Page 145 of Nothing More

As if on cue, she heard the front door open, the tromp of boots in the hall, low voices, snatch of Tenny’s distinctive laugh.

That idea of hers gained arms and legs and starting moving around on its own, restless. Especially when she saw the way distaste flickered on Toly’s expression: he really didn’t care for Tenny.

“Tell you what.” She went to the wine fridge and pulled a bottle of Riesling. Collected glasses and a corkscrew and slid them across the counter to Toly. “Why don’t you go get the bed nice and warm, and I’ll be along after I tell those tossers to keep their voices down.” She threw in a hint of a lascivious grin and a wink for effect.

His brows lifted – surprised to be invited back into her bed, most likely – but he collected the offerings and straightened. “Yeah.” He went out the kitchen the back way, through the butler’s pantry that eventually looped back into the hallway toward the master suite.

Tenny and Reese trooped in, Reese dragging off his hat and hair tumbling down to his shoulders. Raven nearly snorted at the way Tenny – walking with head turned sideways toward his husband – looked both impossibly fond, and a bit like a smitten cartoon wolf as he watched the bright fall of Reese’s hair. Sap.

He turned his head and noticed her, his greeting a simple twitch of brows and flare of nostrils, as he slumped down onto one of the stools and scratched the beanie itch from his scalp. Both of them had pink cheeks and noses from the cold, eyes wet from the wind.

“Well,” he started, and reached to snag the stem of a cake stand with one finger to drag it toward himself. “We–”

Raven held up a single finger.Wait. Was shocked that it froze him in place. Should have taken a photo, but instead tiptoed off to be sure Toly wasn’t eavesdropping in the butler’s pantry.

Coast clear, she tiptoed back. “Quickly: find anything of use?”

“Why are you whispering?” he whispered back.

“I just am. Listen. Anything urgent to pass along?”

He shrugged, and took the lid off the cake. It was storebought, but damn fine-looking. Drippy ganache and gleam of sugar glazing. “We met some bratva pricks. Got invited to an auction. As expected.”

Only he could have called any of thatas expected.

“Fine,” she said, still whispering, and leaned down the way she had with Toly minutes before. “I need you to do something for me. You can look at it as being for all of us, if that makes you likelier to cooperate.”

Tenny paused, hand poised to take a scoop out of the cake, like a heathen. Reese materialized behind him and offered a knife without comment, as Tenny’s gaze narrowed on her. “What sort of something?” Already suspicious.

She sighed. Her chest felt heavy. The backs of her eyes began to sting. She blinked, and braced her feet apart, and let him see that she was serious, by her expression.

He leaned forward, cake forgotten for the moment, and said, “What?”

“Toly’s lying,” she murmured, barely audible. “To all of us. He’s going somewhere, meeting someone, doing something he shouldn’t. Putting himself in danger.” And why? Because he missed being part of the bratva? Because he’d been their agent all along? She couldn’t imagine that. And yet…

She shook her head. “I need you to find out what he’s up to.”

Tenny studied her a moment. She expected some fussing, some insistence that he wasn’t her errand boy, and that he was busy enough; some bit of snark and sass. But he merely nodded, and returned his attention to the cake. Offhand, but quiet, low, he said, “You know, there are better Dogs, if that’s what you want.”

He sounded very nearly brotherly. Almost as though he cared.

She smiled. “No. That was never what I wanted.”

~*~

Kisses that tasted like Riesling, hands that felt like hot brands on her skin. Would it ever stop amazing her that someone so reserved and cool could love as hotly as he did? She hoped not. It felt like the richest of secrets, like dark chocolate hidden away in a drawer, a stolen cigarette on an Italian balcony when she was a teenager. Forbidden, and thrilling, and whollyhers. A possession, something she’d gained, and no one else knew what they were missing out on.

He brought her off twice, and the second time she got lost a little: fritzed out vision, room spinning, the works. She drifted, came to at the slide of a warm, damp cloth over her skin, and drifted again with her face on the hard point of his shoulder, his arm loose and warm beneath her neck.

She rallied, though, in the small, dark hours of morning. Worked herself fully awake, but held totally still as he eased from beneath her and climbed out of bed. Worked to keep her breathing deep and even, and kept her eyes shut tight, lest he turn around and glimpse them shining in the moonlight.

If she’d truly been asleep, he could have slipped out without her knowing, as he’d done all along. Tonight, this morning, whatever time it was, she kept quiet, heard the whisper of the door as he slipped out; the loudest sound had been the zipper on his jeans.

When he was gone, she counted to ten, and hurried after him, slowing only to slide on her robe and belt it tight. Down the hall, she peeked round the corner in time to watch him disappear out the terrace doors. That’s how he was doing it, then: out the trapdoor and down the fire escape.

He was nearly invisible, a lone flicker of shadow over the terrace lights, and then gone. A corner-of-the-eye wraith, easily missed.

Raven stood up straight, marched across the flat, and tapped on Tenny’s door.