Page 31 of Tell No One
“These are the wrong sort of stones. You need flat ones to skim. Here let me show you.”
Delaney’s jumped three times, Tag’s went straight down.
“Stand behind me,” Delaney said. “Put your hand on mind and feel the way I throw.”
Except having Tag standing so close made the breath catch in Delaney’s throat and the next stone he launched went straight down.
“Never mind.” Tag pulled away and wrapped his arms around himself. “I’m wrong in all sorts of ways. I find it hard to think of ways in which I’m right.”
There was a brief look of vulnerability on Tag’s face. When he tipped back his face to the sun and swallowed, Delaney was mesmerised by the slow slide of his throat.Oh God.The wind caught Tag’s hair, blowing it across his closed eyes. He didn’t miss the grim determination in Tag’s jaw. After all he’d gone through, he was still defiant, though Delaney hadn’t forgotten the way Tag had sobbed when he’d left him in his room, or how for the first time in Delaney’s life, he’d wanted to go back and check someone was okay.
There were plenty of ways in which Tag was right and not wrong. Except one of them was dangerous because Delaney wanted to pull him back to the car, throw him face-down over the bonnet, and fuck him—hard.
“They were all rent boys,” Delaney said.
Tag turned to him. “My Little Ponies?”
“All except you, it seems.”
Tag chewed his lip. “Wasn’t I one too? I knew what I was being paid for, even if I haven’t been paid.”
“Did you fuck someone while I wasn’t watching?”
“No.”
“Well, then. The only reason the Master went after you was because we nobbled one of his ponies, the only one who’d been invited that we’d been able to identify. He was deemed unsuitable to act as the distraction I needed. Norbury is superstitious. He needed an even number of ponies so we knew the Master would be looking for another. So he was watched. One of my colleagues saw him choose you and decided youweresuitable. I didn’t know you worked in a pub. That was not what I was told.”
“That makes me feel so much better, telling me that he thought I looked like someone who’d fuck for sex. Thanks a lot.”
“I didn’t mean it like that.”
Tag sighed. “When we were at Harborne House, I thought you were maybe one of the good guys. But then you robbed that diamond place. I already knew you had a gun. I’d seen it in the glove box when you went into the shop to buy me water.”
Shit.“The mistakes I’m making, it’s time I retired.” Maybe it was.
“Who do you work for?”
“Myself.”
“No, I don’t think you do.”
“I’m freelance.”
“You still work for someone. You have a boss.”
Delaney smiled.
“Are you thinking I’m smarter than I look?”
“I’m thinking that you’re trouble, and that I should have let Caleb put a bullet in you.”
“But you didn’t. You wouldn’t have. Would you?” Tag stared at him, clearly not knowing whether to look relieved or anxious.
Delaney hadn’t noticed until now just how dark his eyes were. Like pools of chocolate. Big and soulful with impossibly thick lashes. “I wasn’t going to let you get hurt. Though I’d been prepared to let you go until I discovered you’d lifted that bag of diamonds from my pocket. How did you manage that?”
“Same way I just took both of them.”
Delaney clapped his hands to his hips and glared at him.
