“You don’t get that withGreen Eggs and Ham.”
Alice laughed. She guessed he was done with opening up. Which was a shame, because it was like she had a physical urge to connect with him mentally. How weird was that? And she got the feeling hewantedto talk, like he just needed permission. Ever since training, Holt had been discouraged from talking to anybody outside the Agency about anything real. Was it the same with Carter?
Carter pushed his fingers through his hair. “Shit, this is all getting a bit…”
“Right?”
“I’m not used to having company, even in normal circumstances. And I swear I’ve never talked about this with anyone without a bunch of letters after their name, and usually I tell them the minimum they need to know to tick whatever form will clear me to get back to work. But then with you…” He said itas if he was trying to figure out what mind trick Alice was using on him.
“Oh, I am a magnet for morbid conversations. It’s like, everyone wants to talk to me about their aunt or friend who had cancer—how they deteriorated fast or how they miraculously recovered—which is kind of why I avoid people. That and because no one knows what to say to you. Literally, sometimes I see people crossing the street to avoid me.”
“Oh, I know about that. That’s kinda why I’ve lost touch with my old friends.”
“I remember once—it must have been just after Mom died—I went into a clothes store, and I saw an old classmate slip into the changing rooms. I stayed in that store for thirty-seven minutes—I timed it—just to see if she would come out, and she didn’t. She chose to stay in a dressing room for thirty-seven minutes rather than run the risk of having to talk to me.”
He wandered to the table and fingered the earbuds. “No one really wants to talk about that shit, unless, like you say, they want to tell you their own story. I once had someone tell me about her pet rabbit that had run away, and had come back eventually, like that was somehow equivalent.”
“Yes! I’m like a repository for other people’s death stories. Not that I mind. I get it. Grief unites us, unfortunately, and we have this urge to connect over it, except when we’re busy trying to pretend it won’t happen to us. It’s the thing we fear the most, right? Even though it’s inevitable. Probablybecauseit’s inevitable.”
He regarded her with a frown. “You should write a book aboutthis.”
“Oh, my experience with grief is not a unique one. I don’t have any particular authority on the subject.”
He crossed his arms and studied her, forgetting the earbuds, and the cabin seemed to shrink again. The undivided attentionof a man like him was an intoxicating thing. “There’s such an authenticity to you. You’re so earnest, so genuine. I’m not used to that.”
“Isn’t ‘earnest’ an insult?” she said nervously, her mouth going dry.
“Notto me.” He said it so emphatically that she got the flippy feeling in her stomach again. She would never have imagined someone like her could even carry a conversation with someone like him, let alone pour her heart out to him—and have him respond so genuinely, after a bit of encouragement. “Nika trusted you, obviously. And she was a good judge of people.”
“She trusted you too.”
“Not enough to tell me the truth, in those last few days.”
“Maybe she was giving both of us plausible deniability.”
“I have wondered that.”
“Is there really no one you confide in?” And no, this wasn’t her double-checking he was single. Okay—yes, it was.
He thought for a few seconds, and gave that sly smile. “There is one person. She’s ex-IC, so she gets it. Some of it.”
“She?” Alice said, and mentally kicked herself. Why shouldn’t he have a relationship, even if he wasn’t after anything serious? His smile widened, as if he’d guessed her motivation for asking. Damn it.
“Sheand I go back a long time. We have a lot in common.” And now he was teasing her, the bastard. It felt that just by looking straight at her, he could raise her internal temperature—and he was doing a lot of that. It seemed almost … deliberate. Like heknewwhat it was doing to her. Like hewantedto have an effect on her.
Alice pointed at the dictaphone. “You should probably get back into it.”
“You keep distracting me.” Something about the way his lips curled up on one side… “Like I say, I need a break.”
Instead of sitting at the table, he walked the few strides to the bed, sat beside her and justlookedat her, his lips curled. And once again, irrespective of whether he had ashe, it was like the air around them had shifted. Just like in some kind of fantasy, he leaned in, his intentions stomach-churningly clear. She leaned in too, drawn into his orbit. His lips touched hers and his fingers slid through her hair, and holy hell, Anderson Holt was kissing her.
Carter Beckwas kissing her. Gentle, warm, unhurried, like he was trying to get to know her the way she’d been trying to get to know him through conversation. Not at all like Holt had kissed her, in her fantasies, but just as seductive.
When she recovered from the initial shock, she grabbed the front of his sweater and pulled Carter closer—well, his body closer, his mouth couldn’t get any closer. He groaned, slid his arm around her back and lowered her to the bed, like she’d fantasized earlier, and she wove her fingers around his neck, and then his delicious weight was on her and he moved his lips over her jaw and down her neck, which she stretched out long to make the experience last as long as possible.
“I know this is crazy,” he murmured into her collarbone, and she could swear she felt the words roll into her pores, and sink deep inside, creating an aching, sweet desire that in turn made her skin feel hyper-alive under his touch like some spiral of need, “but…”
“I get it.”
