Her expression was almost serene, as if she hadn’t just made him bleed internally. “I did not love you.” Her slim shoulders lifted. “I lusted after you, to be sure. Cared for you very much. But it wasn’t love.”
Cold comfort that. He swallowed and tried to think of a reply that did not involve shouting or cursing the world to bloody hell. Did she ever love him? No, he could not ask it. He knew he wouldn’t recover from that blow.
Perhaps aware of his turmoil, she looked about and then tugged him down a shadowed aisle between the shelves. Her voice, smooth as cream, surrounded him. “Do you remember that day when I told you about the bookstore?”
For a moment he couldn’t think, but merely searched her face and wondered if pregnancy left her slightly touched in the head. But she was watching him earnestly so he managed to nod.
Her eyes turned the color of fine cherry wood. “You believed in me,” she whispered, taking a step closer to him, “without proof of my ability, without question of my motives.”
He swallowed hard, his hand fisting at his side in an effort to keep still, for he needed to see this conversation through, not tug her into his arms. “I will always believe in you.” It was the truth. She was the strongest person he knew.
Her sweet mouth trembled as she smiled, a small, secretive smile. “I fell in love with you in that moment, Win. Utterly, irrevocably.”
Understanding washed over him, and it had his heart flipping over in his chest. “It had nothing to do with my bargain.”
“No. It never did. I hadn’t wanted to fall in love with you. It was too dangerous. But I fell despite myself.”
He reached out for her. The soft press of her br**sts against his chest was the sweetest sort of pain. Her smooth cheeks were cool under his palms. “Poppy.” He leaned his forehead against hers and gave a helpless laugh. “Why do you tell me this now? When we are here?” When he couldn’t pull her to the floor and touch her the way he needed to?
“I’ve always had bad timing.”
Her lower lip pouted, and he gave in, suckling it between his lips for one gorgeous moment before letting go. “Yes, I know.”
Her breath turned unsteady. “But I wanted you to know.” Searching his face, she wrapped her hands around his wrists, holding him steady just as he held her. “I needed you to know. Isley is not responsible for our life.”
“To hell with it.” He was done resisting. He kissed her then. A gentle sip that shaped her lips against his like warm wax. He lapped at her wide bottom lip, nipped her shapely upper lip, and his body swayed, and only her hand upon his heart could keep him steady. He brushed his lips over her cheek and she sighed. The smooth column of her neck was cool against his mouth. Cool and fragrant. The scent and feel of her blindsided him, and he found himself simply holding her as he pressed his lips against her skin and inhaled. God she smelled good, like no perfume man could devise. It was simply her, unique and irreplaceable. She trembled and he gathered her closer, only to realize that it was he who shook. How could he have let her go?
“Win,” she placed a soft kiss upon the scar near his eye, “give me more. I need more.”
The desperation in her touch, so similar to his own, had him hauling her closer. They fell back against the shelves. Her hands were at his jaw, holding him still as she went at him with hot, luscious little bites that had him groaning. He fisted the coiled mass of her glorious hair and kissed her back, all lust and need, no finesse.
“God, I’ve missed you,” he said against her lips. “Missed this.” She tasted of Poppy, dark spice and cool water. It was a taste that haunted his dreams. So utterly familiar and so long denied that he drank her in like a man stumbling out of a desert. His body seared with need, and his hold upon her turned greedy. He wound his fingers further into her silky hair and opened her mouth with his, thrusting his tongue into her warm recesses. It was nearly anger, this feeling that coursed through him and made his movements too rough, too clumsy. His hands fisted her skirts as he stepped between her thighs. Desperate, he grabbed onto the bookshelf for leverage, ready to haul her up and take her there.
“Poppy…”
A book slammed to the floor beside them and they both jumped. Jesus, but Winston had forgotten where he was. For a moment, they both panted, then Poppy’s arms slid from his neck. He leaned in, wanting to snatch up that maddening mouth of hers once more, but she held him fast and he blinked, trying to pull himself out of the haze of lust. He laughed but it came out as a choking sound. “Right. Not here.”
Her smile was wry yet wobbly. “Not unless we really want to scandalize old Grevis.”
Win took her hand in his and held fast. “Come along then. I think I’ve figured out the last piece to the puzzle.”
She was half-smiling, half irate. “And you didn’t say so!”
Laughing a bit despite it all, he nipped her bottom lip. “A certain glorious redhead distracted me.”
Chapter Thirty-three
I am assuming you have a weapons room,” Win asked Poppy as they left the library.
“Of course.” She found herself grinning widely. “A ridiculously large one.”
His chest rumbled against her side as he chuckled. “Bloodthirsty girl.”
The weapons room was in another sector, so they returned to the Fleet River craft. Win took over punting once again.
“Tell me we are going demon hunting,” she said as they glided down the dank tunnel.
Shadows slid over his features and along his trim length. “I fear we are, sweeting.”
“You need not sound so dour.” She leaned back a bit in the seat so that she could look up at him properly. “I, for one, am itching to lay into that bastard.” Her jaw ached where she clenched it. “After what he did to Talent.”
“Mmm.”
Aware that he wasn’t truly listening to her, Poppy raised her voice. “Darling, you are aware that your ‘mmm’s’ can drive a person to distraction.”
He grinned. “And here I thought it was part of my charm.” He plunged the pole into the murky waters and stared off into the distance, where the tunnel disappeared into a wall of black. “I was reading about demons, how there are different types.”
“Yes.” Impatience colored her tone. He ignored it.
“Let us go back to the beginning.” He guided the craft around a bend. “The first demon I saw aboard the ship was in the process of procuring blood from the ship’s officer.”
“Yes.” Poppy knew better than to hurry Win once he was on an exposition, but she wanted to.
The corner of his mouth quirked as if he knew her thinking as well. “And then it used Mary’s blood to assume her appearance and get close to Talent. Not to mention that Mrs. Noble was drained of her blood as well. And yet Isley does not need blood to assume a new appearance.”
“All correct. So he had help. We know this.” Unease tickled along her spine. Win had a theory, one he was reluctant to share. She could tell by his even gaze and the way he made her think the process out.
“Isley’s eyes are white or crimson when he reveals them,” Win went on. “The eyes of the demon I beheaded turned yellow. And Archer’s eyes, when he was changed, went silver. I remember thinking how remarkably different his eyes were back then.” He smiled a little. “Only I hadn’t any idea the extent of it.”
“What is your point, Win?”
“I assume that the color of a demon’s eyes gives away what type of demon it is?”
“Yes.” Her voice was cautious now, the heavy dread increasing within.
He ran a finger along the edge of the pole. “Mrs. Noble’s eyes flickered to unnatural black.”
Poppy plunked her chin into her palm. The ugly sensation within her grew but she could not quite acknowledge what was knocking about in her mind. Not yet. “There is a sort of demon whose eyes go black,” she said with reluctance. “The sort who feeds off of sexual congress and blood.”
The pole stilled in his hand. “Do not say it. Do not…”
Her smile was grim. “You might have heard of them referred to as vampires, or nosferatu.”
“You said it.” He sighed, leaning slightly on the pole.
Despite herself, she laughed. “It is simply a name, you know. They are pure demon. Only they favor blood for nourishment. It is because they yearn for human contact, usually in the form of sexual contact, that the human world has developed stories and myths about them. Too much interaction has led to leaks in information.”
Slowly he nodded, but his focus was on the oily water beneath them. “Here is what bothers me.” He softened his tone, which made Poppy’s skin tighten and her fingers grow cold. “Your lieutenant Lena has such eyes. She knew we were onboard the Ignitus, did she not? And she knew we’d interviewed the komtesse as well.”
The temperature dropped so quickly that Win’s next breath came out in a puff of white steam. Cold pervaded Poppy’s insides. No, it could not be. But it was there, dangling before her like a signpost.
“Is Lena a demon?” But he knew the answer. It was written in his sad eyes.
“Yes.” Her voice lowered. “She was the one who brought me Isley’s threat. The undead followed us to the komtesse’s house, and she knew we were going to Farleigh…” Her fist struck the side of the boat. “I should have seen it.”
“Why? You trusted her.”
A sharp laugh rang out. “Hell, Win, you know as well as I that trust is merely an illusion.”
An awkward silence fell over them, but he broke it with a softly spoken, “I know, sweet.”
Queasy in the rocking craft, Poppy drew in a breath of dank river air. Lena was more than a lieutenant. She was her mentor, a surrogate mother—albeit a rather cold one. “But why?” Poppy hated that the question came out in a pathetic warble.
Win’s scarred countenance hardened like mortar, and Poppy shivered at the sight of him standing tall and glowering, yet she felt at once protected and glad to have him on her side. “That, sweeting, is what we shall find out.”