GAGE
The apartment was dark, except for the glow of the multi-colored lights on Kat’s Christmas tree. My sexy redhead was asleep beside me. I was tired but wide awake, restless while at the same time content. I’d gone from early-afternoon hangover to late-afternoon shooting to all-evening lovemaking, and my thoughts about all those things hadn’t yet sorted themselves out.
I slipped out of bed to go get a glass of water. At the end of the hallway between the kitchen and dining room, I bumped into something small but solid that made a noise between a purr and a growl.
“Hey, buddy.” I patted the cat’s head. “Sorry about that. I didn’t see you in this low light.”
I took a step, and he trotted in front of me, making the same noise, which was decidedly unfriendly. I shuffled sideways into the kitchen, and he quieted. “Are you…?” I stepped around the counter and took a couple of steps toward the front door.
He blocked me, and this time, he hissed. Maybe I was losing it, but it seemed like Mr. Whiskerbottom Fuzzypants didn’t want me to leave. I stepped back into the kitchen.
“I’m not going anywhere, buddy. Did you notice I’m not wearing any clothes?”
He sat in front of the cabinet door that was closest to the cupboard with the treats in it, and I suspected he was less concerned with my plans to leave and more upset that I hadn’t sneaked treats to him first. I took out the plastic container full of liver-flavored crackers, glanced back down the hallway, and shook out a pile of treats in front of him.
“Remember, this is our secret.” I petted him as he scarfed down treat after treat. “Can I tell you another secret? This one’s about your mom.” I didn’t bother calling her his foster mom because whether she knew it yet or not, he was her cat now. “Because of her, I threw out my rule about…let’s say,datingin the building. And now, I’m seriously considering ditching the one about anything more than a fling with a neighbor. What do you think of that? Am I crazy?”
He finished eating and walked away from me. He settled onto the plush red tree skirt, yawned, and closed his eyes. Yeah, he didn’t have any more answers than I did.
I got my glass of water, then gathered my sweater and jeans from the floor and slipped them on. I walked out onto the patio barefoot. The cement stung the soles of my feet, but the air temperature had warmed a bit. I stood watching the twinkling lights in the trees that grew on the small green space across the street. We were a week out from the wedding, a week and a half from Christmas. And what would happen after that?
Earlier that day, I’d learned it was hellaciously hot to have a lover who could handle a Glock and drop a bad guy from eighteen feet away, who defended the homeland like a badass superhero, and who could take care of herself in situations that had never even occurred to me. The flip side I had to consider, now that the rush of adrenaline and hormones had abated, was that it was also outrageously dangerous. I couldn’t take care of her even if she’d let me, which I was pretty sure was off the table anyway.
Wrapping up my loved ones in my care was the only way I’d been able to put my heart out into the world since my dad’s death. As much as I didn’t want to leave Kat, and I did want this thing between us to grow into something deeper, I didn’t know if I had the strength to love someone who lived on the knife’s sharp edge.
That wastrulymy last secret, and it was one I couldn’t even share with Mr. Whiskerbottom Fuzzypants.
CHAPTER 22
KAT
Gage and I stepped out of a black Lexus in Midtown Manhattan. I was dressed in a blue silk pantsuit with a black, lacy shell underneath, and he was in a dark blue suit and starched white shirt left open at the color. I wore a long, pale gray wool coat; he wore a dark gray one. He helped me take my coat off my shoulders and adjusted it over my backpack. We both slid on our reflective sunglasses and walked up the red-carpeted front steps and into the 59th Street lobby of The Plaza Hotel to embark on our first stealth mission together.
Our bags had been sent ahead, part of the royal treatment being offered to the attendants of the Calhoun-Buchanan wedding, emphasis on Buchanan, which was the half bringing all the pomp and circumstance and pampering we would receive over the next two days. Not a bad way to spend a weekend. Throw in my very enthusiastic and noisy lover, and it was shaping up to be damn near perfect. We stepped onto the mosaic tile floor, glanced around at the marble walls, and looked up at the famous crystal chandelier. How could we not? That was a piece of New York City history right there.
But everything faded when I spottedit. I pulled off my sunglasses and walked quickly toward it, maneuvering around throngs of people without missing a step, and didn’t stop until I brushed up against the red velvet rope. There, in all its floor-to-ceiling glory, was The Plaza’s Christmas tree.
Gage arrived beside me and took my hand. “Impressive. But it doesn’t hold a candle to your tree.”
“I think you’re biased because you helped pick it, but sorry, I can’t think of a thing mine has over this one.”
“Really?” He leaned down and whispered. “You don’t remember what I did to you just last night under your tree?”
I took a deep breath and grinned as I indeed remembered every detail of that encounter. “Touché.”
My backpack shifted. “We better keep moving,” I said.
There was no need to check in, and Gage already had our keyless entry code, another perk of being a guest of the groom’s family, so we headed to the mirrored, gilded art deco elevators and took the first one that arrived. A distinguished elderly couple that oozed old money—her in a sable coat and him in a brown cashmere overcoat that possibly cost more than the down payment on my apartment—joined us and stood on the opposite side of the car. As we ascended, Gage slung his arm over my shoulders and pulled me close.
My backpack meowed.
The couple stared at us. We stared back. The elevator stopped on our floor, and the doors slid open.
Gage took my hand and smiled. “Come along, kitten.”
The couple exchanged a look with each other as we entered the plush-carpeted, marble-walled hallway.
“I hope they’re not wedding guests,” I whispered.
