I wanted to keep her with us forever. Wanted to keep her safe forever.
Traffic thinned as we moved farther north. There were fewer pedestrians here, the shops mostly closed, their storefronts casting long stretches of darkness between the lights of the few open establishments. Even the traffic was sparse, the signals cycling over nearly empty intersections.
The cold felt sharper, and Maeve huddled a little closer to Remy as I shoved my hands in my pockets for warmth.
“Want to go back?” I called out to them.
Maeve glanced over her shoulder and I wanted to freeze the image in time, her hair glossy under the streetlights, cheeks pink with cold, pale blue eyes bright as a diamond under glass. “I’m good.”
I was glad. The cold only made me more excited to get her back to the hotel — to strip her naked and feel the slide of her skin against ours, to warm her from the outside in — and the anticipation was half the fun.
Plus, there was a small part of me that wanted to prove I could still wait for Maeve.
To prove that I wasn’t entirely lost.
The city got even quieter as we approached Central Park. Here there were no open bars or restaurants to cast noise into the night, just the whoosh of tires on pavement and the wind in the surrounding trees.
The old-fashioned streetlamps around the park glowed softer than modern streetlights. It was like stepping back in time, like the last half hour had been more than a walk, it had been a slipping between worlds.
The paths through the park were lit, but behind the path was a darkness, snowy fields and banks of trees disappearing like voids in space.
I picked up my pace to walk closer to Maeve and Remy, watched as Poe fell back to do the same. It wasn’t generally advisable to walk the park at night, but I wasn’t worried. Any street thug looking to lift the wallets of a few tourists would be in for a nasty surprise, and I was pretty sure one look at us would deter most of them from the start.
We weren’t small men, and there were three of us.
I almost hoped someone would try. My rage at Ethan Todd wasn’t even close to being satiated, and I could think of worse things than taking some of it out on a small-time thief looking to score in the park.
Maeve didn’t ask if it was safe for us to be here, and I hoped it was because she knew it was safe, knewshewas safe anywhere with us.
“It’s so quiet,” Maeve murmured. “So strange in such a big city.”
I brushed against her as we walked, the touch electric even through our clothes. My dick was already hard, my patience waning.
“It’s not the safest at night,” Poe said.
“It’s not?”
I liked that it had never occurred to her. That she’d just assumed it was safe because she felt safe.
Poe chuckled. “Not really.”
“But it looks so peaceful.”
“Looks can be deceiving,” I said.
She nodded, her expression serious. “I know.”
She did know. She knew that an average-looking guy could be hiding the heart of a monster, knew that an average-looking life could be blown to bits in a heartbeat. That was something we shared.
We came to a stone bridge over a body of running water that might have been a small river in summer but was reduced to a creek thanks to the winter freeze. Maeve stopped at the center of the bridge and looked down, and for a long moment there was nothing but the faint trickle of water and the sound of the wind through the trees.
We huddled around her, a quest for body heat and something else: the need to be as close to Maeve as we could get, an imperative I was beginning to realize was permanent.
I pressed the front of my body against her back and slipped my arms around her waist.
Her laughter fogged the air when she felt the press of my dick against her ass through her coat. “Is that a gun in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?”
“It’s a gun,” I said against her ear. “But not the kind you mean.”
