Reid searched a few hallways and climbed up three staircases before he finally sighted Vaasa. She was on the fifth floor, having changed her mask entirely, quietly testing the knobs of the doors as if she was trying to hide in one of the rooms. The one she jiggled was locked.
She turned, and their eyes met. Muffled moans and brazen cries of pleasure emanated from the rooms around them. This part of the building was not for socializing or cavorting withlords and pirates. It only made him pick up his pace as he approached her.
Vaasa looked over her bare shoulder at him, the stark red and black of her new mask in such beautiful compliment to the dress she wore. To the pale shade of her skin. She put a finger over her red lips as if to indicate that he should be quiet, and then whipped her head around, scanning both ends of the hallway. They were alone.
“Who is looking for you?” Reid asked on a whisper.
She shook her head, stepping closer. “It isn’t worth talking about. He’ll be here soon, we should find—”
“Why isn’t it worth talking about?” Despite himself, insecurity lanced through him. He knew that expression—she was keeping something from him. “Who is he?”
Something hardened her gaze to exactly as she’d appeared those first weeks he’d known her—neutral, apathetic, even cruel. “It’s my lead sentinel,” she finally said, looking past him to survey their surroundings once more. “I left without his permission. And it isn’t worth talking about because nothing matters except for our way out of here. Except for you and me and our friends.”
She stepped around him to continue down the hallway, fleeing.
Reid clenched his jaw. His heart wouldn’t calm. The voice in his head that felt he was going to lose everything that ever mattered to him screamed louder. He wanted a full explanation, not some veiled version of her circumstances. They hadn’t gotten a real opportunity to discuss each element of the plan she was concocting, and tonight she had becomeengagedto someone else. “Except everything elsedoesmatter,” he muttered, careful to keep his voice low. He spun to follow her. Two paths lay in front of them: a main staircase that led down tothe lower floors where Sachia and Koen waited, and a roped off passageway they clearly weren’t supposed to enter.
Reid hissed, “Vaasa, this deal with Karev, the things I am being forced to listen to and to see—”
“I only had to move this quickly because of yourmurderous tendencies,” she said under her breath at him. “Karev blackmailed me. If I had denied him, he would have pinned the murder on me.”
Reid’s fists tightened. The ways in which they had been manipulated by that bastard—
Vaasa shook her head. “I told you to wait, to give me a few—”
Voices came from the stairs they were just about to walk down. Vaasa froze. Genuine fear overtook all the neutral, hard places upon her face. This lead sentinel of hers distressed her. Footsteps grew closer, and Vaasa’s breath quickened. Reid did the only thing he could think to do.
He grabbed her wrist and pulled her against him, slamming his mouth into hers. Immediately he turned them, pushing her up against the wall and shielding her entire body with his own. No one could see her. No one could get to her.
They would have to get past him.
Vaasa froze for only a moment, and then fire ignited. She kissed him back with just as much gusto as he remembered from the first time he’d finally put his mouth upon her. Her hands flew into his hair and he groaned into her mouth, so easily falling into the image of two people stealing a moment of privacy among the debauchery. Reid pushed against her body more completely, feeling the press of her breasts against his chest, the smoothness of the thin gossamer she wore. He bunched his hands into the garment, placing pressure on the small of her back that forced her to arch into him.
The footsteps scurried past them, disappearing around the bend in the hallway. Logically, Reid knew this meant he shouldstop kissing her. That they should go to the third floor. But then her lips parted and her tongue brushed against his, and all sense of self narrowed to the taste of her. He took everything from that kiss that he could. Tongues tangling, hands dropping to grasp her backside, Reid thought he could very well lose himself if she let him.
He begged, “Tell me it isn’t real with him. I need to hear it. I—”
“It isn’t real,” she swore against his mouth. “Nothing exceptyouis real.”
Reid opened his eyes to hers. She parted her lips, perhaps to scold him or to point out the ways in which he had become nothing but a jealous fool, but as their eyes met, whatever she was about to say was lost.
She grabbed his hand and fled toward the private hallway, ducking beneath the thick red rope.
“Where are we going?” he whispered.
“This is the madame’s hallway,” she said, pressing her back to the wall when they were out of sight from the main passageway and stairwell. Reid stopped to stand just in front of her, and she raised her hands to his chest, then wrapped them around the nape of his neck.
And she pulled him back into the searing kiss.
He kissed her with reverence and anger. His body was a rock beneath her hands. He was wound so tight. He couldn’t believe he’d had to watch another man act as though he had a claim to her, act as though he had a right to this woman, when Reid had done everything and anything to earn her. Jealousy was an ocean inside him. Vast. Churning. He settled his hands on her hips. “Give me one reason I shouldn’t kill that man tonight,” Reid growled against her mouth, hands bunching in her dress as he slid his fingers beneath the long slit in the fabric and brushed against the soft skin of her upper thigh.
“Because you’d have to stop kissing me,” she said back, leg lifting to wrap around his waist.
His fingers dug into her bare thigh, and he trailed hot kisses down her neck. “Ihatethis. I am going to lose my mind, Wild One.”
“It’s a lie,” she seemed to promise him, eyes fluttering open for only a moment and then closing in contentment again the farther up her leg his fingers traveled.
Something carnal took over, some instinct he had that was perhaps fueled more by his ego than anything else. They shouldn’t be doing this here, he shouldn’t be near her where they could be found.
