Page 78

"Be careful…" He was going to ruin the mood by worrying about me.

"I'm being scientific, Blackman." I found the ridges under the skin between his shoulder blades and pressed both thumbs into them. River shuddered from his neck to his knees and stopped being able to talk at all. As a result, he backed me toward the bed. Or I pulled him. I had no clue, nor did I have the capacity to think. There was only River, cold as the middle of winter, shaking against me like this was his first time being with a female. Not that I was any better.

At some point my hoodie landed on the floor.

"Hazel." My name came rough against my jaw. River rested his forehead against mine, his breathing uneven, cold rolling from his skin strongly enough that our breath fogged between us. "I need you to keep talking to me."

I blinked. "You want conversation. Now."

"I want your voice." His eyes opened, and whatever joke I'd been preparing died. "As long as I can hear you, I know where I am. I know who I am."

My fingers went still against his back.

He wasn't being romantic. He was being River. Instead of taking what he wanted he made sure he took care of me first and kept me safe. Tears burned at the back of my eyelids when I squeezed my eyes shut. So, I touched my forehead to his and started talking.

Some of it was ridiculous. Some of it will accompany me to the grave. A humiliating amount consisted entirely of his name and how beautiful I thought he was. None of that mattered. What mattered was the way his attention found my voice whenever it threatened to go somewhere else. And the way his forehead would touch mine for half a second as if checking that I was still there if I lost skin contact.

For four hundred years, River Blackman had made an art out of keeping quiet. He was the silent, brooding type. That night, he finally failed at it. The moment we joined as one the whole world around us stopped existing and nothing else mattered anymore.

Later, I came back to myself half sprawled across him with the motel lamp still burning and one of the unfortunate towel chickens on the floor. His arm lay heavy across my back, my cheek rested against his chest, and beneath my ear his heart was moving at a pace I would have described as leisurely in a man who hadn't just exploded inside me with a roar loud enough for Danika to hear him in downtown Cleveland.

I lay there listening until something about the room began bothering me.

My breath wasn't fogging.

I lifted my head and looked toward the window. Frost had bloomed across the bottom corner every night since Monday, sometimes thick enough to blur the parking lot beyond it.

Tonight, the glass was clear.

I stared at it, then at River. Huh.

Warm, exhausted, and apparently stripped of my remaining common sense, I decided he must have finally relaxed and put my head back down on his chest.

"I can hear you thinking," he murmured. His voice vibrated beneath my cheek.

"I didn't mean to inconvenience you."

"Anything you want to share?"

"Absolutely not." I traced one finger down his sternum and felt the muscle twitch beneath it. "I've already embarrassed myself enough for one lifetime. You can ask again in twenty minutes just in case."

"That's very generous of you."

"It's calculated." I propped my chin against his chest. "I have to make a phone call, and I've been avoiding it since eleven this morning. My current plan is to be too relaxed to panic."

"I feel used." River chuckled, then his hand went still on my back. "Alex."

"Alex," I agreed.

"Do you want me to leave?"

I actually thought about it. River could have decided if I needed privacy or I needed him present. Instead, he had asked and left the decision up to me.

"No. Stay."

I reached for my phone. Alex Greywood answered on the second ring.

Of course, he did. I'd been counting on it and dreading it in roughly equal measure since Sissily told me his office door had been shut all morning.