No, she had to remember the Girl Explorers. They could walk in at any moment, dammit.
“Who’s to say?” she said breezily. “Maybe I did smear leaky mucus on you. Maybe I didn’t.”
His gusty exhalation caressed her face. “You did. Even though I have a handkerchief. YouknowI have a handkerchief. I used it on you earlier tonight.”
“But it’s not clean anymore. I don’t want a dirty handkerchief.”
“Yes.” Lifting his head, he glanced down at the glistening patch on his shoulder. “How awful that would be.”
“Thank you for your very sincere agreement.” She eased back an inch or two. “I know you don’t want me to apologize, but I still wish I hadn’t brought you to the home of someone who doesn’t trust your good intentions.”
He gave the back of her neck a comforting squeeze. “Prior to SERC’s formation, Supernaturals and Enhanced humans preyed on common humans and one another without consequence, other than occasional vigilante justice. When her mother’s friend died in my company, the first SERC reps hadn’t taken office. No one knew about their investigation of the incident. No one knew about Jacquette’s perfidy. Of course the witch suspected me of murder.” His shoulders lifted in a tiny shrug. “I wasn’t surewhether her mother had shared the story, but if so, I knew I’d be the villain of the piece. Which was part of the reason I kept track of her whereabouts over the years, and why I was reluctant to come here today. But we had no real choice. I took a calculated risk and lost.”
And he’d taken that risk trying to do the right thing. For her, but also for the world at large. It wasn’t, as he’d said to Gwen earlier, such a small thing.
“The witch’s suspicions might annoy me,” he added, “but they don’t offend me, and they certainly don’t hurt me. If we hadn’t needed allies tomorrow, I wouldn’t have even bothered rebutting her accusations, except to you. In private.”
Honestly? That was an awfully tolerant view of Sabrina’s interrogation. Especially given the abject horribleness of the events he’d been prodded into recounting and the crowd of strangers who’d also borne witness to his unwilling confession.
“I’d rather have heard the story under other circumstances, but I understand your cynicism better now.” Using the sleeve of her coveralls, she swiped at the moisture on his hoodie. “And I understand why it might take a while to trust me with all your secrets. I won’t badger you. Not even to find out your true age.”
His grin brightened the dim living room. “We both know that’s a lie.”
“Yes.” She raised a finger in emphasis. “But one told with the best of intentions, as well as a sincere desire for it to be true. So it basicallyisthe truth in all important respects.”
“That’s also a lie.”
“According to certain faulty definitions of the term.”
He snorted, then steered them out of their conversational detour. “Jacquette was the last human who fed me directly, mouth to skin. Also my last lover. I didn’t intend to put myself in such a vulnerable position ever again, and I didn’t need to. Bagged blood had become widely available for the first time, and I’m more than capable of taking care of my own sexual needs. So there was no more biting. No more lovemaking.”
Pinning her in place with a meaningful stare, he waited for her to say it.
“Until me,” she whispered.
“Until you.” Lightly, he tugged a fistful of her hair in emphasis. “That’s my point. Despite all your unconvincing, easily disproven lies, Idotrust you. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t feed from you. I wouldn’t fuck you. My Edie, I don’t require more time to allay my doubts, because I no longer have any.”
For a secretive, jaded vampire like Max, a statement like that was…
It was a declaration of love. Full stop.
Edie couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t speak. Couldn’t do anything but cling to his hoodie with one hand, his shoulder with the other, and bask in the warmth that filled her chest and coursed through her veins.
“If I hadn’t worried about frightening you, I would have told you about Jacquette after our first night together. But I did worry.” His brow creased. “If I’d confessed to killing my last human lover and you’d flinched away from me…”
Not long ago, she would have. Even yesterday might have been too soon. But since then, she’d seen him soaked in blood, absorbing wound after life-threatening wound in his own frontdoorway, determined to spare her even the slightest injury. She’d watched him carefully assist a nauseated human he didn’t even know. She’d heard the gentleness in his voice whenever he spoke to a very, very ill woman he’d only met earlier in the day.
This evening, when he’d admitted to killing his former human lover, she’d been confused. Concerned. But not afraid of him, even for a moment.
“If you’d turned away or fled…” His throat bobbed in a hard swallow. “I thought it might break something inside me. Irrevocably.”
She still had no words, so she kissed him instead. Hard.
He seemed more than happy with her nonverbal response.
***
Later that night,as Max and Edie lay spooning beneath a quilt on the couch, various Girl Explorers snoring on the floor below, he quietly asked if she still dreaded the prospect of killing zombies who hadn’t attacked her first.
