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“Let’s not talk about business right now.” He gave me a predatory smile and threw a slow glance toward the stairs. “Shall we?”
“What are you up to?” As tempting as it was to gloss over this little hiccup, I still wasn’t buying it. He was up to something. He had his scheming face on.
His fingertips skimmed down the length of my arm, toying with the edge of my fingers. Before I could fully capture his hand in mind, he slipped away with a smirk, clasping one wrist casually behind his back.
I pivoted in a half-circle, watching him.
When he got to the threshold of the bar, he paused and looked over his shoulder giving me a look —thatlook — the one that left me lightheaded and my heart stuttering. The one I’d spent years telling myself meant nothing, when it had meant everything.
I had all I could do to contain myself when what I really wanted to do was sprint across the way and kiss the hell out of him. He’d kill me, of course. Despite what he did in the alley, his tolerance for PDA was practically non-existent.
As if proving my point, he darted up the stairs the minute I got too close to him. I gave chase, narrowing the distance on him in the hallway outside our room.
He spun and grabbed the front of my shirt, yanking me against him. We fell against the door in a frenzy of kisses. I twisted my hands in his hair, biting his lower lip while he groped my pockets with both hands. It wasn’t my dick he was after, because that was front and center and hard to miss. It was the keycard, I realized, after he pulled it out and stabbed blindly behind him for the slot.
I swiped it from him and jammed it in the card-reader. As soon as I got a green light, I cranked the handle and shoved him inside, kicking the door shut behind me.
If I only had three more days with him, alone, away from reality, then I was going to make the most of every fucking second.
4
Bennett
The return trip to Chicago was entirely different than the original flight four weeks ago. Every hour we flew closer to home added another brick to the pile of obligations on our backs. After the whole cluster created by She Who Shall Not Be Named, we both knew we were returning to a firestorm. In typical Leander fashion, he seemed bound and determined to avoidanyconversation involvingHer.
But trapped on an airplane for five hours, he didn’t have much choice when I brought it up.
“What are you going to do aboutHer?” I asked, spinning the onyx ring on my index finger.
He didn’t even take his eyes off his book. “What do you mean?”
I gave him a minute to look up. When he didn’t, I swatted the book downward, into his lap. “Youknowwhat I mean.”
His jaw shifted as he looked away, staring daggers at the empty seat across from him.
“She was living with you when you disappeared,” I continued. Even if he refused to look at me, I watched him like a hawk, waiting for any flicker of emotion to reveal itself so I could dissect it.
“Point?”
“Pretty sure the news said she was your girlfriend. Which means she’s stillidentifyingas your girlfriend to the police. So…”
“We never labeled it as anything,” he said loftily, finally deigning to face me with an infuriatingly blank expression. “It means nothing.”
“Neither did we,” I shot back, mocking his tone. “By that same logic, you’re implyingwe’renothing.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Ridiculous? More like confused. Concerned. Arrabbiato...” The rest of my Italian adjectives trailed off when he huffed. I was pretty sure I heard his teeth snap together, too. Throwing out another language wasn’t exactly fair, but I shouldn’t have to spell out how angry I was in English if he couldn’t pick up on the fucking context clues.
“Why don’t you ask me whatever it is you want to know? Preferably in a language I actually understand.”
“So you can shut down, like you always do?” I asked in French with a faux smile, just to be an asshole. The final word I spat out in English. “Pass.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyes shut. “I don’t know why we keep circling back to Lorelei.”
I ignored his muttering and the fact he was probably getting a migraine. If his head was throbbing, maybe he’d be more inclined to answer whatever questions I threw at him, just so I’d stop talking. “What are you going to do if you go home and she’s still there?”
“Politely ask her to leave?”
