“I want an address. And names.”
“What for?” he asked innocently.
For tea and crumpets. What did he meanwhat for? Wasn’t it obvious? “They just made an appointment in hell.”
The chill in my words snapped his lips shut and made saucers out of his eyes, all while his Adam’s apple bobbed like it was suddenly lost at sea. I quirked a brow, waiting for the list.
The tip of his tongue shot out to swipe his lower lip. My groin tightened like I hadn’t just been inside him.
“A-are you joking?”
I leaned in, hoping he saw just hownotjoking I was. “Your safety willneverbe a joke to me.”
The guarded look pinching his features softened. Seems like that should have had the opposite effect, but okay. “Is your name really Hero?” he asked.
“No,” I said intently, watching his reactions, suspicious all over again.
A crease formed between his brows. “But you asked me how I knew your name.”
“Did I?”
His gray stare narrowed. I could practically see him questioning himself. Did I ask him that, or was it his fevered imagination?
Again, I wondered about his angle and which way he would play this.
After a short internal debate, his eyes lifted to mine. “Yes. You did, and you accused me of lying. Then, instead of telling me why, you gave me meds that knocked me out.”
Ah, the sassy mouse angle.
“First of all…” I lifted a finger, waggling it above him. “Those meds were to help your fever, not knock you out. Second of all, people lie all the time.”
“Like just now when you said your name isn’t Hero.”
I glowered. “Don’t turn this around on me.”
He didn’t even look intimidated. Kinda rude.
“You accused me of knowing your name. The only thing I’ve called you since we met is Hero.” He held up his hands, palms up as if to sayisn’t it obvious.
“I’m the one asking the questions here.”
“You told me not to follow you, and thenyoufollowedme.”
“What are you, a professional scorekeeper?” I wondered.Geez.“Got the memory of an elephant.”
“What did you expect?” he asked, eyes rolling over me like fog swallowing a shoreline, skewing visibility until there was only him. “You said yourself that you’re a ghost. You haunt me.”
Suddenly, I felt like a pinball machine, and his words were the ball, zinging through me, bouncing off bones, andrattling everything. Bracing my hands on either side of his head, I loomed closer, “Aren’t you afraid?”
“No.”
“You should be.”
“You said I was protected here. Was that a lie too?” He blinked, those innocent gray eyes making a mockery of me.
This pocket-sized pip had a way of taking my words and aiming them back at me, sort of like holding up a mirror and forcing me to look at my own reflection. I should have doubled down, made it clear I wasn’t susceptible to his charms and that I was here to gain information, not give it.
But just like before, my vision was skewed. All I could see was him. All I could feel was the weight of his attention, his yielding body beneath mine. In my world, trust was a commodity with too high a price tag, but paying it now felt like pennies.
