Page 154 of Mile High Ruin

For a while, neither of us moves. She stays wrapped around me. I remain inside her until my breathing settles.

Eventually she lifts her head. “This is becoming a problem.”

“Yes.”

“At least we agree.”

I kiss her again, softer this time, and the tenderness of it feels more dangerous than everything that came before.

Later, after we have straightened our clothes enough to resemble people who have not just had sex against a table in the middle of the afternoon, we return to the terrace.

Sloane stands beside me with her arms folded against the cooler air. For several minutes, she says nothing.

Then she looks at me. “There are rumors about me.”

I turn toward her. “Nadia.”

“Not only Nadia.”

“Who else?”

“Staff. Security. People stop talking when I walk past.”

My jaw tightens. “I will put an end to it.”

She looks at me for a long moment. “You’ll do that.”

“Yes.”

“You’ll defend me to your family, shut down gossip, put guards around me, cancel flights because you think I’m safer here, and apparently reorganize your entire life around making sure nothing happens to me.”

I say nothing.

Her gaze stays on mine. “But you still won’t let me go.”

There is no accusation in the way she says it this time.

That makes the question harder to answer.

I look out over the grounds. “I told you why.”

“You told me why you think keeping me here is safer.”

“It is.”

“That’s not the same thing.”

I turn back toward her. She’s still watching me.

“And what do you think it is?”

Her expression softens slightly. “I think you don’t know whether you trust me, but you also don’t want me far enough away that you can’t keep watching me.”

I can’t deny that.

She sees it in my face. Her mouth curves without humor.

“That’s what I thought.”