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Sixteen
“You’re actually insane.”
Death stared at her, the space between them on her couch somehow feeling smaller just from the way his eyes met hers.
“Well, that would explain a lot,” Bunny said offhandedly, the corner of her mouth quirking at her own joke before she shrugged a shoulder. “I probably am.”
“This is stepping out of bounds. For both of us.” He crossed his arms, his head tilting to one side. “If we get caught, there’ll be consequences.”
Shit. She couldn’t afford for this plan to go south. Unfortunately, they both knew she needed him on board if she was going to stand a chance at pulling it off.
“But if I’m right, then this is the only way for me to get to the truth.” She refused to give in. She narrowed her gaze as she studied him. “We both want that.”
His gaze captured hers, like he was expecting her to lay out the pros and cons of her crazy plan in more detail. When she didn’t, a muscle in his jaw flexed. “Okay.”
“Really?” She hadn’t actually expected him to agree.
His brows lifted in an unmistakable expression of sass. “Don’t give me time to change my mind.”
Traveling through dimensions to perform ensoulments was one thing. Actually traveling through space and time was another. When she was performing her duties, she had guidance, both from the vessels and the souls themselves. Bunny theoretically knew how to get from the lobby back to Arcadian Waters, even though she’d only done it once before, and not on her own. But getting from the lobby all the way upstate to Mosswood was a completely different ballpark.
Slipping into the Between without any kind of road map in front of her was, frankly, terrifying. Her chest felt constricted, like she was wearing a wetsuit that was too small. Bunny forced herself to struggle against the sensation, taking in a lungful of air that came whooshing out again as Death closed the gap between them.
Before she realized what was happening, he had shuffled closer, one boot between her sneakers and the other on her left side, in a position that felt almost protective. Her eyes widened as she watched him from mere inches away, once again struck by the scent of fresh night air that accompanied him.
“What are you doing?”
His hands found her waist, fingertips ghosting across the fabric of her scrub top as if he was expecting her to break away like a startled deer. But she didn’t. She was too distracted by the lack of warmth from his touch, by the chill that seemed to tingle through her body. When she lifted her chin to look up into his eyes, he was already looking at her.
“Do you trust me?”
“Not really,” she admitted breathlessly.
A wry smirk etched itself onto his lips and he drew her even closer. Their bodies met as his arms encircled her. With nowhere else to put her hands, she rested them cautiously on his chest.
“Try,” he murmured in her ear, his breath soft and cool against her neck as Bunny closed her eyes and his grip on her tightened.
And then she felt like she was falling. Not the soft, floating kind of falling that she had experienced now and then in her dreams. Oh no. This was the kind of plummeting, scream-stealing, G-force wielding shit that made her feel like she was on a roller coaster headed straight for Hell. Her hair streamed above her, getting in her face and making it even harder to breathe than it already was. Her arms had snaked desperately around Death, clinging for dear life as they plunged through the Between.
They stopped suddenly, as if they had just reached the basement after dropping thirty floors in three seconds flat.
No amount of telling herself that he only cared about her as a colleague could have prepared her for the rush of heat she felt upon being so close to him. He was always chilled, like a literal tall drink of water, which was strange enough to be alluring.
Bunny was no stranger to short-lived relationships with hot-blooded men who were just after one thing. It was an arrangement she was usually pretty happy with. But what she was experiencing now had her feeling lightheaded. All this thinking about heat versus cold was starting to push her into a hot flash. Bunny took a breath, determined to ride it out, until it was accompanied by a telltale tang at the back of her mouth that resulted in a sudden overabundance of saliva.
Oh, no. No, no, no.
She disentangled herself and twisted away from him roughly, briefly noticing his look of surprise just before she bent over and vomited.
It took a couple of seconds for her upchuck reflex to settle, and by then, she wasn’t really sure that her pride would ever recover. Leave it to her to be the one who couldn’t handle herself.
“Oh, delightful,” she croaked, shuddering and reaching into her pants pocket for one of the tissues she usually stowed there. “Sorry.”
A cool hand rubbed her back. It was a distinctly caring gesture that surprised her, mostly because her reaction was anything but caring. It didn’t matter that she had just lost the contents of her stomach, or that her pride was mortally wounded. She was still turned on, damn it.
“You okay?” he asked.
Bunny’s trademark brow lifted before she even had a chance to contemplate an answer. “Peachy.” She straightened and looked around.
