When his eyes opened, his gaze was wary. “You do? I don’t know if I would if?—”
“I do.” Sliding my hand around the back of his neck, I pulled him down to me and pressed my mouth against his. I wanted to deepen the kiss so badly, but it would only end up making things harder for us both. So I drew back.
His thumb rubbed over his moistened lips, his eyes darker than usual as his pupils expanded. “Fuck, Nova. You can’t—Wecan’t…”
“I know.” It was so hard to tear myself away, but I had to remember what was at stake. “I guess we should put some distance between us. It’s going to be difficult enough explaining things to Liana without Daniel finding us like this.”
He groaned. “Speaking of Dan…he knows something happened between us. He guessed, and he warned me to be careful.”
Shit. This was bad. If my brother found out… “Was that why he hinted at me to follow you into the maze at the party? It has to be. He won’t tell anyone, will he?”
“No. I trust him with my life. I promise you, he won’t say anything. But I guess, if we’re confessing things, I’m pretty sure your fiancé has some idea of how I feel about you. He?—”
There was a click, and the door opened. I scrambled off Jay, but he didn’t let me go far, wrapping his arm around my shoulders and tugging me into his side. Liana and Danielentered the room, Daniel throwing himself onto Jay’s bed, making it bounce.
“Fuck’s sake, Dan,” Jay muttered, pulling himself upright but keeping a careful hold on me. Daniel ignored him, crawling across to us and taking a seat on my other side, slinging his own arm across my shoulders.
“This is cosy. Li, c’mere. Let Arson show you some loving.”
“Gross.” She pulled a face. “Don’t ever talk about yourself in the third person again, and don’t ever utter the words ‘show you some loving’ to me again. Okay?”
“I don’t know why we’re friends when you treat me this way.” He pouted at her until she rolled her eyes and climbed onto the bed, allowing him to put his free arm around her.
“Are we friends?” she mused.
“Li! How could you? You’re my best girl friend. Oh, you’re a close second, Nov,” he said.
“Am I?” How had I gone from finding my brother’s friends so irritating to this? I’d been too harsh on them, hadn’t I? Still judging them based on the way they’d acted when we were younger.
It felt as if we’d all changed this year. Ever since the engagement and wedding had been brought forward, it was like reality had set in. We weren’t kids anymore, with our main focus on school. We had looming responsibilities. Big ones.
“Yep,” Daniel replied. “Now we’ve established that, let’s put your mind at ease. I managed to get hold of Neil. Your brother’s fine. Uh, he’s with your dad. They’re resting up after the trouble down at the port. They had intel that one of the ships was being tracked, and they were worried it was gonna be intercepted. It was one of the Volkov bootleg vodka ones, and, y’know, your dad didn’t wanna risk fuckingup the Volkov deal. So they went out on the boat and trailed some other little boat back to the port.”
Jay stared at Daniel over the top of my head. “Who was tracking the ship and trying to intercept it?”
Daniel shrugged. “Dunno. Guillotine Graham took the one guy they managed to catch in for questioning, but he didn’t have any answers. Just a fucking low-level minion. Some local guy, didn’t know who had hired him. He just provided the service of his boat in return for a big chunk of cash.”
“This isn’t good,” I murmured. “I wonder if this has anything to do with Operation Foxglove.”
Jay inhaled sharply. “What do you know about that?”
“Nothing I’ve been directly told, because they won’t trust me with any information relating to the syndicate, but Ryker went through some of the details with me. I don’t think… I don’t know if it affects us directly…not yet, at least…but if the guy they caught was local, then maybe. The police around here try to keep things above board, though, rather than stooping to sabotage. Maybe I could speak to—” I cut myself off with a gasp before the name came out. No one knew about my friendship with Aleksi, and it would be seen as a huge betrayal if anyone knew I was friends with the mayor’s son. “Um. Maybe I could speak with Vesper, see if the Fontanas have heard anything.” It was unlikely, since they tended to stay out of our business, but it was worth a try. Vesper might have heard something, and if not, there was a slim possibility she could find out something from her brother.
“Or I could speak to Vesper,” Daniel interjected. “I can beverypersuasive.”
Liana punched him in the stomach.
“Ow. Sorry, my queen.” He straightened up. “I can’t help it. It just comes out.”
She gave him a stern look that made me smile. “You’re lucky you’re cute. Too bad for you, you’re a hockey player.”
“Why dost thou hateth hockey players, my love?”
“Arrogant, self-absorbed, think they’re God’s gift to women…do I need to go on?”
“All true.” Daniel sighed dramatically. “Our love was doomed from the beginning.”
“What you need is someone just as arrogant as you,” Liana told him.
