Page 103 of Nothing More

His nostrils flared on his next inhale.

“What if,” she pressed on, “you stayed here? In this flat, I mean. With all of us. No more slinking around, spying from a distance, trying tospare me, or whatever nonsense you think is necessary.”

His gaze slid over, dark and narrow.

“If there’s an enemy circling round your castle,” she reasoned, “what’s the sense in sneaking out the sally port and walking through the enemy camp? I say we draw up the ladders, close the shutters, and let them try.”

His gaze narrowed further, eyes gleaming onyx slits. “Says the woman who stole her brother’s bike and went ‘sneaking out the sally port.’”

She shoved him in the shoulder. “That was different!”

“No it wasn’t.”

“No,” she agreed, tiredly, “it wasn’t. But I…I don’t want you to go.” Maybe it wasn’t, but in the moment, it felt like the most vulnerable thing she’d ever said.

His brow smoothed, expression softening fractionally. His voice had gone rough around the edges when he said, “I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“I haven’t.”

“Yet.”

Rather than answer, she slipped down to rest her head on his shoulder, his skin warm and smooth beneath her cheek, smelling faintly of lavender soap, and strongly of sex and sweat. His hand lifted to play with her hair, fingertips trailing soothingly along her scalp, her shoulder.

“I’ve never done anything like this,” she admitted.

His hand stilled. His muscles tensed beneath her. “You’re not…you weren’t a…you, uh, seemed to know what you were–”

She snorted. “I wasn’t a virgin. God’s sakes.”

He relaxed, and his fingers resumed their petting.

“I meant I’ve never done…this.” She spread her hand over his chest, the tattoo that covered his heart. “Fallen into bed with one of my brother’s friends.”

“I’m not your brother’s friend.”

“Too true, and I don’t blame you. But I think you know what I mean.”

“Never fucked a Lean Dog, eh?” He sounded both relieved and amused, and she pinched his nipple for it; she was rewarded by a flicker of muscle, like a horse twitching flies.

“Do you have to put it so crudely?”

“Whatelsewould you call what we’ve done? We sure haven’t beenmaking tender love, like the songs say.”

“No,” she agreed, because they hadn’t been. But this now, after, lying together, worrying together, not wanting a separation…that went to a place beyond crudefucking. That was something – maybe nothing that could last, maybe something doomed from the start. But something she thought could be cupped in careful hands, fed and tended. It was a possibility, even if a fragile one.

“Why not?” he asked. “Why no Dogs? You like your menfancy?” She could hear the sneer in his voice.

“Don’t act like that’s unexpected,” she chided. “You’ve seen my home, my office, my Range Rover, my wardrobe. The business I’m in, my background: do you think I’ve been dating tossers?”

“Thanks.”

“I didn’t meanyou, silly.”

“No, you’re right, I am.”

She pinched him again, and his free hand came up to close over hers, trapping her fingers against his chest.

She softened. “I never wanted the complication. I had my life, and the boys had theirs, and I never wanted to get tangled up in that.”

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