a subtler signal that way, but electronics wouldn’t function in the shadows. If only there was some way I could have passed on the message essentially invisibly—
I hesitated, my hand stilling against Ruse. There was a way, wasn’t there? The thought sent a momentary flicker of panic through me, but it petered out as quickly as it had risen up. I gazed up into the incubus’s face again, and the answer came to me clear as anything.
I’d seen who he was. I trusted him. This monstrous man had stood by me and stood up for me in so many ways, and I didn’t have a particle of fear left that he’d ever intend to harm me.
“Yes?” Ruse said, meeting my gaze with one eyebrow arched.
“I know how we can time it perfectly without the Company boss having a clue.” I reached to unclasp the silver-and-iron badge of my own and set it on the dresser with a clink. Lately I’d been wearing it more from habit than any real sense that I needed it. “As soon as we’re out of his apartment, you’ll be able to look inside my head and sense how I’m feeling—whether I’m confident and ready to go or still scrambling to work out the best approach. Go by that, and we’re golden.”
Ruse stared at me, the nonchalance I was so used to in his roguish face broken by shock. “Just to be clear, you’re giving me permission—”
“I’m asking you to read my emotions,” I said. “It’s the best possible option. And—when I made the rules before, I didn’t really know you. I do now. And I know you’d never use this opening against me. I don’t just believe in your skills. I believe in you.”
The incubus blinked at me once more, and then he was pulling me to him, branding my mouth with a kiss so hot and giddying that I nearly melted on the spot. I barely had time to kiss him back before he’d eased away just an inch, his breath tingling over the lips he’d left tender with his embrace.
“I love you,” he said in a voice both stiff with tension and ringing with sincerity. “I realize—from an incubus, it may not be—and of course I couldn’t expect—”
My heart swelled with an ache of affection so great that I lost my breath. I touched his cheek, swallowing the lump that had risen in my throat. I wouldn’t have been able to let him in as much as I was offering if this hadn’t been true. It was easier saying it the second time.
“I love you too.”
Ruse let out a rough sound and yanked my mouth back to his. This time the kiss stretched on and on, sending tingles all through my body and setting my skin alight. Without breaking it, he slid his hands down my sides and grasped my hips to lift me onto the edge of the dresser. More heat flooded me as our bodies aligned even more tightly.
He drew his lips from mine only to mark a scorching path along my jaw and down my neck. “I want to toss you onto that bed and ravish you until you’ve come a million times,” he murmured against my skin, each brush of his lips sparking new pleasures. “But we have a kingpin to topple, so that’ll have to wait. But I’ll be damned if I’m not going to have you at least once right now. It’s been too long since I was last inside you.”
No arguments here. I tucked my legs around his thighs, urging him even closer. “You have me. Let’s see what you can do with me, lover boy.”
He laughed, the sound thick with promise, and reclaimed my mouth. As he drew every ounce of pleasure from my lips, he worked my blouse free from my skirt. With what seemed like magical speed, he whipped it off over my head, unhooked my bra, and cupped my breasts.
His deft thumbs rolled over both nipples simultaneously, and the surge of bliss made me whimper against his mouth. He smiled into our next kiss, working me over with skillful strokes until I was dying with need.
My teeth nicked his lip as I kissed him harder. I arched into him, burning for more.
“Give me the incubus,” I said, knowing he’d understand what I meant.
Ruse grinned, no protests about my ability to handle him in his full shadowkind form now. And apparently while he’d been teaching Snap a few tricks, he’d picked up one