Chapter Text
Twilight had planned for a perfectly ordinary evening.
It wasn’t an optimistic assumption. He had reviewed the guest list, verified the connections between the twelve adults gathered in the restaurant’s private dining room, and concluded that none of them posed any particular threat. Mr. Keller, the father of a student in the class next to Anya’s, had organized the dinner as part of an Eden fundraiser. His wife occupied one end of the table. Two other couples belonged to the same circle of parents. Camilla and Dominic rounded out the group alongside Sharon and her husband, giving Yor familiar faces and Loid Forger a perfectly natural reason to be there.
Anya was spending the night at Becky’s. Bond had been entrusted to the Blackbells along with her and, according to their daughter, had already been given a room “almost as big as the apartment, but worse because Papa doesn’t cook in it.”
There were no children at the restaurant, then. No mission required any particular vigilance. The waiter had just served the main course, the conversation had split into three separate exchanges that were easy enough to follow, and Yor was laughing at something Sharon had said to her right.
Twilight could devote most of his attention to appearing relaxed.
He wore a dark suit chosen specifically to stand out neither for its price nor its cut. Yor had chosen a burgundy dress with short sleeves that left her shoulders bare. Her hair was pinned up, though several black strands had escaped over the course of the evening. One followed the curve of her cheek whenever she turned toward him.
He had already looked at her three times too many.
It wasn’t a problem. They were married. A man could admire his wife over dinner without arousing suspicion, particularly when his wife looked as beautiful as Yor did tonight.
That last thought served absolutely no operational purpose.
Twilight kept it anyway.
“And you, Dr. Forger?” Mr. Keller asked. “Do you see many similar cases at your clinic?”
Twilight set down his knife. The question continued a discussion about the teenage son of one of Mr. Keller’s colleagues, who had become unable to sleep before exams. He offered a measured response about academic anxiety, advised against treating every bad night as a pathology, and asked two questions specific enough to give the man the impression that he had genuinely been listening.
Yor placed a hand on his thigh.
It happened in the middle of a sentence.
Twilight gave no outward indication that he had noticed.
Her palm rested just above his knee, light and warm through the fabric of his trousers. Four fingers curved over the top of his leg; only her thumb rested along the inside. A discreet gesture of affection. Since their marriage had stopped existing solely on official documents, Yor had begun touching him more often without having to think about it: a hand at his back as she passed behind him, fingers circling his wrist to get his attention, her shoulder against his when they read together on the sofa.
He enjoyed those gestures with an intensity he preferred not to examine too closely.
This one could belong to the same category.
“A certain amount of nervousness is perfectly normal,” he continued. “What matters is determining whether it begins to interfere with his daily functioning over an extended period.”
Yor’s thumb moved.
It traced a small arc against the inside of his thigh, returned to its starting point, then did it again. The rest of her hand remained perfectly still; only that slow caress shifted the fabric against his skin.
Twilight finished his sentence. He nodded when Mr. Keller replied. He even took a bite of potatoes at the appropriate moment.
Under the table, her thumb continued its journey.
Yor was still listening to Sharon. Nothing in her expression betrayed her. She nodded with interest, asked a question about the new supervisor at their office, and let out a soft laugh when Camilla cut in to describe him as “the sort of man who’d need written authorization to open a window.”
Her hand moved two centimeters higher. The heel of her palm slid over the muscle of his thigh as her fingers edged closer to his groin.
Twilight chewed, swallowed, and took a sip of water.
The temperature in the private room hadn’t changed. Twenty-one degrees, perhaps twenty-two near the wall where the pipes ran. His tie wasn’t too tight. The wine he’d consumed wasn’t enough to explain the heat beginning to creep up his neck.
Did Yor even realize what she was doing?
The question survived for less than ten seconds.
She turned toward him at the exact moment her palm moved higher again. Their eyes met. The pink in her cheeks could have been blamed on the wine or the warm lighting, but there was nothing innocent about the deliberate pressure of her thumb against the inside of his leg.
Her lips curved into a smile.
Then she turned her attention back to Sharon.
Twilight set down his glass without making a sound.
Fine.
He could handle this.
He had conducted negotiations at gunpoint. Maintained covers during interrogations, run with two fractured ribs, and recited fabricated biographical information after forty hours without sleep. A hand on his thigh—even Yor’s—did not constitute a serious challenge.
Her hand climbed higher.
Her little finger followed the inner seam of his trousers; her ring and middle fingers extended farther up his leg.
“You’re not eating very much,” Yor observed with impeccable wifely concern.
Two people looked at him.
“I’m eating,” he replied.
He should have added something. The meal is excellent. I promise I’m fine. Any ordinary sentence would have prevented those three slightly too clipped syllables from attracting Camilla’s attention.
Yor tilted her head. “Are you sure?”
Her fingers curled gently around his thigh. They wrapped around the muscle from the inside and squeezed once before relaxing.
“Perfectly.”
Camilla looked from one of them to the other. Twilight gave her the serene smile of Dr. Forger, well-adjusted man, attentive husband, and person who was absolutely not calculating how many layers of fabric separated him from his wife’s hand.
Camilla returned to her plate.
Yor lowered her eyes to her own to conceal a broader smile.
Twilight felt himself beginning to harden beneath his trousers and tightened his jaw almost imperceptibly. The fabric grew tighter across his groin with every beat of his pulse.
She had planned this.
Perhaps not from the beginning of the dinner. Yor generally didn’t devise this sort of operation several days in advance. But she had made a decision before placing her hand on him, and every new movement confirmed that she knew exactly where she intended to take this.
He adjusted the napkin over his lap. A visual precaution. His other hand remained beside his plate.
Beneath the tablecloth, he placed two fingers around Yor’s wrist.
She stopped.
It wasn’t a victory. Twilight recognized the peculiar stillness that sometimes preceded one of her more dangerous initiatives.
He turned his head slightly toward her.
“Yor.”
He said her name quietly enough for the surrounding conversations to cover the warning.
She calmly turned her attention toward him. “Yes?”
“Could you pass me the salt?”
Her expression didn’t change.
“Of course.”
With her free hand, she picked up the saltshaker and placed it beside his plate. When she withdrew the other, the tips of her nails deliberately traced the inside of his thigh all the way back to his knee.
Twilight let her go.
He could have kept hold of her wrist. He could have shifted his chair a few centimeters away. He could even have invented a call from the clinic and ended the situation before it became genuinely problematic.
He did none of those things.
For almost a minute, Yor kept both hands above the table. Twilight answered a comment from Dominic, discussed the renovation of one of Eden’s wings, and allowed his heart rate to settle.
Her hand returned.
This time it didn’t land near his knee. Her fingers found the middle of his thigh immediately and advanced with a slowness that gave him every opportunity to stop her.
He continued listening to Mrs. Keller explain why the fundraising committee needed to revise its selection criteria.
Yor’s palm slid higher.
He knew the exact location of every gaze around the table. Mrs. Keller was studying the dessert menu. Sharon was talking to Camilla. Dominic was pouring wine for the guest beside him. Mr. Keller was examining a document the waiter had brought over.
No one was looking beneath the tablecloth.
Naturally.
No one had any reason to.
Yor’s fingers reached the crease of his hip. Her thumb stroked the inside of his thigh, close enough now that the tension in his trousers made his erection impossible for her to ignore.
Twilight inhaled through his nose. A normal breath. Slightly deeper than the last, but not enough to be noticeable.
Yor noticed.
The pressure of her hand increased.
“Loid,” Mrs. Keller said, “is your clinic still participating in the community screening program?”
His name crossed the table at the exact moment Yor’s fingertips brushed the hard bulge beneath his trousers.
Twilight’s fork stopped for a fraction of a second before touching his plate.
“Yes,” he replied.
His voice didn’t change.
“We’ve renewed our participation for next year.”
Yor placed her entire palm over him through the fabric, her fingers following the length of his erection where it was trapped against his thigh.
Heat struck low in his stomach.
He continued.
“We’re also hoping to add two additional appointment blocks in the evening, to make the program more accessible to workers who can’t get away earlier in the day.”
His wife stroked him once, slowly. Her hand traveled from the base of his erection to the head, whose shape was visible beneath the fabric, then moved down again with steady pressure.
Twilight picked up his glass.
He didn’t tighten his grip on the stem. He didn’t alter his posture. He didn’t look at Yor.
“An excellent initiative,” Mr. Keller said.
Yor’s palm moved upward again. Her thumb lingered over the sensitive tip before her fingers traveled back down around the shaft still imprisoned by his trousers.
“Thank you.”
He drank.
Yor had learned.
That realization did nearly as much damage as her hand.
By now, she knew how his body responded, where the pressure needed to change, and the tiny signs that preceded a loss of control. She wasn’t experimenting blindly. Her thumb lingered beneath the head; her grip tightened when she returned toward the base.
Twilight set down his glass.
Under the table, he caught her wrist again.
This time his grip was firmer.
Yor presented him with a perfectly pleasant expression.
“You’re going to stop,” he murmured, still smiling at Mr. Keller.
Her fingers remained motionless around the hard shape of his erection, still covered by his trousers.
“Do you want me to stop?”
The question was audible only to him.
He should say yes.
An immediate answer would at least restore a clear boundary.
It would also be a lie, and Yor knew it.
He could see it in the quiet light in her eyes, in the way her hand neither continued nor withdrew while he held her.
He released her wrist.
Yor waited another second.
Then her palm began moving over him again.
Damn it.
Twilight turned back to the conversation before his expression could reveal too clearly what the resumed movement was doing to him. Someone had moved on to Eden admissions. He recovered the thread in less than a sentence, made an observation about the pressure placed on children, and even managed to make Mrs. Keller laugh with a carefully sanitized version of Anya’s latest school project.
Yor’s laughter joined the others.
Her hand continued stimulating him through his trousers. She wasn’t moving quickly enough to betray them. Each stroke was slow, almost lazy, hidden by the tablecloth and the napkin spread over his lap. To everyone else, she was simply sitting a little closer to her husband. Her shoulder occasionally brushed his when she laughed. Her expression remained soft and attentive.
Twilight divided his attention.
Forty percent to the conversations.
Fifteen to the movements of the staff.
Fifteen to his breathing and any visible physical reactions.
The remaining thirty should have been enough to contain Yor.
It wasn’t.
She changed the angle of her wrist. The heel of her palm pressed against the base of his erection while her thumb rubbed the tip through the fabric. The sensation surged through him with an abruptness that the slowness of the gesture had no right to produce.
He missed a word in Dominic’s sentence.
One.
Twilight reconstructed the meaning from the rest, answered appropriately, and shifted his leg beneath the table in an attempt to reduce the pressure.
Yor followed him.
Her knee settled against his, preventing him from moving any farther away. Her hand continued its slow back-and-forth over the rigid shape of his cock.
He finally looked at her.
She wasn’t smiling anymore. Her lips were slightly parted. A deeper flush had spread over her cheeks, and her breathing lifted her chest a little too quickly for a woman who was merely participating in a conversation about school fundraising.
This was arousing her.
Not only the risk. Not only the possibility of cracking Twilight’s composure in front of an entire table.
She liked feeling what she was doing to him.
She was watching for signs no other guest could recognize and receiving each of his reactions as something that belonged solely to them.
The realization sent another wave of heat through his abdomen.
Beneath her palm, his cock hardened further.
Her pupils widened.
Twilight knew then that he had made a strategic error: he had confirmed that watching his pleasure intensified hers.
“Everything all right, Forger?” Camilla asked.
He looked away from Yor.
“Of course. Why?”
“You look very invested in this committee business.”
“Occupational hazard.”
“Loid takes everything very seriously,” Yor added.
Her fingers tightened around him through the fabric as she spoke.
Twilight maintained his smile.
“Not everything.”
Yor’s gaze faltered.
Finally.
He had no opportunity to exploit the advantage, but the slight catch in her breathing gave him immediate satisfaction. He rested a hand on the back of her chair, as any husband might when leaning closer to his wife. His fingertips brushed the bare skin at the nape of her neck.
Yor shivered.
He let his thumb slowly trace her hairline. The gesture remained visible, affectionate, entirely appropriate.
His wife knew what that caress promised once they were alone.
“You’re warm,” he observed.
She swallowed.
“A little.”
“I could ask them to open the window.”
Her palm slowed over his erection.
“That won’t be necessary.”
“Are you sure?”
He was using her own words against her.
Yor understood.
Her cheeks turned scarlet, but rather than retreating, she squeezed him more firmly through his trousers.
Pleasure briefly stole Twilight’s breath.
She had won that exchange.
He removed his hand from her neck before the urge to close his fingers around it became visible.
There were still two courses left.
That information suddenly took on the proportions of a threat.
When the plates were cleared, Yor finally removed her hand from his groin. Twilight initially assumed she was granting him a reprieve. He took advantage of the waiters moving around them to discreetly adjust his jacket and force himself to think about something else.
Three exits. One service door. Twelve windows, eight of which opened. One left-handed waiter. Two guests who had consumed enough wine to slow their reactions. One camera in the main corridor, none in the private room.
The list worked for thirty seconds.
The waiter brought dessert. Yor had chosen a chocolate custard. She tasted a spoonful, closed her lips around the spoon, and slowly withdrew it without taking her eyes off Twilight.
He knew his wife well enough to understand that she probably didn’t grasp the full implications of some of the images she created.
He also knew her well enough to recognize when she created them deliberately.
“It’s very good,” she said.
“I don’t doubt it.”
His voice was deeper than he would have preferred.
Yor’s foot found his ankle beneath the table. It traveled up his calf, then back down. Her hand returned almost simultaneously and settled high on his thigh.
Twilight looked at his own dessert.
He had no idea what he had ordered.
Mrs. Keller raised her glass to thank the guests. Everyone turned toward her. Twilight did the same.
Yor used the toast as cover to place her palm over the erection that several minutes of respite had failed to diminish. She pressed firmly, holding him against his thigh while everyone else raised their glasses, then released him just before Twilight had to drink.
The wine tasted like a threat.
He set down his glass.
“You’re taking a risk.”
Yor was still looking at their hostess.
“I know.”
The answer went straight through him.
She wasn’t playing despite the possibility of discovery.
The risk itself was part of what she was entrusting to him.
She knew he could maintain a conversation, keep his face from betraying him, and protect their intimacy in the middle of a crowd. She pushed precisely because she believed he would hold.
That kind of trust should have made him more cautious.
Instead, it only made him want to deserve the audacity she had placed in his hands.
Yor began stroking him again.
More steadily this time.
Her palm followed the full hard length beneath the fabric; her fingers adjusted their pressure with every movement.
Twilight realized she was no longer merely trying to unsettle him.
She wanted to make him come.
Here.
Now.
While Mr. Keller explained the next stages of the fundraiser and Camilla discreetly tried to steal a bite of Dominic’s dessert.
Twilight felt his pulse beating in his throat.
“Yor.”
She leaned toward him as though he had made some perfectly ordinary private remark.
“Yes?”
“If you keep going…”
He left the sentence unfinished.
She knew.
Her thumb slowed over the head, still covered by fabric, but didn’t stop.
“Do you want me to stop now?”
He could still say yes.
The correct answer still existed. He could see it as clearly as an emergency exit.
All he had to do was take it.
Yor turned her face slightly toward him. Her eyes dropped for a fraction of a second to his mouth. Her hand remained wrapped around him, motionless now, genuinely waiting for his decision.
Twilight placed two fingers beneath her chin and subtly tipped her face upward before anyone could notice where she had been looking.
“Finish what you started,” he murmured.
Yor’s breath trembled.
Her palm slid over his erection one last time, then moved away to find the button of his trousers. The tip of her index finger traced its edge. Her thumb slipped beneath it and released it with measured pressure.
The tiny click vanished beneath the music and conversation.
Twilight heard it with the clarity of a weapon being cocked.
He didn’t look down.
Neither did Yor. She listened to Mr. Keller, her face turned toward him, while her fingers traveled down his fly. They found the metal tab of the zipper and closed around it.
She waited.
One full second in which Twilight felt her grip through the taut fabric, the metal held between her thumb and forefinger, his own heart beating far too hard for a room this quiet.
Then Yor pulled slowly.
The zipper teeth separated one by one with a muffled rasp. The pressure of his trousers gradually eased around his erection. A thread of cooler air reached through the opening.
Halfway down, she stopped and sought his gaze.
Twilight could still close his hand around her wrist.
Pull the zipper back up.
Turn his command into a boundary he had recovered enough sense to establish in time.
Instead, he lifted his coffee cup.
Yor finished opening his trousers.
Her hand slipped through the opening, pushed aside the waistband of his underwear, and found his cock. The direct contact of her fingers against his burning skin made his abdomen contract.
She slowly closed her hand around him, then carefully freed him through his open fly.
His erection rested against the inside of his thigh, heavy and completely hard, concealed by the napkin spread across his lap and the long fall of the tablecloth.
Yor wrapped her hand around him again. The warmth of her palm surrounded the shaft; her thumb swept over the head, collected the moisture already gathered at the tip, and spread it around the ridge.
Twilight inhaled through his teeth.
The restaurant music, the clink of dishes, and the voices around the table formed an absurdly thin veil of sound.
He could still hear everything.
The rustle of the tablecloth against Yor’s wrist.
The wet slide of her hand over his cock.
The tiny breath she took when she felt his hips respond despite him.
She began slowly. Her fingers traveled down to the base, tightened just enough, then climbed his full length again. With every pass, her thumb returned to the head and lingered beneath the sensitive ridge before beginning again.
Twilight straightened his shoulders.
He answered a question from Sharon’s husband about hospital wait times. The words emerged in the correct order, accompanied by the appropriate expressions.
Under the table, Yor gradually increased her pace.
Her grip moved more easily now, aided by the precum she had spread over his skin. She adjusted her rhythm to his speech: slower when he had to answer, firmer whenever the group’s attention shifted elsewhere.
When he paused to drink, she stroked upward quickly and rolled her thumb over the swollen tip.
The cup stopped near his lips.
Her hand slowed for a fraction of a second when a pulse ran through his cock, then resumed at exactly the same pace.
She had recognized the sign.
Pleasure gathered low in Twilight’s abdomen. His muscles tightened despite him. Burning tension climbed his spine, drew tight at the base of his cock, and made each breath progressively harder to conceal.
Yor shifted closer in her chair until their thighs pressed together. Her fingers continued moving directly over him. Her breathing lifted her chest a little too quickly.
She knew what she was about to cause.
Twilight set down his cup.
The porcelain touched the saucer a little too quickly.
A tiny, sharp sound.
No one seemed to notice.
Yor did.
Her lips parted. Her gaze fixed on Twilight’s profile with an intensity she was no longer entirely attempting to hide.
She shouldn’t look at him like that.
He especially shouldn’t look back.
He did.
The desire on Yor’s face erased whatever distance remained between the sensation and him. This was no longer an ordeal he was enduring while keeping enough of himself detached to observe.
His wife was holding his naked cock beneath the table because she wanted to.
She was enjoying his control.
And she was waiting for the exact moment when it would no longer be enough.
The pleasure became almost painful at once.
Twilight tightened his fingers around his napkin.
His cock hardened further in Yor’s hand. Her gaze dropped toward his lap, hidden by the edge of the table. Her thumb passed over the wet head one more time, and Twilight saw the instant she understood what would happen if she made him come like this: his semen would spill onto his open trousers, perhaps his shirt, and the result would be difficult to conceal when they eventually had to stand.
Her eyes settled on the small spoon beside her dessert.
Yor dropped it.
The utensil struck the wooden floor and rolled beneath the table.
“Oops,” she breathed.
Her right hand never left his cock. She kept it upright and away from the dark fabric while bending down and disappearing beneath the edge of the table. With her left hand, she found the spoon almost immediately; he heard it tap against the leg of her chair.
She didn’t come back up.
“Everything all right?” Mrs. Keller asked Yor.
Twilight felt his wife’s silent laughter against his knee before hearing her answer from beneath the table.
“Yes! It just rolled farther than I expected.”
Mrs. Keller gave her a vaguely concerned smile before Mr. Keller resumed his explanation of the fundraiser.
Everyone else looked away.
Yor moved onto her knees between Twilight’s thighs, concealed in the space beneath the table. Her right hand remained around the base of his cock; the spoon stayed in her left, resting against the floor.
From that position, she tilted her face toward him.
There was no question what she was proposing.
He could still place a hand on her shoulder and bring her back up.
Yor would stop immediately.
Instead, he slid his fingers into her hair, neither pulling nor pushing her toward him.
Yor’s smile was almost imperceptible.
Her lips parted around the head.
The wet heat of her mouth stole his breath. Twilight raised his coffee cup in front of his lips as though he were merely taking another sip while Yor’s tongue traced the underside of the ridge.
She took him a little deeper, then slowly moved back toward the tip without ever allowing her hand to stop stroking the length she couldn’t fit into her mouth.
He stared straight ahead.
Dominic was telling Camilla something. Mr. Keller was still speaking to Sharon’s husband. Mrs. Keller had returned her attention to her notes.
No one could see Yor between his legs, hidden by the chair backs and tablecloth.
No one suspected that her mouth was moving over her husband’s cock less than a meter away.
Twilight rested one elbow beside his plate, placed two fingers against his temple, and adopted the posture of a man following an end-of-dinner conversation.
Under the table, Yor took him deeper until her lips nearly met the fingers wrapped around his base. Her tongue pressed along his shaft as she moved upward.
At the head, she sucked more firmly.
Twilight’s fingers tightened in her hair.
Yor stopped immediately and searched his face, her mouth still closed around the tip.
He loosened his grip.
His thumb brushed her temple.
She started again.
This time she kept the rhythm that had just betrayed him. Her hand moved upward from the base to meet her lips; her mouth descended at the same moment, hot and tight around him.
Each stroke of her tongue continued the work of her palm and pushed him closer to orgasm.
Sharon’s husband spoke from across the table.
“You were saying wait times were improving in some departments, Dr. Forger?”
Twilight had recovered his answer before the question was finished.
“In some departments only,” Loid clarified.
His voice came out lower than intended.
“The results remain highly inconsistent depending on the district and specialty.”
Yor slowly moved upward along his cock.
“We’ll need to wait for next quarter’s data before calling it a sustained improvement.”
Her lips tightened beneath the head.
Her tongue focused on exactly the same place her thumb had touched seconds earlier.
Twilight’s sentence ended with an involuntary pause.
Not long enough to raise suspicion.
Long enough for Yor to hear it.
She took him deeper.
Pleasure reached its breaking point.
The orgasm tightened first at the base of his cock. Yor felt the pulse; her hand stopped climbing and held him firmly away from his trousers while her lips closed more tightly around him.
Twilight held his breath.
His entire body went rigid beneath his suit, his thighs locked on either side of Yor’s shoulders. His free hand closed around the edge of the table without making it shake.
The first spurt of semen spilled onto his wife’s tongue.
She didn’t pull away.
Yor swallowed without letting him slip from her mouth and gave him a single stroke at the base. A second pulse tore through him. She took the next release between her lips as Dominic’s laughter burst out above them.
The wave rose with an almost humiliating intensity, contained behind Loid Forger’s closed lips and carefully neutral expression. Blood pounded at his temples. His muscles contracted again; his cock pulsed against Yor’s tongue as she caught every spurt so nothing could fall onto the fabric of his trousers.
A broken exhale threatened to escape him.
Twilight turned it into a deep breath and lowered his gaze to his cup as though the coffee had suddenly become worthy of his complete attention.
No one around the table had stopped talking.
Yor kept him between her lips through the final contractions. When his body finally stopped trembling, her tongue passed carefully over the now oversensitive head and collected the last trace of semen.
Twilight suppressed the reflexive movement the touch provoked. His fingers relaxed in Yor’s hair and smoothed it once.
Only then did she release him.
Her hand remained around his cock while Twilight recovered a breathing pattern he could control. She carefully tucked him back into his underwear, slowly pulled his zipper up, and fastened the button of his trousers.
She retrieved the spoon and straightened, cheeks flushed, one loose strand of hair across her face.
Mrs. Keller gave her an absent smile before returning to her conversation.
Yor placed the spoon beside her plate.
“I found it,” she announced.
Twilight slowly turned his head toward her.
His wife folded her hands in her lap. Her expression might have fooled anyone else.
He could see her shortened breath, the tiny tremor in her fingers, and the bright satisfaction she was trying to contain.
“How fortunate,” he said.
His voice was slightly deeper.
Yor’s eyes gleamed.
“Yes.”
All he had to do now was survive the rest of the meal without standing up.
The operation required eleven minutes and forty seconds.
Twilight spent nine of them considering what he was going to do to his wife once they were alone.
⸻
He held the restaurant door open for Yor while the other guests exchanged their final thanks on the sidewalk. Berlint’s night air should have cooled his skin.
It produced no measurable effect.
Camilla and Dominic left first. Sharon followed with her husband. Mr. Keller kept Loid for another two minutes to promise that he would send him a document about Eden’s program.
Yor waited beside the car, hands folded demurely in front of her dress, every bit as proper as she had been at the beginning of the evening.
Twilight finally said goodbye to their hosts and joined her.
He opened the passenger-side door.
Yor stepped past him, then stopped when his hand closed over the top of the door instead of allowing her to get in.
The car shielded them from view. Mr. and Mrs. Keller had already gone back toward the entrance. The street remained busy, but no one was paying attention to them.
“You planned the spoon,” he said.
Yor met his gaze.
“Not at first.”
“When?”
She considered the question with a seriousness that only made her case worse.
“When you managed to explain the screening program without losing a single word.”
“You took that as encouragement.”
“I thought you could handle more.”
Twilight stared at her.
Yor blushed but didn’t look away. The woman who once would have tried to apologize until she lost track of her own sentence now held his gaze with nervousness threaded through with pride.
She trusted him.
She also trusted herself.
That combination was extraordinarily dangerous.
“And if I couldn’t?” he asked.
“You would have stopped me.”
The answer came simply.
Twilight felt something tighten in his chest, distinct from the desire that had never entirely gone away.
Yor added more softly, “You did the first time. I waited. When you let me start again… I understood.”
So he hadn’t hidden anything that mattered.
Not from her.
Yor raised a hand to his tie and smoothed the knot.
“Are you angry?”
Twilight lowered his eyes to her fingers.
“No.”
“Embarrassed?”
“I just carried on a conversation about hospital wait times while my wife made me come under a table.”
He leaned down until his breath reached Yor’s ear.
“I’m reserving my final assessment for a time when you won’t be able to use my answer against me.”
She inhaled sharply.
Her hand tightened around his tie.
Twilight finally allowed the door to open.
“Get in.”
Yor obeyed with a speed that almost made him smile.
He walked around the car and took his place behind the wheel.
For several seconds, neither of them moved. The sounds of the city reached them through the closed windows as a muffled hum.
Yor placed her hands in her lap.
Twilight started the car.
They had gone two streets before she asked, “Did I really manage to make you… while everyone was there?”
He glanced at her.
“Do you require additional confirmation?”
“No. I think I’m just having trouble believing I actually did it.”
“So am I.”
She lifted a hand to her mouth, but he saw the smile.
“Yor.”
“Sorry.”
“You’re not sorry.”
She lowered her hand.
“No.”
Her honesty brought his desire back far more quickly than Twilight considered physiologically reasonable.
He returned his full attention to the road.
At the next light, Yor brushed his knee.
Twilight turned his head.
“Don’t start again,” he warned.
She immediately withdrew her hand.
“All right.”
The light turned green.
He drove on.
After a few seconds, Yor asked, “Is that because you’re driving?”
“It’s because I intend to get us back to the apartment alive.”
“Oh. That’s reasonable.”
He could hear the smile in her voice.
“And because,” he continued, “when I touch you in return, I don’t want a table between us or a witness within ten meters.”
Silence fell inside the car.
Twilight could feel Yor’s eyes on his profile for the entire rest of the drive.
This time, Loid Forger’s face was no help to him at all.