Page 45 of Nothing More

But the reason he was asking to be pulled was personal. He’d never done anything like it. It was for her safety, he reasoned. If he was distracted by proximity, he couldn’t be on his A game, and that was more of a risk than a help. He couldn’t afford to be distracted by intrusive thoughts…the sort that involved the fit of her dress, or the tired shadows beneath her eyes, or the urge to cook for her and watch her eat with a glow of satisfaction sitting warm in his chest.

When Maverick finally spoke, he realized how long his president had held silent on the other end of the line. “Well. I didn’t realize there was a problem.”

His gut clenched in an old, ingrained reaction from his bratva days. He could hear Andrei’s voice:I didn’t realize there was a problem. Could hear the crackle of the fire in the grate, the creak of the antique chair in which the man sat. His eyes the flat black of a shark, devoid of all feeling save disappointment. Toly had never had that particular stare, nor those words, directed at him, but had stood on the rug and watched what happened when Andrei spoke them to others. Had been the one to wield the knife a few times.

“Toly?”

Shit, he’d spaced out again.

“Sir,” he said. “There’s no problem. Her liking me isn’t the issue. But I could do more good from a distance. We both know that’s where I excel.”

Maverick sighed. But he said, “Yeah, you do. Okay.” Ruffling of papers. “Let me see what I can do and I’ll be back in touch. You good to tail her this morning until I can get another detail together?”

“Yes.”

“Alright. I’ll call.”

He let his hand fall when the call disconnected; stared out across the rooftops, the pinprick lights of thousands of windows, cold air scraping against his cheeks, lifting his hair. He expected to feel relieved…but didn’t.

~*~

Toly was giving her the cold shoulder. An odd thing to think about a man who was mostly silent, but Raven swore her breath turned to icy vapor when she said good morning and he merely blinked at her, and turned away…then proceeded to put the kitchen island between them.

She’d had enough to drink last night that she had a headache, but not so much that she didn’t notice that he was fairly bristling with tension.

He was back in the blue suit from yesterday, the shirt a little crumpled, but the tie cinched up tight. She allowed herself the very gauche, American thought that he lookeddamn good, perhaps even better for being tight-lipped and tired.

Then she settled nice and deep into a slow-simmering anger over the fact that she’d asked him to bed and his answer was to ignore her, apparently. The one time she made an overture to one of these infernal outlaws, and she was rejected.

Shewas rejected.

That had never happened. Anger was better than shame, which she shoved ruthlessly aside so she could take the former in a firm grip, ready to be used as a shield.

Cass gave her a steeple-browed look of silent question, but she shook her head. “Get your things.”

The ride to school was silent. As was the ride to the agency. Which wasn’t unusual – he never gave in to small talk, monosyllabic when she addressed him, normally – but Raven could feel the tension, a cord of it that tightened each time he looked (with seeming deliberation) out the window.

The agency was its usual flurry of activity: greetings and questions from everyone as she made the trek to her office, Melanie passing over a half-dozen memos as she passed.

Then it was the office, cold, flooded with early sunlight, coffee, tea, and breakfast pastries waiting on the cart.

For the first time in recent memory, Raven found that she really, really didn’t want to work. A cup of tea, a blanket, and crap telly sounded horrifically tempting. She never took sick days, and technically she could…but what did that say about her character? If she let fear determine the course of her day?

She booted up her laptop, settled in, and pointedly ignored Toly.

A strategy which worked quite well until eleven-fifteen, when his phone dinged, and he crossed the room to the door just as the intercom on Raven’s desk buzzed.

“Yes, Melanie?” she asked, frowning at Toly’s back as he opened the door.

“There’s someone here to see you.” Melanie’s voice was uncertain. “He says he’s your new security detail?”

Through the intercom, and at the threshold, Raven heard an unfamiliar male voice. “Don’t worry, honey, I can introduce myself.”

“Sir–”

Toly stepped aside, and in stepped a man boldly flying his Lean Dog cut. He wasn’t as tall as Toly – when Toly bothered to stand at his full height – but clearly older, and broader. His dark hair was thick and lustrous, without a trace of gray, but his face bore the lines and textures of a man who’d spent cold winters and hot summers on a bike. He might have been handsome, in a rough sort of way, if not for the truly nasty smirk he turned first on Toly, then on the room at large, and then onher.

Toly shut the door.