He doesn’t sit. Instead, he circles the table, eyes raking over the album, the scattered papers, the half-empty brandy glass at my elbow. He moves like he’s casing a scene, looking for the most vulnerable point of entry.
“You have a gift for making yourself at home,” he says, voice gone soft and sour. “Or is it that you just like touching things that don’t belong to you?”
I match his stare, refusing to look away. “You’re projecting. This is my home now, whether you like it or not.”
He stops behind my chair, so close I can feel the radiating heat of him. The next words are so quiet I barely catch them. “You’re not the first girl to haunt this house, you know.”
The phrase catches me off guard, a sudden, raw intimacy.I look down at my hands, knuckles pale against the leather of the album. “But I’ll be the last.” I don’t know why I say it. It’s as if something inside me rose up and made the declaration, without my effort.
He laughs—a single, sharp exhale. “Is that a threat, or a promise?”
“Does it matter?”
He steps around to face me. We are only feet apart, but the gap feels unbridgeable. I wonder, distantly, if Mrs. Whitby is somewhere in the dark, watching us with those eyes that never seem to blink.
Larkin lifts his glass, sips, and sets it down with a deliberate thunk. “You have a tell,” he says, his tone gone analytical. “When you’re nervous, you tap your thumbnail against your teeth.”
I realize, mortified, that I am doing exactly that. I lower my hand and glare at him. “You’re not half as observant as you think.”
He leans in, resting both hands on the table. His voice is barely above a whisper. “And you’re not half as cold.”
The challenge hangs between us, thick as the dust in the lamplight.
He moves first. One hand snakes forward and closes over my wrist, thumb pressing against the pulse point. I freeze, but only for a second. Then I snatch my hand away, the movement abrupt, even childish.
“Don’t touch me,” I say.
He tilts his head, amused but not retreating. “If you didn’t want to be touched, you’d have locked the door.”
I stand, pushing the chair back so hard it nearly topples. “I thought you’d be busy drinking and counting ghosts.”
His smile fades, replaced by something brittle and aching. “I am. Every night.”
For a moment, the only sound is the tick of the library clock. I become aware of my own breathing, shallow and insistent.
He steps closer, closing the gap. “Tell me, Nora,” he says, voice almost gentle, “are you always this cruel, or is it just with me?”
I don’t answer. I want to. I want to tell him that cruelty is the last thing I feel, that if anything, the proximity is unbearable, that I can’t stand the way he looks at me like I’m the only thing worth watching in a room full of priceless objects.
He touches my face, the back of his finger coasting down my cheek. The gesture is so unexpected, so unguarded, that I flinch. He doesn’t pull away.
He smiles, but the expression is a wound, not a weapon. “I know what it’s like to be haunted.”
And then he leans down and takes me.
The kiss is less a kiss than a collision—his mouth hard against mine, the angle all wrong, the intent unmistakable. There is no warning, no hesitation. His hands tangle in my hair, pulling me forward even as I try to lean back. The edge of the table digs into my hip, the lamp totters, and the album slides to the floor with a soft, defeated thud.
He tastes of wine and something bitter. The first instinct is to resist, to shove him away, but the second instinct is more primal. I grab his shoulders, dig my nails into the fabric of his shirt, and kiss him back, teeth clashing. The room spins, my heart beats fast, too big for my ribcage.
Larkin is the first to break off. He stares at me, eyes wild, mouth parted as if searching for the next line. I breathe in, gasping, and realize my hands are still fisted in his shirt.
He says, hoarse, “You’re better at this than you let on.”
I laugh, breathless and unkind. “You have no idea.”
He moves as if to kiss me again, but I push him off, usingthe heel of my hand against his chest. The contact is electric, not repellent. He stumbles back a half-step, steadies, and looks at me with something bordering on awe.
I scoop up the album and clutch it to my chest, a shield of family secrets and dead faces. “Don’t follow me,” I say, and mean it.
