Page 32 of Sherwood
“Congratulations,” he said softly. “You won the game.”
The inside of The Knot was like the inside of a ruby—dim and red and glinting—but even if it were midday in the desert, I wouldn’t have been able to decrypt Rafe’s expression.It’s a trap, Jovanna had warned me when Much Miller had called to tell me about the game Rafe was playing with Marian.It’s a trap and she’s bait. And you know it.
Of course I knew it. But traps only worked if one got caught—and I wasn’t planning on getting caught. The actual problem was that I couldn’t be sure what trap Rafe had actually laid, and his demeanor right now gave nothing away. He looked for all the world like a cool, cruel dominant, pleased with his sub’s performance, and utterly in control of what would happen next.
But therehadbeen a moment—blurred by lust and motion and urgency, to be sure—when he’d been holding Marian down and I’d been eating her cunt and our eyes had met and…
Andwhat, I didn’t know. Only that we could have been in Carpathia all over again, meeting for the first time, the spy and the mathematician-turned-soldier-turned-spy. Ice and fire and power and desire, an inevitable but addictive disaster.
“What do I win?” I asked, sweeping my tongue over my lower lip. Rafe’s gaze followed the movement, and then flicked back up to my eyes. My lips tasted like Marian. He knew it.
“Name your prize,” he said. “I’ll decide whether or not I want to give it to you.”
I broke our stare to glance around the club. Much was here, and I’d brought Will too, but if there were agents here aside from Rafe, it wouldn’t have made a difference. I hadn’t brought Much and Will to fight, only to keep an eye out for me.
I saw nothing suspicious, and when I looked back to Rafe, he was as unreadable as ever. Surely if he was planning to pounce now, he’d be tense, exhibiting constant awareness, trying to herd me somewhere?
“I want to help with aftercare,” I said, and the facade cracked the tiniest bit at that.
His eyebrow lifted. “Aftercare,” he repeated. He didn’t sound happy about it.
He wanted to keep Marian to himself.
And after watching him tonight, the way he touched her, savored her, held her down, I had the sick feeling that his motivations toward Marian were getting murkier by the day. It would be unforgivable if he used her for intelligence, to get to me.
But if he fucked with her heart? Her happiness?
I would kill him. I’d kill him and toss him and his ridiculously big watch into the Pacific.
After a long moment, Rafe gave me a nod. A sharp one that let me know that I’d gotten to him with this request, and that he was only acceding reluctantly.
Or that’s what he wants you to think.
It didn’t matter. Me and the data were safe either way. It was Marian I was worried about.
I gently pushed the blindfold to Marian’s forehead, my chest constricting at the soft, owlish way she blinked up at me. She was gorgeous and mussed and marked all over, and still cuffed and spread like this, she looked like a wet dream brought to life. I wanted to keep her cuffed here forever; I wanted to grab her and haul her back to my forest to be my queen fox once again.
“It’s you,” she said in a dreamy murmur. “I hoped it would be.”
I brushed my finger over her cheek. Her face was exquisite. I wanted to bite it. “It’s me, little fox. I’m going to uncuff you now.”
Rafe had already started on her ankles, and I made quick work of her wrists. Without asking me, he gathered her in his arms and lifted her off the platform. Last time I’d seen Marian in Rafe’s arms, she’d looked like a freshly ravished bride. Now, with her red dress and well-bitten neck and breasts, she looked like the victim of a particularly pervy vampire. Or a pack of pervy vampires.
“Lead the way,” Rafe said with her in his arms, and because the crowd had begun to disperse around the stage, it was easy enough to steer them down the stairs to the far hallway and to an open private room beyond.
Rafe followed me inside and kicked the door shut behind him. He strode forward with his usual decisive stride, walking towards me and the bed with Marian tight in his arms, her hands laced around his neck and her hair hanging down in glossy, tangled waves.
My heart gave an abrupt lurch at the sight, and then a breathless squeeze. Like a giant fist was inside my chest, quashing and crushing the organs there like so much pulpy fruit.
I was jealous, I knew I was jealous, but it was jealousyandsomething else, and it felt horrible and mouthwatering all at once.
Seeing them together, walking toward me, felt like being awake after years of being asleep. It felt like the first painful breath upon breaking the surface of the water after a deep, deep dive.
I closed my eyes, and when I opened them again, Rafe was helping Marian onto the bed. She looked completely wrecked, a thoroughly used submissive, and yet her eyes were bright and her mouth was curled in a dazed smile. Like the other night, she was still deep in subspace, but tonight she seemed more limp and happy than kink-stoned out of her mind.
“You can leave now,” I told Rafe as I approached the edge of the bed.
“Oh, I’m not leaving.”
