Page 18 of Her Selfless Warrior (Omega Sky)
She looked at his hand for just a moment, then smiled. He noticed this time her eyes were back to light blue. She shook his hand.
“Friends.”
* * *
“I’m bored,”Gideon said for the fourth time as they finished up another lap around the obstacle course.
Kostya looked over at his second-in-command from where he was he was leaning over. The bastard was sweating, sure, but was he breathing like a three-pack-a-day smoker? No! Not like Kostya was. Shit, at forty-one, he was feeling every damn one of those years after having gone a third time around the obstacle course. He should have stopped after the second time—and he would have if Gideon hadn’t dared him.
Asshole.
“How come Night Storm got a mission and we didn’t?” Gideon whined.
Kostya pushed up into a standing position and laughed. He couldn’t help it; Gideon had sounded exactly like a petulant four-year-old.
“You’ve been babysitting your brother’s kids again, haven’t you?”
“Yep. I think I’ve got Kyle’s voice running on a loop in my head, like some kind of earworm. It’s killing me.”
Kostya laughed again. “So why do it?”
“Michael’s ex is giving him a hard time. When it’s his time with the kids and he has to go to work, he has to leave them with a babysitter, then his ex has a shit-fit. But if he leaves the boys with family, she can’t kick up as much of a fuss with the judge.”
“That is reason one hundred and ninety-seven I’m thankful Debra and I never had kids,” was Kostya’s heartfelt response as they started to walk away from the obstacle course.
“Plus the fact that she had no spine and you would have been stuck raising them by yourself, as well as continuing to raise her,” Gideon uttered sarcastically.
“What are you talking about?” Kostya’s tone was mild. The divorce was nine years in the past, so hearing something negative about Debra no longer stung.
“Just that she’s the normal type of woman you like. Like Landon, you definitely have a type.”
Kostya gave his friend a look out of the corner of his eye. “I know for a fact I don’t like strippers. So what are you talking about? I’ve dated women who have been everything from waitresses to vice presidents of banks—I’d say I don’t have a type, my man.”
Gideon snorted. “I’d say you’re wrong. Every single woman wanted you to rescue them from some sort of situation.”
“I call bullshit. Think about Mary, she didn’t have anything going on in her life that she needed rescuing from.”
“Sureshe didn’t.” Gideon’s voice was mildly sarcastic. “Think about it Kostya, she’d been sexually assaulted years ago, and you were the first man she reached out to help her overcome that trauma. See? Rescue.”
“How do you explain her dumping me?”
“Afteryou fixed her.”
“And Susan?” Kostya asked curiously.
“The hedge fund manager?” Gideon clarified.
Kostya nodded.
“She was a ballbuster at work, but as soon as she got home, she wanted you to make every goddamn decision for her. Hell, was there a time she ever decided what to have for dinner?”
Kostya thought about it and realized there hadn’t been.
“See, that’s the type of woman you like. You want to be the hero, over and over again. You want to go back in time and rescue your mom.”
Kostya stopped in his tracks. Gideon had gone two steps forward before realizing that Kostya wasn’t with him. He looked backward.
“Aw, hell. I didn’t mean it,” Gideon said as he rubbed the top of his closely shaved head.
