Page 3 of Falling (Scared Sexy Collection #2)
“Ruder than crashing someone’s party you don’t even know?” she parried back.
He laughed. “Touché.”
She studied him, tilting her head. “This party seems like a weird fit with ...” She gestured a hand down the length of his body. “Your whole vibe.”
Frowning, he asked, “My ‘vibe’?”
The lamb lifted her hands daintily, mimicking a cup and saucer, and pretended to take a sip of tea.
“Are you accusing me of being posh?” he asked, grinning.
Her British accent was both terrible and charming: “Quite right. Fancy a turn around the room?”
He gave a wary glance around. “I’d be afraid of what the cereal bloke’s got shoved behind his dresser.”
“Fair.” Her smile straightened, and he dug around in his thoughts for something to keep her talking. She beat him to it: “Who are you?”
“My name is Brigan.”
He stilled after he said it, his smile evaporating. Why had he said it? Brigan hadn’t told a human his real name in ... centuries. The closest he’d gotten to even speaking it had been words like twig or rig , which had always felt like a familiar echo on his tongue.
It had been Michael, Edgar, George, Louis .
.. He’d rotated through a handful of names for decades.
The old driver’s license in his wallet said Samuel James Miller, an identity he would soon need to abandon because the date of birth printed there was 1943 and—at least until the curse was broken—Brigan would forever look twenty-five, not eighty-one.
But right now, here with her, it hadn’t even occurred to him to prevaricate.
But she, of course, was unaware of his shock. “Why did you come in here?” she asked.
Honesty slipped free: “I followed you.”
At this, she stiffened, pressing back into the window, and he shook his head. “I’ve scared you. I’m sorry.” He stepped to the side, giving her a clear path to the door, and reached back to open it. “I’m not trapping you in here.”
I’m not here to hurt you.
Her brow creased. “What did you just say?”
“I said I’m not trapping you in here.”
“No, after that.”
He shook his head, shocked again that she could hear the voice but that it didn’t reach that obedient, instinctive part of her. “I don’t—”
“So I’m imagining it?” she asked, frustrated. “Why did you follow me in here?”
Brigan took in her guarded expression, her tense posture. But also the blazing frankness in her eyes, the steady angle of her jaw. “How honest do you want me to be?” he asked.
“Completely.”
“I followed you in here because you looked lonely. I followed you in here because you’re beautiful, and I like beautiful things.” A pause, and then the rest slipped out of him: “I followed you in here because I’m lonely too.”
Her jaw worked and she cut her gaze from his again, staring behind him to the door he’d left slightly ajar.
She was considering leaving. She should leave, and he would let her, of course.
Naturally, with the cursed allure that had humans hurling themselves at him—the nameless woman who entered a trance and crossed a room to offer herself to him, the man who sidled up to him on the subway, the woman who turned at first glimpse to follow him on the street—consent was murky at best.
But with every cursed cell in his body, Brigan wanted the little lamb to voluntarily stay.
He registered that he wanted her in a way he hadn’t wanted anyone since before , when his human body had ached for connection and touch and relief, not merely sustenance.
Sex had lost its meaning, becoming synonymous with feeding, but now the word whispered through him, sibilant and seductive, turning his muscles taut.
Everything about this human—the inquisitive tilt of her head, the angle of her wary smile, the clarity in her eyes—suggested to him that sex with her could be different. That it wouldn’t only be pleasure rolling off her in waves for him to consume, it might be pleasure uncorked for him too.
“What’s your name, little lamb?”
She chewed her lip, and then said, “Catalina.”
The rational part of Cat’s mind wondered what the hell she was doing, why she hadn’t bolted the second he admitted he’d followed her in here, the second he’d opened the door, stepping aside for her to escape.
All of this was something out of a podcast, a newspaper article, a story where everyone already knows the ending, that has the audience yelling at her to leave, immediately .
But even though Brigan was clearly other and she didn’t know exactly what that meant quite yet, her pulse wasn’t a panicky staccato. She felt curiosity, not fear.
He was tall—enormous, really; she could only guess he was well over six feet, towering over her even from where he stood on the other side of the bed.
She wished she’d seen him enter the room to know whether he’d had to angle his body to get through without his astounding costume wings colliding with the doorframe.
She’d caught a glimpse of his hands before he’d tucked them into the pockets of his expensive pants, and they’d been huge.
By any measure of logic, Cat should have been afraid of him.
But somehow, she wasn’t. Not even when she’d surfaced from the thrall she’d felt when she first saw his face, not even when he spoke in that low, hypnotic voice.
It was his eyes, maybe, how they sparkled with light even in the shadows, or how they held a mischievous smile even when his mouth straightened.
Maybe it was the mix of innocence and wisdom in his face, the hunger and sadness, his gaze somehow both young and old, although he couldn’t have been much older than she was.
Or maybe it was the boyish way his thick, dark hair fell over his forehead and how right now he seemed to be sweetly looking up at her, even from above.
Strangely, Cat felt like she knew him. There was something so familiar about Brigan, so much so that when he’d told her his name, she’d almost answered, “Right, I forgot.”
Maybe she did know him. In a past life, or in dreams, or in something else that seemed impossible but true at the same time.
Cat had always been fascinated by the paranormal.
She was never afraid of the dark, never worried about monsters under her bed.
She happily took a dare to spend the night in a haunted house in high school and knew the most dangerous things for her were other humans.
And even though the thought rang in her head like a bell— Brigan is different, Cat, pay attention —she’d never felt such a disorienting mix of lust and curiosity and attraction and protectiveness before.
Her instincts solidified like a steel frame inside her, and so she stayed put, her back to the window, and said softly, “Close the door again.” For a beat, he looked surprised, and she clarified, “I don’t feel like dealing with them if Jake or Harry were to walk by right now.”
With a small smile, Brigan obliged, turning to softly shut them in the room together.
The words rose up and out of her: “Come closer.”
He pushed off the wall, walking slowly to her and stopping barely a foot away.
Cat didn’t know how it was possible that he smelled like fresh air winding through a forest, but she had to resist leaning forward and taking a deep, greedy breath.
He stared gently down at her, those eyes bright even in the shadows.
He really did dwarf her; her gaze was level with the solid expanse of his chest.
“And now?” he asked.
She felt the way a silent, seductive tether kept tugging at her mind, beguiling her, and her awareness of it hovered to the side, as if observing.
Cat reached forward, setting her hand on his stomach.
It jerked under her touch, his breath sucking in sharply, and when she glanced up at his face, an expression of disoriented wonder widened his eyes.
Her fingertips felt the solid lines of his body, wandering up over his pectorals, his sternum, and she traced a single finger up the length of his throat, over his chin, and drew the shape of his mouth as it turned up into a smile.
“Are you seducing me , little lamb?”
“Shh,” she whispered, smiling, enchanted again, but this time she didn’t try to shake the tether off.
She knew where this was going: She wanted him, and he wanted her to want him, and it didn’t matter where her desire ended and his invisible persuasion began.
Wanting him didn’t scare her, didn’t feel impulsive or shameful or dangerous. It simply felt inevitable.