The Collectors' Society 01 (28 page)

No is the safest answer.

I tell him, “Yes.”

His head ducks farther, tilts toward mine. My entire senses are filled with all things Huckleberry Finn Van Brunt, and I swear all my joints have taken to trembling and my insides to aching need. “Good.” The word is whispered hot and lovely across my mouth, and then uttered once more, more meaningfully.

I throw caution out the window and to the wind. I disentangle my arms and wrap them around his neck just as his mouth finds mine. And oh, oh, if I’d thought those stolen moments we shared in the armoire were scorching, they are nothing to the wildfire lacing my bloodstream right now. His hand curves around the back of my head, tugging me closer, and I am nothing but willingness to indulge this whim.

His tongue strokes mine, mine strokes his. Sensations I believed dormant, ones I’ve wished away, come roaring back to gloriously colored life. Something in me clenches in desperate need, even more so when I feel his own desire pressing hard against my leg.

I marvel over how he feels this undeniable chemistry between us, too.

I’m tired of fighting it. I can’t live in the past. So, with one hand firmly keeping his head in place, I use the other to shove him backward, back toward the bed he so recently vacated.

If this surprises Finn, he doesn’t show it. His arms wrap around me, holding me close until I’m no longer the one leading. He’s now dragging me to where I want to go. His mouth doesn’t even break contact with mine when he somehow locates his laptop and gently tosses it onto a nearby nightstand.

I push him down onto the bed, and it’s then we finally separate. He scoots back, his glazed, beautiful eyes looking up at me with such heat, such wanting, that I’m surprised my undergarments don’t catch fire and melt right off my body. I climb up onto the bed and straddle him, my thighs outside his. For a long moment, we simply stare at one another, our breaths mingling in uneven, hard bursts.

Now would be the moment I climb off this bed. Now would be the time I end this. Now would be the smart move.

He leans up on his arms, his mouth closing in on mine, but I place a finger against those enticing lips of his. Blue-gray eyes widen, yet no words come out of his mouth.

My lips drop to his ear; I gently bite, then tug on the lobe. His groan tells me everything I need to know.

He lays below me, his heart pounding so hard I can see its beat through his tanned skin. I trace the thin trail of darkening hair from just below his navel to the rim of low-rising shorts first with my finger and then with my mouth. Soap clings to his skin; he must have showered recently.

I want my mouth all over him. And I would like his to do the same to me.

Finn says my name softly, like it’s a prayer, or a plea. I lean up and place my finger across his soft lips once more. His tongue peeks out and touches my skin briefly before he sucks the digit in, and I swear I very nearly come right here and now, it’s so erotic.

I fight to regain my hard-won control.

My mouth is the one to reconnect with his. My hands are the ones to pin his down, even if for the smallest sliver of time before I allow them to touch me. My body is the one to move first, to tempt the other until he’s writhing underneath me, desperate for what we both so clearly want. And I revel in this control.

I don’t know how long it takes before I finally relinquish my dress, but when I do, when it’s finally tossed onto the floor nearby, I am rewarded by a barely voiced gasp. For a moment, I’m sucked back in time, into the tulgey woods, but when hands reach up to cup my breasts—Finn’s hands—I force myself to remember where I am. And with who. And how these feelings are just as painfully, beautifully genuine.

Soon, he’s lifting his hips so I can slide his shorts off. I take my time removing each subsequent piece of clothing, each languid removal just that bit more erotic in anticipation. We kiss, we suck, we touch, we stroke, we graze, we worship, we learn each other’s bodies like they’re maps we must memorize for future missions.

I am just about to lower myself over him when Finn whispers I must wait. Warring fear and aching need arise, but he leans up and kisses me slowly, reverently. “We need protection,” he murmurs, and I’m sucked back in time once more until I realize this man doesn’t mean guard contingencies or swords nearby.

I watch in fascination as he first digs through the drawer of a nightstand, and then through his wallet, no doubt searching for the modern-day protection Mary told me about one day when we went to a drugstore and she was purchasing several boxes. “I’m sorry,” he says to me, half embarrassed, half amused, “It’s not like I’ve ever had to find one of these here before . . .” He clears his throat, giving me a look so hot, so meaningful, my insides melt to liquid lust. “Obviously, I don’t bring women I date back to the Institute. So . . .”

I rise up on the bed, up onto my knees. A sly question rests on the tip of my tongue, one that would inquire about where he does take those lucky women, but I realize I don’t care. He’s right. It doesn’t matter. Nothing that has come before matters. What does is right now.

Finn finds what he’s looking for, wedged behind credit cards and business cards. A small, silverish square is brandished before the wallet gets tossed to the side. I pluck it out of his fingers, and part of me is surprised that this man, usually so in control of every situation he’s in, has been utterly willing to let me take control here. “Lay down,” I tell him quietly, and he does so, no questions.

It isn’t hard to figure out. Seconds later, I roll the small bit of rubber down over his hardened length. A low, rolling hiss emerges from his throat, one that I want to eat right up. For now, I kiss him, and it’s like our mouths go to war with one another, and sweet victory is claimed by both. And then I’m finally straddling him again, lowering my body over his until we fit like completed puzzle pieces.

He says, he moans, “Oh, God. Alice.”

I move. He does, too. Together, we move in exquisite unison until we’re both dangling over a precipice neither of us can come back from. And then he surprises me by flipping us over, so that he’s now leaning over my body, driving into me so masterfully that all thoughts and meanings fly free of my head, leaving behind only sensation.

When we explode together, right on key, I’m surprised the windows don’t shatter.

Afterward, as we fight to catch our breaths, sweaty and tired, his arms wrapped around me and his mouth pressing gentle kissing against the base of my neck, I murmur, “I thought you wanted to talk.”

His nose nudges a line toward my chin. “We did talk.”

Tiny bubbles of incandescent happiness filter throughout my chest. “I could have sworn very little was said between us tonight.”

He gently tugs me onto my back, so I’m staring up into those mesmerizing eyes of his. His kiss is slow, and yet fans those flames high within me once more. “Then you weren’t listening closely enough.”

LATER, AS FINN DOZES
next to me, I send a quick message to his father, letting him know we’re both tired from the night’s events and will be more than happy to discuss the matters at hand with them later in the day. He’s fine with it, claiming it’s for the best as a number of non-residential Society members want to attend and are en route.

But it doesn’t mean I don’t think about what’s happened.

The photo I found, the one stuck underneath one of the ancient, thin mattresses, showed the pair of catalyst thieves as teenagers. Fresh faced, clearly in love, happy even. But more importantly, they were wearing modern albeit dated clothing. T-shirts featuring band names the A.D. has mentioned to me before and jeans were most definitely not the clothing du jour in Victorian England.

There is no doubt in my mind that S. Todd is not the Sweeney Todd of
A String of Pearls
. And Rosemary is no Mrs. Lovett—and, as far as I can tell, no baker (or at least one who enjoys sampling her wares). While obviously trained in weapons, they are no longer the infamous duo of serial killers we feared they might have been. So that leaves the question: if they aren’t the real Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett, who exactly are they? Copycats? It wouldn’t be the first time people have attempted to replicate fiends they have admired. These two reside in a bookstore, and have plenty of access to Sweeney Todd’s story. There are movies. Plays. Musicals. Comic books just like the one Finn found on a second-floor shelf in Ex Libris.

How do they know who I am?

Jenkins hadn’t. At least, I didn’t get the impression he did. He compared me to the illustrations in the book, yes, but I’m certain that was done in a much more perverted fashion than a sly one. And yet, Todd and Rosemary are clearly in league with Jenkins, as tenuous of a connection as that may be. But exactly what connection is it? Does Jenkins know about the wall? Or is he merely a landlord, or a place for them to base their nefarious actions from? How do they get in and out without being seen? The Society has cameras trained on the front of the building, and there’s been no sight of any of them leaving in days.

Questions upon questions pile up in my mind, and none will allow me sleep.

They know about Wonderland, I remind myself. They’ve marked it as a target, and I’ll be damned before I let them follow through on their plot. And then I nearly laugh because, after all that has happened, I am going home after all. I just need to figure out how to inform Finn I’ll be doing it alone.

When sunlight pours into his sparse bedroom, I try to focus on absorbing small details that I had yet been privy to. There’s a singular painting in the room, of a river bank. On his dresser are a few framed photographs—from this distance, I can tell one is of Finn and Victor, another of an older, dark-skinned man, another of what I assume to be the Van Brunt family. There’s a blonde woman with the two teenage boys, a beautiful one whose smile nearly spreads the width of her face.

I wish to look at it closer, but I’m reluctant to move away from his warm side.

While Finn is obviously a predominately tidy man, there is a small pile of clothes strewn in front of a partially opened closet. Books line the shelves of a bookcase, but none seem to be familiar titles. A stack of papers sits aligned neatly upon his nightstand, alongside his laptop so recently abandoned.

I realize that Finn Van Brunt values self-control just as rabidly as I do.

For long, quiet moments, I study him as he sleeps. His golden-brown lashes, the exact color of his hair, are obscenely long. I’m inordinately jealous of them. He doesn’t snore, but every so often, there’s a soft hiccup of air. A pair of freckles adorns his neck just below his chin, and another small dot sits right below one of his eyebrows. Across the bridge of his nose is a constellation of barely there kisses from the sun. His fingers curl into fists, like those of a little boy’s during naptime.

I am enchanted.

Seeing him like this for the first time, really seeing him, leaves me shaken and confused and hopeful.

Later, when he wakes, our mouths find one another once more. No words, no questions, just soft kisses that build to something more.

I am more than enchanted.

I fear I am doing the impossible. I fear I am falling in love.

V
ICTOR HAS ASKED TO have a look at his brother’s stitches before we all convene, and it gives me the perfect opportunity to slip away and seek out the Librarian. She’s in her office, and there are stacks and stacks of books surrounding her that serve as a fragile maze.

I knock upon her open door. “May I have a moment?”

She doesn’t turn to look at me. “You’re later than I thought you would be.”

Aren’t I always, according to this woman.

Despite her stiletto heels, she goes up onto her tiptoes so she can slide a book on top of a stack taller than herself. “You are wondering if I’ve identified the catalyst for 1865/71CAR-AWLG, hmm?”

Although her question unnerves me, I decide to go with the flow. “If that’s the identification for my Timeline, then yes. I am.”

The book placed, she smacks her hands together. “I have.”

I wait, but she turns away to claim another book off her desk to stack. Finally, when it becomes blatantly obvious she isn’t going to offer up the information unprompted, I ask, “What is it?”

“Shut the door, please.”

Once I do so, she motions to a chair partially filled with books. “Shall we have some tea?”

I shift them around so I can squeeze into the green velvet seat. “If you don’t mind, I’d rather—”

“He won’t let you.”

My fingers freeze on a book wedged against my spine. “Pardon?”

“Neither will,” she hypothetically clarifies.

I toss the book onto the floor, annoyed. “I’m sorry. Who won’t let me do what?”

She shimmies between several tottering stacks and comes round to sit behind her desk. “Don’t be angry when you don’t get your way. All things happen for a reason.”

She could give the Caterpillar a run for his money, that’s for certain.

“Now.” The Librarian folds her hands in front of her. “You wanted to know what you ought to be on the outlook for. Are you sure you don’t want some tea?” Her smile is impish. “You don’t want to be dehydrated after this morning’s activities, do you?”