"No." His hand came up, fingers tracing the line of my jaw. "It doesn't."
"So what do we do?"
His thumb brushed my lower lip. "Right now? We stop talking about tomorrow."
He kissed me slowly, keeping one hand at my jaw. He didn't rush. He was as methodical with his mouth as he was with a topography map, and just as effective.
His mouth moved over mine slowly enough to undo me by degrees, and whatever I’d meant to say next vanished into the heat of him. My hand closed in the fabric of his shirt as his fingers tightened at my waist, then slid to my hips, pulling me closer with a pressure that felt less like a demand than a question.
I answered by reaching for the buttons of his shirt.
We made it to the bed in stages, his shirt dropped beside the tied-back canvas and my clothes slipping to the floor at the foot of the mattress. When he finally pressed me into the sheets, his weight settling over me, the muscle in his jaw ticked once. His hand flexed against the mattress beside my shoulder before going still.
"Don't make this easy," he said, his voice rough against my ear.
"I wasn't planning to."
He laughed, low and surprised, and then his mouth found mine again. The room narrowed to lamplight, canvas shifting in the night air, his hand braced beside my head while the last of our restraint came apart without either of us naming it.
By the time the lamp burned low, the ridge had gone quiet around us. I lay with my head on his chest and listened to his heartbeat slow. His hand moved over my shoulder in absent passes, the room quiet except for the canvas shifting in the night air.
"I'm going to remember this," he said quietly.
I lifted my head. "That sounds like a goodbye."
"It sounds like the truth."
His phone lit on the nightstand. His thumb moved toward the screen, then stopped as the radio cracked once beside it, brief and sharp enough to change the room.
The hand on my shoulder went still. His breathing changed first, flattening into something controlled. For one second, he didn’t move. His fingers pressed once against my skin, hard enough that I knew he was already leaving before he sat up.
“What is it?”
He was already reaching for his shirt. He didn’t look at me. He looked through the wall.
“Perimeter.”
The word was quiet. Final.
He pulled the shirt over his head, the lamplight catching only the hard line of his cheekbone. “Front panel. Side canvas. Lamp low.” His eyes held mine. “If someone comes up those steps and it isn’t me, you do not make yourself visible.”
“Nick—”
“I mean it, Juliette.” He crossed to the entrance, pausing with one hand on the frame. The man who’d just been in my bed was gone. The Ranger was back, and he didn't have room for anything else. His hand came to my jaw, brief and hard, not quite a touch and not quite a goodbye. “This is what I do. Let me do it.”
The canvas flap fell behind him, too soft a sound for the way the room suddenly felt empty. The engine turned over thirty seconds later, then faded into the dark.
The departure board was still in the lobby, counting down my final hours. But for the first time in my life, I wasn't the one in control of the schedule.
Chapter 21
No Clean Exit
NICK
Theradiocrackedthroughthe quiet of the suite. I was out of bed before the second vibration hit the nightstand, reaching for my shirt with one hand and the radio with the other. I didn’t look at her while I dressed. If I did, I’d lose a second I didn’t have.
"Nick?" Her voice was steady, but the sleep was gone from it.
