He smelled of sweet smoke and wine. Such a delicious combination, it made her want to purr and curl her toes into the dewy grass.
Alice stopped thinking, stopped wondering right from wrong. She wanted this. Always had. She laid her head against his chest. The muscle flexed beneath her cheek.
How would she ever be able to leave?
Chapter 8
Alice slept. Her silky black hair trailed along the white pillow like cracks in the earth and he ached to touch her. To kiss her gently awake. To watch her eyes grow soft and liquid with lust, with love.
Hatter gripped the door frame. Once he’d been certain she’d fallen asleep, he’d tiptoed back to her room and stood outside, watching. Hoping. Dreaming. Hating.
Hating his existence. Hating her for coming. For looking so much like the other one. Hating her because he needed her so much, knowing she’d leave him like all the rest.
Each Alice had been an adventure. Each wild, unpredictable incarnation had imprinted an indelible mark upon his soul. He remembered one who’d loved to fish out treasures from the sea and another who’d spun dresses from the cotton candy orchards. Some had sat three days locked away in their rooms, never venturing out, never trying to know him. He’d enjoyed some more than others and at the time had mourned their not staying.
In the end they’d all left, ripping out a piece of his soul. For a time, he’d grown excited knowing another Alice would come, dreaming the next one would be different. But after several years the constant parade had lost its zeal and he’d yearned for the moment they’d leave him to his solitude.
She sighed, and rolled over. Her outstretched arm pointed toward him. A wild sleeper, she’d moved from one corner of the bed to the other, as if seeking something, even in sleep. Her fingers curled and her mouth tipped down.
So damn beautiful.
Skin the color of wild spring honey with hair like shadow, hanging long and low, with the tiniest widow’s peak on her forehead. A short thing, this Alice barely reached the top of his chest. Petite, but full figured in a ripe, luscious way. Her hips flared out, and his heart pumped harder. She was the perfect size to hang onto while she rode him, passion gleaming from the depths of her big doe eyes.
Heat pooled in his groin. It grew stiff, frustratingly so. But he did not touch himself. He’d stopped doing that a long time ago, when the other Alice Hu had left. After her, he’d sworn never again. Never again would he allow himself to care because to do so would weaken him.
It’d been years since she’d left and, with time, he’d realized he’d not loved that Alice at all. He knew because he’d survived, but it was that knowledge that made him fear to love. Because though he’d not loved her, the weeks that had followed had been some of the worst in his life. Only Danika’s stubborn willfulness had brought him back from the fog of his mind.
The episode had so frightened Danika that she’d stopped bringing him Alices for a while and he’d reveled in the peace and quiet thinking surely Danika finally understood there was no match for the Hatter.
Hatter leaned against the door, his eyes drinking her in. His body trembled remembering the rush of heat and fire that’d blanketed him when she’d touched him and forced him to touch her. This Alice was more dangerous than any of the others because not only did he not mind her presence, he sought it out like a man parched for drink. She needed to leave. To forget him in the hopes that he could forget her. In the hopes that, someday, he’d not be plagued with night terrors, with the dreams of having a life he was never supposed to have.
He was the Hatter, a lunatic, a madman. His life was nonsense and mayhem. Everyone within the Kingdom said so. So had the other Alice Hu— she’d hurled the words at him like a blade, cutting him to the quick. He ground his jaw.
This Alice whimpered. He wanted to rush to her, soothe her. Touch her fine skin and inhale the sweet scent of her body.
His mouth tipped, remembering her startled look in the hall. The shorts that had exposed a long expanse of thigh. He’d nearly come undone. It had been all he could take to stand there and watch, his throat working with a need to yank her to him, to beg her to end his madness.
And he couldn’t stop the queer feeling that they’d met before. But she hadn’t looked like this. He frowned and grabbed his head. Why couldn’t he remember?
All he knew was that when he looked at her he heard the haunting strains of a repetitive beeping noise. But then the sound vanished and he was left with questions.
She mumbled.
She’d quoted Poe. So different than all the others, even her grandmother had never done that. Evil Alice had never tried to know him. But this Alice made him want to know her.
Other Alices had lied before. Some had claimed love, others kindness. None of it had been true.
His jaw flexed.
Why did he want to believe her?
“My Hatter,” she murmured, pink lips curling into a slow smile and his heart turned over. Lovely. Deadly. Peril. He closed his eyes and backed slowly out.