Page 10

Chapter Ten

I sat in the back alley eating raw fish and feeling sorry for myself.

Sashimi had dropped me off, walked me to my door and everything, like a real date, but he hadn’t looked at me during the whole walk. It was fine. The thing that had me stuffing my face in the dark, trying to see the stars, was the fact that I still knew nothing.

That is, every single person in the world had a motive for killing Representative Phil. He lied, cheated, insulted, and took advantage at every possible opportunity. His secretary was also universally despised. Phil had been divorced for years, had no children, and had a string of unhappy ex-girlfriends, some of which were also politicians, or lobbyists, or executives. Like Shelly Feldman of Feldman Corporation, who had dated him a few years back. She hadn’t been at the gala, no, but there had been a lot of gossip about the time she’d publicly returned all the gifts he’d given her over the course of their relationship. Cars, furs, stocks…Made it sound more like kickbacks than presents, but no one was surprised by that.

For a party that had put my privacy, and Sashimi’s, at risk, it hadn’t been very satisfying. I still didn’t know anything concrete tying Judge Stevens to the politician.

And the dress. I wasn’t going to think about the fact that Sashimi found it much more attractive than me. And me? Fine. During the final dance, I’d really, really wanted to kiss him again. His hand on my lower back was comforting in a world of vultures and vertigo. Not just comforting, strong, powerful, competent. All the corrupt, powerful, judgmental people who looked at him like he was a raccoon in the bottom of a trash can had me wanting to defend him, like I’d felt about my little brother. Only he wasn’t my little brother. He was Sashimi, the steady presence in my back alley for ten years. He was also the Goblin Authority who I’d had a huge crush on when I was young, when I’d written to him so stupidly.

So this feeling, this hurt at not being desirable, was starting to feel personal. Maybe I wouldn’t mind the Goblin Authority dating me for real. Maybe I wouldn’t mind him being stupidly in love with me.

There was a slight thump that had me sitting up and searching the shadows. A flicker of gold eyes was there the moment before Sashimi stepped out where I could see him.

My heart pounded, but not from fear. Nope, this was anticipation. “Oh. It’s you. I thought you’d gone home to bed.”

“Why aren’t you in bed?”

I shrugged and looked up to where the wispy clouds were passing amidst the barely visible stars. “Stargazing. Also, raw fish. I’m unwinding from my stressful day. Don’t you unwind?”

He looked up, showing the long column of his throat before he studied me with a look that made me slightly nervous. “Absolutely. You’re definitely doing it all wrong.”

I huffed. “Excuse me? I’m doing it all wrong? That’s nonsense. You think I should be frolicking with animals and plants? I live in the city.”

He took my hand, tugging me to my feet. “I am aware. Alleys are good for lurking, not star-gazing. Would you like me to show you?”

I stared into those eyes, bright, mesmerizing, and shrugged. He did have that high office with all those windows. And a cushy window seat. Supposedly familiars were supposed to make you feel better.

“Okay.”

He slung me onto his back, and then leapt ten feet in the air, hitting the side of the brick building, and just hanging there, one hand, two feet, holding us on a wall, because he was still holding onto my arm.

I gasped and wrapped my other arm around his chest. “What are you doing?” I squeaked.

He adjusted me slightly, so I wasn’t strangling him and then he said, “Showing you how to unwind.” And then he left the wall, leaping back to the one behind us, my parent’s place, and then back to another wall, leaping up like a grasshopper, only on a sheer building.

I clung to him, wrapping my legs around his waist, not breathing, until we flipped over the edge of a very tall building, into a lush garden with a much better view of the stars.

He released me, but I was still wrapped around him, finding it impossible to relax my frozen grasp.

“You can let go,” he said, voice warm with amusement.

“Can I, though? It’s definitely not feeling like it. What was that, Sashimi?! That’s not unwinding, it’s giving me a heart attack!” I finally let go of his waist and slid down him to the ground, onto the gravel path between the large pots of plants. My knees were shaky as I walked away from him, trying not to show how freaked out I’d been.

He touched my arm and then pulled away. “I should mention reciprocation.”

“I’m not carrying you up any buildings.”

He chuckled. “Snuggling. You came and snuggled me today. It’s like when you wrote me a letter. I had to write back, or I didn’t have to, but it felt like it.”

“The binding?” I turned around and stared at the shadowy goblin. “You’re saying that the binding compels you to snuggle with me because I fell over on top of your chair? That’s not snuggling.”

“You didn’t immediately remove yourself. You pressed your face into my neck.”

I raised my hands. “I had a raccoon eating rotten liver and beetles in my head. I was trying not to throw up.”

He nodded, a shadow among the rustling fronds. “I only have one lounger. We can share, or I can stand here trying not to eat your dress. You’re still wearing it.”

“Because touching me helps you remember how much you don’t want me,” I muttered. “You should put me back in the alley where I was happily feeling sorry for myself.”

He moved closer. “You could feel happily sorry for yourself snuggling on the lounger with me.”

“But the stars are too pretty up here. How could I feel sorry for myself when I’m distracted by beauty? Also, earlier, that wasn’t snuggling. Sprawled over you like that wasn’t snuggling.”

“Because you’ve snuggled so much in your life.”

“I have. We used to snuggle in bed every Saturday morning, us kids and my parents. My mom would be sleeping, and we’d have cartoons on, quietly so we wouldn’t wake her up, and dad would read his paper.”

“I see. I don’t have any blankets. True snuggling requires blankets.” He tugged me so I stumbled into him. But when he released my hand, a thread of my dress caught on one of his buttons, and it ripped up my arm. The scent of my skin was so potent it made my eyes water. Seriously, I smelled that strong?

“Sorry,” I said, edging away from him. But that only made the rip larger. He took an edge of the dress, like he was going to put it back together, but then he bent his head and nibbled it, working his way up my arm until the sleeve was entirely gone.

He raised his head, looking glazed, confused, and unsteady.

“You ate my sleeve,” I said, looking down at my arm. It was shinier than usual, but there was no under layer. It must have melted off, and my arm smelled so strongly of me, it almost stank, but not quite.

He touched my shoulder, where the edge of my dress rippled in the breeze. “Did I mention that saramac flowers have drug-like qualities?” His voice was slow, heavy, apparently affected by eating my sleeve.

“You did not. How am I going to get off the roof if you’re drugged?”

“It’ll wear off,” he said, leaning closer and then his breath was on my shoulder. There was another rip, and half my dress was disappearing into his mouth, including most of the skirt.

I watched him gobble up my dress with the weirdest feeling, like this was too bizarre to be real, but then he looked at me with eyes that were still so hungry. I felt a very real alarm as he looked at me, at the bare skin eating my dress had left behind.

I took a step away from me, but he followed, body languid and lazy. But those eyes were intense hunter’s eyes. “You shouldn’t eat people’s dresses,” I said, backing away from him until I hit the edge of the lounger.

“You aren’t people, Rynne, you’re Lady Justice,” he murmured, fingers grazing the side of my neck before he had the last sleeve, the last side in his fingers.

“You especially shouldn’t eat Lady Justice’s dress,” I said, covering his fingers with mine.

He studied me, eyes confused for a moment, before he smiled. “That reminds me. You kissed me during the second dance. I need to reciprocate that as well.”

I lurched away from him and landed on the lounger, leaving the rest of the edible dress in his hand. For a long moment he stared down at me in my purple goblin skin, then absently ate the rest of the dress in one gulp before he crouched down in front of the lounger, very close to my feet.

I gasped at how close he was, how suddenly skanky my outfit was. “I’m cold. I need to go home because I’m cold.” I sounded as unbalanced as I felt. He wasn’t really going to eat me. Probably. But he was looking at me like he was still hungry. Like my dress had only been an appetizer.

He took off his jacket and put it over my legs and then ripped off his shirt and wrapped it around my body, tying it at the front, all without taking his eyes off mine. And now he was only wearing pants. “I think I need to kiss you.”

“No, you actually don’t.”

“Why did you kiss me if you didn’t want me to kiss you back?”

“Because I was stressed out.”

“But I am also stressed out. Not eating your dress all evening was very stressful, and at the end, I failed, lost my self-control, and succumbed to my appetites.” He perched on the edge of the lounger by my feet, studying me with those rapacious eyes.

“Yes, well, I guess that’s true, but you don’t actually want to kiss me. I don’t want you to kiss me unless you want to kiss me.”

“I want to kiss you.” He leaned forward, but I put my hands on his bare chest, holding him back.

“No, the binding wants you to kiss me. You want to avoid all human entanglements.”

He looked down at my hand and covered it with his. “But we are entangled. And I do want to kiss you. Goblins don’t kiss, but it wasn’t unpleasant. I will try not to cut your soft lips with my teeth.”

“But you’re drugged on the dress. Who knows what you actually want?”

“I know what I want. And right now, it’s your mouth.”

Okay. I mean, I probably shouldn’t have believed him, because he was drugged on my dress, but a kiss wouldn’t hurt. I slid my hands up his chest, around his neck, and pulled his head down to meet mine.

I kissed him, hungry for his taste, for his feel, pulling him down on top of me so I could kiss him more comfortably. He didn’t land on me like I’d fallen on him with the chair. He kept himself braced above me, like he didn’t want to crush me.

Good. You can’t kiss when you’re crushed. And I was kissing him. No, he was kissing me. That’s why he was on top, except that he was much more restrained than I was. I wanted to devour him and be devoured, but he kept holding back in the most irritating way.

Finally, I rolled on top of him so I could trap him and kiss him hard, deep, searingly sweet. He tasted so good, his tongue and his breath, so good, so right. And sweet. So sweet. That must have been the taste of my dress on his tongue. And to think that he’d eaten the whole thing.

I growled and pressed harder against him, trying to sink into his bones. He growled back and then had his hand on the back of my head, giving me the exact pressure I craved. He felt so good licking me up, so absolutely devouring, but then his teeth got caught on my bottom lip, and my blood entered the picture.

He rolled me to the side, pulling away, eyes bright gold, panicked. “I cut you.” His hand was on my face, checking my bottom lip while I blinked at him, feeling drunker than a skunk. Or a raccoon.

“You bit me? Does that mean I have to bite you?”

He shook his head and picked me up, scooping me up like I weighed nothing. He promptly ran into a planter and knocked it over with a very loud crash.

I giggled as he recovered his balance and headed to the side of the building. “Where are you going? You can’t climb down the wall when you’re dress-drugged.”

“I can. I can’t stay up here with you or I don’t know what will happen.”

“I’ll kiss you again.”

He shot me a look and then refocused on the ledge and the drop beyond it. “Exactly. Can’t have you kissing me, because then I’ll have to reciprocate, and you know what goblins biting means.”

“I do not know what goblins’ biting means.” I said, tugging on his hair. “Just because I speak and read Goblin doesn’t mean I actually understand you.”

At that moment, he stepped off the edge of the building, dropping like a rock, me clinging to him and not breathing until he stopped, grabbing the side of the building and sliding down. He launched off this building’s wall and then landed on my windowsill. It was four inches wide, and he was still carrying me. The next moment, the window was open, and he gracefully ducked through, clasping me close to his chest. When he stepped to the floor, he tripped on nothing and sprawled on his back because he twisted at the last moment so he wouldn’t land on me, and instead it was me, landing on his chest, gazing down at him.

“You’re trying to kill me,” I said, poking his forehead, then flopping bonelessly over him. Seriously, that ride had not been the best, and now everything was spinning around and around and around. My dress really had been drugged. Or was a drug? I didn’t know. My thoughts were all a confused mess as he rolled us across the floor until we ran into the couch. Somehow, he put me on the couch and was standing above me, looking extremely green and mostly naked without his shirt. Because I was wearing it.

“What are you doing?” I asked, feeling like he’d been staring at me for a long time.

“I have no idea. You tell me. What am I doing?”

“Getting me a blanket.”

He nodded and then looked around, frowning at my living room. Finally, he got a throw and put it carefully over me, tugging to make sure it covered my feet. “There,” he said, straightening up and staring at me again.

“Now what are you doing?” I asked, feeling much better since I had his shirt and a blanket.

He shook his head. “Being dress-drugged. Or kiss drugged. Your blood is very sweet.”

I stuck my tongue out at him. “You can’t eat me. You already ate my dress.” I scooted close to the edge of the couch and patted the space behind me. “You should stay here, so no one kills me in my sleep. Also, so you don’t say creepy things about my blood.”

He frowned at me and then finally nodded and curled up behind me, shifting me so I had my head on his shoulder and his arms were wrapped around me. “Yes. We haven’t reciprocated the snuggling yet.”

I giggled. “You’re so in denial about snuggling.”

“And you’re so in denial about your hair. Can I lick it?”

I squinted at the kitchen, wondering if I’d heard him right. “Why would you want to?”

“To get out the musk.”

“Musk?”

“There’s sorcerer musk, warlock musk, ogre musk, and vampire musk. Even a trace of werewolf. You can’t smell it?”

I scowled at Clary, even though she wasn’t there. “I’m going to kill her. Lick away. You’re really weird.”

“I know. You’re almost as drugged as I am, and you didn’t even eat the dress. Good thing.” And then he was licking my hair, a hard tonguing that reminded me of a cow I’d once seen licking her baby. I felt like that, Sashimi’s enormous baby cow, which I found hilarious. I fell asleep like that, feeling like the world was the funniest joke ever.