Chapter Four | TORIN #2
It moved too slowly for hotel traffic.
Noa’s mouth barely moved. “Window table.”
“I see him.”
“Sedan.”
“I see that too.”
“Your breakfast has complications.”
“We’ll complain later.”
The host picked up two menus. “Right this way.”
I smiled at him. “Actually, my wife forgot something upstairs.”
Noa looked at me with immediate murder in her eyes.
Wife again. It was worth it.
The host’s polite smile held. “Of course.”
I turned us away before the man near the window could decide whether to stand.
Noa moved with me, no hesitation now. I didn’t head for the lifts.
That would be the box they expected. I took her past the marble columns, through the lobby lounge, and toward the corridor marked for meeting rooms and staff access.
Behind us, a chair scraped softly.
Noa heard it. Her shoulders shifted under the jacket.
“Is that ours?” she asked.
“One of them.”
“How many?”
“Three that I don’t like.”
“That seems excessive.”
“You attract attention.”
“You’re larger.”
“I’m better dressed.”
“You’re not.”
“Your hesitation wounded me.”
“I was imagining where to stab you.”
“There’s the girl I know.”
I pushed through the staff door before she could answer.
The back of The St. Julian smelled nothing like the front.
Gone were flowers and polished marble. Back here it was hot coffee, industrial soap, baking bread, metal racks, linen carts, and the cotton smell of a hotel waking up behind the curtain.
A woman in a white jacket looked up from a clipboard.
I gave her the kind of nod that said I belonged there and kept walking.
Noa stayed close.
A kitchen porter came around the corner with a crate of oranges and swore under his breath when he nearly hit me.
“Sorry,” Noa said smoothly. “He gets dramatic when he’s hungry.”
The porter blinked at her, then at me. Whatever he saw convinced him his morning didn’t require follow-up questions.
We moved past dry storage, down a service corridor, through a second door that opened into the loading area.
The city hit us cool, bay air sliding under my jacket, pavement dark from the night’s moisture.
Delivery trucks idled along the curb. Someone rolled a linen cart over uneven concrete.
Two blocks east, traffic had begun its morning crawl between towers reflecting grey light.
I checked left.
The man from the restaurant came through the service door thirty yards behind us.
He was better than cheap muscle. He didn’t run. He stepped out as if he had business there, looked once toward the trucks, once toward the street, and found us too quickly.
Noa saw him. “He’s persistent.”
“He’s exposed.”
“Very final.”
“It could end that way.”
I took her hand.
Noa’s fingers closed around mine hard enough to make a point. “This is practical.”
“It is completely practical.”
“If you enjoy it, I’ll know.”
“You’ll know many things before the day’s out.”
“Dempsey.”
“Almost affectionate.”
“That was warning.”
I pulled her into motion.
We crossed behind the first delivery truck, cut between two vans, and came out at the next curb as a bus hissed to a stop half a block down. I didn’t run. Running drew eyes. I walked fast enough that anyone following had to choose between exposing himself or losing ground.
Noa matched me step for step.
A second man came off the corner ahead, phone to his ear, gaze too fixed on nothing.
I changed direction before he could close the angle, taking Noa down an alley that smelled of wet stone, coffee grounds, and old city brick.
She didn’t ask where we were going. She glanced back once, then pointed to a narrow passage between two buildings.
“That cuts through?”
“It should.”
“That’s not comforting.”
“I’m usually right.”
“You’re going to get that engraved on your tombstone.”
“My tombstone will have better grammar.”
“You plan everything.”
“I try.”
The passage took us between buildings to a smaller street running parallel to the hotel frontage. Morning workers moved along the sidewalks with paper cups and headphones. A cyclist shot past us and cursed at a cab. The world continued around us, indifferent and useful.
I watched the glass across the street. Our first tail appeared in the reflection, coming out of the alley behind us.
Noa’s hand tightened in mine.
“I see him,” she said.
“So do I.”
“He’s not subtle.”
“He doesn’t need to be if his job is pressure.”
“Then his work ethic is a problem.”
I drew her into the stream of people at the crosswalk, kept her close through the change of light, then used a delivery entrance on the far side to cut through a building lobby and out a side door. The guard at the desk looked up. I gave him a smile and kept moving like I had every right to move.
By the time we reached the next street, our tail was gone.
I didn’t stop.
Noa’s breathing stayed controlled, but color had risen in her face. Her hair lifted in the cool breeze off the bay. Her dark eyes were bright, not with fear. Adrenaline had her now. It had me too. The sharp, alive edge of nearly being caught and not being caught rode between us like a live wire.
“Where now?” she asked.
“Back.”
“To the hotel?”
“Yes.”
“That sounds like exactly where they found us.”
“They found the perimeter. They exposed themselves. That vehicle and those faces are burned for now. If they’re smart, they pull back and reassess before trying again.”
“And if they’re not smart?”
“Then they make another mistake where I can see it.”
She looked at me for three hard seconds. “You like this.”
“I like winning.”
“You like being hunted.”
“No.” I stepped closer to her at the corner, lowering my voice as a pair of office workers passed behind us. “I like when the people hunting you get careless.”
Her mouth parted as if she had a sharp answer ready. Then she looked away.
“We go back,” she said.
We returned to The St. Julian through a side entrance attached to the spa level, crossed a quiet corridor that smelled of eucalyptus and expensive towels, and took the stairs instead of the lift.
Fourteen floors would have been annoying for most people.
Noa climbed them with the flat determination of a woman who would rather set the building on fire than admit to being winded.
By the time we reached our floor, her cheeks were flushed and my control was hanging by a thread.
The corridor was empty.
I got us inside, locked the door, threw the secondary latch, and stood with my back to the room while I listened.
No footsteps sounded outside. No lift chimed. No voices carried from the hall.
We had bought time.
Behind me, Noa exhaled hard.
I turned.
She stood near the foot of the bed, jacket still on, hair mussed from the stairwell, chest rising under the fitted blue top. Her eyes were on me. Not the door. Not the window. Me.
The bed was still unmade. My chair sat angled toward it. The city beyond the window glowed pale under the morning glare.
Noa pulled the drive from her inner pocket, crossed to the bed, and shoved it under the pillow again.
“Safe,” she said.
“It’s safe for now.”
“For now is getting old.”
“It usually does.”
She turned back to me. “You were going to skip breakfast anyway.”
“I was going to feed you.”
“You were going to inspect the hotel.”
“I can do two things.”
“You can barely do one without looking pleased with yourself.”
I took one step toward her.
Noa didn’t move back.
“You should sit down,” I said.
Her eyebrows rose. “Was that concern or command?”
“Both.”
“I’m not fragile.”
“I never said you were.”
“You keep looking at me like you expect me to break.”
“No.” I crossed another step. “I keep looking at you like I’m trying not to touch you.”
Her breath caught.
The room went quiet around us.
Noa went very still. Not calm. Not cold. Ready.
“Careful,” she said.
The word came out low and rough, nothing like warning enough.
I should have stepped back. I should have called Landon. I should have checked the corridor again, put the job between us, put distance where distance belonged, and remembered every reason this woman wasn’t mine to touch.
Noa moved first.
She crossed the space between us, grabbed my shirt in both fists, and hauled my mouth down to hers.
The kiss hit like impact.
It wasn’t soft. It wasn’t sweet. There was no question in it.
Her teeth caught my lower lip, sharp enough to make heat rip straight down my spine, and my hands went to her waist before sense had any say in it.
Noa pushed into me, all hard breath and hungry mouth, and I took two steps with her because standing still under that kiss wasn’t possible.
Her back hit the wall beside the window.
I got a hand behind her head before it struck, fingers tangling in her hair, and she made a sound against my mouth that burned through what was left of my restraint.
“Still concerned?” she asked, dragging the words against my lips.
“I’m not concerned anymore.”
“That’s progress.”
Her hands shoved under my jacket, pushing it off my shoulders. I let it fall. Her fingers went to my shirt next, pulling hard enough that one button gave way and ticked across the floor.
I laughed into her mouth. “You’re impatient.”
“I’ve been patient since Claudia’s office.”
“Is that what we’re calling it?”
“We’re not calling it anything.”
“All right, then.”
I kissed her again before she could sharpen that into something fatal.
Noa met me open-mouthed, one hand in my hair, the other dragging down my chest. I caught her wrist and pinned it beside her head. She jerked against the hold, not to get free. She tested it.
My cock was hard enough to hurt.
Her eyes flashed up at me. “You like having the upper hand.”
“I like having both.”
“Then earn them.”
I didn’t have a civilized answer to that.