Bitter Spirits (Roaring Twenties #1)(26)

“I’m sure I have a really good reason, but you’re making it awfully hard for me to remember it.”

He chuckled. She gave him a sheepish smile.

“Maybe you’ll even kiss me back,” he said, becoming greedy.

“I doubt that. But if you insist on trying, what could I do to stop you?”

The heated look she gave him sent a bolt of heat through his already hard cock.

Jesus. She was teasing him. For a crazed moment, he wondered if he’d been the one to start this or if she’d manipulated him. Maybe she wasn’t skittish after all.

He leaned in closer. She smelled so good, he worried he might pass out and crack his head open on the sidewalk. He could see the gossip headline in the newspaper now: Suspected Bootlegger Succumbs to Spirit Medium’s Seductive Charms, Makes Idiot of Himself. He put a hand on one of the brick posts to steady himself. “This is what’s going to happen,” he said in a low voice that sounded far surer than he felt. “I’m going to kiss you—just a kiss. I won’t lay a finger on you. And if you find you don’t like it, if you find my worth lacking, you can shove me back down the steps. Deal?”

She hesitated, just for a moment, before answering him in a threadbare whisper.

“All right.”

Something between victory and vertigo raced through his veins. He swallowed hard and lowered his mouth—near hers, but not touching. Not yet. Her breath was warm against his lips. Their noses grazed. He tried to hold his eyes open, but his eyelids were heavier than wet sand.

Her mouth was so small. For a moment, he worried over this, feeling oafish and hulking. But he was too hungry to withdraw. His pulse swished and pounded inside his ears. He closed his eyes as his lips brushed hers, testing. So soft. He felt her mouth open against his as she breathed out the tiniest moan. The reverberation that went through him was wildly disproportionate, like a whisper causing a landslide.

Keeping his promise not to touch her with his hands, he pressed careful kisses on the corner of her lips, on the big freckle he’d first noticed that afternoon when she was in his study, then on her bottom lip, tasting salt. Her mouth opened wider, and that did him in. He was lost. He kissed her fully, trying not to swallow her whole, but unable to restrain himself when she pressed back.

She was kissing him.

Every cell in his body vibrated. Warm chills ran down his arms. He lost all good sense. His tongue slid inside her mouth before he could think that this might be crossing a line, but for some miraculous reason, she didn’t resist—she moaned into his mouth and joined him.

My God, she was kissing him in the slowest, most erotic fashion that he momentarily forgot where they were. He was hard as iron, barely able to stop himself from grabbing her around the waist and pushing his hips against hers. He’d never wanted to touch anyone so badly.

They broke away from each other, breath ragged. She could’ve pulled back, could’ve pushed him away, but she didn’t. A single syllable fell from her mouth—“oh”—and her cheek fell against his.

An unexpected tenderness washed over him. He bent his head lower, breathing in the sweet smell of her skin. “Aida . . .” His hand twitched. He wanted to touch her face if nothing else, and he might have broken his promise and done just that, if it weren’t for the blinding headlights that shined on them from the street.

Aida turned her head. He lifted a hand to block the light, out of sorts. She said something that he couldn’t hear. He made some strange noise in return, and she repeated herself.

“I think that might be the taxi,” she said hoarsely.

“Oh.”

She wiped her mouth with the back of her glove and cleared her throat as a door slammed in the distance. “The driver’s headed up to Mrs. Beecham’s.”

He pulled away and composed himself. “Seems so.” Whistling loudly, he waved a hand in the driver’s direction, catching his attention as he was heading up Florie’s stairs. The driver lifted a hand in acknowledgment and returned to his taxi to pull forward.

Winter thought of the potentially cramped backseat, which in most taxis was barely big enough for him alone. The thought of Aida crowded into that constrictive space alongside him inspired several ideas all at once.

Oh, the things he could do to her in the back of that dark cab. Maybe she was right about him being a pervert; he’d certainly never felt more deviant than he did at that moment.

And something more . . . a dizzying lightness. A burden lifted. If a monster’s heart beat inside his ribs, her kiss was a sharper lancet than the one she used to pierce the veil: it opened up a small hole that allowed some of the darkness to drain.

She straightened her hat and pulled the brim down tight. Stepping aside, he allowed her to shuffle past him, the fronts of their coats lightly brushing. He followed her to the curb, smiling the entire way.

As the taxi shifted into gear and began rumbling down the hill from Florie’s, he noticed movement in his peripheral vision. A figure stepped out of the darkness near his shoulder: a man dressed in a red suit, his hair in disarray. His eyes glowed yellow, reflecting the headlights of the taxi as it rolled toward them.

White smoke rushed from Aida’s mouth at the same moment Winter realized that the man’s suit wasn’t red at all—he was covered in blood.

Ghost.

Aida looked down at her breath. “Oh no . . . not now.”