Page 20 of Deader than Dead

I knew exactly what he meant, but I didn’t say that. So far, Bellamy hadn’t pressed me on when and why I’d been in the building, and I was hoping he wouldn’t. Nothing good could come from me telling him I’d tried—and failed—to reanimate him. Had I failed, though? Had there been some sort of delayed reaction to what I’d done? How was that possible when it had never happened before? Because Bellamy is special, my subconscious whispered. Maybe so, but it didn’t explain how a soul could return to a body hours later, and a heart could start beating on its own. There were a lot of unanswered questions about how Bellamy was sitting in front of me.

“What about outside the building?”

Bellamy’s brows drew together. “Outside?”

“Did you see anyone?”

He shook his head. What had happened to Giant, Monstrous, and Gargantuan? While I could buy no one guarding a corpse that they’d already attempted to bring back to life without success, it was harder to wrap my head around a shady operation not guarding the entrance to their building twenty-four-seven. Had Bellamy just been lucky? Did it even matter when whatever was going on had a time limit? The thought filled me with a profound sense of sadness. I needed to enjoy whatever time I had with him. Not let myself get twisted up with conspiracy theories.

“How did you get here?” I asked. “I’m on the other side of London.”

“I took an Uber,” Bellamy said. He reached into the jacket pocket and pulled out a big wad of cash, large enough that it made my eyes water. “I found this, and I used some of it.”

I drew in a breath. So not only had he revived—which they’d notice as soon as they realized they were missing a corpse—but he’d also robbed someone, even if it had been an accident. Come tomorrow morning, there were going to be some seriously unimpressed people in that building. Would they look for him? I found it hard to believe they wouldn’t.

Bellamy’s hand abandoning his mug to creep across the space between us, prevented me from going any farther down that path. He stopped just short of his fingertips touching mine. “Why do I feel so drawn to you, John?”

“Drawn?” Of course, I knew what he meant, but I wanted to hear him say it, wanted him to reflect the feelings in my heart.

“Like…” Bellamy swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing with the movement. “I can’t take my eyes off you. Like I can’t think of anything except touching you… kissing you.”

He didn’t break eye contact during his short but impassioned speech, his fingers creeping forward another few millimeters, but still shy of making contact. He gave an embarrassed little laugh, ducking his head, his long fringe falling forward to cover his eyes. “God, listen to me. You’re going to be calling the police on me. I turn up at your house in the middle of the night and then I profess my…”

“Your…?”

He didn’t lift his head. “I can’t say it. It’s insane.”

Disappointment hit me like an actual blow to the gut. “It’s not insane.”

“No?” A slight tilt of his head had a glimmer of green peeking through the curtain of hair.

“No,” I said firmly, doing what he hadn’t made himself do and pressing my hand over his. “I feel the same.”

His head jerked up so fast that it was a wonder he didn’t hurt himself. “You do?”

“I do.”

“You want to kiss me too?”

I let my gaze drop to his lips. It coincided with his tongue darting out to moisten them, the simple action sending a whole host of dirty thoughts through my brain, my groin swelling accordingly. Saying I wanted to kiss him was like saying I had to sleep occasionally, a complete and utter understatement. I kept my hand over his, but I forced my gaze away from his lips, away from the temptation to lose myself in him. “I want to know more about you, Bellamy.” Before it’s too late.

“There’s not a lot to tell.”

“I just want to know the simple stuff. What you enjoy doing? Your job? Whether you’ve got brothers and sisters? Whereabouts in London you live? Whether you’ve got pets? That sort of thing.” I could have gone on, but as Bellamy already looked a bit taken aback by all the questions I’d fired at him, I made myself stop.

Over the next ten minutes while we drank our tea, he talked about himself, and I did the same. He told me that his surname was Farrell, and that he had a sister called Victoria. That he didn’t have pets. That he’d always wanted a dog, but that he couldn’t have one where he lived. Which was apparently in Dollis Hill, not a million miles from here. That piece of information had hurt, the knowledge that we’d spent our days so close to each other without meeting like a stab to the heart. His parents were still married and lived close to him. He didn’t have a middle name, but had made one up for himself as a kid because he’d been jealous of the other kids having one. He’d also told me he was twenty-eight to my thirty-two.

Twenty-eight. It was no age to die. Not that there was a good age to pop your clogs, but if there was, that certainly wasn’t it. “What about your job?” I asked when the conversation had reached a lull.

A shadow passed across Bellamy’s face and his fingers twitched beneath mine where my hand still lay over his. “My job? I’m a…” I knew before he said anything that he was going to lie. “I’m an antiques expert.”

“An antiques expert?” It was all I could do not to laugh. As lies went, that was pretty out there.

“Yeah,” Bellamy said. “I could tell you hundreds of facts about where different items come from, how old they are, and how much they’d go for at auction.” He sat up straighter. “How about you? What do you do?”

My turn to lie. Because it wasn’t as if I could tell him I was a necromancer. “I sell insurance.”

“Insurance?” The way Bellamy’s brows drew together said he wasn’t buying it any more than I was him being an antiques expert.

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