Page 34 of Sherwood
“How did you know about tonight?” Rafe asked after a moment. His hands were so gentle with Marian’s hand as they massaged. It was almost impossible to believe that just half an hour ago, they’d pinned her to that platform so I could finger her ass to my heart’s content.
“A friend,” I said. He didn’t need to know that Much Miller was the club’s manager and also one of our Merry Men.
“Ah,” he said.
It’s a trap and she’s bait. And you know it.
“Were you expecting me to show up?” I asked, watching his hands carefully work all the tension out of hers. I couldn’t ask what I really wanted to ask, not with Marian listening—and I could tell she was listening.
I didn’t blame her. I’d listen too if my two ex-lovers were propped together in bed behind me.
“I suppose I imagined it was a possibility when I planned tonight,” said Rafe.
“Because I can’t resist a challenge?”
“Because you’re an incurable show-off,” replied the spy. “An impulse one might think would be curtailed by running from the government, but alas.”
“I’m not a show-off,” I said, a little moodily. “I just know when I can win things, that’s all.”
“Wait,” Marian said from in front of me, “so Rafe knows you’re hiding from the FBI too?” She twisted a little, but she couldn’t twist enough to get a good look at his face. “Did they also come interview you, Rafe?”
“The FBI interviewed you about Lox?” Rafe’s voice was neutral, but I wasn’t fooled. I’d heard that neutrality in Ukrainian, in Pashto, in Portuguese, in flawlessly accented French. I’d seen him maintain that neutrality in deserts, half-abandoned outposts, in cities so crowded that every movement had to be planned days in advance. He cared very much about this, and there was no reason I could discern other than that he cared about Marian.
But could I trust that about him? Trust that he’d put Marian first if it came down to it?
“They did, about a year ago,” Marian said. “Lox thinks she’s protecting me now by not telling me anything about where she’s been or what she’s been doing. I don’t even know where she’s staying while she’s here.”
“She’s protecting you,” Rafe said. “As I would do.”
“Are you…agreeing with me about something?” I asked, turning to look at him. “Is this a Christmas miracle?”
Rafe finished massaging Marian’s hand and began stroking it instead, caressing her with lingering touches that were no less measured or methodical for their tenderness. “We had a few things we used to agree on, if you’ll recall.”
Before you turned traitorseemed to be the unspoken coda to that.
“Like kink,” Marian said. “You were kinky together. Right?”
“I don’t thinkkinkyis the right word,” said Rafe, the neutrality exchanged for dryness now. “Warlike, maybe.”
I scoffed. “You’re being melodramatic.”
“I?Iam being melodramatic?” Rafe gave me an incredulous look. As if to saycoming from the woman who stole state secrets and claimed it was for the greater good?
Marian had settled back against my chest again, sighing as Rafe’s fingers moved up her arm. “But it must have been good sometimes. Otherwise you wouldn’t have stayed together at all, for any length of time.”
Rafe and I didn’t answer that.
Because yes, it had been good sometimes.
“Do you miss them?” she asked. “The warlike parts, I mean?”
Rafe’s fingers hesitated where they were caressing her. “This is a strange conversation to have, Marian,” he said.
I had to agree.
“Maybe,” Marian said, “but all of this is a little strange, don’t you think?” She gestured to the bed, to us tangled together in our red silk and imported wool and tactical nylon. “What about this is an ordinary kind of night?”
Next to me, I felt Rafe’s chest lift in a subtle but long breath.
