Frenemies(33)

“That’s what people used to say in college,” Henry murmured.

I decided not to answer that, and made for the bedroom. The bedroom door didn’t really close any longer, thanks to the closet’s worth of clothes on the wire rack that hung over it, but I tried to shove at it anyway.

I was aware of Henry inside my personal space in a way I really didn’t like. For a long moment I just stood in the middle of my room, picturing him standing in the living room with that superior smirk on his face, and it made me a little bit breathless. Was he judging me by my books? Because that’s what I would be doing. Had done, in fact, when in his library. He would be the sort to look down on romance novels, I fumed. And he would think I only had the latest eight-hundred-page literary tome out there to be trendy. Or maybe he would think the fat philosophy books were only displayed so guests would think I was an intellectual. I could practically hear his disparaging thoughts about my Nora Roberts hardcover collection, the snob!

I flung off my new dress and hurried into the nearest pair of clean jeans. It was way too cold out there, and I didn’t think I’d be able to confront Helen while suffering from hypothermia. I pulled on a turtleneck sweater and pulled my hair back into a ponytail. A pair of boots and I was done.

I burst out through the door, prepared to deliver a stinging defense of my reading choices, and found Henry lounging on the couch with my ecstatic—and traitorous—dog lying next to him to receive his petting. He looked completely at ease and not at all snobby or superior. It stopped me in my tracks.

“That was fast,” Henry observed.

“No need to linger.” I frowned at Linus. So much for the bond between dog and owner. Linus acted as if I wasn’t in the room.

“Someday I’m going to have to come back here and go through all these books,” Henry said in a tone I couldn’t quite place. It sounded almost … reverent? Impossible.

“You’re a big reader?” I realized that came out a tad too disbelieving, and widened my eyes innocently when he looked at me.

“Well, yes,” he said as if I were extremely stupid. “You’ve seen my library. Let me guess—you thought it was all for show, right?”

“I never really thought about it one way or the other,” I lied. In a lofty tone.

I thought it was probably as good a time as any to change the subject, particularly since I could feel the way he was looking at me. I wrapped my scarf around my neck. I picked up my coat.

“You ready?”

“Sure,” Henry said with a soft drawl, but he didn’t move.

We looked at each other across the postage-size space, which seemed smaller by the second. Suddenly it seemed as if he wasn’t lying there on the couch so much as waiting. His clear eyes seemed to see right through me, and the more they saw, the hotter my cheeks grew.

So naturally, that was the moment I noticed how good he looked, which maybe I’d overlooked before in the dark. His blond hair gleamed against the deep brown of the coat he wore open over a gray sweater and black pants. That last, fateful night, he’d been in jeans and a T-shirt and he had smelled like rain and spice. I imagined I could smell him again, and it made my body feel like liquid. Or maybe that was just because I knew the killer six-pack was hidden away there, just out of sight.

“Are we going?” I asked, but something happened and instead of sounding annoyed and brisk, it came out breathy.

Henry smiled slightly and got to his feet. He never broke eye contact.

“Where are we going, exactly?” he asked, but his attention seemed to drift then. To my mouth.

“I have to go kill Helen,” I told him, entranced as he moved across the small room and stood in front of me, his hands outstretched to rest on either side of the archway that led into my minuscule foyer. I felt crowded. And also mesmerized.

“Why don’t you forget about Helen,” Henry suggested.

“Well, I would,” I replied, watching him warily. “But it’s imperative that I punch her. Maybe in the face.”

“Gus, Gus, Gus.” He said it in a sigh. Almost like a song.

“ … What?”

“You know I’m not going to let you punch Helen in the face,” he said.

“Like you can stop me.”

“I’m bigger than you,” he pointed out, unnecessarily, since I had to tilt my head back to look at him. “Also,” he almost whispered, “I’m the one with the car.”

It was like everything went still. Like I tipped forward and got lost somewhere in the way he was looking at me.

I knew, in the back of my head, that this was wrong. It was a betrayal of Georgia. It was Nate I wanted—Nate I missed. Wasn’t it? Even if he had been a jackass at the party.

But nothing seemed to matter next to that knowing gleam in Henry Farland’s eyes.

I didn’t know what I was going to do until I did it.

I reached out and splayed my hands open across his chest, enjoying the kick of his heart and the feel of his sleek muscles beneath my fingers. I watched his eyes widen and then narrow as I traced my way down his glorious six-pack and beneath his sweater so I could feel his skin. I felt as well as heard him suck in a breath, but he still held on to the doorjamb. It was as if I’d tied him there.

This was definitely an image I enjoyed.

“I think,” he said in a hushed voice, “that that smile should be illegal.”