“You’re kidding, right?”
“No,” I said, and I meant it, but even to my own ears, the single-syl able word sounded feeble. Maybe that was because I was staring at the smooth skin being revealed as Falin unbuttoned his oxford.
“Real y?” He pul ed the shirt free of his pants so he could get to the last button, but he didn’t take the shirt off. It gapped as he stepped forward, exposing smal glimpses of pale skin and hard abs.
He lifted a hand, brushing a strand of hair back from my face. He’d stripped off his gloves at some point, so his fingers were bare and warm against my cheek.
“I—” I started, but he leaned down. His lips brushed mine, the kiss tentative, a question with just a touch of breath and heat.
Whatever I’d planned to say vanished.
I lifted on my toes, inviting more, and he didn’t disappoint.
His lips closed over mine, firm and soft al at once as he deepened the kiss. One of his hands slid into my hair, the other around my waist as he pul ed me closer, surrounding me with his heat, his scent, his touch.
me with his heat, his scent, his touch.
Someone cleared their throat behind me. “Please tel me I get a veto in this.”
I jumped, breaking contact with Falin in midkiss.
Death leaned against the counter, his thumbs hooked in his pockets and his dark hair spil ing into his face. I couldn’t do anything more than stand there staring at him as my heart thundered in my chest, though I couldn’t have said if I was more breathless from the kiss or from the fact that it was Death who had caught me at it.
“I’m not interrupting, am I?” he asked. Death may have looked casual and sounded bored, but his eyes were fixed on Falin with dark intensity.
Yes. Very much. Not that I shouldn’t have been thankful
—I had made a promise to myself, after al —but I couldn’t quite summon up that particular emotion as Falin’s hands slid over my shoulders.
“Alexis,” he whispered, his lips pressing against my hair, his breath tracing my ear.
A shiver that had nothing to do with the chil fil ing me and everything to do with the sensations his touch woke in my body rang through me. Aside from the awkward, teasing dance that Death and I had been stumbling through recently, I hadn’t been touched, really touched—in a month.
The feel of his skin on mine sent a thril through me as if it had been a lot longer than that. But I couldn’t do this.
Especial y not with Death watching every change in my features from beneath his heavily hooded eyes.
I shrugged away from Falin’s hands. “I’l just take the floor,” I said, no longer caring who got stuck with the floor so long as his hands, and lips, and eyes stopped lighting a fire in my skin. I turned to Death. “What are you doing here?”
He lifted his shoulders in a slight shrug. “At the moment?
Chaperoning.”
Right. Of course. I groaned silently and realized I could almost hear the ringing absence of movement as Falin went stil behind me.
went stil behind me.
“Who’s here?” he asked.
As answer, I reached out my hand toward Death. I wasn’t sure he’d accept it. Roy enjoyed becoming visible, but Mr.
Super Secretive Soul Col ector? Him I wasn’t sure about.
Hel , for al I knew, he might vanish just because I’d let on that he was present. But if he was going to stand around making commentary, I wasn’t going to be the only victim listening.
Death looked at my outstretched hand for a moment, and then smiled, flashing a row of perfect teeth before placing his palm against mine. I dropped my shields and Falin let out a curse.
“What’s he doing here?” he asked, the question directed at me and not the col ector, though I knew he damn wel was now visible. Falin crossed muscular arms over his chest and glared from Death to me.
I frowned at him. The point of dropping my shields was so they didn’t talk through me in the first place.
Death lifted my hand to his lips, drawing me several steps forward in the process, but he didn’t so much kiss my knuckles as smile into my skin. His eyes watched me as he did this; then, as if we were dancing, he spun me so my back was to him. Dropping my hand, he wrapped one arm around my shoulders. He was tal enough that he could prop his chin on the top of my head.