bring him around with a little chemical aid.”
He snapped a small plastic vial under the man’s nose. The smell of ammonia made my nose wrinkle, but it took about ten seconds before the man suddenly coughed, blinked, and tried to shove the doctor’s hand away.
“Ah.” The doctor smiled at me. “That is a good ah. He awakens.”
“So I see.” I stepped to the side to look at the man. He was squinting up at us, one hand shielding his eyes against the bright examination light.
The doctor tipped it down so it wasn’t shining right in the guy’s face, and asked, “How do you feel?”
The man looked first at the doctor, then at me, his eyes narrowed in confusion and, I thought, suspicion. He said something that I didn’t understand.
“Um… did you catch that?” I asked the doctor.
“No. It sounds Russian, or like one of those languages.”
“Russkie?” I asked the man.
He started to shake his head, yelped, and put a hand to the back of it, wincing.
“That would be the goose egg you have back there,” the doctor said, pushing his hand aside to gently probe around the area. “It didn’t feel too worrisome to me, but evidently you’re feeling it now, eh? Your head hurts, yes?”
The man said something else, carefully holding on to his head as he swung his legs over the side of the table.
The towel slithered down off his lap, leaving him exposed. He looked down at himself in surprise, then up to me.
I kept my eyes firmly on his face as I knelt to pick up the towel, handing it back to him. And if you think that was easy, you’re dead wrong.
“You don’t speak Swedish?” I asked him as he tucked the towel around his hips.
He just looked at me.
“English?” I switched to that language. “I hope you’re not Russian, because I never did pick up any of that language.”
“I’m not Russian,” he said, his voice a husky baritone that seemed to brush over me like a wave of velvet. He had a slight, very slight accent that I couldn’t place but seemed vaguely Slavic. He frowned first at me, then at the doctor. “Who are you? Why have you beaten me on the head and captured me? If you intend to kill me, I must inform you that my brother, although not currently on speaking terms with me, will avenge my death.”
“Wow. Straight from who are you to avenging your death? That’s some pretty big leaps of logic right there.”
“You are conversing with him?” the doctor asked, evidently not understanding English.
“Yes. He says he’s not Russian and warns us that if we kill him, his brother is going to come after us.”
“Will he?” The old man looked interested. “Who is his brother?”
“No clue. I’ll ask.” I turned back to the mystery man. “The doctor—and he is a doctor, not some deranged head-bonking murderer—wants to know who your brother is.”
“I will answer none of your questions,” he said with what I thought was a whole lot of dignity considering the fact that he was naked except for a small towel. He got to his feet, clutching said towel, and weaved for a moment but managed to remain upright.
I had to admit that for a man who’d been unconscious and bashed around a bit, he looked pretty damned good. His chest had a few scars around the ribs and a nasty line across one pectoral that interrupted that nice chest hair, but the rest of him wasn’t at all hard to look at.
“What did he say?” the doctor asked.
“He refused to answer.”
The man glanced around the room, a dark frown on his brow. “Is this where you intend to torture me? You should know that my brother will, eventually, avenge that as well.”
“This is an examination room, not a torture chamber,” I said with a mixture of impatience and amusement. What a drama queen he was.
“Then you will take me to my cell,” he said with haughty indifference. “And bring me some clothes, unless you intend to expose me to the elements in an attempt to kill me that way. Not that such treatment will have the effect you desire. It’s been tried before, and I survived for many years before I was freed.”
“Someone tried to kill you before?” I asked, aghast at the idea. My gaze dropped to the scars on his ribs. “Maybe instead of asking us who we are, we should be asking you just who the hell you are. So I will. Who the hell are you?”
He made a sound like he was annoyed. “I am Kostya. What is your name, mortal?”
I gave him a look to let him know I didn’t appreciate the condescending attitude. “Aoife. This is Dr. Ek.”
“What is he saying now?” the doctor asked, plucking at my sleeve.
“His name is Kostya, and someone tried to kill him before.”
“You will cease speaking in whatever Nordic language you are speaking. I cannot understand it, and it irritates me.”
That sort of attitude didn’t go far at all with me. I ignored Kostya. “He seems to think we’re holding him captive, and evidently likes to threaten people with his brother, whoever he is. He’s also demanding that we bring him clothing.”
“Is he? Your man is quite obstinate.”
“Annoying, isn’t he? And for the record, he’s not mine.”
Kostya glared at us both. “You are clearly making plans for my demise. Very well. I cannot stop you, but I can repeat that my brother—”
“Yeah, I know, your brother’s going to beat us up if we kill you. What sort of people do you hang with that you get those sorts of scars, and are left exposed to the elements for years, and have to threaten people with your big brother?”
“Drake is my younger brother,” he said, clearly offended.
I laughed right out loud, which obviously offended him all the more.
“I’m sorry,” I said, putting a hand out and touching him on the arm before I realized what I was doing. He stared at my hand as if it were a three-headed crab. “I don’t like laughing at anyone, but you looked so enraged, it was impossible to stifle. Look, we seem to be at cross-purposes, so let’s start over again. I’m Aoife, and I found you lying unconscious on a beach outside my house. This is Dr. Ek. He’s retired but kindly offered to take a look at you when I hauled you out of the ocean. Neither one of us is interested in killing you or torturing you or leaving you out in the cold naked, alt
hough it’s July, so it’s really not that cold right now. Evidently you took a smack to the head—I don’t suppose you remember what happened to you?”
“What have you done with my clothes?” he asked, moving slightly away from me so that my hand dropped off his arm.
“I didn’t do anything with them. Dr. Ek cut off your shirt, so it’s probably not wearable, although your other clothes are behind you, on the chair. They’re sopping wet, though. Why aren’t you answering my question? I asked it nicely enough.”
“You have nothing to offer me for the answers,” he said dismissively, turning to grab his clothes, then obviously realized that he was exposing his butt to me. I got an eyeful before he whipped the towel around with one hand while grabbing his pants with the other. He held them up with a look of distaste. “They are wet.”
“How very nice of you to confirm what I just told you.”
“Your man’s clothes are wet,” Dr. Ek said, evidently wanting to join in on the let’s-say-the-obvious fun. “I suppose I could part with a pair of trousers. You wait here with him and see that he doesn’t break into my drug cabinet.”
Dr. Ek bustled past me to the door, where the dog, which had been lying down, sat up and watched him leave.
“Where is he going?” Kostya demanded. He now had the chair between us, using it as a shield for his modesty. “Is he fetching those who would destroy me?”
“You really do have a one-track mind, don’t you?” I spread my hands to show him that they, at least, were empty of threat. “He’s gone to get you some dry clothes, as a matter of fact. And if you think I’m going to pay you to answer a couple of civil questions, you’re more nuts that I ever was.”
He was about to answer, but some movement behind me must have caught his eye, because he stepped to the side and stared for a moment before turning a surprisingly furious expression upon me. “What are you doing with Jim?”
“Jim who?” I asked, confused.
He pointed to the door. “Do not deny that you have captured Jim. Or has it been sold into your employ?”
“I think Dr. Ek’s first name is—”
“Not the mortal. Jim,” Kostya said, pointing again. I turned to look. The dog sat there watching us.
“Oh,” I said, understanding dawning at last. “That’s your dog? I had no idea. I mean, he wasn’t near the beach at all when I ran him—er—found him. But he did snuffle you a lot when you were lying on the beach. Talk about serendipity, huh?”
“Jim is not mine,” he snorted. “It belongs to my brother’s mate, Aisling.”
“Really? That’s still odd that I should find both of you.” I turned to the dog and patted my leg. “Hey, Jim. Come here, boy.”
The dog cocked his head but didn’t move.
“He doesn’t seem to know his name very well. Does your sister-in-law say it differently?”
“Jim,” Kostya said, a disgusted curl to his lip, “tell this mortal who you are.”
Warning bells went off in my head. I mean, big-time warning bells, the kind that deafen you for a moment before leaving you with the overwhelming desire to get the hell away from the man who thought dogs could talk.
“Um,” I said, backing away from Kostya very slowly, so as not to capture his attention, “sorry, but that’s my cue to leave.”
I turned and bolted to the door, but just as I was about to fling it open, Kostya was suddenly there, all warm, naked skin, pressing me against it, his breath hot on my face as he demanded, “You will go nowhere, woman. Now you are my prisoner.”
Five
“I don’t know whether to be more disturbed by the fact that you think a dog can talk or that you can stand there, stark naked, without so much as a stapler as a weapon, and hold me prisoner.” I adopted a quite reasonable, conversational tone, the sort intended to calm deranged people and keep them from committing acts of violence. I tried very hard not to notice just how nice the naked Kostya felt against me, the unyielding planes of his body being softened by my curves. It was a wonderful demonstration of how men and women fit together, but now was not the time to dwell on that subject.
His eyes were black, I noticed as he scowled down at me. Not dark brown but black, as black as his pupils, but a shiny black, one that glittered with little specks of silver. Unfortunately, at that moment, the glitter took the form of ire. “What the hell are you talking about?” he demanded to know. “What stapler?”
“There’s no stapler,” I said, finding myself suddenly blighted with several conflicting desires, ranging from the urge to grab his head and kiss him to laughing at the crazy situation, stomping on his toes, kneeing him in the naked noogies, and running away.
He looked even more irritated. I tried to ignore the heat of his body pressed against mine. “Then why did you bring it up?”
“I was using it as an example of just how vulnerable you are,” I said, deciding to go with amusement. Dr. Barlind was big on the subject of using humor as a coping mechanism for trying situations. “You know, if you need someone to talk to about things, I know of a top-notch therapist. She really helped me when I was super-confused.”
My brain made a comment about denial and what happened to people who refused to admit the truth just because that ended up in shock therapy, but as usual, I paid it no attention.
“I have no need of therapy,” he scoffed, then must have realized just how hard he was pushing me into the wall, because he glanced downward. My breasts were smooshed up against his chest, making them bulge upward in a way that I would have found annoying in any other situation, but at that moment, they were deliriously happy with where they were, and that disturbed me more than anything.
“Stop ogling my boobs,” my mouth said before I could approve such a thing.
His gaze snapped up to mine. “You ogled me earlier.”
“You were naked. And you’re not at all bad-looking, despite those scars. I would have had to be inhuman to not ogle you at least a tiny bit, and I want full marks for handing you that towel without once looking down. It wasn’t easy, but I managed it, and I think credit should be given where credit is due.”
“Then you cannot damn me for looking at your breasts when they are flaunted in front of me,” he countered.
“That’s because you have me pinned to the door.” I waited for the count of five for him to step back. He didn’t. “You’re still doing that, by the way. Pinning me to the door, that is.”
“You are my prisoner,” he repeated.
That was the point where I noticed the fact that he smelled like the spicy mead that is sometimes served during regional festivals—the warm, summery hint of honey overlaid with a sharper note that seemed to sizzle along my skin. Despite the knowledge that I should be getting away from him as expeditiously as possible, I had the worst urge to tilt my head back and brush my mouth against his.
That was a crazy thought, and I didn’t have any more of those. So without disputing the fact that he had me prisoner, let alone the idea that he needed any such thing, I did the one thing that I knew would cause him to back off… I reached around him with both hands and squeezed cheek.
He leaped backward just at the moment when Dr. Ek opened the door, sending me stumbling forward straight into Kostya’s arms again.
“Couldn’t wait until you were home, eh?” Dr. Ek said, peering at us over his glasses. He held a stack of worn clothing that he offered to Kostya. “That bodes well for the bump on the head your man took. If he gets nauseous, though, you shall have to take him to the hospital. They can scan his brain there.”
Kostya donned the clothing and lectured me for at least five minutes about why it was unfair of me to accuse him of ogling my breasts when it was clear I lusted after his body, while at the same time Dr. Ek gave me instructions on warning signs to watch for should Kostya suddenly fall victim to some undetected head injury. I let them both talk until they ran out of steam, then turned to Kostya to say, “I wasn’t making a pass at you, so you can just drop that line.
I grabbed your butt so you’d back up and let me go. And, Dr. Ek”—I switched to Swedish—“I appreciate the fact that you are being conscientious and all, but I’m not going to be around to see if he has any of those reactions. I’ve told you that we’re not a couple, and he’s clearly got a screw loose upstairs somewhere, which means I want nothing to do with him.”
“We must be kind to those who are not as fortunate as we are,” Dr. Ek said, bustling us toward the door. To my surprise, Kostya allowed himself to be shooed, having first snagged his wet clothing and shoes. “You should not spurn a fine man simply because he is not entirely right in the head. Now, then, if you have a credit card, I would prefer that for payment over a check.”
Jim the dog—I’ll assume Kostya was correct about his name—followed us, bumping his nose into the back of my leg when I stopped suddenly at the front door. “What? Oh, yeah, you want payment. Um”—I switched languages and addressed Kostya—“the doctor wants to be paid. I don’t suppose you have any cash? Doesn’t matter if it’s wet or not.”
Kostya’s black eyes spoke volumes, none of which were the least bit helpful.
“Fine,” I snapped, pulling open my purse, which was strapped across my body. “You can owe me. Visa okay, Dr. Ek?”
It was, and after a couple of minutes, we found ourselves on the flagstone pathway that led across a tiny green lawn. The sun was still in twilight mode, leaving the trees beyond the road silhouetted against a hazy amber sky. Dark shapes flitted across the sky every now and again—bats out for the evening’s hunt. I drew in a deep breath, catching a faint note of lilac on the air, but mostly it was Kostya’s intriguing scent that filled my awareness.
I turned to Kostya and took his hand, giving it a firm shake before dropping it and saying in a bright, chipper voice, “Well, it was interesting meeting you and having my breasts squished against your chest. I hope your head feels better. I’m sure you can take the dog to your sister-in-law. You can donate the money for your doctor bill to whatever charity strikes your fancy. Good-bye.”