Page 237 of Fury

Tricky buckled to the floor, his forehead planting onto the wood.

A heavy knock banged at the door, and my heart pounded up my throat.

“Open it,” Finger said.

I opened the door and Butler stood there, my front porch light casting its yellow glow over him. “Hey, Lenore.”

“Pick up your bro,” said Finger, tucking his gun away.

“Finger called me when he saw Tricky’s bike out front,” Butler said to me as he helped his friend to his feet. “Let’s go, Trick. You’re done here.”

Tricky glanced at me, but I offered no goodbye, no explanation. There was none to give.

“I’m sorry,” he mouthed.

“Me too,” I said as he brushed past me.

The door closed behind Butler and Tricky. Finger and I stared at each other in silence until a vehicle outside rumbled down the street and faded.

“You okay? He hurt you?” he asked.

“I’m fine.” I turned off the foyer light and wrapped my arms around myself.

He went into my living room and eased back on my sofa as if he did it every night, his shoulders relaxed as he spread his one arm around the back of the couch. His dark eyes glimmered at me in the faint light. I held my breath at the sight of him relaxed, emitting pheromones of beast-like satisfaction, gratification.

His lips twitched, he was grinning. “I’d like a drink. Please.”

“Would you?”

“I would. That Jameson would be perfect.”

He’d inspected my house.

I raised an eyebrow. “The Gold Reserve or the—”

“The Gold.” That grin got wider. Slightly sardonic, slightly devious, teasing.

A tickle rose in my throat, and I swallowed it back down. “Gold, it is. Straight?”

“Straight.”

I poured the Irish whiskey for him into a crystal tumbler and one for me. I gave him his drink and sat down next to him, sipping mine. The kick of the liquor’s sweet heat filled my mouth and subsided, soft vanilla blooming in its place.

He licked his bottom lip. “That is so good.”

“It is.”

He took my hand in his, warm and firm. His eyes remained on our hands which he’d brought to rest on his thigh. “I want to sit here with you if that’s all right. Share the quiet in here. The colors. That sage candle burning. You.” He raised his glass up, swirling the pale gold whiskey. “This beautiful delicate crystal glass with very fine whiskey that you poured for me. I want to sit here with you, like this, and drink it all in. That’s what I want to do.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

Had something else happened today? Probably. And all he needed right now was to sit with me and be close?

I wanted that too.

We sat without speaking for a long time. I couldn’t say if it was minutes or moments or hours. A meditation filled with the sounds of quick breaths, tentative touches, whiskey wet lips, and warm hands lingering.

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