Page 64 of Nothing More

“I know you’re not soft,” he said, gently. “The furthest thing from it.” He folded his hands together in his lap, and looked at her in an assessing, though not unsympathetic way. “You like him,” he said, after a long pause, and he sounded surprised. His gaze softened, and she had the sense he was seeing her in some new light – or that he at least thought he was.

“Shepherd? No. I promise you: this isn’t a case of calling him names and mocking him as a form of pulling pigtails on the schoolyard. The man’s a neanderthal.”

“Not him. Anatoly.Toly.”

She resisted the urge to fidget. “Why do you keep saying his name like that?”

A faint smile touched his mouth. “Because you’ve only ever used his full name before. You sound…familiar…now.”

Damn it. Bollocks and damn it. All attempts to offer a protest of some sort got jammed up in the hinge of her jaw, which clamped tightly shut and refused to open. Better to say nothing than to say something damning.

His smile widened a fraction. “Raven. I’m hardly one to judge the seemliness of necking with Lean Dogs.”

With a jolt, she recalled a man she’d glimpsed only briefly in Knoxville months before: dramatic blond undercut, fine features and blue eyes, a slender frame, and tattoos on his hands, crawling up his throat. Soft-spoken and easygoing when his looks suggested rebellion and disorder. Tango. Kevin. Walsh had shared only the most bare-bones details of his past with Ian, a brief mention that they’d been held captive together for years, and been lovers, once, a long time ago.

Remembering the uncertain self-consciousness of Tango’s little wave and “hi” at Dartmoor, she softened a fraction. Let out a deep breath and allowed her jaw to unclench. “We aren’t children,” she said without any heat. “We don’t have crushes, or anything so ridiculous. It’s just…stress relief.”

She saw the way his face wanted to react to that statement, and noted the self-control in his voice when he said, “Oh? That sounds like more than a few innocent kisses.”

“Ian, come off it.”

He grinned again, more conspiratorial, thankfully, and less devious. He sat back, one arm draped along the top of the sofa, legs crossing once more. “Well, then. You’ve shagged him.”

“Not that it’s any of your business.” She allowed herself to slump – God, but she was sore from last night, and her normally-perfect posture was tweaking at muscles she hadn’t used in years. “But. Yes.”

His eyes danced. “Is he any good?”

She sighed…but not in exasperation this time. “You have no idea.”

He chuckled. “I’ve some.”

She sent him a look.

“Not with your outlaw specifically, don’t worry, darling.”

Her phone trilled on the table, and she was grateful for the distraction…until she saw the caller I.D.

“Oh God, it’s Charlie.”

Ian cleared his throat, picked a spot of invisible lint off his trouser leg and glanced toward the window. “Do you think it might snow later?” he asked, all innocence.

“Bastard,” she accused, scooped her phone up, and stalked over to the chair in the corner of the wide room to accept the call.

“Hello, Charles.” She aimed for breezy.

His voice was wry by contrast. “You might want to catch the next flight to London, because you can’t keep from causing a stir in America.”

“Ugh. I’m going to skin Ian.”

“He told me second. I heard it from Maverick first.”

“Him, too.”

“Were you going to tell us?” he asked, tone mild. She heard what sounded like the tab of a drink can pop in the background. “Or let us see that you’d been cut up into bits on the evening news?”

“Miles knows. He’s here, even.”

“Yeah, Miles doesn’t count. Answer the question.”