Page 110 of House of Crimson Hearts
“Yes, please.”
She cracks a smile, shaking her head at me and places a finger over her lips. She closes her eyes and tilts her head one way and then the other. I want to ask what she’s hearing, but she scrunches her closed eyes in concentration, and I know I’ll get walloped if I speak again.
“There,” she breathes. Her eyes snap open and she charges forward down the corridor. She marches left down another hallway and then comes to an abrupt stop.
“Do you hear it now?” she asks.
“Hear wh?—”
She puts her hand over my mouth and then tugs my ear. I close my eyes and listen. There under the creaking of the wooden floors, the rustling of feet in the main rooms, the opening of pages and slide of leather against leather as books are pulled off shelves, is a whisper.
It sounds like crinkled paper and sliding sheaves of parchment. Like secrets and stories and the murmured promises of tales to come. But more than anything, it’s the lyrical sound of a book, as if it were singing.
I pull her hand off my mouth. “What is that?” I whisper.
“I have no idea, but that clever son of a bitch tricked us, he meant lyrical literally. I think it’s coming from this corridor. Help me look.”
We set about scanning the shelves but see nothing obvious. I pull books out, tug at the giant maps and run my fingers down leather spines.
I bend to the lower shelf, catching the hook of a whisper. I lean down further, brushing my fingers against the spines and then I find it. “Red,” I call.
She appears, looking down at my arse.
“Oh,” I say, standing up and pulling the book with me.
She drags her eyes back up my body.
“Sorry,” she says, a hint of pink brushing her cheeks.
“Enjoying the view?”
She glares at me and tugs the book out of my hand to hold it up to her ear.
“You did it,” she says. “And it’s saying something. Here, listen.”
She holds the book up between us and steps into my personal space. I’m suddenly very aware of how close we are. The fact that, even though we’ve fucked multiple times now, we’re so rarely close. We’re not tender, our connection is forged in rage and hate and stolen memories. But standing this close to her in the dim corridor, my fingers find their way to her jaw, brushing along the soft skin.
She tenses and then relaxes, moving even closer.
“I—” I start, realising that things are shifting between us again and that I am going to have to confess the truth. Tell her what I did and why. “I need to tel?—”
She cuts me off, her lips crushing against mine in a bruising kiss. The book falls somewhere behind me onto the bookcase shelf. Her hands twine through my hair as she deepens the kiss.
My arms slide around her waist, pulling her tight against my body. Our tongues slide over each other, and I realise that this is the first time we’ve kissed outside of blood lust. She pulls back, runs her thumb over my lip, leans in and sucks it into her mouth. When she releases me, she smiles.
“You taste like cherry balm,” she says.
“And you taste like you belong to me.”
She narrows her eyes at me, but I just smile.
“I do believe,” I lean into her, kissing across her cheek towards her ear. “You’re falling for me, Verity Fairbanks.”
She breaks away, leaning back, her eyes wide, her lips parted. But before she has a chance to respond, Dahlia and Lincoln appear.
Lincoln’s eyes dart between Red and I. She springs back, grabbing the whispering book.
Dahlia’s eyes narrow. “Oh, it’s you. Well, I was hoping you wouldn’t have found the talking books, but seeing as you have, you’d better follow us. We found something.”
