He materialized in the doorway, arms folded over his chest, watching me with that perfect stillness that always made menervous. In the low light, he looked more shadow than man. The kind of shadow that could hurt you or save you, depending on the day.
“Come to bed,” he said, not moving from the threshold.
I didn’t answer. I was tracing the route from the gallery to the bridge to the safe house, over and over, the way a child might rub the edge of a favorite blanket. My finger left little oil stains on the paper. If I did it enough, maybe I’d wear a groove and Brie could just follow it straight out of the city.
He let the silence stretch for a full minute before he came over, boots whispering on the rug. He looked at the map, then at me, and in a single motion dragged a heavy chair beside me and pulled me into his lap.
“I can’t focus when you’re so far away,” he murmured into my hair.
I stiffened, but he just wrapped his arms around me and leaned back, tipping the chair until we hovered on the edge of falling. I wondered if he’d let us crash to the floor just to see if I’d scream.
“Talk me through it again,” he said. “One more time.”
He didn’t mean the plan. He meant the part I was scared to say out loud.
I closed my eyes. “If she runs, we’re dead.”
He grunted, which was Iron Valor for “you’re right.”
The maps on the table showed three rings: our approach, the fallback route, and the outer perimeter covered by Wrecker and the Paris wolves. There were backup plans, of course—there always were—but none of them worked if Brie didn’t come willingly. Or if she tried to play hero.
“She never believed in monsters,” I said. “Not even when we were kids. She’d tell me, ‘Monsters are just things people haven’t met yet.’”
“Did she believe you when you called from the club?”
I shook my head. “She couldn’t believe that Dad would do that to me. He’d never done anything to hurtherin her life. Until he ruined the family, and I still don’t think she’d take that personally.”
Jess’s hand slid under my sweater, not for heat, just for the skin-to-skin contact. The touch made my heart slow, like a sedative. “What about your mom?”
“She’ll listen to Brie,” I said. “She always did.”
He nodded, accepting it as gospel.
“Enough of this,” He said with a finality I couldn’t argue with as he stood and held out his hand for me to take. He led me to our room, which was lit only by the bedside light. It gave a glow that offered comfort and hid secrets. But he didn’t stop at the bed; he continued to drag me further.
The hotel bathroom was ridiculous. The floors were heated, the towels the size of blankets, the marble counter littered with tiny French bottles I’d never have touched on my own. He planted me in front of the mirror and peeled off my clothes, folding each piece as if it were mandatory they be neatly stacked.
He caught my eye in the mirror. “Still with me?”
I nodded, but my reflection betrayed the lie: hair wild, dark crescents under my eyes, shoulders pinched in like I was bracing for a punch.
Jess reached for my hand, tugged me under the rainhead shower, and turned the water on full. The instant heat made me gasp. He waited until I acclimated, then stepped in with me, his body a wall between me and the world.
He poured a dollop of something expensive-smelling into his palm—jasmine and green tea and a note of citrus so pure it made my eyes sting. He started with my hair, massaging my scalp with fingers meant for pulling triggers, not making someone feel worshipped. The lather slid down my neck, overmy shoulders, and Jess followed it, working the soap down my spine in slow, precise spirals. My knees threatened to buckle.
“Let go,” he said, low. “Just for a little while.”
So I did. I let my head fall forward and my arms hang limp, and when he turned me to face the spray, I barely noticed the water in my eyes. He tipped my chin up, kissing the salt from my lips, then worked his way down—my throat, my collarbones, the notch at the base of my neck where he sometimes pressed his nose and breathed me in.
The world shrank to water and heat and Jess’s hands mapping every inch of me. He washed my breasts with the same care he used on my scalp, fingers slow and unhurried, thumbs tracing circles around my nipples until I forgot my own name. He cupped them in his hands, weighing them, then let them go as if giving them back. His hands slid over my stomach, my hips, and he knelt so he could rub my thighs, calf to ankle, as if he was searching for secret compartments.
I closed my eyes. I could feel his breath against my skin, his lips ghosting over my belly and lower, but I didn’t move. I was past moving.
When he stood, I felt the hard line of him pressed to my belly, and I wanted him so bad it hurt, but he wasn’t in any hurry. He spun me so my back was to his chest, cradling me there, water sluicing over both of us. His hands explored the front of my body: up to my breasts, down to my stomach, then lower, until his fingers parted me and slid between the folds of my pussy.
I whimpered, the sound embarrassingly desperate, but he shushed me, burying his mouth in my wet hair.
“I need you,” I said, barely audible.
