Page 114 of Nothing More

Raven mirrored his posture leaning on the rail. In addition to the boots, she’d put on a camelhair coat, the collar flipped up against the chill, hair half-up in the front and trailing over her shoulders like dark, silk ribbons in back. She gestured with her fingers, and he passed the cigarette over. She managed to make smoking look as stylish and elegant as everything else she did; he was starting to think that was just her, maybe her whole family, and nothing to do with her career.

“We’re getting ready to leave,” she said, exhaled, and passed the cig back.

That was the real source of his restlessness: knowing he had to stay here, a protected princess, while Raven went out into the city on business, without him as backup.

He tried to keep his expression neutral, but his face did something that made her snort.

“Tenny’s coming. Reese, too, obviously. They’re going to play Yuri and Sergei again.” She rolled her eyes. “Which isn’t the worst idea. If Blaire’s the ditz I think she is, she’ll eat up the attention of a hot Russian model.”

He took another drag.

She leaned in close – her hair tickled the side of his face – and said, “You know I wish I was taking you along.”

Sensation like fingers walking up the back of his neck; he resisted the impulse to twitch. A disquiet, a shiver along his bones and nerves like he’d felt last night, when she climbed astride him, hands on his chest, challenge in her eyes. It had knocked him off course, left him reeling, just a little. And then, after…

He couldn’t say she’d beenmotherlywith him. Shudder the thought, number one. And number two, he’d never been properly mothered, so he had no idea what that felt like. But she’d been trying to take care of him. Coddle him, maybe.Consolehim.

He craved it as much as he rejected it out of hand. No one took care of him. He’d never needed it. Before.

She kissed his cheeks, lips like a brand, and said, “I’ll be in touch, yeah?”

He managed a nod. “Be safe.”

“I will.” Warmth in her voice. Affection. No longer merely a trace of it, but a sure and solid presence. Confronting everyone all at once, coming clean to her sister seemed to have solidified her feelings. She was confident, now, in a way she hadn’t been before, looking at him head-on, not trying to smooth down her smiles. Like they weretogether.

Wasn’t that what he wanted, too? Maybe. He thought so. But his heart was throbbing like a wound.

He listened to her cross the flags and slip back inside. Was still standing at the rail, working on a fresh smoke a half-hour later when he watched the Rover pull beneath the awning, small as a Matchbox car from this height, and then pull out a few minutes later, Raven and her entourage presumably onboard. He watched the cars around it, searching for something dark, tinted, suspicious, but the Rover was boxed in by cabs, and a minivan. Nothing that leaped out at him. Then he flicked the butt over the rail, turned, and went inside, finally, all his skin pleasantly numb from the cold.

Cassandra and Miles were on the sofa, watching something bright and animated, violent at his cursory glance. Cassandra had pulled one of the throw blankets off the back of the couch and wrapped herself up in it, blue toes of her slipper-socks peeking out from the cushions. Miles was, as ever, on his laptop.

Cass gave him a fleeting glance over her shoulder. “Ian’s coming by. He said he’d bring lunch.”

Toly nodded, and scanned the rooms he could see: living room, kitchen, sunroom, formal sitting room. No sign of the others; they’d all gone with Raven, apparently.

As casually as he could, he said, “Isn’t there supposed to be a gym? I could stand an hour on a treadmill.”

“Yeah. Ground floor,” Miles said, absently. “Your keycard will get you in.”

“Cool. Thanks. I’ll be back.”

He grabbed his jacket off the hook by the door, did a quick double-check of his weapons in the foyer, out of sight, and then headed out.

The interior of the elevator was shiny metal meant to resemble gold, and his reflection didn’t look as steady as he would have liked. The downward glide of the car flipped his stomach more than normal – or maybe that was the text he composed on the way down.

When he was done with it –if you want me, come get me. stop playing games– he sent it to a number he hadn’t dialed in a long, long time, but which he knew by heart, tattooed as permanently in his brain as the ink was in his skin.

He didn’t get a reply, but didn’t expect one; had never gotten one before.

The elevator deposited him on the ground floor, between the lobby of the spa and gym. It smelled like chlorine, and incense, andwellness. A glimpse through glass doors as he passed revealed a state-of-the-art gym full of all sorts of equipment, TVs along the ceiling playing a variety of news channels.

He kept moving. Dug a beanie out of his pocket and pulled it down over his head before he stepped out the door – “Good afternoon, sir,” the doorman said, to which he nodded – and onto the sidewalk.

Though it shouldn’t have, it felt colder down here, wind tunneling along the sidewalk, playing with coats, and scarves, and sending rich ladies’ hair into disarray. Bits of paper tumbled along the gutter, and the valets gave him suspicious looks.

He almost turned back inside three times, while he waited. Envisioning Raven’s smile upstairs, thinking of Maverick’s firm order over the phone.

But then a low-slung black Mercedes pulled up to the curb, tinted windows, purring engine, and the rear door popped open, seemingly by magic.