Page 103 of Loyalty

John’s grip tightened on her, and his fingertips tickled up her sides. “Yeah, but by the time we actually get in there, it’ll be twenty.”

Probably.

Siena didn’t care.

“The first bit of a movie is always an info dump and backstory, anyway,” she said, tilting her head back to peer up at him. “It’s like we’ll go in and know nothing, and have zero preconceived notions.”

John chuckled under his breath. “That’s quite a way to sell a movie. Buy expensive tickets for something we’re just going to drop you in the middle of, but trust me, it’ll be good.”

Siena poked him gently in the chest with the tip of her finger. She felt his muscles tighten and jump under the touch. “Maybe you just don’t have a big enough imagination, John.”

“Maybe not.”

He was only half in their conversation at that point. She knew it by the way his eyes drifted over to something behind her, as though he had to keep a close watch on it for whatever reason. He had been doing that a lot lately.

John never outright ignored her when it happened, but she could tell he wasn’t entirely present, either. Siena didn’t know what to make of it.

Or a few other things …

There was something different about his eyes lately—the hazel was darker, and his gaze seemed sharper. Like the way he didn’t let anything that moved around them go unnoticed. He was always looking from one thing, to another. Watching one person, and then the next that passed them by.

“Hey,” Siena whispered.

John’s gaze was back on her in a blink. “Hey.”

“I’m here, you know.”

She said the words quietly, and offered them softly. She didn’t want him to take it as anything other than a quest to bring him back to her for a second or two.

“I know where you are,” John murmured. His words made her heart pick up speed by a few beats. “I always know where you are, Siena.”

“Oh?”

“If I don’t know where you are, it’s like some kind of itch under my skin that I can’t scratch.”

Siena’s brow furrowed. “That sounds unpleasant.”

John shrugged. “So be it.”

She heard what he didn’t say.

He didn’t mind it. Maybe a part of him preferred it.

“Because it’s me?” she asked.

John’s slow smile curved those lips of his in the sexiest way. “Yeah, donna, because it’s you.”

“So, even when I tell you I’m here …”

“I’m already there,” he said, winking.

“Hard to tell sometimes with the way your attention flips all over the place.”

John lifted a hand and tapped a single finger to his temple. “No matter what, there’s one part of this that will be—” He twirled that same finger over her head. “—always focused on that. Even if it seems like I’m not.”

The heavy warmth that spread through Siena’s veins at John’s words was both comforting, and terrifying. A lot of things were like that with him—he barely had to try, and it felt like he was drawing her in, and warning her at the same time.

Maybe that should have been a sign.