No.They trusted him to do this job.Nix was overly worried.But the fear that someone was watching and reporting on him didn’t leave.
When Nix showed up at his door hours later, the knot in Lance’s stomach had only grown.He couldn’t break the truce without proving Nix’s point about the Orlans being oath-breakers.But he wasn’t sure how he could keep going.He let Nix in even though he didn’t want to be seen with him.Nix breezed in wearing jeans, a long-sleeved shirt, and the faded cap with the surf logo, the same one he’d been wearing the first time Lance had seen him.He pressed a kiss to Lance’s lips like they were lovers who’d been parted for months, not hours.
Lance stepped back, and then his back was to the wall.He should push Nix away, but the way Nix moved against him, all Lance wanted to do was pull him closer until there was nothing between them.Nix drew back to breathe.
Why was he not freaking out about being watched?
“Miss me?”Nix smiled as though he didn’t have a care in the world.
The bite mark on his neck throbbed in time with his pulse.“Are you trying to seduce me so I don’t turn you over?”
Nix lifted an eyebrow.“Is it working?”
“No.”
The smile fell from Nix’s face, and his features hardened as he walled himself up.That was the man he knew from the photos.Grim and hard.Trapped.
Lance grabbed his hand but then didn’t know what to do.Nix glanced at their hands and then at him.For a second, Lance didn’t know if he was about to be killed or kissed.
Nix did neither.He pulled his hand free.“Sorry to be so disappointing.”
“If I’d met you anywhere else?—”
“Or if we weren’t enemies?”
“Yes,” Lance agreed.Nix had an air about him that made it hard to look away.Lance wasn’t ensorcelled, but he might as well have been.
“Why areweenemies?Why arewefightingtheirbloody war?”
“Family honor,” Lance said.The words automatically rolled off his tongue.
Nix stepped back.“Is that what they tell you?”
“Amongst other things.”Like how the Hadleys were the scum of the earth.Violent and unfeeling.Uncaring.
All he could think about was Nix beneath him at the beach.That hadn’t been a man who didn’t care about his lover—Lance knew what that was like.
“They don’t tell you they monitor all communication?Every keystroke?”Nix pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket.“This is my new number.Memorize it.Use a landline or a burner.”He pressed it into Lance’s palm.“You have to assume everything is monitored.”
“No, I don’t.You’re talking about my family.”His family wasn’t made up of monsters.But to the Hadleys the Orlans were the monsters in the same way the Hadleys were the bad guys in every tale the Orlans told.
Nix shot him a glare.“We monitored all technology.Traced all numbers.Everything.Your family will be no different.”
“Your mother monitored what you were doing?”
“Yes.I bought myself a junk phone with some birthday money because I didn’t want them checking out who I was dating or hanging out with.I wanted some privacy.”
“What happened when you were caught?”
Nix gave him a curious smile.“I wasn’t.I didn’t make every call on that phone.”Nix walked toward him and put his hands on Lance’s shoulders.“Honey, you have got to be more careful.We are dancing with a poisoned blade.One slip, and we are dead.”
“You asked for the truce.”And put them both in danger.
“Because I want to live.You agreed to it.”
Lance looked down, unable to hold Nix’s gaze.“Because I am a fool.”He shouldn’t have gotten sucked in by a smile.
“You like the dance.”Nix swayed a little closer.
