Page 64 of Shadow Secrets
Garrett said something that made Sebastian shake his head and point a finger at him, and Jasper was openly grinning. Mack joined them, and then CB, too. These men weren’t just his team anymore. They were his people. Sebastian Whitaker had people.
He looked over, like he’d felt her watching. His grin bloomed into a real smile—the private one that belonged only to her. He raised his whiskey in a small, silent salute.
She raised her wine back.
He said something to Garrett, clapped Mack on the shoulder, and started across the room toward her.
“Host duties,” he murmured when he reached her. His hand came to the small of her back—a light pressure through the thin silk of her dress, possessive in a way that still made her stomach flip. “I need to borrow you.”
“For what?”
“You’ll see.”
She cast a glance back at the living room. The party was running itself. “Lead on.”
He guided her up the stairs—the hand on her back turned into a hand at her waist turned into an arm around her shoulders, his pace accelerating as the noise of the party receded behind them. The upstairs of the farmhouse was dim and quiet. The walls smelled faintly of fresh paint—the studio’s pale blue-gray, two coats deep and dry for a week.
Sebastian opened the door and ushered her in. The south windows caught moonlight instead of their usual afternoon gold, a silver wash across the new drafting table he’d had shipped in from Portland. The old chimney, framed and painted, ran up through the middle. Her finished pieces—the phoenix, the warrior women, the first of the Callsigns bodyguard series she’d unveiled online a week ago—hung in neat rows along the east wall. The lynx warrior - a new design not based on Sebastian’s tattoo but still carrying the same qualities—had sold three prints on the first day. She was going to need to do a second run.
Sebastian stopped her a few steps in, turned her to face him, and raised his right hand above their heads.
She looked up. A small sprig of mistletoe dangled between his fingers.
“Looks like you’re required to kiss me,” he said.
Sutton snorted. She reached up, plucked the sprig out of his hand, and tossed it over her shoulder onto the drafting table. “You don’t need greenery to seduce me, Seb.”
He chuckled against her lips as she kissed him—a low sound vibrating through her chest where it pressed against his.
The bandage was gone from her shoulder, the graze healed into a fresh line of scar tissue that interrupted the branches of Penn’s crescent moon.
“How soon,” he murmured when they came up for air, “can we send them on their way?”
She batted his arm. “Don’t be rude. We’re the hosts.”
“I know.”
“You’re the one who agreed to a Christmas Eve party.”
“I was under duress. You told me you were making spreadsheets.”
“Spreadsheets are romantic.”
“You are genuinely the strangest woman I’ve ever met.”
His fingers found the thin strap of her dress—the black silk her mother had insisted she splurge on—and slid it slowly off her shoulder. His lips dropped to trail kisses along her collarbone. “Have I told you how sexy you look in this?”
She shivered under his mouth. “At least five times.”
“Only five?”
“Including the first one in the bedroom before the party, where you took the dress off and did extremely naughty things to my body.” She tipped her head back to give him more access to her throat. “I’m pretty sure you’re getting coal in your stocking tonight.”
His teeth grazed the tendon of her neck. “I am definitely on Santa’s naughty list. And if all those people downstairs don’t leave soon, I’m going to lock that door behind us and take you right here on your desk anyway.”
She laughed—low, a little wicked. “I don’t think anyone would miss us for a few more minutes.”
He pulled back enough to look at her. The blue of his eyes in the moonlit studio was the color of something she couldn’t quite name—darker than dawn, lighter than nightfall, deep in a way that still caught her off guard every time she saw it up close.
