lips, a hint of uncertainty, of vulnerability, quickly hidden by the lopsided grin that always made his stomach flip, the one that meant one of three things.
Van Gast took a deep breath and his life in his hands. “So, you killed one, meant to rob another. Does that mean I get the delight?”
The sharp grin dissolved into a laugh and he ploughed on before she could say anything.
“I’ve been looking for you.” And he had—had thought of little else. Only her, her laugh, her look, her love that he’d thrown away. Everything else had been nothing but a distraction from the thought of her.
She turned away and knelt to rifle the pockets of one of the men. Her voice was studied nonchalance, but the undercurrent was plain. “Really? I’m not hard to find, not for a rack of your caliber. The rack, aren’t you, the one they all want to beat? Yet you couldn’t find me, except by accident, despite me leaving a trail a blind man could follow. Anyone would think you were avoiding me. That’s not good for your reputation. They’ll all think you’re scared of me.”
He dared not move, because any word of his might be the wrong word, any movement might be the thing that would make her leave. Yet all he wanted was to hold her, kiss her till she forgot what he’d done, what they’d both done.
“Now here you are, interrupting a good twist.” She turned over the man who’d wanted to arrest Van Gast. “Gods damn, it’s Arden. A Yelen man. How am I supposed to twist him if he’s dead?”
She stood again, lightning-quick, her eyes hurt and wary, watching every move on his face, every twitch of his body as though she were imprinting them, to remember. A soft look, fleeting, gone almost as soon as it was there. “I never meant to come in. I meant only to watch, to see what they’re about, to ready the twist. And there you were, blundering into something too big, too stupid even for you, and I couldn’t stand by and let them kill you. And they would.” She nudged one of the prone bodies with a boot. “They’d kill you eventually anyway. And despite everything, I don’t want you dead.”
Then she was in front of him, moving so quick he almost couldn’t see in the dark. Everything about her was as he remembered. The heat of her radiating into him, the soft yet sharp look, the shield she held around herself that he’d got past once, and then had made even stronger. The vulnerable twist of her lips, the part of her only he’d ever seen, the soft part of her she held to herself except when they were alone.
The smile was slow this time, not Joshing Josie now, but Josienne du Fael, the secret her to match her secret name. She stood on tiptoe, reached a hand behind his neck and pulled his face to hers. A kiss like he’d never known from her before—wanting, needing. Joshing Josie never needed anything from anyone, but Josienne…Josienne was the other side of her.
He leaned into it, into her, ran his hands down silk-clad arms to her hands and twined them together. Felt the need, the want, the hurt that he’d given her, that they’d given each other. The ache he wanted to kiss away.
“A chance, that’s all I want.” A chance to put things right with her. He’d blow the rest of his life off in a heartbeat for that.
She pulled away, yet not far. Their hands still twined, he still leached heat from her, still felt the press of her lips on his. She glanced at Holden, in a heap on the floor, and a flash of pain marred her face. To save Van Gast she’d duped Holden into thinking she loved him, and in duping him had fooled Van Gast, had made him so insane with jealousy he’d—he didn’t want to remember it, but he’d fucked things up with Josie, good and proper.
Blowing up her ship had been the least of it. He hadn’t trusted her. Worse, he had betrayed her trust, and that was one thing she couldn’t forgive.
“I wish I hadn’t…” She tore her gaze away from Holden’s face and stared at Van Gast with something that might be an apology in the cast of her eyes, the way she held herself. “It isn’t you I blame. Not you. It never was.”
She took a deep breath, as though steadying herself