The city slid by in sheets of glass and light, Chicago turning itself into a ribbon of reflections on the car’s tinted windows. I sat angled toward the view, palms gone a little damp on the smooth leather, the thud of my pulse measuring the distance between streetlights.
Ryan drove himself tonight, no driver, no barrier of tinted glass. One hand loose on the wheel, the other resting near the gearshift, cuff unbuttoned, throat open where the first two buttons of his shirt were undone. No tie. Blazer dark. Casual for him, which still read as command.
I watched his profile too long, the clean cut of his jaw, the faint shadow of stubble, the way his knuckles flexed once against the leather of the steering wheel as if even driving was another form of control. He refused to look at me once, an
