“What are you thinking about?”
Noam put his feet back down on the floor, curling his toes in the thick rug. “Bethany said we’re in peace talks with Texas.”
“We are,” Lehrer confirmed. But he didn’t look angry. In fact, hesmiled, hand dropping to Noam’s shoulder to trace little circles on the knob of his collarbone. “You did very well out there. I’m pleased.”
Noam’s gaze snapped up to meet Lehrer’s.
Lehrer laughed softly. “You ought to trust yourself more. When your classmate made a poor decision, you reacted swiftly and decisively. You saved two Level IV students from certain death. You secured the Houston airport. And with that, we almost don’t need the city itself—they have no more supply chain. They’re effectively besieged.”
“We’re winning,” Noam said, the relief like cool water plunging into his veins.
“We’re winning,” Lehrer said. That hand on Noam’s shoulder trailed down his arm; Lehrer laced their fingers together on the seat between them. “Thanks to you.”
Noam had always loved the way Lehrer’s eyes crinkled at the corners when he smiled. But he also knew, now, how easily that gaze went cold.
Noam wet his lips, his hand tightening around Lehrer’s. “You never sent orders,” he said. “I—we had to do something. Why didn’t you give usorders?”
“You haven’t figured that out already?”
Noam stared at him. Lehrer’s thumb moved in a steady pattern against the back of Noam’s hand.
“No,” Noam croaked out eventually. “No, I haven’t, actually. We could have died. All of us.”
“If you’d died, then my trust in you would have been grossly misplaced,” said Lehrer calmly. “But you didn’t die. You survived. Noam ... you showed great leadership ability today.” He smiled, letting go of Noam’s hand to graze his touch along Noam’s jaw instead, fingertips lingering at Noam’s mouth. Noam hardly dared to breathe. “I won’t live forever, you know. Even with all my abilities, I am not immortal. I need an heir.”
Noam’s heart was beating too fast, something hot and liquid spreading beneath his skin. And maybe this was the wrong move, but it didn’tfeelwrong, it—
Noam caught Lehrer’s lips in a kiss. He felt Lehrer smile against his mouth as Lehrer pressed Noam back against the sofa, and Noam ...
Noam let him. One of Lehrer’s hands found his hip; the other braced against the cushion to keep his weight from crushing Noam as his lips moved to Noam’s cheek, his jaw, his throat. Noam’s eyes fluttered open as he stared up at the ceiling and tried to keep his breathing steady. He could smell Lehrer’s cologne, pine and vanilla; a strand of Lehrer’s hair fell loose to graze Noam’s overheated skin.
After a beat he remembered to put his hands on Lehrer, too, smoothing from his shoulders down to his waist.
“I love the way you look in that shirt,” Lehrer murmured, already sliding his touch up under the hem to find bare skin. “I’ll like it even better once you take it off.”
Five minutes,Noam told himself. Just five minutes, long enough to make Lehrer think—believe—
But already he was grasping Lehrer’s wrist, pushing his hand back down to the safer territory of Noam’s hip. “I’m too tired,” he said when Lehrer lifted his head to give him a questioning look.
A tight sigh, but Lehrer pushed up, withdrawing back to his own end of the sofa. He drew out a cigarette and lit it with a snap of pyromancy, exhaling smoke toward the window. “It’s always something.”
“I’m sorry,” Noam said, curling back into a seated position. “It’s not intentional. I just ...”
Lehrer cut him a sharp sideways glance, his eyes as hot as the cigarette smoldering between his fingers. Noam’s excuses died in his chest.
“I’ve been very patient with you.”
Noam’s stomach shriveled. “I know.”
Lehrer took another drag from his cigarette. It had been five weeks now since Noam went undercover. And for a reeling moment Noam wondered if this was it—if Dara might prove his point right here and now. If Lehrer ordered him into his bed, Noam would have no choice but to obey, Faraday shield or no Faraday shield. If he lost his cover, it was over. But all Lehrer said was: “Go back to your room.”
Noam didn’t need to be told twice. He left his dirty uniform in Lehrer’s hamper and took the service stairs down three floors to the room he’d been assigned. It was only after he shut the door behind him and turned the useless lock that he realized his hands were shaking.
CHAPTERTWENTY-FOUR
DARA
Noam kept his end of the bargain, even all the way from Texas.
