“So I guess that’s what we’re doing.”
“Very well.”
“This is about the time when I’d make a really clumsy innuendo like ‘so how do we kill time until then, wink-wink, nudge-nudge?’”
He laughed. “You are dazzling in your subtlety.”
“Aren’t I?” She rose, circled around the small table, came to him, rested her hands on his shoulders. Smiled down at him and—ridiculous thought—the light behind her lit up her hair like a curly halo. “I really need to kiss you right now, with your kind permission, so you’re gonna have to deal with that.”
He was already gently pulling her down, slotting her upper lip between his and gently sucking it into his mouth, encouraging her lips to part for him and then
“Oh. Yes.”
she was on his lap and wrapping both arms around him. “Oh my God,” she murmured, “I love the way you smell.”
“I love—” Every single thing about you. Even the oddities and cavalier approach to death. Especially the cavalier approach to death. Also these feelings are impossible. We only just met. “—how you taste.”
“Like steak and confidence,” she declared, and then giggled as he huffed laughter against her neck.
“Ava.” He slipped his hands under her shirt, up her back, cupped the smooth warm flesh of her shoulder blades. “I have to tell you something about myself.”
“Are you the killer?”
“No.”
“The vandal?”
“No. I don’t know why anyone vandalizes. So inefficient.”
“Planning to kill, fold, spindle, or maim me?”
“Never.”
“Do you have a secret family in Canada?”
“Not anymore.”
“Don’t care, then. More kissing, please.”
He obliged, to their mutual delight.
Forty-Two
THE LIST
Bottle Tom’s kisses somehow, market to public, make fortune
Moisturizer [sigh]
Corner Becka like a rat and wring a confession out of her
Or clear her
More kissing
She’d just finished shrugging into her sleuthing outfit (tan shorts, red sleeveless blouse, black flats, frizz going every which way because argh humidity) when she heard a brisk knock.
Excellent! And right on time, which came as no surprise. She darted across the room and checked the peephole. Nothing.
Disappointing.
She looked again.
Nope.
So she opened the door and craned her neck to check the—
“Are you trying to be the sacrificial lamb?”
“Ack!”
Tom frowned and shouldered his way past her into the room. “I cannot believe you opened the door.”
“It’s kind of necessary, since I don’t actually live here and need to periodically emerge for moisturizer and airport runs and sleuthing. And you said you’d be right back!”
He’d spent the night, at his insistence; she’d let him talk her into it. Something-something danger, something-something not taking any chances with her safety, etcetera. They had another smoking snogging session, then slept apart, her in the king-size in the bedroom, him on the foldout in the small sitting room. She’d regaled him with more Hazelden/airline mishaps; he’d talked about his work, his pride in and worry for Hannah, his friendship with Abe. They’d commiserated over dead loved ones. Probably no one’s ideal of a first date—if that’s what it was—but it worked for them.
Tom, meanwhile, was still standing with his arms folded across his chest, frowning. “Even if the killer is not affiliated with Becka, he’s fixated on you, Ava. What you just did is incredibly reckless.”
She opened her hand, showed him what was in it, hit the fulcrum lever, and with a flick of her wrist, the blade snapped out.
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“Gravity knife with a 3.25-inch blade. Titanium?”
“Yeah.”
The frown eased but didn’t disappear. “I still think you took a risk.”
“Tom. Honey. I’m a pilot. That doesn’t mean I’m reckless, but it doesn’t mean I’m risk-averse, either. It’s literally my job to manage risks in order to keep my crew and passengers safe. And if you think I’m going to hide behind locked hotel room doors—or in the air—until the killer is stomped, then you don’t know me at all.” She paused. “Which, given that it’s been a week, wouldn’t be a mark against you. But either way, that’s where it stands. Speech over.”
“I liked it when you called me honey.”
“Good to know, honey-bunny.”
He snorted, then sobered. “I shouldn’t have underestimated you. Again.”
“You’re looking out for me. I’ve got nothing to complain about. Well, at this particular moment in time, at least. And where’s my kiss? Look, I’ll put the knife away so a smooch is slightly less dangerous.”
“I wouldn’t be here if I minded danger,” he murmured, stepping close and giving her a kiss that managed to be chaste and delicious at the same time. “Also, when we know each other better, I would not be averse to you relieving me of my virginity.”
“Well, I’m here to hel—what?”
He drew back. “You hadn’t guessed?”
“Are you kidding?” The word kept reverberating in her brain, turning it into
virginity virginity virginity does not compute virginity virginity BUT ALL THE HOTNESS THO!!!!
a clanging echo chamber. “Have you seen you? Have you kissed you?”
“No. And no. Obviously.”
“Have you—” She gestured to his face, his shoulders, his legs, all of him, every bit of him, each and every yummy part of him. “—seen all this? I wouldn’t have guessed in a hundred years.”
“I have some experience,” he said candidly. “But I identify as demisexual.”
“Okay. However you’re comfortable. It’s all fine.”*
He sighed and employed the family mind-reading trick. “Which does not mean I am attracted to demons.”
“I wasn’t thinking that!”
His hands settled on her shoulders. “It means I’m only aroused by someone I have an emotional connection with. And making such connections was always difficult for me, so I put my focus elsewhere. Work had been my priority until Hannah was born; now my priorities are my family and my work. So finding a partner under those circumstances is … difficult.”
“I can see that, sure. So you’ve dated, and you’ve liked some women enough to try a few things, but no one’s ever completely, uh, devirginized you?”
“Good God. Please tell me you don’t think that’s the technical term.”
And then. The eureka moment: “That’s why you’re such a good kisser! It’s your go-to move. And when your focus isn’t on going all the way, you can get really good at the other stuff.”
“So this … situation … poses no difficulty for you?”
“Are you kidding?” One shock was following another, except, for a nice change, they were good shocks. “First, I’m flattered that you’re willing to share yourself with me, emotionally and physically. So incredibly flattered. To an insane level, the flattery. Second, I get to be the first person to do any number of delicious things to you? It’s like winning sexual lotto!”