I yanked my eyes off the spandex that perfectly fit her phenomenal ass and typed out a reply to Alek.
Ransom: On my way
I hit send and ducked down to the refrigerator as Olivia came my way, her brow puckering as she responded to a text herself.
“Catch,” I called out, already tossing the extra bottle of water I’d grabbed.
“Thanks,” she answered, snatching it out of the air like a major league ballplayer.
The woman had instincts.
She flashed me a smile, and I had to remember how to unscrew the lid on my bottle. Her moves weren’t the only thing lethal about her. Olivia had a smile that would have launched a thousand ships if we were back in the era of Sparta and Troy. Hell, it probably would have launched them now if she’d ever shown interest in marrying or seeking a mate.
“No problem.” I grinned, then fumbled with my bottle. “Righty-tighty, lefty-loosey,” I mumbled under my breath.
“What?” she asked, tossing her long, thick braid back over her shoulder. The mass was the color of fresh espresso, which went right along with her scent—warm, rich chocolate and hazelnuts.
Twenty minutes around her, and I was always jonesing for a jar of Nutella.
“Nothing.” I twisted the top open and drained the whole bottle as we both headed for the door.
Two female trainees, both in their twenties, paused in the hallway just outside the door as we approached. Clarissa and…fuck, what was the brunette’s name…Sally? Sarah?
“Clarissa. Sophia.” Olivia nodded her head in greeting.
Sophia. That was it.
“Ladies,” I said, offering a smile as we passed by.
“Ransom.” Clarissa sighed my name as she fell back against the wall, her scent flooding the underground hallway with—
“Damn, doesn’t that ever get old?” Olivia asked as we both took a left at the fork in the tunnels, passing by one of the younger male trainees. In my defense, I didn’t know his name either. I wasn’t sexist. I just didn’t have time to get to know people. Not at the current state of our world.
“Leaving the gym at the same time as you? Never.” I grinned, keeping a healthy twelve inches between us so the females didn’t get any ideas. Olivia had come too far in her career to have the younger generation gossiping about shit she didn’t even do.
Which was exactly why I kept my distance from her.
Was she hot as hell? Yes. Funny? You bet. Would I have given my left nut to spend a single day with her in my bed? Absolutely. But there was a line even I wouldn’t cross, and that line was Avianna—the king’s little sister. She’d raise holy hell if I screwed with her best friend and bodyguard.
Besides, the thing about being an immortal vampire was that your hookups were immortal, too, and the only thing more awkward about an evening after a one-day stand was having to work with that female every day. Since I knew better than to seek out anything more permanent in the relationship department—I risked my life too often for that bullshit—that left Olivia and I at friends. Only friends.
“No, I mean the scent of lust trailing after you whenever you pass a female,” Olivia joked as we headed into the tunnels that belonged solely to the Residence—the home of the royal family and the Order of Onyx Assassins.
“Not every female,” I noted, lifting my eyebrows at her.
“Shut up.” She rolled her eyes.
“Seriously, though, Clarissa is getting to be…” I tilted my head, thinking of a word. “Insistent. She keeps sending me invitations to her bed.”
“Please.” Olivia scoffed. “Just because a female looks at you with a little heat and her scent goes all needy doesn’t mean it’s an invitation to her bed. Men.”
“Okay, well, would about four dozen emails asking me to fuck her in every way imaginable be enough to constitute an invitation?”
Olivia’s eyes flew wide, and her jaw dropped for a second. “She. Did. Not.”
“Oh, she did.”
Olivia laughed, and the sound filled the tunnel and played tricks with my heartbeat. You always want what you can’t have, don’t you?
We both took the left that led to the war room, then glanced at each other.
“You get summoned?” she asked, waving her cell phone.
“Yeah. You, too?”
She nodded.
I put my hand up to the biometric scanner and the door opened in a series of clicks as the various bolts slid to the unlocked position. This door was a work of art, just like everything else I’d designed to keep the royal family safe in our little war room.
“Ladies first,” I motioned through the door.
“Well damn.” Olivia grinned. “I don’t see any ladies here, do you?”
“For fuck’s sake,” I muttered and strode through the door, but there was a smile on my face. Hell, if I looked in the mirror, I bet my dimples were even out. She was always able to wring a genuine smile from me.