Chapter 79: Next Time

Victoria stepped past him into the apartment the way she had the last time, two paces in, bag still on her shoulder, eyes finding the exits before they found him.

Lucas closed the door. This time he put the chain on.

She watched him do it and nodded once, as if the chain were a sentence they had already agreed on.

"Your detail?" he asked.

"Suburban across the street. I told them what I told them last time. Shifts. Ms. Sterling is staying." She set the bag down by the hook and took her coat off herself. "They’re irritated. They’re paid to be irritated. I’m fine."

"Are you."

"I’m here," she said. "That’s the version of fine I’m working with."

He hung her coat over his. She walked into the kitchen, saw the clean glass by the sink, filled it, and drank half of it standing up. Her hair was still pinned. She looked like she had come from a board call and a security briefing at the same time, which was probably accurate.

Lucas stayed by the door for a second longer than he needed to, listening to the Suburban idle and then settle into quiet. When he came into the kitchen she was already watching him over the rim of the glass, measuring the distance between what he would say and what he would not.

"I’m not going to ask you who texted you," she said. "Reed already told me not to. I’m not going to ask you about the car, except to say that if it comes back to my building I will make decisions you won’t like, and you will hear about them from counsel first."

"Okay."

"I am going to say that I noticed again. The wall. Your careful little sentences. Call Reed. Stay with your detail." She set the glass down. "I accept it for tonight. I am keeping the list. Those are both true."

"I know."

"Do you." She looked at him across his small kitchen. "Because Thursday I left because I had a seven o’clock call with the chair. Tonight I came because somebody’s driver knows my address and you know something about it that you can’t put in my mouth. That is a different kind of leaving and a different kind of staying."

"I didn’t want you alone," he said. "That’s the part I’m allowed to say."

Victoria was quiet for a moment. Then she nodded, smaller this time.

"Ask me," she said.

He knew what she meant. He had asked it before. He asked it again because she wanted it said out loud in a room with a chain on the door.

"Do you want this," he said. "Not because of the car. Not because you’re angry. Not because Reed hung up on you. This. Me. Tonight."

"Yes." No hesitation. "I’m forty-four, I’m sober, I had water and not wine, and I came here with a change of clothes because I intend to wake up in your bed. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t make me audition for it."

"I won’t."

"And you?"

"Yes," he said. "I want you. I wanted you on the floor in the dark waiting for Reed to call back. I still do."

She let out a short breath that was almost a laugh and not quite.

"Then come here before I start a second risk memo and ruin the mood."

He crossed the kitchen. She put one hand flat on his chest, over his shirt, the same place she had put it the last time, and felt his heart going.

"Yours?" he asked.

"Worse," she said. "Kiss me."

He kissed her.

It was not careful. It had been careful on Thursday night when they were still checking the door. Tonight she kissed him like she had already made the decision in the car and was only now allowing her body to catch up. Her hand closed in his shirt. He backed her gently into the counter and she made a quiet sound against his mouth that he felt more than heard.

A soft chime sounded at the edge of his hearing.

[Target: Victoria Sterling.]

[Relationship Status: Intimate Partner (Probationary).]

[Target State: Deliberate. Seeking contact after fear she will not name. Guardedness present, directed at the silence, not at the body.]

[Primary Tension Zone: Shoulders, base of the neck.]

He let the overlay fade. He found the pins in her hair and drew them out one by one. When the last one came free her hair fell over his wrist, and she leaned into him the way she had before, as if the pins had been holding more than hair.

He kissed the side of her neck, just below her ear, and pressed his thumb into the knot at the base of her skull. She swore under her breath. Her knees gave a little. He held her up.

"Bedroom," she said into his shoulder. "Before I end up on your kitchen floor, which would be undignified."

His bedroom was still small. Plain blue sheets. The lamp. The chair with a shirt over the back. She turned the bedside lamp off and left the hallway light on, the same long wedge of yellow across the bed.

"Better," she said.

He took his time with her blouse. She let him. She pulled his shirt up and over his head with less patience than he was showing her and dropped it on the floor, then worked his belt open while he unzipped her skirt. The skirt fell. She kicked it toward the chair without looking.

She stood in front of him in dark underwear, hair down, hallway light along one side of her body, and this time she did not pretend she did not know he was staring.

"Still staring," she said.

"Yes."

"Good. I’d be offended otherwise."

He drew her down onto the bed. The mattress creaked. She laughed under her breath at it, then stopped laughing when he kissed her properly.

He unhooked her bra and slid it off her arms. Her breasts were heavy and soft against his chest. When he lowered his head and took a nipple in his mouth she pushed her fingers into his hair and held him there, her breathing gone short. He spent a long time on her, one side and then the other, until her hips were moving against his thigh without her seeming to decide it.

[Target Arousal: High.]

[Guardedness: Softening. The list is still there. It is not in the bed with you.]

He moved lower. He kissed the soft skin under her navel and the line of her hip and the inside of her thigh. She lifted her hips so he could draw her underwear down and off. Then he settled between her legs and put his mouth on her.

She made that low surprised sound again, the one he had only heard from her in this room, and her thigh pressed against his ear. He went slowly. He paid attention to what made her breath catch and what made her swear and what made her go still, and he gave her more of the last. One of her hands gripped the sheet. The other found his hair and stayed there, not pushing, just anchoring.

"Don’t stop," she said. "Don’t you dare stop to be clever tonight."

He did not stop. He slid two fingers inside her, curling them, and kept his mouth where it was. A minute later she came hard with her back arched off the blue sheets and her hand clamped over her own mouth because the walls were still thin. She shook for a while afterward. He stayed where he was and kissed her thigh until she pulled at his shoulders.

"Up here," she said. "Now."

He came up over her. She reached between them and wrapped her hand around him, sure and warm, and he had to close his eyes for a second.

"Condom," he said.

"Nightstand. I remember."

She leaned over, found the box, handed one to him with that almost-amused look. "Still optimistic."

"More than Thursday."

"Hm."

He rolled it on. She pulled him back down by the neck and guided him to her, and he pushed into her slowly, all the way, and they both went still at once.

She was hot and slick and tight around him. She hooked one leg over the back of his thigh and held him there, deep, and looked up at him in the yellow light with her lips parted.

"Stay," she said. "Just a second. I want to feel that you’re here."

He stayed. He could feel her pulse around him. He could feel his own in his throat. Outside, somewhere, a car passed and did not stop.

Then she moved her hips under him, once, and he started to move with her.

It was slower than the last time at first, less about finding each other in the dark and more about insisting they were still allowed to. He kept it deep. She met him every time, heels pressing into the backs of his legs. The bed creaked steadily. Neither of them cared.

He watched her face in the hallway light. She kept her eyes open. When he shifted the angle she made a small sound and nodded once, as if they were still in a meeting and she was approving a line she intended to keep.

"Harder," she said against his jaw. "I’m not going to break, and I didn’t come across town to be treated like glass."

He gave her what she asked for. She pulled him down until his weight was on her and wrapped both legs around him and held on, and her breath turned into short broken sounds against his shoulder. He slid a hand under her lower back and lifted her hips into him, and she said his name the way she never said it at work, unfinished on the second syllable.

She came again with her nails in his back and her whole body tightening around him. He lasted a few more strokes. He buried his face in her hair and came with a groan he could not keep quiet either.

For a long time afterward neither of them moved. The television next door had gone silent again.

Victoria laughed, very quietly, under him.

"What?"

"Your neighbor," she said. "They definitely heard. Again."

"They still owe me."

She pushed at his shoulder until he rolled off her. He dealt with the condom and came back, and she had pulled the sheet up to her waist and was lying on her side facing the door, looking at the wedge of hallway light the way she had before.

He lay down behind her. After a moment she reached back, found his arm, and pulled it over her.

[Target: Victoria Sterling.]

[Bond Note: The target chose overnight proximity after a security event she cannot fully map. Intimacy followed explicit consent. Trust remains provisional. Access remains open.]

[Reward: 150 AP.]

[Current AP Balance: 5900.]

"You’re reading," she murmured without turning over.

"Thinking."

"Both." Her thumb moved over the back of his hand. "I’m still not asking tonight. I’m still noticing. Put that on whatever paper you keep for me."

"I will."

"And Lucas."

"Yeah."

"Next time was tonight. I meant it. Don’t look surprised in the morning when I’m still here."

"I won’t."

She was quiet long enough that he thought she might sleep. Then her phone buzzed once in the pocket of the jacket on the chair. She did not move to get it.

"Detail," she said. "Or Reed. Or the chair. I don’t care which until daylight."

He kissed the back of her shoulder. She did not pull away. For a few minutes the apartment was only the refrigerator and her breathing evening out against his arm, and the knowledge that a gray Suburban was still across the street doing a job he could not do himself.

His own phone buzzed on the nightstand a minute later. Reed’s name.

Lucas looked at the screen. Victoria’s eyes were open now, watching him in the yellow light.

"Take it," she said. "On speaker. Separately is for offices."

He answered.

"You’re home," Reed said. Not a question.

"Yes. Victoria’s here. She stayed. Chain’s on."

A short pause. Document adjusting.

"Good," Reed said. "Because Morgan pulled another line on the shell. And Miller wants a call with me at eight tomorrow about Monday and Danner’s counsel. Don’t either of you leave that apartment before I call you in the morning. Detail stays. Chain stays. Clear?"

"Clear," Lucas said.

Victoria, against his chest, said nothing. Her hand tightened once on his wrist, and then eased, and somewhere under the quiet he could hear her starting to keep the next item on her list.