Page 14 of The Last Dance

He noticed. His chin went up a fraction, as if daring me to comment.

I almost did, but I preferred actions.

Yuri opened the door, and the city’s night rolled in, full of steam and sodium lights and the chemical purity of air that had been filtered by a hundred thousand lives before us. The car waited at the curb. Black, bulletproof, engine idling.

I gestured, and Iren got in without question.

So did I.

I let the door close and the rest of the world with it.

The inside of the car was as black as the suit on my back, with just enough shine from the city to catch the lines of the dash and the steel mesh in the privacy partition.

Iren sat across from me, his knees angled toward the window, bag in his lap. The night air that drifted in when the door closed was already edged out by heat, the chemical exhale of luxury leather and ozone from the filtered vents.

He kept his eyes on the window at first. A flick of his reflection every time we passed under a streetlight, the city striping his face with gold and shadow.

I watched him, and did not bother to hide it.

He ran his thumb along the strap of his bag, then back the other way, each time like he was measuring it for cuts. The repetition did not seem conscious. He was chewing at the side of his cheek, barely, and if I had wanted to, I could have listed every tell that marked him as nervous. Or eager. Or both.

I wanted to see how long it would take for him to break the silence.

We went eight blocks before he did.

“What’s with the bodyguard?” he asked, nodding toward Yuri, who drove up front.

“Security,” I said.

He let that sit. “You always travel like you’re going to be shot at?”

I met his gaze, direct. “Yes.”

He grinned, or tried to, but it looked like something new on him, a muscle he hadn’t worked out yet. “Makes sense.”

The rest of the ride was quiet.

I watched his legs—long, even when tucked up like that. The muscles in his thighs were real, no matter how much he tried to play off the whole “fragile waif” routine.

The mesh shorts left nothing to the imagination, but I wasn’t interested in what was visible. I was interested in what he’d covered up, and how long it would take to get him to give it up voluntarily, and I knew he would.

His hands were small, but the fingers were strong. He flexed them against the nylon, then stilled when he caught me looking. I let the stare linger. I had spent years learning not to flinch from things I wanted. Tonight, I wanted, and I was in no hurry to move past the anticipation.

He looked at me, eyes the sharp green of cut grass under blue light. He held the stare a beat too long, then looked away again. It was a challenge. Or maybe a plea.

The road beneath us changed from patchwork asphalt to smooth concrete. I felt the shift in the seat, a tiny vibration, and used it as a metronome to time my next move. My hands rested flat on my thighs, but I could feel every tendon itching to reach across the gap and touch him—his knee, his wrist, the hard line of his jaw.

I did nothing.

I waited.

The city outside blurred past at forty miles per hour, but in the car, time stretched. Every block was a new opportunity to say something, to fill the space. Neither of us did.

At the red light, I leaned forward, enough that Iren had to look at me or risk looking like a coward. He met my eyes. “Do you know why you’re here?” I asked.

He nodded, slow.

I let it hang.