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“Yeah.”She obviously hadn’t recovered all her powers of speech or her ability to stop staring.
“Like something you see?”
Busted.She needed to get hold of herself.In a second or ten.“Perhaps.”Let him think what he would of that.She tossed the clothes on the bed.The swish of a towel and rustle of fabric meant it might be safe to sneak a peek.He’d only pulled on jeans, leaving his chest and feet bare.It shouldn’t be so sexy, but her body disagreed with her brain’s assessment.
“You brought food?”He gestured to the grease-stained bag with a familiar fast-food logo.
He walked by her, all that skin on display.Was his slow pace because he was in pain, or was he showing off his muscles?She looked away.“I’ll go.”
“No need for modesty.It’s not like you didn’t strip down next to me earlier, andeveryonesaw your billboard on Melrose.”The one where she’d been wearing panties and a well-placed purse.
“That campaign was two years ago.”Forever in the fashion world.Before the whispers that she was aging out of her career had become blatant in-her-face rudeness by the age of twenty-five.
“It could’ve been two decades ago, and I would remember every detail down to those buckles on the bag.”
Heat raced up her cheeks.The buckles that had covered her nipples enough to get the advertisement past the propriety police.He’d looked.He’d remembered.
“My payday for that shoot was worth the cold.”She could do this, banter with his muscled chest so near.She glanced at his arms—a mistake.Needle tracks, burn marks, jagged scars.He’d said they’d cut him, burned him, and she’d believed him.But seeing actual proof of the abuse was something else.A billboard-sized knot tightened in her throat.“They tortured you?”
“The Senate and their mad scientists?The Revelare?You’ll have to be more specific.”He took the food and moved to the table.More scars crossed his back.“But yes to all the above.”
He’d suffered.Badly.And now, all she could offer was more danger.
He shoveled the burger and fries into his mouth like he hadn’t eaten his fill in a year.Maybe he hadn’t.
She couldn’t do this, couldn’t drag him with her to the uncertainty of Kradnovtl, couldn’t ask him to pretend to be her consort.No matter how much she needed him to.
There was a knock on the door.Alexei pushed it open, not waiting for an answer.“Cousin, there’s been another.”His words came out hurried.“Another murder.”
