Staying Dead - Laura Anne Gilman [82]
She started a little, a flush coloring her cheekbones. “Your hair is standing on end,” she told him, then giggled. “Looks cute.”
He grumbled at her, then headed off to find the spare toothbrush and a comb.
Wren watched him walk down the hallway, enjoying the visual as one of those unspoken perks of her job. Sergei in dress slacks and nothing else was a sight no red-blooded, breathing, hetero female should miss. It wasn’t so much that her partner was built—he wasn’t, really. Big guy, yeah, very nice shoulders and his forearms made long-sleeved shirts a crime, but he wasn’t exactly underwear model material. But the muscles he did have were clean and smooth, and he walked like a tiger.
Nice to look at. And so warm…She giggled, remembering his reaction to her iced-up hand. The skin on his neck was so sensitive, he told her once, that he had to use a special shaving cream to keep the razor from irritating it.
That ice cube was cruel, but effective, she thought. There really wasn’t any other way to wake a man who slept that deeply. Not when he knew he was here, safe: not without letting a stranger off the street come in and stand behind him. And then pity the poor stranger.
Drawing in a deep breath, she exhaled, feeling her own tension start to creep back into her shoulders. Despite a full night of sleep, in a comfortable bed, there was still a gut-deep unease riding her. They needed more information. Fast.
Tossing the ice bag into the kitchen sink, she went into her bedroom and got a shirt from out of the lowest drawer of the dresser, added a pair of dress socks and boxers to that. Stacking it into a pile, she stuck her head into the bathroom to make sure he was safely in the shower.
“I’m leaving fresh clothing on the toilet,” she told him, raising her voice to be heard over the water. She assumed the muffled groan she heard was acknowledgement. “I’m gonna run down to Unray’s for a calzone. You want anything?”
The groan this time had a distinct negative to it.
“Okay. Back in ten.”
By the time she got back, he had boiled water for tea, and was ensconced at her breakfast table, reading the newspaper. Reading glasses he denied needing were perched low down on his nose, and his eyes darted back and forth, scanning the articles, mining them for anything of interest. When his eyes slowed down, she made a mental note to read the article he was studying.
She sat down on the only other chair and unwrapped her breakfast. The smell of warm cheese, dough and tomato sauce filled the air, and her stomach rumbled. By now, Sergei was used to her odd eating habits, if not reconciled to them, and he ignored both her and the smell.
Finally he folded the paper, put it down on the table, and folded the glasses and put them away. “What’s the game plan for today?”
She shrugged, mopping up the last of the sauce with a scrap of dough. “Poke around. See what pokes back.”
“Be careful,” he said. “I don’t think the client is very happy with us right now, and I trust him about as far as I can throw that damn building of his.”
“Gut feeling?” Nice to have confirmation, even if it was of bad news rising.
An exhalation through the nose that might have been a laugh. “A little. Maybe. If you think maybe you’re getting onto shaky gossip-ground, back off.”
“I’ll be delicate as a butterfly.”
“And the beating of your wings therefore causing a typhoon in China. Not reassured, Wren.”
“Go do your sober business guy thing,” she said, flapping a hand at him. “And leave the real work to the Talent.”
After Sergei left, Wren took a quick shower, then put together a plan of attack. She needed fresh veggies anyway, so that was a place to start. Grabbing her oversized shoulder bag, a lime-green monstrosity she hadn’t been able to lose for almost five years now, she shoved her sunglasses, the mini-recorder, a protein