come stay the night. There’d be a bed somewhere, or so Dev had said. I might not want him as my backup on a warrant of execution, but I trusted him to report the rooms and the sleeping space available. There are a lot of people I trust to coordinate my life who I wouldn’t trust to guard my life, just as there were people I trusted at my back in a fight who would have sucked at the organization part of things. We all had our skills.
I watched Dev, his hair still slimed on one side with drying blood, charm the frightened hotel clerk. He wasted that smile on him that was usually reserved for sexual prospects, and either the clerk was into guys or Dev was just that charming. I didn’t know which, and if it would get us up to our rooms sooner I didn’t much care which.
The three of us went to the elevators, and Edward had me hold the door while he and Nicky loaded in the bags of weapons; normally I would have insisted on helping load, but it would be bad to have the doors close with our bags in there and none of us with them. So I held the door while the men loaded until there was barely going to be room for us to stand. Edward leaned on the open door, holding it, and Nicky and I got in, and when he put his arm around me I didn’t protest. I cuddled under his arm, as close as the body armor would let me get. I let him hold me and tried not to feel much, except that it felt good. Dev trotted up to us, and Edward stepped in and let the doors close.
‘He offered us help with our bags,’ Dev said.
‘Is the clerk into guys, or is your ability to charm devoid of sexual promise?’ I asked.
He grinned at me. ‘Devoid of sexual promise; you must not be as tired as I thought.’
I scowled at him.
Nicky hugged me a little tighter, and I scowled at him, too.
Dev’s grin did not fade; in fact it widened. ‘Yeah, the clerk is into guys.’
‘You imply that you might see him later?’ Edward asked.
‘Nothing as strong as that,’ Dev said.
‘What does that even mean?’ I asked, and it sounded grumpy even to me.
‘It means he didn’t pimp himself out, but he let the clerk think that he liked guys, too,’ Nicky said.
I glanced up at him from under his arm, so it felt like being a child and too small and … I moved out from him.
‘What did I do wrong?’ he asked.
‘How did you know that?’
‘Flirting for distraction is the same no matter if it’s women or men, Anita.’
‘You’re saying you’ve done the same thing.’
‘I’ve been the young, cute distraction on a few jobs back when I was with my first lion pride, so yeah.’ His face was neutral as he said it, empty of emotion. It was the way he hid when he was feeling something, because Nicky wasn’t a born sociopath; his feelings had gotten tortured and abused out of him. It meant he still had feelings, but they were … hidden and a little twisted.
‘You do more than just flirt on the job?’ I asked.
‘Don’t do this,’ Edward said.
I glared at him. ‘Do what?’
‘Pick at the people you love, because you’ve finally got a minute that isn’t an emergency and all the feelings you’ve been shoving down inside are trying to find a way out, and if you won’t give them a nice clean exit wound, they’ll tear their way out of your life and everyone near you.’
We looked at each other. I wanted to ask who he had torn up that had been close to him, because I knew it wasn’t Donna and the kids; whoever he was referring to had been before that, before I knew him. If we’d been alone I would have asked, but he wouldn’t answer in front of anyone but me, and maybe not even me.
The doors opened and Dev moved first like a good bodyguard. It moved Edward to check the hall and Nicky to move so that his broad body blocked me from view, though knowing that I loved him meant that him taking a bullet for me had taken on a whole new suck.
There was a murmur of male voices, and then I heard more clearly, ‘Sorry, man, but it’s orders.’
‘What’s wrong?’ I asked, fighting the urge to peer