Goodie let her fingers relax in Salem’s hair as the lift stopped on the penthouse floor. She could feel Nick watching her and resisted the urge to tell him to stop. Unfortunately the whole nursing-her-back-to-health (although she doubted she would have carked it had Nick not intervened doing his Knight-in-Shining-Honey-and-Lemon routine), and her ridiculous reaction to the Gogal Mogal, meant that now he appeared to feel free to be, in her opinion, over-familiar.
It would help if she didn’t actually find his sense of humour, the way he looked out for Bertie and Ed, his commanding presence in the boardroom and his attention (including the way he watched her) irresistible, but she just couldn’t help herself. Men, even attractive men, had always been regarded with some form of suspicion and vague dislike by Goodie – either that or total indifference. Sam was one exception to this rule; she respected Sam, God’s knows he’d earned it; she could count him as a friend. But with Nick … somehow she felt like she was falling of a cliff, totally out of control, trying to grab on to something to stop herself but never quite managing it. For the first time since Goodie was nine years old she felt fear, and it was terrifying.
As soon as the doors were open she shot out of the lift, forcing herself to walk to her apartment door and not flat-out run like she wanted: that would show weakness, that would show him he affected her.
She felt heat at her back as she wrestled with the lock, and snapped her head around, looking up into his beautiful face, complete with thick five o’clock shadow. He smiled. That was the other thing: that fucking, fucking dimple. For some reason it made her stomach hollow out and her heart race. Before she’d met Nick she’d had full control over her autonomic nervous system: she could go without oxygen for up to eight minutes if required, she could slow her heart rate under battle circumstances in order to take the perfect shot – she was a goddamn machine for Christ’s sake. Why was she so affected by a fucking dimple?
The really perverse thing was she that went out of her way to provoke its appearance. Goodie had never tried to please anyone before (unless of course it served her purposes); she certainly never tried to make anyone smile. But with Nick she found herself dropping more and more deadpan little jokes here and there: in response to the HR team’s third interrogation about Goodie’s full name in the reception area she had stared at them all for a moment as they blocked her and Nick’s way, and then told them her full name was: ‘Yukanol Fukov.’ One of the more dopey ones even made her spell it out for them. By the time Nick and Goodie had made it back to his office he was shaking with laughter and the dimple was out again in full force.
He’d laughed even harder when Bertie had sidled in and said, ‘Good grief, not surprised you kept that one up your sleeve for so long. Fukov must be devilishly tricky to pull off as a surname over here. Can’t say I’ve heard a lady called Yukanol before … um … not that it isn’t …’
Goodie took pity on him. ‘Bertie,’ she interrupted; he looked over at her and she winked. ‘You can call me Yuko.’ Bertie beamed, obviously interpreting this as a high honour indeed, and Nick started laughing again. One of the worst things was that Nick’s laughter and his fucking dimple both made Goodie smile. She was smiling all the bloody time at the moment, like her face had taken on a life of its own.
‘What are you doing?’ she asked, turning back to open her door. Nick’s large hand reached up above her head and pushed it open with her, and to her exasperation he then followed her inside before she could shut it in his face.
‘I thought we could watch something; get a takeaway; hang out.’ Nick ambled over to her sofa as he said all this, then flopped down on it, put his massive feet up on the coffee table, and grabbed the remote.
‘I have things to do,’ Goodie bit out, watching Salem (the traitor) pad over to where Nick was sitting and put his head on his lap.
‘Like what?’
Goodie scowled at him. She was planning on doing what she had done every night since she’d been ill: make some Gogal Mogal, curl up on the sofa to reread The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and try to remember her mother. Until Nick had handed her that drink she hadn’t realized how much of her childhood before that traumatic day when she was nine she’d blocked out. For some reason forgetting nearly everything about her mother made her feel desolate and guilty now. If Goodie didn’t remember her, then it was like she never existed: just another murdered whore in the slums of Cherepovets City. Just a statistic. So she would sit on the sofa and smell the Gogal Mogal, trying to conjure up her image; but everything was cloudy. Goodie could see her mother’s blonde hair but not how long it was or how she wore it; see the outline of her face but none of her features. Maybe it wasn’t healthy to be dwelling on this, but somehow Goodie felt she had to.
‘That is none of your business,’ she snapped at him. ‘I am off the clock: the building’s security system is airtight; the far guards are outside. You don’t need me.’
‘Maybe you need me,’ Nick said softly, and she snorted, turning away from him and stomping to the kitchen. She came back with two bottles of beer in her hands, dumped one in front of Nick’s feet and then sat on the other end of the sofa with hers.
‘I will have curry,’ she told him, curling her feet underneath her and focusing on the television screen, which he had turned onto the news. Out of the corner of her eye she could see he had turned to face her, his arm draping across the back of the sofa, and even though she couldn’t see his face she could feel his smile.
‘What kind of curry do you like?’ he asked, digging his phone out of his pocket. Goodie just shrugged, remaining focused on the screen. ‘Hey,’ he called softly, and she reluctantly turned towards him. ‘What kind of curry do you want, honey? This is not a state secret; you can tell me.’ His voice was soft but he was still smiling slightly and his eyes were dancing. Everything about his body language was open: the way he sat, his outspread arms, his body facing hers. That was one of the things she had noticed about Nick that she found hopelessly appealing: he was so open, so charming, he could put anyone at ease within seconds of meeting them no matter what. Her total and complete opposite, she thought, as she noted her own body language: arms wrapped around herself, body curled towards the side of the sofa away from him; defensive, closed. She forced her arms to loosen their grip on her sides and turned to face him, realizing that the way she was sitting showed she was uncomfortable. It showed weakness. She was not afraid of him.
‘I like anything with a kick,’ she told him.
‘Of course you do,’ he muttered through a chuckle, putting the phone to his ear.
*****
It was after they’d eaten the curry, after watching Star Wars together on the sofa (Nick had been incensed that Goodie had never seen any of the Star Wars films – he acted like it was some sort of emergency situation to be rectified), and after Goodie had drunk two bottles of beer. Nick flicked off the television and the room dimmed to just the soft glow from a small lamp on a side table. He had been inching towards her all night. When the curry arrived he’d jumped up to get it and then moved to the middle of the sofa to set it all out. After they’d finished he had insisted on clearing away the plates and containers. Salem, as if in league with Nick, had taken that opportunity to jump up on the sofa and spread his huge furry body out with a loud sigh of contentment, meaning that when Nick returned he ended up sitting even closer to Goodie. So close, in fact, that he had slung his arm up behind her head on the back of the sofa, and eventually he had let it drop to her shoulder and pulled her against him. She pushed up but he just kept her pinned to his chest muttering ‘settle’ into her hair and kissing the side of her head. And, God help her, with his warm chest under her cheek, his clean, woodsy scent all around her, she couldn’t help herself: she settled.
For over an hour the steady beat of his heart and the sound of his breathing surrounded her, and she felt … peaceful. This was not normal for Goodie; there were very few things in her life that had brought her that kind of peace. So when the room dimmed and his heartbeat was all she could hear she went a little mad. She pushed back from him slightly so that she could look up into his beautiful face. Her hand lifted of its own accord to trace the stubble on his cheek, his eyebrow, and finally to snake its way into his thick, dark hair. She stared at his mouth and could feel his heartbeat pick up under her other hand on his chest. Then she kissed him. It was a light brush of the lips before she pulled back, but only far enough to rest her forehead against his. Their mouths were millimetres apart and their breath mingled as their eyes locked. She could feel his big body tensing under her hand, feel the strain he was exerting to hold himself back.
‘Let go,’ she whispered into his mouth, and it was like she’d tripped a switch. The arm that was already around her shoulders tightened, pulling her body flush against his, and his other hand plunged into her hair so that he could tilt her head back and kiss her. This kiss was not light; it was out of control, brutal, almost desperate. He pushed her back until she was lying against the arm of the sofa, pressing her into the leather, one of his hands still in her hair and the other sliding under the hem of her T-shirt. Goodie tried to hold onto the feel of this amazing man, tried not to slide from the moment, but her mind had other ideas and her body stiffened as she drifted away from what was happening. Nick stilled on top of her, then drew back. He searched her face, a small frown forming between his brows.
‘Baby,’ he breathed, and she blinked. Why had he stopped? ‘Baby, come back to me.’ Slowly she let herself return from automatic pilot until she was really looking at him.
‘What is the matter?’ she asked as he stroked the side of her head. As his hands moved behind her ear they found the scar tissue she had there which carved down across the back of her neck under her hairline.
‘What the …?’ he muttered as he turned her head to the side so that he could see the scar more clearly. ‘What happened?’
Goodie shrugged. ‘It could have been worse; could have been my carotid he sliced. It was a lesson for me: never turn your back on your enemy.’ Nick’s eyes darkened and his jaw clenched. His hand continued down her neck to her clavicle and then across to her shoulder, pushing her top to the side. Goodie sighed as he encountered more scar tissue.
‘Fucking hell,’ he muttered, peering down at the circular scar, his face strangely pale. ‘You were shot.’
Goodie rolled her eyes, then reached up and cupped his face with her hand, putting pressure on his cheek so that he looked away from her scar and into her eyes. ‘I have many scars, Nick,’ she told him, and his jaw clenched even tighter. ‘You must understand. For someone like me it is different. It is what I am trained for … all I am good for. Yes, I have many scars, but for every scar on my body there are many, many more that I have inflicted on others. Don’t forget that. Don’t forget who I am.’
‘You’re wrong; Pain and violence are not all you’re good for,’ Nick said, his voice rising in anger. He pushed away from her abruptly to the other side of the sofa and ran both hands through his hair. Goodie blinked at the ceiling for a minute, then sat herself up and curled her legs beneath her, body language defensive again. Okay, so he didn’t like scars; he wouldn’t be the first and he certainly would not be the last. Her throat felt tight as she swallowed; she chalked it up to the after-effects of her illness. She heard Nick take a deep breath, and could feel the tension rolling off him even with the distance separating them.
‘Right,’ he said into the silence, jumping to his feet. Goodie turned away towards Salem and stroked his head absently, expecting to hear the door slam after Nick. A shadow blocked out the light from the lamp and she turned in surprise to see him looming over her. He seemed calmer, but she could still see a muscle ticking in his jaw. He squatted down in front of her and reached out to take both of her hands in his. ‘I’m sorry you were hurt,’ he said softly, leaning in slowly to kiss the scar behind her ear, and then pulling her shirt back to kiss the one on her shoulder.
‘Life is pain,’ Goodie muttered, and felt his tension fill the room again. He leaned back to look her in the eyes, his face hovering close to hers.
‘It doesn’t have to be, baby,’ he said, his voice still soft.
‘Maybe not for you.’ His jaw clenched again and his hands tightened their grip on hers for a moment, before he closed the gap between them and kissed her swiftly on the mouth, then on her nose. It was the kind of casual, sweet affection that Goodie had never really experienced. The vice around her throat tightened and she swallowed.
‘I’ll just have to convince you otherwise,’ he said, his total and utter confidence oozing from every word. He pulled her up to stand with him and led her over to her door. She was frowning when he turned back to her, which for some reason made him smile, dimple and all. He brushed her mouth with his once more before pulling open her door. ‘Tomorrow, then, bright and early.’
Goodie stood staring at the door after Nick had closed it. Her hand went to her mouth and her fingers touched her lips almost reverently before she shook her head and turned away.
