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I think about it. “Like I just got hit by a very polite truck.”

The corner of his mouth moves.

“Tell me what you liked,” he says, “and what surprised you. And if anything was too much.”

“Nothing was too much.” I pull the blanket tighter. “The tie. I liked the tie. I liked that I could get out of it and didn’t. I liked when you made me say things.” I look at him. “I’ve never said any of that to anybody. I didn’t know I could.”

“You can,” he says. “You were very good at it.”

My face goes hot all over again. “What surprised me was you.”

“How?”

“I thought you’d be...” I wave a hand. “Scary. Bossy. And you were, kind of. But you kept asking. Every single time. You never just assumed.”

“Assuming would be easier,” he says. “It would also be wrong.” He looks down at his hands. “I’ve had a very long time to learn what I like, Tara. What I like most is being told the truth by someone who trusts me with it.”

He says it plainly, like everything else, but he doesn’t look at me while he says it. I’ve never heard him hesitate like that, and I can tell how much it costs him.

I lean my head on his shoulder and he lets me.

When I can stand up without my knees having opinions, I go to the mirror and try to fix my braid. It’s hopeless. I take it all the way down and start over.

In the glass, I can see him behind me, on the chaise. He’s put his tie back on. It’s knotted perfectly. His collar is straight. His hair, which was a mess in Merek’s kitchen this afternoon, is perfect. If it weren’t for the blanket folded over the arm of the chaise, nobody would ever know anything had happened in this room.

“That’s not fair,” I say.

“What isn’t?”

“You. I look like I got dragged backward through a hedge, and you look like you’re about to chair a meeting.”

He stands and comes up behind me. He doesn’t touch me. He just meets my eyes in the mirror. His jaw is set hard, and he isn’t breathing, and I realize he hasn’t been for a while. I watch the very edge of one fang slip down past his lip and then disappear again, and his hands, at his sides, close slowly into fists and open.

So he’s not as calm as he looks. Good.

“Tara,” he says, very softly, as though he’s telling me a secret.

“What?”

“That,” he says, “was me being polite.”

Chapter eight

Tara

Lenart’s suite is on the top floor of the Club, up a staircase I didn’t know existed until he sent me a text at six forty-five that said Third floor. The door at the end. It’s unlocked.

He opens it before I can knock.

He’s in shirtsleeves, no jacket, no tie. The sleeves are rolled to his elbows, and that’s the most undressed I’ve ever seen him while standing upright. He looks at me for a second. Then he puts one cool hand on my jaw and kisses me in the doorway, slowly, like a man picking up a conversation where he left off.

“Hello, Tara,” he says.

“Hi.” I look at his open collar. “No tie?”

“I’m saving it for other uses.”

“Smart.”