Page 8

by Evangeline Anderson

I bit my lip and looked down at my plate. We hadn’t even been in this per­ver­ted place two hours and already I was com­pletely over it. How in the world had I al­lowed the Cap­tain to talk us into this in the first place?

“Per­haps now is good time to say good night,” Salt said, ob­vi­ously pick­ing up on my mood. “We are very tired and jet­lagged from long flight. Is there any­thing else we should do be­fore we say go to our suite?”

“Hmm?” Berkley looked up, glassy eyed. “Uh, no. No, of course not,” he mumbled.” He mo­tioned at one of the ser­vants. “Show Mr. Saltanov and his Little…to their…to their room.”

Chapter Five

“Well, that was creepy,” I re­marked as we fi­nally stepped in­side our suite and shut the doors be­hind us.

The area as­signed to us was a richly ap­poin­ted set of rooms with a fire­place in the sit­ting room, a vast king sized bed and an over­sized rock­ing chair in the bed­room. There was also a marble tub big enough to swim in right in the cen­ter of the bath­room. All of the dec­or­a­tions with the ex­cep­tion of the tub looked like some­thing out of a turn of the cen­tury bor­dello. There was deep red car­pet on the floor and gold and black vel­vet wall­pa­per on the walls. The bed­spread was a deep, an­tique gold which looked ex­pens­ive and tacky at the same time.

“To say the least,” Salt said shortly. He sighed. “At least now we have brief re­prieve. We will not have to deal with these people again un­til to­mor­row.”

“You don’t think we should go out and scout around a little to­night?” I asked in a low voice. “Maybe check out the lay of the land while every­one is asleep?”

He shook his head. “I think we are still un­der some sus­pi­cion. Is bet­ter we stay in to­night. Be­sides…” He looked at me crit­ic­ally. “I think you are need­ing some sleep, Andi. A good long rest.”

“I’m fine,” I said brist­ling an­grily. “At least I will be if I can ever get this per­ver­ted cos­tume and these hor­rible shoes off. They hurt.”

“Come. Sit.”

Salt drew me to the plush, gold up­holstered sofa in front of the fire­place. Someone had built a small fire in the fire­place which should have been too hot for Tampa—even in the fall. But the AC must have been cranked up be­cause the warm glow of the fire was pleas­ant rather than op­press­ive.

In the light of the flick­er­ing flames I thought my part­ner looked pos­it­ively huge—a vast, black shadow that would have frightened me if I was really the little girl I was pre­tend­ing to be. Yet, when he pulled me onto the sofa with him, he was amaz­ingly gentle.

“Why are we just sit­ting here?” I asked him. “I want to get out of this aw­ful dress and get a shower.”

“You will see.” He drew my feet into his lap and star­ted tak­ing off the pat­ent leather shoes.

“Salt, no!” I ex­claimed, try­ing to pull my feet away. “You don’t have to do that.”

“But I want to.” He held me firmly and stripped off the little white lace ankle socks that went with the dress. “You said you hurt—yes?”

“Well, yes…” I was still strug­gling fu­tilely. Salt was al­ways so care­ful around me that some­times I for­got how in­cred­ibly strong my part­ner was. I would prob­ably have as much luck try­ing to get out of a pair of steel hand­cuffs as I would get­ting away from his grip on me. Still, I tried. “I wasn’t say­ing I wanted a foot mas­sage. Hon­estly!” I pro­tested, wig­gling.

“Maybe I want to give one,” he said reas­on­ably. Tak­ing one of my feet in his large hands, he began to press the sole of my foot gently with his thumbs. “After all, what kind of a Papa would I be if I did not take care of my little mishka?” he said giv­ing me one of his rare half-smiles. “If I didn’t take care of this little foot?” He com­pared it briefly to his hand and I saw that from heel to toes, my foot was not quite as long as his hand was from palm to fin­gers. Then he star­ted rub­bing again.

“I don’t…don’t know. Ahhh,” I moaned softly when he pressed the arch of my foot in just the right way. Wow, he really knew what he was do­ing! Who knew my part­ner had such hid­den tal­ents?

“Just re­lax,” Salt ad­vised me. “Let me take care of you, Andi.”

“You really don’t have to, though,” I pro­tested, but I had stopped strug­gling to get away. His hands felt too good to fight any­more. “I mean, this isn’t the kind of thing we usu­ally, you know, do for each other,” I poin­ted out.

Which was true. Though, as I men­tioned earlier, Salt touched me a lot, none of the touches were really in­tim­ate. Or maybe that’s the wrong way to put it, I don’t know. The point was, he had never pulled me down on the sofa, taken off my socks and shoes, and star­ted rub­bing my feet be­fore. That was just some­place we didn’t go and it felt kind of weird to go there now.

Weird, but nice, I ad­mit­ted to my­self. Salt’s big hands felt like ma­gic and I couldn’t help re­lax­ing back into the couch as he con­tin­ued to rub me.

“Just be­cause we do not do these things for each other does not mean we should not do them,” he re­marked. “Any time you wish for a mas­sage, you have only to ask. You know this, Andi.”

“Ac­tu­ally, I didn’t know it,” I said. “But I do now. God, you’re good at that!”

“I am glad you like.” He star­ted on the other foot. “To­mor­row we will go to cos­tume shop and get you new shoes that do not hurt.”

“A new dress, too,” I said quickly. “I hate this one.”

“Be­cause you think is per­ver­ted?” Salt in­quired, rais­ing one eye­brow at me as he con­tin­ued to rub my foot.

“No,” I said guardedly. “Be­cause it re­minds me of one…one I had when I was a kid, I think. I didn’t re­mem­ber it un­til I saw my­self in that big, old mir­ror in the entry­way.”

“Is that why you kept star­ing at the re­flec­tion?” he asked. “I was wor­ried—you seemed…what is the word? With­drawn. Like you had gone some­place else—some­place I could not fol­low.”

I was sur­prised that my part­ner was so at­tuned to my emo­tions.

“Well, yes,” I said care­fully. “I guess you could say that. I was…re­mem­ber­ing. I…my dad bought me a dress like this one be­fore…be­fore he left.”

“Yes?” Salt asked softly.

“Yes.” I nod­ded. “He…he bought it for a Father/daugh­ter Valentine’s Day dance we were hav­ing at my school.” I didn’t know why I was telling him this but some­how I couldn’t seem to stop. My mouth kept mov­ing and as I talked, more and more memor­ies seemed to rush in from the dusty corners of my brain where I’d locked them away so many years ago. “We used to prac­tice for it,” I heard my­self say. “I would put on the dress and he would have me stand on his feet and dance me around the room. I looked for­ward to it for months.”

“This Father/daugh­ter dance—was it good?” Salt asked.

“I don’t know.” I looked down at my hands. “He—my father—left us about a month be­fore it happened. On the…on the night of the dance…” I cleared my throat. “I…I…”

“Go on,” Salt said, so softly I felt the words more than heard them.

“I put on the dress,” I said, still talk­ing to my hands. “I was sure—so sure—he would come back just for that stu­pid dance. After all, he’d bought me the dress for that ex­act reason. He said he wanted to see his ‘pretty little sweet­heart’ twirl­ing around on the dance floor in it.” I gave a bit­ter laugh that seemed to stick in my throat. “That’s what he called me—his little sweet­heart. I knew he wouldn’t stand me up—I knew he’d come back for the Valentine’s Day dance at least.”

“And did he?” Salt asked.

I looked up at him. “I’m sure you already know the an­swer to that. No.” I sighed. “No, he didn’t come back. I sat in front of the house for hours un­til it was way past my bed­time—way after the dance was over with. Fi­nally
my mom came out and dragged me in­side. She kept say­ing, ‘he’s not com­ing back. I told you, Ant­oinette, he’s never com­ing back.’ Then she made me take off the dress and she stuffed it…stuffed it into the…the garbage…”

“Andi…” Salt’s voice was in­fin­itely gentle. He stopped mas­sa­ging my foot and reached out to cup my cheek in­stead.

I pulled away from his touch.

“You don’t have to do that—don’t have to com­fort me,” I said sharply. “I’m fine.”

“Then why are you cry­ing?” Salt asked softly.

“I’m not!” I put my fin­gers to my cheek and they came away wet. “I…I have some­thing in my eye,” I said, de­fend­ing my­self.

“I see much in your eyes,” Salt rumbled. “And none of it is very happy.”

“I have to go. I need to take a shower.” I pulled my feet off his lap and this time he let me.

I hur­ried past him, not look­ing at his face, and locked my­self into the huge bath­room. There I stripped off the aw­ful dress and threw it on the floor. In my head, I kept hear­ing my mother say­ing over and over that my father wasn’t com­ing back. But there was one other thing she’d said that I hadn’t told Salt—and now I was glad I hadn’t. She’d said…

“He left be­cause of you,” I whispered to my­self as I stood na­ked in the middle of the vast bath­room, shiv­er­ing. “Your father left be­cause of you, Andi. And he’s never com­ing back.”

*

By the time I fin­ished my long, hot shower and toweled my hair dry, I had mostly got­ten my­self to­gether. It was just a bad memory, I told my­self, blot­ting my eyes and tak­ing a deep breath. Just an old, bad memory that had been brought up by that stu­pid little girl party dress.

I would get rid of the dress and wear some­thing else. Salt and I would get on with the mis­sion and find out who was cook­ing and dis­trib­ut­ing Please. And then we would go back to our old lives and everything would get back to nor­mal. I just had to make it through a few more days and everything would be fine.

I wrapped my­self in a towel, since I had no other clothes in the bath­room and I re­fused to put the dress back on un­der any cir­cum­stances. Then I came out into the sit­ting room.

Salt was stand­ing in front of the fire with his shirt off, wear­ing a pair of black, silky sleep trousers. It oc­curred to me that in the three years we’d been part­ners, I’d never seen him with his shirt all the way off. We had gone to the beach once or twice but even there, he’d worn a t-shirt with his swim trunks.

He had his back to me and was in the act of put­ting on a t-shirt now but he paused for a mo­ment—I think be­cause the shirt was in­side-out and he wanted to switch it around. I was go­ing to say some­thing to him—some glib re­mark about how I had rinsed the speck in my eye out in the shower—but a flash of sil­very white caught my at­ten­tion.

Salt moved, his broad shoulders flex­ing and I saw it again—the fire­light skated along a criss-crossed pat­tern of sil­ver scars on his mus­cu­lar back.

“Salt?” I said softly, go­ing to him.

“Andi?” He turned quickly, put­ting his back out of sight. “I did not hear you come out of the shower.”

“What happened to your back?” I asked, ges­tur­ing at him. “Those scars—they look—”

“Old in­jury,” he said in a man­ner I thought was just a little too off­hand. “When I was in Mo­scow po­lice. The sus­pect had a knife—”

“Those weren’t made with a knife,” I in­ter­rup­ted him. “They’re too even. They look like some kind of lash marks.” I walked be­hind him and put my hand on his back. He jumped away from my touch at first but when I touched him again, he sighed and let me. “Salt, what happened?” I asked, tra­cing the pat­tern of sil­very scars with my fin­gers.

For a mo­ment, his en­tire big body tensed and I thought he was go­ing to shout at me or maybe just with­draw and re­fuse to speak at all. But fi­nally he turned to face me.

“It was old in­jury,” he said quietly. “But not from knife fight. These scars are from a belt.”

It took a minute to click but when it did my eyes went wide.

“You mean from when your father beat you? Your father did that to you?”

He nod­ded. “Da—he did.”

“But…why?” I shook my head, un­com­pre­hend­ing. Though I had seen a lot of aw­ful things in my time at the PD, I still couldn’t un­der­stand what would cause a per­son to ab­use a help­less child.

Salt sighed and ran a hand through his hair.

“I would rather not speak of it now, if is all the same to you, Andi.”

I didn’t feel like I had the right to in­vade his pri­vacy. Not about some­thing like this, any­way. After all, my dad might have left me but at least he had never beaten me and from the look of the scars on my part­ner’s back, those beat­ings must have been par­tic­u­larly sav­age.

“All right, I’m sorry,” I said awk­wardly. “I guess we both had pretty shitty dads.”

“Is all right,” he said stolidly. “It was a long time ago. I was…re­luct­ant to let you see.” He gave a hu­mor­less laugh. “Now, at least, I can take off my shirt at the beach next time.”

“You could have taken it off be­fore,” I said, frown­ing. “You could have told me—I would have un­der­stood.”

“Maybe.” He shrugged. “I did not want you to pity me.”

“Me either,” I said softly. “About…I mean…you know what I mean.”

“Bet­ter than any­one else would,” Salt mur­mured. “Well, since now you know…” He dropped the t-shirt he’d been hold­ing on the couch. “I will sleep without. Is too hot for shirt any­way.”

“I don’t think so.” I shivered. “I’m freez­ing and I just now real­ized I didn’t bring any pa­ja­mas.”

“This is no prob­lem. Look in the bed­room—some have been left for you.”

I went in and found a set of pa­ja­mas that were just my size hanging over the back of the over­sized rock­ing chair. The only prob­lem was that they were covered in…

“My Little Pony?” I tweezed the pjs between my thumb and fin­ger and held them up in dis­gust. “Hon­estly, where did they even find these in an adult size?”

“They prob­ably didn’t. You are no big­ger than a large child, you know,” Salt said, com­ing up be­hind me. His face was ser­i­ous but his pale blue eyes were dan­cing and I knew he was mak­ing fun of me.

“Ha-ha,” I said dryly. “Very, funny Salt but I’m not wear­ing these.” I dropped the pa­ja­mas covered in pas­tel ponies on the floor. “I’d rather sleep in the nude.”

“As we are sup­posed to be shar­ing a bed, I do not think that would be a good idea,” Salt growled softly. “There is only so much I can take, Andi.”

I bit my lip and looked up at him. There it was again—the veiled ad­mis­sion that he found me sexu­ally at­tract­ive. Hon­estly, see­ing him stand­ing there with his broad, bare, mus­cu­lar chest and that light in his ice blue eyes, I had to ad­mit I was feel­ing the heat too. There was no deny­ing that my part­ner was damn sexy—at­tract­ive in a way I’d never let my­self no­tice be­fore.

But I wasn’t ready to go there with Salt. Go­ing there would foul up our en­tire re­la­tion­ship, I told my­self. We were already get­ting in too deep—ad­mit­ting pains from our re­spect­ive pasts that we had long kept bur­ied. It was bet­ter to try and get things back on an even keel.

So I picked up the pa­ja­mas and waved them at him flir­ta­tiously.

“All right, Papa—mishka will wear her PJs,” I said in my best little girl voice. “No need to get up­set.”

Salt’s face, which had been filled with ten­sion, re­laxed and he barked a laugh.

“All right my little mishka. Run get dressed and Papa will read you a bed­time story and tuck you in.”

I went back to the bath­room to change, glad to have aver­ted
the sexual ten­sion between us. When I came back, Salt was sit­ting on the left side of the bed closest to the door. He had turned off the over­head lights and the room was lit only by the soft, golden glow of the bed­side lamp.

He pat­ted the right side of the bed be­side him.

“Come, mishka,” he said softly. “Let Papa tuck you in.”

It felt a little weird that we were still do­ing the Papa/mishka thing but I reasoned that any­thing that helped de­fuse the ten­sion was worth a little weird­ness.

“Okay, Papa,” I chirped and went to sit be­side him.

Salt ac­tu­ally got up and pulled back the cov­ers for me. Then he tucked me in and settled back be­side me. This time I saw that he had a large, brightly colored book in his big hands.

“What’s that? Light read­ing?” I asked.

“Fairy tales,” he said simply. “Rus­sian fairy tales, ac­tu­ally writ­ten in Rus­sian. Someone was very thought­ful.”

“It’s a per­sonal touch to make you feel happy here. The hap­pier you are, the longer you’ll stay and the more money you’ll spend,” I pre­dicted. “Or else they want to be sure you really speak Rus­sian and you’re not just put­ting on an ac­cent.”

“How cyn­ical you are, my little mishka.” Salt made a tsk­ing sound and shook his head.

“Just real­istic. Read one to me.” I yawned and snuggled deeper into the cov­ers. Salt’s big body was ra­di­at­ing heat against my side and I was be­gin­ning to feel pleas­antly warm and drowsy.

His eye­brows raised in sur­prise.

“Truly? You want a bed­time story?”

“Why not…Papa?” I smiled at him. “I used to love bed­time stor­ies when I was a kid.” I frowned. “Of course, my dad was the only one who read them to me. That’s weird—I for­got about that un­til just now.”

“Will it bother you to hear one, then?” Salt asked quietly.

I thought about it and shook my head.

“No. But read it in Rus­sian first and then trans­late.”