Only five minutes.
Zane’s jaw flexed. “That’s all I’ll need.”
Rain had started to fall again, the slow, steady kind that made the whole world seem muted and waiting. Lilith stepped aside wordlessly, letting Zane in. He hesitated only for a heartbeat before entering her humble abode.
He had never been inside; as a gentleman, he always dropped her at her doorway and left.
He looked different. Not in the way a man looks tired, in the way something beneath the man looked frayed. His jaw was tight, a faint bruise shadowed one side of his neck, and his knuckles were raw. He wasn’t smiling. Not even pretending to.
The air between them was thick, humming like a live wire.
Lilith noticed the bruise on his neck and, for a second, her heart skipped a beat with worry. She wanted to ask him,
