Chapter 14 Reva #2
Shiloh starts after us, but somebody on the floor calls his name over the crowd, and he pauses long enough to answer. I catch him lift a hand in acknowledgment before the hallway swallows me and Ever whole.
The stockroom is cooler than the bar, dim and close with shelves running floor to ceiling. Liquor, dry goods, backup linens, the scent of cardboard and citrus cleaner and old wood. The door swings shut behind us with a soft hiss and a solid click.
Ever sets the crate down and reaches for the shelf without looking at me. He’s ignoring me on purpose. That pisses me off more than if he’d snapped.
“You can’t seriously expect me to drop it,” I say, planting myself between him and the next shelf, “when you all but dangled it in front of me.”
That gets his attention. His eyes drop to my face, then lower, quick and unreadable, probably clocking the fact that I’m running on nothing more than fumes and nerve endings.
“Yes,” he says. “I can.”
“I want to know how all this works, seeing as how you practically abducted me. His is the master bedroom at the end of the hall, right? Just a few doors down from mine…and yours?”
Silence. He shakes his head a little, but it’s not denial. Irritation, maybe.
I press harder, ticking things off on my fingers.
“So Nash isn’t just your boss. That’s his house.
He lives there too. How does that work? You all come here and do what he says, and then go home and play happy families?
What about when you bring women home? Does he get first pick?
What is it—some kind of hierarchy? Is he top dog?
The alpha male? Or is it more of a partnership? ”
“It’s none of your business, that’s what it is.”
The words land flat and cold.
I laugh once, sharp and humorless. “You keep saying that like I’m asking what your favorite sexual position is.”
Ever turns away to line up bottles that are already lined up. He turns them so their labels are precisely aligned, keeping his hands busy. His shoulders square. His precious control: locked down.
“I work in your bar,” I continue. “I live in your house. Last night—” I stop, because I’m not giving him that. Not here. Not like this. “Let’s just say things happened that maybe changed the terms.”
That makes him go still.
Good.
I take one step closer. “And I really think that if there’s an entire second business—an illegal one, from what I understand—hidden under the place I work, and the man running it is staying under the same roof as me, then yes—actually—it is my business.”
His shoulders move once. Not a shrug. Not quite a breath.
I turn to leave, and his sigh of relief hits me on a visceral level. Then something else hits me, and I whirl back around, finger raised.
“Also, for the record, a concealed entrance to an underground gambling room is probably a fire code violation.”
I toss it out there because I want to break his composure. I need proof he can still be moved.
Ever stares at the floor for a long moment. A sound rumbles up, and his shoulders shake.
It takes me a second to realize he’s laughing. The sound is low, brief, and somehow more insulting than if he’d called me stupid.
“Probably would be…if the fire chief weren’t in our pocket,” he says, turning slowly toward me.
The room changes when he faces me. There’s no warning. No gradual shift. One second it’s shelves and inventory and fluorescent hum.
The next it’s heat. Pressure. The feeling of standing too close to something volatile and pretending I’m not fascinated by the burn radius.
My heart trips over itself hard enough I hate my own body for it.
“Get back on the floor,” he says.
I should do that. I have tables. I have orders backing up. I have every practical reason to walk out and regroup before I make a bigger mess.
But practicality loses a lot of ground when a man looks at you like a command is just a different way of touching you.
I was about to leave anyway, but I narrow my eyes and fist my hands at my hips.
“No.”
His own gaze narrows.
“Reva.”
My name is a warning on his lips. A low rumble from deep in his chest that slides under my skin and sits there.
I hate that I shiver and goosebumps rise on my flesh. I have to clench my fist to keep from snapping my rubber bands.
“I deserve answers,” I say, and the tremor in my voice pisses me off enough to make me firmer on the next words. “You expect me to work for you, live with you, trust you enough not to try to do this thing on my own, and you won’t even tell me there’s a whole hidden ass floor under the building?”
His mouth hardens at the word trust.
Good. Let it.
“Nash walks in, and everybody tenses. Shiloh goes quiet. You hide in the office. Then he disappears through a wall and suddenly I’m supposed to act like that changes nothing?” I shake my head. “It changes everything.”
For me, most of all.
If Nash is tied to the part of this place that stays hidden, then my entire approach may need to shift. If he’s Midnight, I’m in deeper than I thought. If he’s not, he may still be the door I need.
Ever closes the distance before I register he’s moved.
One step. Two.
Then his hand is in my hair. He’s not gentle. Not cruel enough, though, to call violence.
His fingers thread through the strands at the back of my head and tighten just enough to force my face up to his. My pulse punches hot in my throat.
“Ever—”
He kisses me.
It isn’t like the office. It isn’t like Shiloh. This kiss is all warning label.
Deep. Possessive. Punishing in the way a man gets when he wants to shut your mouth and mark the fact that he could.
He takes and takes, leaving no room for me to pace the contact or decide the rhythm, and my body—the traitorous, stupid thing—answers him with heat anyway. My hands fist in his shirt.
His teeth catch my lower lip, a sharp sting, and he soothes it with his tongue before the hurt fully lands. The contradiction of it knocks me sideways.
Pain, then comfort.
Threat, then heat.
A warning dressed like desire.
My knees go weak for one humiliating second.
He smells like soap and smoke and the kind of salt-warm male skin my body already knows too well. It’s different from Shiloh, different from everything about last night—less coaxing, more impact. Less comfort, more control.
No better.
No worse.
Ever is his own brand of trouble.
I grip his shirt harder, and the second I do—as soon as I make it something he can read as want instead of resistance—he breaks the kiss.
Just stops. Like a door slamming.
I stare at him, breathing hard, mouth tingling, anger and arousal colliding so violently I can’t sort one from the other.
He keeps his hand in my hair for one more beat, eyes on mine, expression carved from something dark and deliberate. Then he lets go, opening his fist one finger at a time before he moves it from my head.
“You should really think about leaving, firefly.”
The words don’t register at first because my body is still trying to recover from the kiss.
I blink. “Wha…? You want me to—” I draw myself up and stop, refusing to finish the sentence. Fuck that.
Fuck him.
His jaw flexes. For one second—one—I think I see something crack through the control. Not softness. Something almost like frustration, if I wanted to take the time to dissect it.
“Before it’s too late.”
He moves around me and reaches the door before I can decide whether to throw something at him or demand he finish the sentence.
“Too late for what?” I snap.
He pauses with his hand on the handle but doesn’t turn. That’s the worst part.
If he looked at me, I might know what this is.
Whether he’s trying to scare me off because I’m an inconvenience, or he’s trying to save me because something bigger and badder than him just walked through the door.
Instead, he says nothing. He opens the door.
The noise of the bar pours back in—music, laughter, glassware, voices, life continuing like my heartbeat isn’t trying to split my ribs wide open.
Then he’s gone.
I stand there in the stockroom, breathless and furious and humiliated by how badly I want to chase him and demand the truth.
Was I just fired?
Warned?
Or just…rejected.
I can’t let him do that, though. He knows—obviously—more than he’s telling me. Things about Nash. About downstairs. About what happens when the hidden parts of Noir push up into the light.
And whether he’s protecting me or controlling me or pushing me away, the result is the same.
The game just changed.
And I’m no longer sure I’m the one deciding my next moves.