“Sir, I’m afraid we can’t—”
“I’m always afraid too.” Alyce lowered her tone into demonic range as her teshuva responded to the nebulous fears circling the man and twisted his worries back to him. “Thorne likes you that way.”
While the man gaped at her, Sidney freed another few bills and stuffed them in the other man’s shirt pocket. “Nothing to worry about, right, old chap?” He patted the bulging shirt pocket hard enough to nudge the man aside. “I see they’re casting off the lines. You should watch out.”
He tugged her down the gangplank before the man could protest again.
“Won’t he come after us?”
“To watch an annoyingly drunk Brit lose his money at the tables and his mind over a vision in white?” He smiled at her, a little crookedly.
She bit her lip. “Is it too late to think maybe this is one of the bad kinds of ideas?”
“Quick, quiet recon,” he reminded her. “Thorne obviously has a very comfortable setup here. He won’t sacrifice that for mere pesky talyan.”
His logic made sense. She found that comforting, although it would have been more comforting if her teshuva hadn’t felt so small in her, withdrawn to the very depths of her being, almost lost to her senses.
She felt alone. She felt … human.
They stepped onto the smooth, dark deck. Beside her, Sidney looked so at ease, the rich russet waves of his hair ruffled and his sleeves rolled back in defiance of the October chill. She slipped her hand into his.
He looked down at her with a faint smile. “Yet another strange date.”
“I’d go anywhere with you.”
His smile flickered out. “Well, let’s at least go inside the cabin where you won’t freeze.”
She snuggled up against him as they walked. He’d remembered that she’d said she felt the cold, felt everything, when she was with him. The thought warmed her from the inside, even more than the heat of his body beside her.
Yet he felt stiff against her shoulder. Probably he was more worried than he wanted her to know. To reassure him, she gazed up at him, focusing all her belief in her eyes, and squeezed his hand.
His answering smile looked a little seasick.
Inside, subtle pools of lights flowed around high tables, gleaming on the mellow woods. A handful of women circled with trays of glasses as tall, thin, and white-gold as the servers themselves.
Sidney snagged a glass and held it out to Alyce. “Champagne?”
When she lifted the fizzing contents, she sneezed, and her demon uncoiled a notch. “To drink?”
“Remember when I explained to you about cocktail parties?”
“The men drink too much and the women wear pretty dresses.” She smoothed her hand down her thigh. “But not much fun, you said.”
“And that was before a demon-revved metabolism made it impossible to drink too much. Still, a glass or two will help us blend in.”
“And if I break off the cup, the stem is long and sharp enough to be a weapon.”
“That too.” He stepped away. “It looks like there’s more room belowdecks; that’s where I’d keep the big games. And private rooms. Let’s look around up top until we sail.”
The upper level was smaller, with intimate low seating and even lower, more intimate music piping through the walls. Several couples already occupied the forward seats, so Sidney guided her to the back with a hand at the base of her spine.
Through the thin fabric of her dress, his hand warmed her. The silky stuff moved under his fingers so his palm shifted in slow circles over her spine. She wanted to dump the glass and return the caress, but that wasn’t their mission.
So instead, she took a sip and sneezed again. The demon spiraled higher as the dark heat of Sidney’s hand and the sparkling coolness of the champagne met deep in her belly in some sinful alchemy.
She liked it. It made her legs steadier while the boat, pulling away from the dock, rocked under her.
As they glided out to the lake, she drained the rest of the glass and set it aside, though close enough to grab if she did need a weapon. But now that her hands were free …
She threaded her fingers through his and tugged him to the back of the room. The lights of the diminishing city glittered through the tinted windows, casting highlights in place of shadow. Still, she could not read his eyes.
But the champagne made that seem unnecessary. Her demon flickered unsteadily, and her senses shimmered like the city lights. She drew their clasped hands down the outsides of her thighs, framing their embrace.
“Kiss me,” she whispered. “It will help us blend in.”
He frowned. “I should have guessed your teshuva might not process alcohol as thoroughly as a stronger demon.”
“I am okay.” She was coming to like that word, almost as much as she liked champagne.
The boat tilted a little—or maybe that was just her—so she took the opportunity to pull herself closer to him. The silky scarf around her neck chafed at her sensitized skin, a reminder how there’d been almost nothing between them in the pool—and nothing at all between them in bed.
She tilted a bit more, angling against his chest, and gazed up at his mouth, so far away. If he was as tall as the other talyan, she wouldn’t be even this close. Still, the unyielding stiffness of his spine held him apart, though the thud of his heart rocked the whole world.
Again, maybe that was just her.
“Kiss me,” she urged, “so I don’t forget.”
“Alyce …” Her name surfaced from someplace in him deeper and darker than the lake around them. He pulled her closer—not that there was much closer to be had. His fingers, still tangled through hers, pinned her hands at the small of her back.
When his lips swept hers in a hot wave, she moaned and arched into him. The stiffness that had gone out of his spine reappeared elsewhere, and she reveled in the sweet heat that swelled through her in answer.
She would happily forget the world if she could stay in his arms forever. …
Abruptly, Sidney brought their hands together in front of them again, between their bellies, forcing them apart but putting them both within reach of some even more likable places. “Alyce, wait. I know the symballein bond has resulted in some metaphysiological connectivity that may inspire feelings in you of—”
“Feelings like making love?”
He swallowed, and he looked as if he might sneeze even though he hadn’t had any champagne. “For example.”
She nodded. “It is a nice feeling, isn’t it? As though all is good with the world.”
Despite the soft sway of the boat, unlike her own soft swaying, he went utterly still. “After everything … with everything, how can you say that?”
“Because I’m with you.”
If she’d driven the words through his heart on the stiletto of a broken champagne glass, Sid would not have been more shocked.
Oh, he’d guessed—maybe even said to himself in the privacy of his own head—she was feeling something for him. But most people were too careful to expose themselves with such vulnerability, to say what they felt without a defense, without a fail-safe. The weakness of her demon and the loss of its talisman somewhere in the centuries had left her without those. Now the truth was clear; this was not a bonding he could observe safely from a distance—or even up close with asbestos gloves and a polycarbonate face shield. At the bright gleam in her eyes, his thoughts went instead to vastly more personal protection.
Was his heart trying to get away … or get to her?
Despite all his studies, he didn’t have an answer, so he did what any good researcher would do.
He took a step back. Their linked hands stretched between them awkwardly.
“It’s hard to say what we’re feeling,” he started.