And then it was over. Winston was battered. Every inch of him ached as he took in the carnage. Four undead lay sprawled on the ground. All were missing their heads.
His chest heaved as he straightened and looked at his wife. She was panting as well, her hair in a red tangle about her slim shoulders. A smear of blood marred her cheek, but the cut was shallow. She was glorious. He glanced about one more time, making certain they were well and truly alone. Nothing stirred.
“Are you harmed?” he asked. “Did they hit…”
“The child is fine.” She smoothed hair back from her face. “You?”
“Not yet.” His sword clattered to the ground. He took the two steps to close the distance between them and hauled her against him. Lust slammed into him at the touch of his lips to hers. Hard enough to make him stagger, taking her with him. He fell against the brick wall of the overpass as he cupped her cheeks with his hands and devoured her mouth, needing to touch her, taste her, more than he needed to breathe. This was what he’d been missing. This was what made him feel whole. Her fingers tangled in his hair and tugged hard as she kissed him back, biting his lower lip.
His head spun with want, and he took a shuddering breath to ease the tightness in his chest. He had to stop. He knew this. But for the moment, he closed his eyes and simply reveled in her. His tongue played with hers, a slow, torturous slip-slide, and he groaned. Then he let her go. And it was painful.
They panted for a moment, and her eyes were wide with surprise and wonder as he tenderly caressed her bloodied cheek.
“What was that for?” she said after a moment.
He rubbed his thumb along her bottom lip and told her the truth. “For being alive.”
With the heat of battle still running riot through her veins, Poppy’s hands were unsteady as she started to go through the undeads’ pockets. Win had kissed her. She knew enough of combat to understand that the need for physical contact, or a sexual release, went hand in hand with the aftermath of getting one’s blood up. She ought not make anything of it. Only her heart pounded, and she couldn’t think straight.
He knelt next to her, his trousers straining against his powerful thigh muscles. How he had moved in the fight. She had never seen him like that, his body a lethal weapon, gliding and striking as though he owned the very air around him. It made her dizzy with lust.
“What are you looking for?” His smoky voice was low and even.
She reached into an inner coat pocket. “A guide. The undead cannot think for themselves. They’d need something to guide them to us. Something that identifies what victim they sought.”
Beside her, Win began to do the same, his shoulder brushing hers as they worked. He sat back on his heels as he pulled out a folded piece of what looked like sheepskin paper. Poppy stopped and leaned into his shoulder to watch him unfold it. A coil of red hair fell out and onto his roughened palm.
“Well, that explains it,” she said through her teeth. “They have my hair.”
Win clutched the clump in his fist. “How?”
Poppy rested an elbow on her thigh. “Taken from my hairbrush? I do not know.”
Win rose to his feet and held out a hand. Poppy did not need help, but she took it because she wanted to keep touching him. Foolish. She could not afford to be so weak. She let go as soon as she stood and then glanced down at the undead. “I would say it was Isley, but this is not his modus operandi.”
“Do you believe someone else wants to hurt you?” His cool eyes grew hard and angry. “Have you an idea of who it could be?”
A short laugh escaped her. “The list is long, dear husband.”
His jaw tightened. “You find this amusing?”
No. She found it wearying. Worse, she wanted to punch something, for he had been in danger too. By associating with her. Damn it all. She glanced up to find Win watching her. She’d seen the soft heat in his eyes just after he’d kissed her. The tenderness. He’d looked at her as he used to look at her. Before. This was her life now. Before discovery. After discovery. She wanted that look back.
“Why did you pull away?” She hadn’t meant to ask, but now that she had, she would not flinch from it.
His expression closed down. “What is it that you want me to say, Poppy?” The scar on his lip was white as he searched her face. “That I am human? You know that all too well.”
Her br**sts lifted and fell as she fought for breath. “Perhaps that you wanted to kiss me?” That you miss me the way I miss you. So much that it hurts.
His expression was so stern that he might have been a marble carving. “I wanted to kiss you.” He backed her up against the stone wall leading onto the Embankment. “I want you every thinking moment I have. I want you near. I want to hear your voice. Feel you.” He leaned in, drowning her in his scent and his heat. “I want to take you hard, slow, every way in between. And the piss of it is, it’s always been this way. From the moment I saw you.”
She gaped up at him, and his scowl grew. “I want you always. In all things. I want…” He exhaled unsteadily. “It is pain, this wanting you. And I wish it were gone.”
Her breath left in a sharp rasp. But he was past hearing. “Because it isn’t about wanting, is it? A man gets to a point in his life when he realizes wanting isn’t everything. There needs to be more.”
“You will never forgive me, will you?”
His head snapped back, those deep eyes of his clouding for a moment. And then he sighed. “It is not a question of forgiveness. I lied, you lied, we both lied.”
“Are you conjugating? Or is there a point? For I confess, I cannot understand what you are about.”
His mouth twisted as he leaned in. “It isn’t real. What we had was never real. It was an illusion. Our life. Our love.”
“How dare you say that! How dare you belittle all that we had.” He might as well have punched her in the chest.
“How can I not? Everything we are is a result of my folly and Isley’s bloody machinations.”
She hit his shoulder. Hard. “Fool! Your bargain reset your life’s course. It did not make me want you afterward. It did not make us happy. It did not make me lo…” She swallowed. “It did not make me love you, Win. You did that, you ass.” She shoved him again, hard enough to make him step back, which was good, for she could not stand another moment in his presence. “And if you cannot see that, cannot accept what we were, then our continued association is pointless.”
He grabbed her upper arms. “It is you who cannot see!” When she tried to move, he held fast. “You kept turning me down when I first proposed. Do you remember that at least?”
Stiffly she nodded, not liking the hard, black feeling swelling within her chest.
His grip tightened, his eyes wild with pained frustration. “I thought you did so because of who I was. But it wasn’t that, was it? I understand now. It was because of who you were.”
The blackness turned to pain and pushed against her ribs, filling up her throat. “I did not want to love you. I did not want to risk you.” She still did not want to face that risk.
Redness swarmed in his eyes as he looked at her. “I know, sweeting. I know it now. Can you not see it? I took away your choice.” Softly, his thumbs caressed her. “Ask yourself this. Would Boadicea, Mother of the SOS, have given in and said yes to me?”
A garbled sound broke from her lips as all that black, raging pain became too much to hold in. She sucked in greedy pulls of air, but it was no use. The truth came whether she wanted to say it or not.
“No.”
And then she was running. From him. From herself.
He watched her go. Every forceful stride she took drove a stab of pain into his heart. He bit his bottom lip to keep from calling her back. To keep from shouting out the truth. That he did not care if she wasn’t truly his. He loved her. He always had. He’d die loving her. But she’d said her truth as well. She would not have chosen him. Absently, he rubbed his chest.
“You did the smart thing, Lane.”
Hands fisting, he glanced down at the street urchin who had appeared by his side. A grubby little face blinked up at him, innocent, sweet with his button nose and too big eyes that flared with an inner fire. It took all Win had not to smash his fist into that face. “Did you do this?”
Jones looked down at the bodies littering the ground. “I thought this was your handiwork.”
“You bloody well know what I mean.”
“You’ve no sense of humor, Lane.” Jones shrugged. “As she said, it is not my style. The woman has more enemies than the devil.” His little face turned to watch Poppy go, and he grinned. “Ah, but she’s glorious when she fights, isn’t she?” Icy eyes settled on Winston. “She won’t be talking to you for some time, though, will she?”
“I swear to God,” Winston ground out, “I will find a way to destroy you, Jones. Even if I have to go to hell to do it.”
The urchin adjusted his cap and spat on the ground. “Sweet words will get you nowhere.” He shoved his small hands into the pockets of his short pants. “I’m doing you a service, really. Fate never meant for her to be yours.”
“And what if I don’t believe in your version of fate?” Each word was a razor dragged along Winston’s throat.
“Then you wouldn’t be here.” A little foot kicked at a broken clump of paving, and the clump bounded away. “You’d be running after her.” Hard eyes leveled on him. “Now, stop wasting time. You’ve got three days left. Then I come to collect.”
Chapter Eighteen
A man could make himself weak at the knees giving in to anticipation. Especially if gifted with a healthy imagination. He could watch the object of his desire and wonder. What would her lips taste like? Would they be tart and sweet like berries? Or warm and smooth like sherry? Would she willingly tickle her tongue along his? Or make him work for an entry? One glimpse of the shadow of her br**sts and he could be hard, contemplating the shape of them once set free of their confinement. Pointed? Tear-dropped? Round? What color would her ni**les be? Would they be big? Small? Pert? Or flat? It was an agony of delightful possibilities. A game of wondering how much torment a man could take before he acquired the knowledge.