Page 42 of Lennox Lane

DEPENDS ON THE DATE

Lane should have gotten out of bed. That would have been the responsible thing to do, and she was a responsible woman when Lennox Jackson wasn’t actively provoking her into poor judgment.

Unfortunately, Lennox was warm.

Worse, he was quiet.

Quiet Lennox was dangerous because it made room for the version of him she couldn’t insult her way around. The man beneath the arrogance. Beneath the smirk. Beneath the cyber-stalking, date-sabotaging, emotionally constipated nonsense he liked to dress up as devotion.

He lay behind her with one arm around her waist and his palm spread over her stomach like he had been designed to keep her there. His face was tucked close to her neck, his breath slow against her skin, his body heavy with that morning softness men got when sleep had not fully released them.

Lane had no intention of admitting she liked it.

She also had no intention of moving.

“Lennox?”

“Hmm?” His voice was rough with sleep, and she hated how much it turned her on.

Lane stared at his hand over hers. “Tell me something.”

His fingers flexed lightly. “About what?”

“You.”

“That’s broad, Lavender.”

She rolled her eyes, though he could not see it. “You know everything about everybody. You sit in dark corners, hack into clouds, find burner accounts, crash dates with medical supplies, and act like chaos is a love language.”

“It is one of my dialects.”

“Unfortunately.” She turned slightly in his arms, enough to see his face. “But you don’t actually say much about yourself.”

His eyes opened then. There he was. Not the teasing man. Not fully. Something guarded moved behind his gaze, quick as a shadow crossing glass. Lane felt the shift immediately. Lennox had a way of letting people think they were close because he was charming, available, funny, and dangerously good at making attention feel intimate. But this was different.

This was the door behind all that.

Lane touched it with one question, and he thought about locking it.

“You don’t have to,” she said.

His gaze held hers.

“I know,” he said.

The silence between them stretched, but it did not feel empty. It felt like Lennox was deciding whether to be the man he usually was or the man he had claimed he wanted to become. Then he exhaled and looked toward the ceiling.

“My father was the Midnight Ledger before me.”

Lane stayed still. She had known pieces of it. Hints. Rumors. The way people said Lennox’s name in certain rooms. The way even powerful men lowered their voices around him. But hearing him say it like inheritance, not legend, made something in her chest tighten.

“The original?” she asked.

Lennox nodded. “The original.”

“Damn.”

His mouth twitched. “That’s one word for him.”