Chapter 4
four
. . .
The medic cleared her, and then a Cinnamite festival coordinator with kind eyes and cinnamon-warm hands guided her to a quieter corner backstage and told her that Officer Thorne had been formally assigned as her personal security detail for an indefinite duration, effective immediately.
"He'll escort you to and from the venue, conduct pre-performance sweeps, and maintain proximity during all public appearances until the safety review concludes." The coordinator's voice was gentle. "Commander Oris selected him personally. You're in excellent hands, Miss Calloway."
Excellent hands.
The words landed, and her stupid, traitorous body supplied the memory before she could stop it: Thorne's hands.
One at her shoulder blades, fingers spread wide and pressing her against his chest. The other one…
lower. Significantly lower. Curved around the swell of her ass like his palm had been made to fit there.
The weight of his body beneath hers. The rigid line of him pressed against her hip through layers of uniform and performance dress, unmistakable and—
"That's very reassuring," she said, and smiled, and the coordinator smiled back.
He's not here because he wants to be near you. He's here because it's his job.
She repeated it silently, pressing her thumbnail into the pad of her index finger until the small pain sharpened her focus.
He's here because someone told him to be.
Her body did not believe her. Her body was, in fact, staging a full rebellion against the premise, because some part of her that had woken up on the stage floor and not shut up since then.
That part of her was incandescent at the idea of him being near her every day.
Walking her home. Standing in the wings.
Close enough to look at whenever she became brave enough to look.
But the older part that knew what it looked like when a man was paid to be near her went cold.
She knew this feeling. She knew what it looked like when a man was paid to be near you.
David Sterling had called it partnership for a decade, and she'd believed him, and the believing had cost her everything.
Thorne was not David Sterling. She knew that. But knowing didn't stop the old alarm from going off, didn't stop her from shoving the want back down.
He's doing his job. That's all this is.
She pressed her thumbnail harder into her finger.
He found her fifteen minutes later in the corridor outside her dressing room, already changed out of the wine-dark performance dress and into a cashmere wrap coat and heeled boots, her armor reassembled.
He was standing against the far wall with his arms crossed, and the sight of him did something to her breathing she refused to acknowledge.
"Miss Calloway."
There it was. Miss Calloway. Not Phoebe.
"Officer Thorne."
His jaw tightened. Barely.
"I would like to brief you on the security protocol for the duration of the assignment."
"Of course."
He laid it out in flat, measured sentences. She would be escorted to and from the venue. No exceptions. A pre-performance sweep of the stage and backstage areas. His presence during all rehearsals and performances. Non-negotiable proximity for the duration of the safety review.
She tried to listen. She genuinely tried.
But her body kept interrupting.
The print of him was still on her front even an hour later, showered and changed, standing in a corridor lit by blue-white work lamps.
She could still feel him. The wall of his chest. His arms locked around her.
One hand on her shoulder blades. The other…
God, the other… low on the curve of her ass with his fingers spread, and cold even through the fabric.
Heat pulsed through her core, and she clenched her jaw against it.
The hardness of him against her hip. Unmistakable.
She'd been on Earth stages for twenty years.
She'd been pressed against dancers, lifted by choreographers, held by co-performers in elaborate stage pictures that required full-body contact.
None of it had done what three seconds on the stage floor with Thorne had done.
The fire that had started in her belly when she felt him hard against her hip had not, in the hours since, fully gone out.
It flared every time he moved, every time he said Miss Calloway in that low register.
"—and I will conduct a final sweep after each performance before escorting you to your residence. Do you have questions?"
She had approximately nine hundred questions, none of which were appropriate.
"No. That all sounds very thorough."
He nodded once. "Then we should begin."
The walk home was silent.
Vanilla-scented snow drifted down around them.
The Eternal Pine's bioluminescence pulsed its slow silver-blue rhythm in the distance, the light reaching them in soft waves.
It was the most beautiful place she had ever stood and the most beautiful night she could remember.
And beside her, half a stride to her left and slightly behind, walked a man whose body she could still feel on her skin, who had not so much as glanced at her since they'd left the venue.
She kept her eyes forward. She kept her hands in her pockets.
She kept her posture perfect and her face composed and her breathing steady and her vocal cords humming a low, barely audible warm-up scale that she told herself was habit and was, in reality, the only thing keeping her from screaming into the vanilla snow.
His boots made no sound on the path. She'd never met anyone who moved that quietly at that size. The cold rolled off him in steady waves, and her body leaned toward it the way it had leaned toward him in the backstage corridor.
Neither of them spoke. The silence ached with everything she wasn't saying. Why did you hold me like that? Why did your hand end up there? Why didn't you call me Phoebe? And underneath: Is this real, or am I another assignment?
The humming got louder. She caught herself and stopped it.
Three blocks from the amphitheater, Thorne stopped.
She stopped too, half a step later, turning to look at him.
He'd paused beside a small stall, at one of the late-night vendor carts that lined the path between the Market District and the residential quarter, with steam rising from copper kettles into the falling snow.
A Cinnamite proprietor with heat-bright markings was dozing behind the counter.
Thorne spoke to the vendor in a low voice.
She caught the words peppermint and honey and no milk.
He did not look at her. He did not ask what she wanted.
He just ordered her tea, the way she liked it.
The exact way she liked it: peppermint with honey.
The vendor handed him a ceramic cup trailing fragrant steam.
He turned and extended the cup toward her.
His fingers were bare. She hadn't seen him remove the gloves. The pale skin was striped with those faint silver-white markings spiraling across his knuckles and down his fingers.
She reached for the cup.
Their fingers touched.
His were cold. Markedly cold, several degrees below what skin should feel like.
He lingered.
A fraction of a second. The smallest extension of contact beyond what the handoff required. His fingertips against hers, cold on warm. Heat lit through her belly and between her thighs, and she almost dropped the cup.
She remembered these same fingers curved around her and pressing her into him.
She took the cup. Wrapped both hands around it to hide the tremor. The ceramic was warm. His cold still ghosted across her fingertips.
"Thank you," she said, and her voice came out low.
He inclined his head. Barely.
They walked.
She didn't ask how he knew it was her favorite drink after a show. She'd never told him. She'd never told anyone here. And the possible explanation sat in her chest. He'd been watching her closely enough to learn her habits. And he remembered.
The tea was perfect. The silence was unbearable.
"I forgot how quiet this place could be late at night."
The words left her mouth before she gave them permission. And worse, they came out wrong. The vowels rounder, the consonants softer, the rhythm syncopated in a way that had nothing to do with vocal training and everything to do with the block she grew up on.
Brooklyn. Her accent. The one she'd spent thousands of dollars and years of coaching to erase, because the industry wanted a voice that came from nowhere and belonged to everyone.
The one that surfaced only when she was exhausted or angry or walking through alien snow beside a man who made her feel things she couldn't control.
Her jaw locked. She took a breath, ready to repeat the sentence in her practiced voice, to smooth the rough edges back into palatability.
Thorne kept walking. His pace didn't change. His expression didn't shift. He didn't comment. Didn't look at her. Didn't acknowledge the slip at all.
She drank her tea and followed him through the snow, and did not trust the warmth spreading through her chest.
At her door she stopped and turned.
He was closer than she'd realized. A half-step behind her and to the left, his standard position, which put him near enough that the cold rolling off his body raised every fine hair on her arms. Near enough that she had to tilt her face up to find his.
Snowflakes caught on his shoulders and the collar of his uniform.
She put on the smile that had gotten her through two decades of industry dinners and backstage conversations with people who wanted her voice and never her.
"Thank you. That was very kind of you."
A pause. His eyes moved across her face. The ache between her thighs pulsed, and her fingers tightened around the empty cup.
"Are you all right?" His voice, very quiet. Lower than it had been during the protocol briefing. The formality scraped thin enough that she could hear the texture underneath.
Was she all right?
There was an electric pull in her belly every time he touched her. A low ache now lived between her thighs ever since the stage floor and was getting worse the longer he stood this close with his ice-blue eyes on her like she was… like she was a person. Not an asset. A person.
She looked him dead in the eye.
"I'm fine."
He went still.
Not a flinch, not a reaction, just stillness.
The way a lake freezes from the surface down.
He held her gaze and waited. Didn't blink.
Didn't speak. Just stood there in the falling snow and looked at her with those pale eyes that she suddenly, horribly remembered could detect lies, and the realization hit her like a spotlight turning on in a dark room.
He knew. He knew she wasn't fine before she finished saying it. Mentharians sensed deception the way she sensed pitch.
She'd just lied to a man who could feel lies.
Her mouth opened. Nothing came out.
He didn't call her on it. He didn't press. He just held her gaze one breath longer, and the look in his eyes wasn't judgment or accusation. It was something quieter. Something like recognition.
"Goodnight, Phoeb—"
He stopped.
The syllable hung in the cold air between them. His jaw flexed. She watched his teeth come together behind his closed lips.
"Goodnight, Miss Calloway."
He corrected himself. Deliberately. The correction landed on her like pressing on a bruise.
He turned and walked into the snow, his boots silent on the path.
She went inside, closed the door, and leaned her forehead against it.
The wood was cool against her skin. Not cold like him, but enough to ground her, to give her a surface to press against while she breathed.
He was walking away from her right now. Through the snow, back to wherever he lived in this place.
He would be at her door tomorrow. And the day after that.
He would walk her home and hand her tea and call her Miss Calloway and almost say her name.
Night after night. Close enough to touch, the distance absolute.
She pressed her forehead harder against the door.
Her vocal warm-up started automatically. A low hum cycling through her range, the sound vibrating in her chest and her sinuses and filling the quiet of the empty room.
The tea sat warm in her stomach. The way she liked it, and she had never told him.
Her accent had slipped out in front of him, and he hadn't flinched.
He'd almost said her name.
She hummed louder and pressed her palms flat against the door until the cold faded from the wood.