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She slid her eyes away.
“I didn’t think so. He’ll continue on, in the same vein as before. Unless I put a stop to it.”
Her spine stiffened. “I won’t help you find him.”
“Nina,” he said softly. “I don’t need your help. Scotland Yard will happily track him down.”
“You’ll be happy too.” She closed her eyes. “What a fine feather for your cap.”
He swore under his breath as a bolt of anger shot through him.
“I’m not happy,” he growled. “I feel as though I’ve been turned inside out.” His heart accelerated. “You have caught me, dammit, and it should be the other way round.”
Her eyes opened. Her lips parted. A tiny noise emerged from her throat. And she leaned forward. She leaned forward just the barest fraction.
He slid to meet her, bracing his arms on the side of the settle, pinning her between them. He lowered his face inch by inch.
He didn’t want to reason. He wanted to drown in her eyes.
Her breath eased out. “Your spectacles.”
He’d forgotten to put them back on.
She licked her lips. “You don’t need them, do you?”
“No.” He could feel the heat of her skin, smell its scent, honeysuckle and rose. Her pupils had expanded.
“The frames are fitted with plain glass,” he said. “I started wearing them at Oxford.”
“A disguise.” She tilted up her chin, which brought her mouth achingly near to his own. “Lord Death, with spectacles to symbolize wisdom, and a cane instead of a scythe.”
The hush that descended felt enormous. It pushed him back from her. He lowered his arms, sliding away on the bench.
“What are you hiding from?” Her voice was very low, and she paled as she searched his face, hesitant but determined. “You know who I am.”
He could hear her unspoken question hang in the deafening silence.
Who are you?
Holy God. He could barely breathe, lungs flattening. What she searched for in him—the self he hid from the world—offered nothing but annihilating darkness. The honey that seemed to well within him whenever they drew close—that was her sweetness. He drained it from her. If he got too close, he would leave her dry and bitter and lost. He was triple the fool, because he was still imagining it, imagining that he might lay himself bare. The two of them unmasked. Naked souls.
His hip was a ball of fire. His heart was a ball of fire.
“Alan.” His name hitched in her chest. He watched, as though in a dream, as she came forward and laid her hand to his jaw, still stinging slightly from the blade. “I don’t deserve your trust, but—”
He fell on her, burying his hands in the silk of her hair, capturing her lips, groaning at the swipe of her tongue inside his mouth. He bent her back over his arm, nuzzling her throat, returning—desperate—to her mouth. The rhythmic give-and-take of their tongues worked him to a frenzy. He dragged her onto his lap, wadding her skirt. Her knees clamped around his thighs. A few buttons, a cloth flap, a scrap of lace—the flimsiest obstacles prevented him from burying himself inside her.
He was burning up, the pain and the pleasure merged in his groin, a monstrous desire.
He broke their kiss with a gasp. “This.” Frustration flared his nostrils. “No.”
Her eyes found his. “What, then?”
He pulled her into his chest, his chin on her shoulder, fingers playing in the fine hair at her nape. He stared at the window, at the colored enamel design—the cypress trees, their dark green going darker as the last of the daylight faded.
Naked souls. It was far too late for that. They could hurt each other straining toward some beautiful potential that could never be realized, or they could help each other within the wicked limits of life as it was.
The idea had been writhing, half-formed, in the darkest corner of his mind.
