swell of her tits, the length of her slender frame, the way her jeans clung to her ass. She was tall, the top of her head hitting him right at the mouth. If he embraced her, he could nuzzle her hair without bending his neck.
God, how he wanted to. His mouth watered to lean down close, and start memorizing the smells of her scalp, her pelt. He wanted to stare at her in bright sunlight, study the glinting grain of the nap of female hair on her body. Stroke and kiss the hot fuzz in all her hidden places. He clenched his jaw, mouth watering.
He could smell her, too. Every intimate detail of her, with his olfactory capacity on screaming overload. Usually, the excess of private sensory information about strangers’ bodies was embarrassing to him.
Not with Edie. Her intimate scents made him dizzy. And rock hard. He’d been dogged by inconvenient sexual impulses since waking up after the waterfall incident, but this made his previous urges look like a mild itch. He’d had no idea what sexual hunger felt like til now.
Every detail of Edie Parrish was deliberately designed to please him, and he’d never even identified any particular preferences before. The hollow at her collarbone made him gulp excess saliva. He couldn’t drag his eyes from the lambent glow of her skin, couldn’t stop dragging in lungfuls of the honey and milk and flowers scent that hung like a delicate cloud around her. Couldn’t breathe it in fast enough.
He wanted to inhale her, drink her up. Lick her all over. Make her relax, blush, and giggle, lose that worried look. She reminded him of animals in the wild; wary, but innately dignified. None of that air of easy entitlement, like so many young people who came from wealth.
He couldn’t read her eyes, under that heavy fan of lashes. She probably thought he was out of his mind. Grabbing her hand, like he had the right. He hadn’t meant to. He’d just done it.
“This is where I live,” she said.
He looked around, surprised. He’d tried to find her address, had not been surprised to find it unlisted. Many would see her as prey.
Not what he’d expected. A shabby, grungy boardinghouse in a run-down neighborhood. He forced himself to let go of her hand, and immediately missed the bright, vibrating song of contact.
She flung back her hair. The gesture looked defiant. “Want to come up?” she asked. “For a cup of coffee, tea? Or, ah, whatever?”
“Yes,” he said. Some whatever would be fine. Lots of it.
Her gaze darted away again. “Um. Come on, then.” She led him through a chain-link gate, and on a cracked concrete sidewalk around the building, up a creaking outside staircase.
Her apartment proved to be on the fourth floor, opening from a common veranda off the back of the building. It overlooked a cluster of Dumpsters and an unprepossessing alley. There was a scarred deadlock and a single aging knob lock, loose and rattling in the door. He could kick the thing loose with one blow of his foot. Or maybe even his fist.
He wondered what her people were thinking, letting her live in a dump like this. Not that he had any business complaining. Yet.
“Hey! Edie!” An eight-year-old kid scampered up, scrawny and brown, with a tangle of curly black hair and missing teeth. “Will you help me with my history essay? I’m supposed to write about the Louisiana Purchase, but—” He skidded to a stop when he saw Kev.
“Hey, Jamal,” Edie said. “Maybe later, OK?”
But Jamal had forgotten his essay. His dark eyes went huge with wonder. “Shit on a stick!” he breathed. “You’re Fade Shadowseeker!”
Edie looked embarrassed. “We’ve talked about this before! Fade is just a character, not a real person! This is Kev.” She turned to Kev. “Jamal’s my neighbor. He’s also my first reader, and my best critic.”
“He is too Fade! Look at those scars! Hey, is it true, about you giving a million dollars to the runaway shelter? And beating up that asshole who stiffed Valerie? I heard you knocked his jaw practically off his face before you took her to Any Port. Shit sucking bastard is eating liquid food through a straw. And did you really jump those guys who—”
“Jamal! No! He did not! His name is Kev, and Fade Shadowseeker is…not…real! Kev is another person! Get it through your head!”
Jamal snorted, utterly unconvinced. “So what’s he doing here? You never bring guys here.” Jamal turned a disapproving scowl on Kev. “Are you gonna have sex with Edie?”
“Jamal!” Edie hissed, horrifed. “Shut up!”
“Fade has sex with Mahlia in Book Four,” Jamal confided. “But I always skip that chapter. Girls are gross. Except for Edie. She’s OK.”
Kev cleared his throat. “Everyone’s entitled to his opinion.”
“Beat it, Jamal,” Edie said sternly. “Or no more computer time. For the rest of your life. I mean it. And I do not want to hear another word about Fade Shadowseeker.” Edie’s voice was a thread of steel.
Jamal backed away reluctantly. Edie glared until he turned the corner. Then she unlocked her door, and pushed on in.
The scent of the place embraced him right away. Dried rose petals, cinnamon, plant food, potting soil. The pollen of the big bunch of wildflowers in a jar that adorned the cheap wooden table. Scents of soap, bath salts and shampoo floated out of the bathroom, Sandalwood and lavender, at first sniff. The smell of paper, books, ink, pencils.
And Edie herself, overlaying it all. Sweet, warm and female.
It was an amazing scent. It inebriated him. It should be bottled.
Sun slanted through half closed wooden venetian blinds, striping the walls with slashes of light. The walls were completely covered with drawings, photos, postcards, magazine cutouts. A glimpse into her mind. He wanted to sneak in there, poke around forever. Looking at what she looked at. Studying what she thought about, what she feared and dreamed and imagined. He wanted to know it all.
And here it was. Everything he craved. Laid out like a feast.
Edie closed the door, and watched him check out her humble place. A sweeping glance was all it took. A TV perched on a steamer trunk in one corner. A tiny kitchen barely existed in another corner. Spider plants and begonias dangled from the ceiling. The rest of the room was all about her drafting table, books, and wall collage. One door led to a tiny bathroom, the other to a tiny bedroom, big enough only for a single futon bed and a narrow dresser. Not a problem, since she wasn’t in the habit of collecting clothes. She worked in her underwear when it was warm, and in raggedy tights and sweats when it was cold.
“I’m sorry about Jamal,” she offered. “He’s a really intense Fade fan, and he’s having a little bit of trouble separating fiction from reality.”
“Not a problem.” He looked around at her walls.
“I know what you’re thinking,” she said.
His mouth twitched. “Do you?”
“You’re wondering why a Parrish would live in a hole in the wall like this,” she said. “Right?”
“No. I was thinking how your place shows what you care about.” He gestured at
