Page 4 of Falling
“You’re beautiful, little lamb. Everyone in that room noticed you.” He smiled. “I’d wager everyone in any room notices you.”
She turned her gaze from his then, behind him to the door, and he had to shove down the instinct to command it back, suspecting it wouldn’t work. Her hazel eyes were likeglimmering amber; her focus made him ravenous. He wanted her with a keening drive that felt like a twin heartbeat just beneath his skin. But the novelty of conversing with her was too hard to give up.
“Why did you stay?” he asked. “Why not just leave the party?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “It feels rude somehow.”
“Ruder than walking into poor Harry’s bedroom uninvited?” he teased.
“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.Whyhad he said it? Brigan hadn’t told a human his real name in ... centuries. The closest he’d gotten to evenspeakingit had been words liketwigorrig, 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. Sheshouldleave, 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.
