He’d used the same hard tone with Max earlier. As if each syllable were a blood oath.
“No, it’s not. Because you took me in, like the dutiful councilor you are.” Was she basically a stray waif to him?Thatwas a deflating thought. “Thank you.”
“I don’t want gratitude.” His hand slid up her back to clasp theback of her neck. “I just needed you to understand the situation so you can display appropriate caution.”
“Does Max know?”
Based on the vampire’s earlier intensity regarding her safety, she was guessing he did. Another reaction that made a lot more sense now, given additional context.
“He shouldn’t, but he has informants within SERC. I suspect he may have heard about the disappearances.” Hugh sounded resigned to that particular leak within his organization. “Either way, I’ll need to discuss the situation with him, because he’s my backup. If something happens to me, he’ll have to step in and protect you in my stead.”
Gwen curled in on herself at the thought of Hugh dead…because of her. Because she’d pinpointed him as their group’s best possible resource and recruited his help without thinking about the risk to his safety.
Her overtired, overanxious brain ticked through the list of ways demons could die. Their thick, smooth skin was essentially impermeable, and they were immune to disease. They’d eventually perish of old age, however. And before then—if she remembered correctly, and she wasn’t sure she did—they could be killed by extreme cold, drowning, or asphyxiation.
His murder might require more effort than hers, but he wasn’t invulnerable. And how much did his half-human biology decrease his survival odds?
“—him tomorrow.” Hugh was still speaking, still rubbing her stiff neck, even as she agonized over his possible death. “That said, I don’t have official leave to share the information with anyone outside my office. With the exception of Boucher, please keep everything I’ve told you between the two of us, Gwen.”
Despite her gut-clenching fear, she brightened at that.
He trusted her to keep his secrets? And cared about her continued survival enough to risk his job and flout the very strict rules of government confidentiality?
Hugh squeezed her nape gently. “Gwen?”
“Of course,” she managed belatedly. “I won’t tell anyone but him. I promise.”
“Thank you.” His warm lips rested for a moment on the crown of her head, his kiss an island of heat blooming atop her hair. “I’m sorry to discuss something so troubling when you’re already struggling to rest. I simply worried that you might sleep past my departure for my meeting with Councilor Beech tomorrow, and I wanted you to exercise caution in my absence. If you leave the apartment, please ask Kip, Lorrie, Max, or Sabrina to accompany you.”
New realms of anxiety: hereby unlocked. “No problem.”
He kissed her hair again, the gesture tender and lamentably chaste.
She needed more.
And as long as they might both perish at any minute, shouldn’t she carpe diem? Especially if her particulardiemincluded Hugh’s tempting mouth, which Thora’s arrival had so disappointingly stopped Gwen from seizing mere hours ago?
Just punch-drunk enough to be brave, she raised her head from his shoulder and met his molten-amber gaze. She held her breath and leaned forward, her heartbeat echoing in her eyes—and when he didn’t move away, she closed that final inch of distance between them.
Her eyelashes fluttered shut as her lips brushed against his,butterfly soft, in yearning, tentative exploration. Once, then again, before she let herself press harder. Let her mouth part. Let her tongue flick across the smooth surface of his lower lip.
His breathing halted, his body flaming hot and utterly still.
Then he jerked as if in startlement before turning his head away from hers, and she regretted every single one of her life choices.
Oh, gods, he didn’t want her. Not like she wanted him.
When she tried to put distance between them, though, he held her tightly against him, unwilling to let her squirm away in abject humiliation. Giving up, she hid her red-hot face against his equally hot shoulder and waited in miserable silence for what would no doubt be a crushing response to her presumption.
He took a minute to speak. When he did, his voice was hoarse.
“Never doubt that I want you.” He spoke quietly into her flaming ear, and her toes curled at the bolt of sensation. “Far too much, given the circumstances.”
Her heart actually fluttered in her foolish chest.
The joy of the improbable revelation trickled through her veins like warm honey, turning her languid against him. Only…wait.
“ ‘Far too much’? What does that mean?” Her head popped up, and if he hadn’t jerked away just in time, her skull would have broken his nose. “What circumstances?”
