Chapter 15 Ravenswood
RAVENSWOOD
DOMINIC
We went to Cal's flat first because my bike was parked three streets over and I wasn't leaving it in Clerkenwell overnight where anyone could tamper with it.
Cal walked beside me in tense silence, still wearing the suit that had gotten us through courthouse security, his hands shoved in his pockets like he was resisting the urge to catalogue threats in every shadow.
The tail had dropped off two blocks ago and I didn't trust it.
His eyes moved over the motorcycle with the same assessing focus he applied to everything else. “Never been on one.”
“It's straightforward. Hold on. Don't fall off.” I unlocked the helmet compartment and pulled out the spare. “You'll manage.”
He took the helmet and turned it over in his hands like he was memorising its construction. “Ravenswood. That's where we're going.”
“Where we agreed to go. Yes.” I straddled the bike and felt the familiar weight settle.
Cal pulled on the helmet, fumbled slightly with the strap, and I reached out without thinking and adjusted it properly, my fingers brushing the underside of his jaw where the bruises were still fading.
His breath caught. Our faces were close enough that I could see his pupils dilate behind the visor.
“Get on,” I said.
He swung his leg over and settled behind me with careful precision, as though he was trying not to touch more than necessary. “Now what?”
“Arms around my waist. Lean when I lean. Don't fight the momentum.” I felt him hesitate, and then his arms wrapped around me — tentative at first, then tighter when I revved the engine. “Hold on.”
The bike roared to life and Cal's grip on my waist clamped down hard against the surge of acceleration as I pulled into London traffic.
“Relax,” I said over my shoulder. “Tension makes it worse.”
“Easy for you to say. You're not the one trusting someone else with your survival.”
“You trusted me in that fight today.”
He didn't answer, but I felt the slight shift in his body and I smiled despite myself and leaned into the first turn, felt him lean with me, his body adjusting faster than conscious thought could manage.
“Bastard,” he muttered against my shoulder. “You did that on purpose.”
“Needed to make sure you'd hold on properly.” I leaned into the next turn and felt him follow without hesitation. “You're a natural. Stop overthinking it.”
“I overthink everything. It's how I stay alive.”
“Tonight you let me do the thinking. Hold on and try not to die.”
We rode through London as evening settled into night, through streets that blurred into streaks of light and shadow, and Cal's grip stayed firm and warm around my waist — not panicked, not reluctant, just present in a way that felt like something he wouldn't have admitted to on the ground.
By the time we reached Ravenswood's grounds his body had fully relaxed against mine, his breathing steady, his hands warm through my shirt.
I took the bike around to the east entrance, the one servants had used a century ago that nobody monitored anymore except me, and cut the engine. The sudden silence felt heavy with everything that hadn't been said since the courthouse.
Cal dismounted first, pulling off the helmet with movements that were slightly unsteady. His hair was completely wrecked, sticking up at odd angles, his face flushed and his eyes slightly wild.
“That,” he said, his voice still tight, “was absolutely terrifying.”
I swung off the bike and couldn't quite suppress the smile. “You handled it fine.”
“Fine? You took corners like you were trying to scrape my knees off on the pavement. You accelerated through traffic like physics was a suggestion you'd decided not to follow.” He stopped and ran a hand through his destroyed hair. “I think my heart is still somewhere near my throat.”
“You didn't complain during the ride.”
“I was too busy not dying to complain.” But his mouth was curving despite the words. “Do you always ride like that, or were you showing off?”
“I ride efficiently. Traffic doesn't wait for caution.” I took the helmet from him and stored both in the compartment. “And you relaxed into it after the first few turns. You know you did.”
“Resigned to my fate is not the same thing as relaxed.” He looked up at Ravenswood's dark stone walls rising ahead of us, then back at me. “You enjoyed terrifying your passenger.”
“You weren't terrified. You were exhilarated. There's a difference.” I'd felt it in the way his grip had changed after the second corner, the way his body had stopped fighting the movement and started reading it instead.
Cal huffed out something that might have been a laugh. “Bloody adrenaline junkie. No wonder you fight the way you do.”
“Says the man who backflips off crates while stabbing people.”
“That's tactical acrobatics. Entirely different.” He was grinning now, the tension from the courthouse finally bleeding out of his shoulders. “Your whole way of moving through the world is just controlled chaos.”
“Controlled being the operative word.” I gestured toward the entrance. “Come on. Before someone notices we're standing out here analysing my riding style.”
I led him through passages that smelled like stone and age, up stairs that hadn't seen regular foot traffic in years, and into the wing that had been mine since I'd moved into Ravenswood five years ago.
The door opened onto a space that was bigger than most people's entire flats — a living area, a kitchen, a bedroom through a door I kept closed, and a bathroom that could comfortably fit six people.
“This is your quarters?” Cal moved into the space and studied everything with the particular focus that meant he was memorising layout and exits. “This is a house.”
“Ravenswood has thirty bedrooms. Adrian doesn't notice if one gets converted into something more practical.” I moved to the kitchen and pulled two beers from the fridge. “Make yourself comfortable. We're not going anywhere tonight.”
Cal loosened his tie but didn't remove his jacket, still in courthouse mode, still performing control even though we were alone and nobody was watching except me. I handed him a beer and gestured toward the fireplace where I'd laid wood that morning out of habit.
“Help me start this.”
“I'm not here to play house with you, Dom. We need to plan our next moves. Figure out how to use what we found before Harrow moves against us.”
“We will. After we eat. After we breathe.” I knelt by the fireplace and started arranging kindling. “Take an hour to be human.”
“Being human doesn't solve problems. Work solves problems.” But he set his beer down and knelt beside me anyway. “You brought me here for security. Not bonding.”
I lit the kindling and watched flame catch and spread. “Watching you almost get shot today made me realise I give a damn whether you live or die. Which is inconvenient but apparently unavoidable.”
“How touching.” His voice dripped sarcasm. “Does this usually work? The protective routine? Bring them to your fortress, light a fire, wait for them to fall into your arms?”
My jaw tightened. “I'm trying to have an actual conversation. You're being an arsehole.”
“I'm being realistic. We're two people using each other to get what we want. Don't romanticise it into something it isn't.”
“Fine. What do you want from tonight?”
He stood and paced away from the fire. “What I don't want is to sit here pretending we have some deep connection because we both lost people and we're both obsessed with the same corrupt prosecutor.”
“You think that's what I'm doing? Manufacturing a connection?”
“I think you're lonely.” He turned to face me, those mismatched eyes catching the firelight. “I think you've built yourself into this perfect instrument for Adrian's organisation and you're realising that instruments don't get to have lives. Don't get to have relationships.”
I stood slowly. “You're full of shit.”
“Excuse me?”
I moved closer and watched his spine straighten defensively. “You're lashing out because I got too close to something real and you don't know how to handle people who actually give a damn about you.”
“You don't know anything about me.”
“I know enough.” I closed the distance between us. “And I know that every time we're in the same room you look at me like you're calculating whether I'm worth the risk. So don't stand there and tell me this is nothing when your actions keep proving otherwise.”
“Everything I do has a reason.”
“So does this.” My hand came up and gripped his jaw, steady, and held his gaze there. “You're just as compromised as I am. Just as desperate for someone to watch your back. Just as tired of pretending you're fine when you're not. The difference is I'm honest about it.”
Cal's eyes flashed. “Get your hand off me.”
“Not yet.”
“Dom.” A warning.
“You think because we're in my space you'll just fall in line with whatever dynamic I'm trying to establish?” His voice had dropped to something quieter and more dangerous. “I don't need saving. And I sure as hell don't need you playing protector because it makes you feel less alone.”
“You're right. You don't need saving.” I crowded closer, using my size deliberately, and watched him hold his ground despite it. “But needing something and wanting it are different things. And you want this. You've wanted it since the alley.”
“I'm choosing not to complicate an already complicated situation.” The words were steady but his breathing had changed — heavier, his pupils blown wide despite every bit of composure he was fighting to hold. “This is a terrible idea.”
“You know what's a terrible idea? The two of us spending every conversation performing indifference while we're both thinking about the same thing.” I backed him toward the wall and watched him let me, watched him choose not to stop it even as he kept saying he would.
“Stop pretending you don't feel this. Stop pretending every time I touch you your control doesn't fracture.
Stop pretending you're not already halfway to where I want you.”