Raven felt her cheeks heat.
Toly said, “Good?” bristling a little.
Raven rubbed his arm soothingly. “Where is Cass?” She followed Reese’s gaze when he glanced off to the side, and Raven was relieved to see that Cassandra had been pulled into the old ladies’ conversation circle. She looked a little bored, and craned her neck to look toward the Dogs at the next fire pit, but so far so good.
“We’ll keep an eye on her,” Reese said. “And Bennet’s wife is looking after her, too.” He turned back to them, and his brows lifted. “You should go before Tenny sees you.”
She winced, and reached to pat at her hair. “That obvious, huh?”
With his usual guileless honesty, he said, “I can see your hickey in the dark.”
“Right. Toly, let’s go.”
They managed to make it inside and up the stairs without further incident. Toly ducked into the kitchen to snag them two glasses of water, and they encountered a couple of Lean Dogs on the stairs, but she didn’t recognize them, and they were too busy laughing at their own conversation to pay them any mind.
“Dear God,” Raven sighed with dismay when she turned on the lamp in her room and stood before the dressing table mirror.
She’d loved the feeling of his mouth on her throat while he was inside her, the scrape of his teeth, and the way her skin had tingled when he’d sucked at her skin…but she was now sporting the biggest, most obvious hickey of her life, and it would only darken as the hours passed.
And that was to say nothing of her hair. She looked like she’d been in a windstorm – or, more accurately, been wallowing around on the floor. Bits of leaf clung to her coat and the front of her dress, and there was lipstick on her cheek.
She touched the bruise on her throat, making a face even as the flare of tenderness there sent pleasant chills rolling down her back to settle between her legs.
Toly moved to stand behind her, and she didn’t think she’d ever tire of the sight of him looming behind her in reflections. Her pulse sped up remembering their first night, in the bedroom of her flat. The way he’d unbelted her robe, and stripped her bare. Touched her like he had a right to, like he knew what she needed.
Jesus. Memory alone could get her halfway there.
His face was wholly transformed tonight, though, a different portrait entirely than that first night. He unbelted her coat, his face turned toward her, lashes low, lips still dewy from kissing, and he gazed at her with open reverence. No mask, no scowl, no pretending. He was allowing himself this openness, trusting her with it.
An honor she vowed never to take lightly.
He drew her coat off her shoulders, and half-turned to toss it over a chair. Then his hands settled on her hips, and he stepped in close behind her, warmth of his body all down her back, breath hot over the mark he’d left not even an hour ago.
It would be the easiest thing in the world to slide back into an embrace, and this time it was warm, and there was a bed, and this whole floor of the house was quiet around them.
But, no. There was still business to address.
Raven turned – his hands moved to her back, stroking into the dip above her arse in a proprietary way – and she pressed both hands on his chest, pushing back when he leaned in to kiss her.Therewas the brow furrow she’d grown so used to.
“I said I would ask about Misha later.” She offered a look of encouragement, a trace of a smile.I’m not angry, but I want you to trust me. “It’s later.”
She watched the twitch and flicker of his face as he chewed through a number of answers. Finally, he sighed, and nodded, and let go of her. Stepped backward until the backs of his legs hit the hope chest, and then sat down on top of it. He raked his hair back with both hands, tucked it behind his ears, and met her gaze. He’d been physically opening his face to her, she realized; no more hiding behind the screen of his hair, looking up at her through lashes, or from beneath lowered brows. Head-on eye contact, no obfuscating.
Raven perched her bum on the edge of the dresser and folded her arms, loosely. They’d already established that she’d asked Tenny to follow him, so there was no sense pretending otherwise. “When did you start meeting with him?” she asked, quietly.
He brought his hands together, slow, nervous washing motions, but his gaze held steady. “After Nikolai’s body was found. When we realized they were trying to frame me.”
“How did it happen?”
“When we were in Moscow, he always kept a phone. Pre-paid, untraceable. If you needed something, you sent a text to that number. I tried it – the same number – and got a response.” Before she could ask the next, most obvious question, he said, “A car showed up, at the building. Picked me up on the curb and took me to a nice neighborhood. The same neighborhood Alicia Newsome lives in, actually. A really nice townhouse. We pulled into a garage, and they walked me up the stairs to Misha’s study.”
His throat worked as he swallowed, gaze receding a little into memory. “It was really fancy, the house. There was staff, and guards, bratva muscle everywhere. And Misha had astudy. He was wearing asuit.” Unusual points of note, she figured. “He sent everyone out and we had a meeting, just us.”
She knew he wasn’t trying to do it, but he couldn’t keep a note of deeply ingrained respect from his voice when he talked of Misha. He’d meant a lot to Toly, when he was younger, and might still. Fear laced with awe, colored by history. Raven took a deep breath and tried to fight down the way it scared her.
“He was…he was the same, once we were alone. The Misha I remembered. He never wanted power, didn’t need to be at the top, but Andrei trusts him more than anyone, and after the shitshow with Oleg, he got sent here. He’s trying to clean up Oleg’s mess. He wants the bratva to earn more money, and in better ways.”
He was going off in the weeds, sounding like a bratva sales-pitcher, and the way his voice had shifted – like he was trying to convince her of something – left her heart knocking unpleasantly. “Toly,” she prompted, gently.
