Page 35 of Break Me Open
Every time my brain idles, it goes straight back to the spar, the way he moved, the way he pinned me, that stupid, smug, infuriating little half-smile he wears like he knows exactly what he’s doing to me.
Which, to be fair, he probably does.
Niko laughs at something one of my corporals says. His head is tipped back, and he has that easy glow to him that makes everyone within ten feet twenty percent less miserable.
“You’re cheating,” I tell him, eyeing the way his cards stay tucked close against his chest, his face giving nothing away. “There’s no way you pulled that many hearts by accident.”
“The only cheating here is your maths, Caiden. You just don’t like losing.”
“Doesn’t count as losing if you’re cheating,” I mutter. The lads snicker, and someone tops my glass up with vodka, thedecent stuff, not the paint thinner they serve in the mess. The warmth creeps down my throat and settles in my stomach. I’m at that fuzzy line between relaxed and reckless whenheshows up.
He doesn’t make an entrance — he never does. It’s not his style. One second, the doorway’s empty, the next there he is, like the room’s been rewritten around him. Ari’s in his off-duty kit: fatigues, a long-sleeved shirt, his sleeves shoved up to his forearms.
His blond hair is pushed back, with a strand falling loose onto his forehead. There’s a cut on his lip, probably from training earlier, and I hate that I notice it. “Ah, no,” Mason mutters under his breath in front of me when he clocks the new arrival. “Not him. I’m too tired for international incidents.”
“Shut up and play your hand,” I say, without taking my eyes off Ari. He scans the room lazily, with that same mix of boredom and amusement that makes my skin prickle and starts weaving through the tables. A few blokes straighten when they see him. A couple of Russians nod, and another pretends not to notice.
Ari ignores all of them.
“Look at this,” he says as he reaches us, dropping a hand onto Niko’s shoulder. Of course, he ends up at our table. “All my favourite trouble in one place.”
“You’re late,” Niko says, shrugging him off, but his grin says he’s pleased. “We started without you.”
“Tragic,” Ari drawls. “Deal me in.” He pulls a chair from the next table over with his foot, dragging it backwards and dropping into it between Niko and me.
“Evening, Sergeant,” I say, keeping my tone as neutral as possible.
“Evening, Lance Corporal,” he replies lightly. “You look tense. Is that because of the cards, or are you... uncomfortable?”
I throw a card down a little harder than necessary. “Maybe I just don’t like crowds.”
“This isn’t a crowd,” he says.
Niko sighs, swapping a card. “We’re off duty,” he reminds his brother. “Try being less you, for five minutes.”
“Why?” Ari asks. “I’m delightful.” He says it with a straight face, and somehow that makes it worse. The game rolls on, and the room gets louder. Stories get told — some true, some stretched beyond recognition — and laughter sparks and dies in pockets. Niko leans into my space when he’s telling a story about some idiot who tried to jump a ditch and ended up face-first in a frozen stream.
“And this one,” he says, jabbing his thumb toward Ari, “is laughing his head off on the bank instead of helping.”
“I was assessing the situation,” Ari protests.
“You were wheezing like you were going to need a medic yourself,” Niko snorts. The whole table laughs, including me, which is a problem because when I laugh, I let my guard down, and when I do, I hear things I shouldn’t.
Like Ari’s breathing next to me.
His knee knocks into mine under the table and doesn’t move away. Heat rushes up my leg, and I tell myself it’s the vodka. He leans in to reach for the bottle, and his shoulder brushes my arm. Then, absolutely deliberately, his breath ghosts my ear.
“Relax, detka,” he murmurs so quietly that no one else hears it. The pet name, whatever it is — the way he says it, it’s as if he’s testing how much he can get away with in plain sight.
My brain fumbles, buffer overflow, error, error.
“You miss a go or you just like looking at your cards?” Mason asks. My hand is still fanned out, practically untouched.
“Keep your shirt on,” I mutter, playing a card. Ari hums a little pleased sound beside me like he’s filed something away for later. The bottle makes another round, and Niko throws in a story about a joint exercise in Germany. One of my lads answers with something from Bosnia, and the radio crackles through a static-filled chorus. But you can barely hear it over someone at the next table shouting dares.
It’s noisy, messy, and human. It should be easy to drown in and forget the man sitting a few inches away, but he doesn’t let me. Whenever I start to relax, he’s there. For everyone else in the room, it probably looks like we’re just shifting in our seats. But I feel every single point of contact.
Our knees bump under the table, the inside of his foot grazes mine when he crosses his legs, then his fingers brush the back of my hand when he reaches for the bottle I’m holding. Each little touch is nothing by itself — a glitch, almost an accident.
