Page 62 of Under Her Protection

Vivienne's hand, on the front of Leo's shirt, loosened, and found a button, and did not go further. Her other hand came up, slow, and set itself flat on the back of Leo's neck, fingers spread, her signet ring against the soft skin under Leo's hairline, and she held there. Leo's weight, on her, did not move. Leo's pulse at her jaw had slowed by a count. Leo's breath against Vivienne's temple was the one thing Vivienne permitted herself to feel, because a rule she had made sometime in the last forty seconds, somewhere between the rue de Sévigné and the rue du Roi de Sicile, said that she was allowed one sensory detail in this car and that was it.

Leo's breath.

She kept her hand at the back of Leo's neck.

The car crossed the Seine at the Pont Sully without slowing. Eric took the Right Bank along the quai and up through the place de la Concorde at a rate that would have put anyone but a Blackthorn driver through three cameras, and Leo, on top of her, did not move, did not ease her hand, did not make Vivienne feel the weight she could have made her feel, did not do any of the three things that the situation would have permitted Leo to do. Leo was, Vivienne recognised, working. Leo was working as she had on the rug, watching the data, reading her and not asking and not telling.

"I did not think," Vivienne said, very quiet, at the stitching in the headliner, "that she would."

"I know."

"I did not permit myself to consider it."

"I know."

"I would like you to not let go of me until we are inside."

"I will not let go of you until we are inside."

"Thank you."

"Vivienne."

"Mm."

"You are shaking."

"I know."

"It is all right."

"Do not tell me what is and is not all right."

"Fine. You are shaking."

"I know."

"Keep breathing."

The car went up the Champs-Élysées.

Vivienne closed her eyes at the Étoile, which she had not permitted herself to do in eight minutes, and she opened them again at the turn onto the avenue Kléber, and at the turn onto the avenue d'Iéna she understood, with a clarity that was not welcome, that what was rising in her under Leo's weight was not only fear. It was the other thing. The thing that had been on the rug. The thing that had been on the desk. It was rising at the speed of her pulse, which was too fast, and it was rising in the same place, between her ribs and lower, and she was going to have to decide, in the ninety seconds between the avenue d'Iéna and the gate on the rue de Chaillot, what she was going to do about the fact that she wanted Leo's mouth against her throat before they were out of this car.

She pressed her hand harder against the back of Leo's neck.

Leo's pulse, under her palm, went up half a beat.

"Leo."

"Yes."

"When we are inside."

"Yes."

"Come to my room."

Leo did not answer for one second.