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“No,” she agreed. “Not a mistake. But you were acting like I was a problem to be solved, and I hated it.”
“It was more than just physical for me too, Esta.”
His words lifted a little of the weight she’d been carrying. “Things are different where I’m from, Harte. I don’t need you to take care of me like that, and I didn’t want anything to change between us because of it. From the way you were talking back in Chicago, I was afraid things already had.”
Silence sprang up between them again, and Esta had to stop herself from filling it with her own words. She’d said enough. The ball was in his court now.
“I hate that you lied to me,” he told her softly. “Especially about that.”
“I know,” she said. “I’m sorry, Harte. I—”
“But I understand why you did,” he said. “I was an idiot.”
She couldn’t stop the bark of surprised laughter from escaping, but he was still talking.
“I see that now,” he told her. “I was so overwhelmed by what had happened between us, and I didn’t know what to do with any of it. I know things are different where you came from. I’ve seen glimpses of that world in the past few weeks. But it’s not the world I grew up in, and after everything that happened, I just couldn’t let myself become my father.”
“You’re not,” she said fiercely, wishing she could see him. “You never would be.”
“I know,” he said with a small, humorless laugh. “I realized that back in San Francisco, but it didn’t stop me from reacting on instinct. I made a mess of things.”
“It wasn’t just you,” she admitted.
He kissed her then without warning and with an urgency that felt almost desperate, and she responded in kind. When their lips met, the last of the weight lifted, and suddenly she was flying. Harte’s breath mixed with hers, the only air she needed. His hands were in her hair, angling her closer to deepen the kiss, and as she opened for him—with him—the heat of their mouths, the taste of him, overwhelmed her.
This kiss was a claiming, a homecoming. A match of wills and a promise of more. His hands framed her face, glided down the heated skin of her neck to her shoulders. One hand went to her waist, anchoring her to him, while the other traced the angle of her collarbone so softly that she thought she might die from wanting. They were trapped in an uncertain future, stuck in the muck and darkness of the underground, and it didn’t matter. All she needed was this—Harte’s mouth tangling with hers, his arms around her, and his hands on her skin. The friction of his fingertips brushing against her skin was perfect.
It was unbearable.
His teeth nipped at her lip, and she suddenly couldn’t be close enough to him. She needed more. She didn’t want anything between them any longer—no lies or regrets or even wanting. Covering his hand with her own, she showed him, helped him along by guiding him lower, until his hand was tracing down over her chest, to the curve of her breast beneath the rough overalls she was wearing, and she felt him deepen the kiss on a groan. But there was too much damn fabric between them. His hands were on her, but it wasn’t enough. He was already working at the buttons at her neck and finally he slipped beneath the fabric. The rough pads of his fingers felt like flames tracing across her skin, and she could not stop herself from gasping.
Harte went still. “God, Esta.” His voice broke as he pulled his hand away, leaving her feeling suddenly bereft. But his chest was heaving the same as hers. “We shouldn’t be doing this.”
“Yes,” she said, stepping toward him. “Yes, we should.”
But the moment had broken already. “I watched you die.”
“Not me,” she said softly, her heart aching a little at the pain in his voice. “You knew it wasn’t me.” That fact alone felt miraculous, more precious than any treasure she could steal.
“I knew it wasn’t you,” he agreed. “Deep down, I knew. If I truly thought that girl was you, I would have died in that ritual circle with you. But, Esta, she looked so much like you.” He reached for her then, framed her face with his hands so gently it brought tears to her eyes. “All I wanted in Chicago was for you to survive. I would have done anything—said anything—to make you want to go on, even if I wasn’t with you. I never meant to bring up what happened on the train as a way to make you feel smaller. I know I can’t protect you—that you don’t need me to. And it destroys me. But the thought of you still in this world, surviving? That’s all I need. That’s all I want.”
She kissed him then, rising just slightly on her toes to press her mouth against his once more. She meant for the kiss to be brief, but he leaned into it. Deepened it in a way that made her heart race again. It didn’t matter that the tunnel smelled of dampness and rot or that she could hear something scurrying in the distance. There was only Harte. Only a perfect new understanding between them.
Breathless again but settled now in a way she hadn’t been before, she pulled away. “You’re right. We shouldn’t do this,” she told him, fastening the buttons again with a small smile. “At least not here.” She slipped her hands into his. “If I didn’t make a wrong turn, the exit should be just around the next bend.”
He pulled her closer and pressed another small kiss on the sensitive skin of her neck, just below her ear, and then together they continued on, her head spinning a little from the kiss.
They turned a corner and saw the access door ahead, bathed in the yellowish glow of an emergency light. “Ready to get out of here?” She pulled out Viola’s dagger. “You want to do the honors?” she asked, offering it to Harte.
He gave her a small smile, but he’d barely reached for it when that smile slid from his face. He didn’t take the blade. “Where are you hurt?”
“What?” she asked, confused at his meaning. But his words seemed to shake something free in her. All at once, she felt the throbbing ache in her side again from where she’d landed after jumping off the train. “I’m fine,” she said, refusing to acknowledge the pain.
“You’re not fine, Esta,” he said, holding up his hand so she could see the dark smear of blood that stained his fingers and palm. “You’re bleeding.”
TO SKIN A FOX
1902—Uptown
