Chapter 368: The Real City

Lucas sat up.

The sheet fell to his waist. He was still bare from the night. No shirt. Nothing on the floor beside the bed except the towel they had never used. Cool air on his chest. Rechelle was already by the wardrobe, an earring in one hand.

He looked for his clothes.

The shirt was where he had dropped it before the shower. Stiff with dried blood. Dirt ground into the fabric. The rest of what he had worn into the lobby was no better, piled near the chair. He picked the shirt up, looked at it, and put it back down.

"Yeah. No."

He pulled the sheet higher around his hips.

"I don’t have~"

Three soft taps on the door.

Rechelle was already moving. She grabbed the robe at the foot of the bed and tied it on the way across the room. Silk over bare skin. Bare feet on the carpet. She opened the door only wide enough for a hand.

"Right on time."

A staff member stood outside with folded clothes in a dark bag. She took it, thanked him, and shut the door before he could offer anything else.

Lucas watched her come back. Still shirtless. Sheet at his waist. "You ordering breakfast, or a man?"

"Worse. Clothes." She set the bag on the bed and opened it. Dark trousers. A fitted shirt. A light jacket. Socks. Black shoes at the bottom. Tags still on. She held the shirt up against his bare shoulders, squinted, and nodded. "They’ll fit."

He looked at the shirt. Then at her. He hadn’t asked. He hadn’t said a word about the blood by the chair. The bag had been on its way before he sat up.

She had been looking at him since morning.

Since she woke on his chest and didn’t move. Lucas had already handled the worst of it. The thing that had been hanging over her. Now it was done, and the next thought had come in quiet. He might leave. Nothing in this city was his. She could open her eyes one morning and the other side of the bed would be cold.

She missed him. He was still in the room. Still shirtless in her sheets.

So she had called down for the clothes while he slept. Planned the drive. Somewhere that was not a hotel bed and not a crime scene. If she could keep him next to her for the day, maybe he wouldn’t decide he was finished here.

Lucas took the shirt.

She tipped her chin at the ruined shirt on the chair.

He went.

Water ran. Then it stopped. When he came back out he was doing the last button. First time she had seen him in clean clothes since the lobby. The shirt sat across his shoulders. The trousers fit. The jacket settled without him pulling at the sleeves. He looked sharp. He wasn’t trying to. That was the problem.

Rechelle forgot the earring.

She was still in the robe. The belt had loosened while she waited. The front hung open enough to show her stomach and the plain black panties underneath. Her tits were half out of the silk, soft, a faint mark still on one from his mouth. She looked at the open collar, his hands on the cuff, and her fingers tightened on the robe.

She wanted the shirt off him again. Against the wardrobe. Back on the bed. Her hands on that bare chest before the day started.

She didn’t cross the room.

She didn’t want to be the one who asked. Not this time. If it happened again, she wanted it to be him.

She closed the robe. Badly. It fell open again. She tied it a second time like the silk had personally offended her.

"Don’t," she said, when he raised a brow.

"Didn’t say anything."

"You were about to."

She turned away and picked up what she had set aside. Leather jeans first. Dark. Tight. She stepped into them and worked them up her legs. The leather dragged over her thighs and caught at her hips. She had to tug twice, then a third time, to get them over her ass.

"Need help?"

"You help and we are not leaving this room."

She got them up. A fitted black shirt next, tucked in. Then a short jacket that stopped at her waist. She checked the mirror, pushed her hair back, and turned around.

The robe was on the chair, next to his bloody shirt. She looked ready to drive.

Lucas’s eyes went from the jacket down the leather and back up.

He walked over, set a hand on her hip, and spanked her once through the tight leather. Firm. The sound was sharp in the quiet room.

Rechelle jumped half a step and turned, already smiling. "That your way of saying thank you for the shirt?"

"Where exactly are you taking me?"

"You’ll know when we get there."

"That’s not an answer."

"It’s the only one you’re getting right now."

She held his gaze a second longer, still warm from his hand, then nodded at the door.

"Come on. Before I let you ruin the clothes I just bought you."

They left the suite. In the elevator she stood close enough that her shoulder hit his arm every time the cabin shifted. She watched the numbers. He watched the leather. At the third floor she said, "Stop looking at my ass."

"You put it in leather."

"Fair."

In the lobby the same polished quiet from the night before closed around them. No blood on him this time. The receptionist looked up, saw Rechelle, saw the clean jacket, and didn’t quite know where to put her eyes. Rechelle lifted two fingers and kept walking.

Outside, the black BMW was where they had left it.

She unlocked it and slid into the driver’s seat. She waited only long enough for his door to shut. The engine came up under her foot, low and clean. She fixed the mirror, glanced at him, and pulled out.

Not carefully.

She took the hotel exit like she was already late. Tires bit. The BMW dropped into the morning traffic and then out of it, down a side street he didn’t know. Glass buildings thinned. The roads got older. She shifted without looking down.