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I'm halfway drifting when I feel a glass pressed to my lips. “A little water, Sola.”

I try to lift my hand to take it, but my fingers don't quite cooperate. He keeps hold of the glass while I manage two small swallows before turning my face into his chest.

“Good girl,” he murmurs.

The words reach me, but answering feels impossible. Everything is pleasantly distant, even the effort of keeping my eyes open.

Elias crouches beside us, his hand moving slowly over my thigh. “You still with us, Little Doe?”

I try to answer, but the words won't come together. All I manage is a faint hum.

“She's deep,” Nate says.

“Deeper than we expected,” Elias murmurs. He glances toward the clock, then back at me. “Fuck. I really don't want to leave her like this, but I have a meeting I can't reschedule.”

“Go,” Nate tells him. “I've got her.”

“Eli,” I mumble, catching weakly at his sleeve.

“I know, sweetheart.” His jaw tightens. “I don't like leaving her like this.”

“Neither do I,” Nate answers. “But she won't be alone. I'll stay with her until she's ready to get up.”

They exchange a look over my head, and Elias pulls the throw from the back of the sofa near the window and drapes it over both of us, tucking one edge around my leg.

He kisses my forehead, then presses a brief kiss to Nate's mouth. “Call me if anything changes. I'll come straight back,” he promises.

“I will.”

Then he's gone. I make a small, unhappy noise, but Nate draws the throw around me and settles me more securely against him.

“I'm right here, Sola.” I recognize his voice, his heartbeat beneath my cheek, and the familiar weight of his arm around me.

“No more work?”

I feel him shift and then he tucks my hair behind my ear. “For you? No.”

I nestle closer, breathing in the scent of his cologne mixed with something sharper—us. That's enough for my eyes to close again.

The last thing I register is his hand moving slowly up and down my back beneath the blanket.

When I finally surface again, the room is dimmer.

I'm still curled in Nate's lap, warm beneath the throw Elias left behind. Across the office, Elias is on the sofa with Jace sprawled beside him, his head resting on Elias's thigh.

Nate notices me stirring. “Welcome back, Sola.”

I smile sleepily, taking in the absence of his laptop, paperwork, or phone. For once, Nathaniel Blackwell isn't working.

And judging by the way he's holding me, he hasn't moved in hours.

I nestle closer, ridiculously pleased with myself. Apparently, all it takes to get this man to take a break is falling asleep on him.

Jace murmurs something to Elias, Nate's hand resumes its slow movement along my back, and I drift off again with all three of them close by.

thirty

The Masquerade