Page 29 of Reaper and Ruin

But I was a little disappointed. It would have been nice to curl up with him.

Nyah’s motormouth filled Dax in on the whole bluff ordeal as soon as he started driving. His jaw dropped open by the end of her first sentence and stayed like that until he connected the dots. Finally he had the full picture, it hadn’t just been the rain that had me and X turning up soaking wet at his store.

Levi said nothing. Without twisting back to look at me, he reached his hand behind him, between the gap in his and Dax’s seats.

I stared at his hand for a moment, not understanding what he was doing.

He wriggled his fingers at me.

A rush of happiness filled me when I realized he was asking to hold my hand. I was lucky I was sitting because those knees of mine were definitely weak again.

I threaded my fingers between his, staring down at the ink across his knuckles and how it contrasted with my undecorated skin.

Nyah paused in her long-winded story when she noticed us and mouthed, “Cute!” in my direction.

We were freaking cute.

This was what I’d dreamed of for all the months we’d written each other letters. Just a normal life, doing normal people things like going on a date with friends. In that daydream, we’d lived in a house not unlike the one Nyah rented, though I would have filled it with pink and all my trinkets.

I still had that dream. Only now Whip and X lingered around the edges of it, my brain not quite able to work out how it all fit together.

Dax was fully caught up on all the drama, or at least the version I’d given Nyah, which was ninety-percent truth with just a little held back to protect Murder Squad secrets, by the time we reached the restaurant. Levi untangled his fingers from mine so he could get out of the car, and I waited for him to open my door because I knew he would.

I wasn’t disappointed. I picked up my purse and let him help me out and guide me inside the pretty Providence restaurant.

“Geez, I forgot how fancy this place is,” Levi muttered. “I feel underdressed.”

I squeezed his hand reassuringly. “You’re overdressed if you ask me.”

His gaze turned instantly hot. “Don’t say things like that if you want to actually make it through the meal without me dragging you into the bathroom and bending you over the sink.”

My breath caught.

He raised an eyebrow at my silence. That quickly became more of a smolder when I didn’t complain.

A low grumble rolled through his chest, and I was pretty sure I heard him utter a deep, “Fuck” Geralt of Rivia style, but Nyah was also excitedly exclaiming over how pretty the restaurant was, so I might have heard wrong.

We followed the hostess to a table in the back corner, and I pulled my chair close to Levi’s.

Nyah stared around the darkened room lit with table candles and twinkling lights. “Have you guys been here before?”

Levi nodded. “This is Hayden’s place.”

Dax’s eyes widened. “This is Chaos’s place? Shit, I didn’t even realize when I booked it. I heard through the grapevine he had his own joint. ’Bout fucking time. His talent was wasted at the shitty holes-in-the-walls he was working at in Saint View.”

Levi grinned at him. “Did you know about the sex maze in the back?”

I hid a laugh at the expressions on Dax’s and Nyah’s faces.

“The what?” she managed to squeak.

Levi went to answer her, but his gaze caught on something across the room, and his words died on his tongue instantly. He shoved to his feet so suddenly the table rocked and then, despite the classy atmosphere around us, Levi forgot himself entirely.

“Lynx?”

A man across the room turned in our direction.

My heart stopped.