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I nodded once because I couldn’t trust my voice just then. I glanced at him. Elegant. Handsome. No longer hiding his dark hair under a cap or under the magic he used to dull it in public.
I needed to focus on my immediate task: collecting for the Chaddock job. Sometimes collecting was tedious. Retainers were easy. Fear of the dead motivates a lot of people. Afterwards? There were often excuses. People were, by their very natures, deceitful. They doubted my word.Unlike the fae,a traitorous part of my brain whispered. Fae things didn’t lie outright.
“Would you accompany me to meet the client, Eli?” I asked as I returned the box to the shelf. He’d never accompanied me to meet clients before this, but it seemed foolish to exclude him. I had enough areas of my life that were off-limits to him. This one did not have to be.
He rose to his feet with a grace he never showed in public. “I would be honored by such trust.”
“I do trust you.” I cleared my suddenly-dry throat. “But. . .”
“You find me attractive.”
I met his gaze. “Of course, I do. Are there straight women who don’t?”
“I had wondered, since you have selected not to pursue the immense potential we have.”
“Would it mean something to you? Personally? Culturally? If we—”
“Yes.”
“Then, yes, I am ignoring the potential,” I said carefully. “Be my friend. My right hand with my work.”
“I will accept your terms for a fee.”
“A fee?” I echoed.
“One kiss.”
I shook my head. “Eli—”
“You know I am not human, Geneviève,” he said bluntly. He had dropped whatever glamour he still had in that moment. His skin glimmered as much as his hair, as if he was cut from the rarest of opals. “You have offered a bargain to one whoseheritagerequires an exchange. Do not offer a bargain to a faery without expecting a term in exchange. I require a kiss freely given at the time of my choosing.”
In some ways, his lowering of defenses and disguises with me was still more alluring than his words—and those were increasingly hard to ignore.
“Where?” I asked suspiciously.
He laughed. “Have you been researching bargains, bonbon?”
I felt the heat rise in my cheeks. “Which part of my body do you intend to kiss?”
“My fee is one, unfettered kiss here.” His fingertip lightly brushed my lips. “You can release your magic if you choose, and whatever decisions you make at that point, I shall accept. Even if it is to use me thoroughly and then discard me.”
“Eli . . .”
“You could satisfy your curiosity, and I would forgive you. I will still be here. I will never eject you from my life, Geneviève. It’s an advantageous bargain,” he tempted.
I licked my lips, tasting the honeysuckle sweetness that his skin seemed to exude. “Why?”
“Because I believe it will answer your questions,” he said lightly. “And I believe that there is a not insignificant chance that I will gain at least one night exactly where we both want me to be.”
I gasped involuntarily at the thought. “I accept.”
We stood there close enough that I could feel the heat of his skin, and if he couldn’t hear my heartbeat, I’d be stunned. I waited. After several years, were we finally going to kiss?
“Your deal is accepted,” he said, and turned away without kissing me.
Disappointment crashed through me. “Clearly, I didn’t do enough research,” I muttered.
He chuckled. “At the time ofmychoosing,” he reminded me.
