“Yes,” she whispered. For an enchanted time in this place, they had shared peace, love and safety, three of the most powerful words in any language. “Thank you for bringing me here.”
“I had to.” He pressed his lips to her temple, and they stood together silently for a time. Then he sank a fist into her hair and tilted her head back to kiss her, in a deep, thorough exploration of her mouth. He said against her lips, “When I make love to you again, we won’t be exhausted and caught in the images of distant memories. We are going to be completely present and in our bodies.”
She tightened her arms around him as she whispered, “Promise?”
“Nothing on earth could keep me from it.” He kissed her again, and his warm lips were hard and demanding. He pulled away with obvious reluctance. “But for right now we can truly rest.”
“And wake up together,” she said.
“Absolutely.” He eased her gently from the mental image and with obvious reluctance pulled away from her presence. Then nature took over, and she joined her body in a deep sleep.
A formless time later, cold air wafted over her cheek, and she surfaced out of the peaceful dark to discover that she was on the move. Michael had wrapped her in a blanket and he carried her up the steep hill to the cabin. Overhead, the moon winked through the trees, and the night sky was crisp and clear.
“What happened?” Her voice was blurry with sleep. “What time is it?”
“I’m sorry I disturbed you,” he said quietly. “It’s around two or three in the morning, and I’m ravenous. I can’t get back to sleep until I eat something, and we don’t have any real food on the boat. I didn’t want to leave you down there by yourself in case you woke up and wondered where I had gone.”
“I’m glad you did,” she murmured. Michael had slipped on his jeans and the sweater. She nestled into his chest, tucking her face into his neck. Not only was she naked underneath the blanket, she was barefoot too, and she remembered all too well how rough the path was. She was entirely happy to let him do all the work.
When he strode across the clearing and reached the cabin, she shook an arm out of the blanket to open the door for him. Astra was either asleep or at least resting, for the cabin lay in deep shadow, but Michael was still surefooted and certain as he carried her quietly into his bedroom and deposited her on the king-sized bed.
She discarded the blanket and slipped underneath the covers, while he disappeared. In the kitchen, the refrigerator light came on briefly as he rummaged for food. She turned on the bedside lamp, and a few minutes later, he walked into the bedroom carrying a plate of sandwiches and two tall glasses of water. He pushed the door shut with one foot.
Now that she had awakened, she realized just how hollow and empty she felt. He set the plate on the bed, undressed and slid under the covers with her, and they ate in companionable silence. The sandwiches were Astra’s handiwork from earlier, made with homemade bread, individually wrapped and quite delicious.
She finished before Michael, and lay down to curl against his long, muscular legs, drifting until he set the empty plate on the bedside table. He switched off the light and slid down to lie beside her.
They turned to each other at the same time. She wound her arms around his neck while he rose over her and settled between her legs, and the weight of his long, powerful body covering hers was the very best thing that had happened to her all day.
He kissed her, hardened lips moving sensuously over hers while he explored the moist, private interior of her mouth. She relished the slight abrasion of his unshaven cheek and lost herself in sensual pleasure. He leaned his weight on one arm while he caressed her breast and plucked gently at her nipple, and his erection pressed against her inner thigh.
Then his body stiffened. He broke off the kiss, leaned his forehead against hers and swore under his breath.
Frowning, she stroked the back of his head. She loved him so much. She murmured, “What is it?”
“Our supply of condoms are in a police evidence room,” he growled. “Along with your purse and my backpack that we left behind in Petoskey after you were shot.”
The corners of her mouth drooped in disappointment. “Oh, no. And you don’t have any here.”
She didn’t say it as a question. He wouldn’t be so frustrated if he had any condoms here, and she already knew that he had never been with a woman in this life, before her. He had chosen instead to wait and look for her.
Still, he shook his head wordlessly. He began to roll off of her. “We can always make love in other ways.”
She gripped his shoulder. “Wait.”
He stopped, settled his weight again comfortably on her, stroked the hair off of her forehead and waited.
Just as she couldn’t risk a pregnancy in that lifetime long ago, she couldn’t risk one now.
She also had more resources available to her than she had when they had stopped to rest at the cabin near Wolf Lake. She sank her awareness into her body and realized almost immediately that they weren’t in any danger. Her monthly cycle wasn’t viable for conception.
“We’re safe,” she whispered. “We don’t need to worry for at least another week.”
He took a breath. “You’re sure.”
He didn’t ask that as a question either, but still, she smiled. “Quite sure.”
She slid her fingers through the short, dark hair at the back of his head, coaxing him down to her. He came readily, and his mouth slanted over hers in a kiss that blazed along her nerve endings.
He cradled her, mind, body and spirit. She could feel it. There was no part of him that held back. He was totally engaged, totally present and open. It set her alight. She arched upward against his long, muscled torso, rubbing her body against his and reveling in the sensation of being skin to skin, of feeling the fluidity of his powerful muscles flexing and shifting on her.
He broke off the kiss, muttering something that she didn’t catch, and trailed his lips along her skin as he slid down her body with delicious, agonizing slowness. He stopped to suckle at her breasts, tugging strongly first on one nipple, then the other. She gasped and cradled his head in both hands while white-hot pleasure shot arrows down her limbs. It settled into an escalating need at the intimate juncture of her pelvis.
He put a hand between her legs and pressed at the exquisitely sensitive nubbin at her center. She tilted her pelvis up and pushed against him. The wetness of her arousal slicked his hard, clever fingers, and pleasure turned into a keen, bright spear that stabbed her so sweetly, a sharp, involuntary sound broke out of her.
He buried his face against her flat stomach. “Feeling nothing is worse than blindness,” he whispered against her skin. “When you’re blind, you can still experience a wealth of sensation. Feeling nothing is the worst kind of starvation you can imagine, only you don’t know it. You don’t know it until you start to feel something. That’s what happened to me when I started to remember what it was like to love you. I looked for you for so long. I needed you, and I knew that I was starving.”
“You know I love you, don’t you?” she whispered back to him. She stroked everything she could reach of him—his hair, the side of his lean cheek, his broad shoulders. “I just love you. I love you.”
“We don’t leave each other alone ever again,” he gritted. He gripped her hips in a bruising tight hold. “NOT EVER AGAIN.”
“Never,” she told him. “I swear it.”
Her body housed too much extreme emotion. She ached for his centuries of pain, and she was aroused and so damn happy. She couldn’t hold it all in, or hold still. She wiggled down the bed, running her hand down his lean torso until she found his thick, stiff penis. He sucked in a breath as she caressed him. She relished the velvet skin covering the hard length of his cock, stroking the tips of her fingers along the beautifully shaped tip until he jerked in reaction to her gentle caress.
&nb
sp; He grabbed her wrist. “I can’t take too much teasing right now. I’m so fucking close to spewing all over you.”
“Not yet, you don’t,” she told him. She took him in a strong grip. “Come here.”
He followed her urging, shifting his position until he lay over her again, his weight on both elbows while she held him poised at her swollen, wet entrance. She rubbed the thick tip of his cock against her, moistening him and heightening her own pleasure.
He sank both fists into the sheets on either side of her head, shaking all over. “Goddamn,” he hissed. “Goddamn.”
“Don’t you come,” she breathed in his ear. “Don’t you do it.”
Listen to them. They almost sounded like they were arguing. It was the best kind of struggle, the best argument, unbelievably sharp and delicious. He bit at the delicate curve of her ear, the light, stinging nip conveying his urgency.
She raked the fingernails of one hand down the wide, tense curve of his powerful back. At the same time, she lifted her hips and groaned, “Now.”
He surged into her, swearing a low litany in her ears, and he didn’t stop until he was buried to the hilt inside of her. Then he froze.
She made a disappointed sound and wriggled against him, longing to reach for that sharp spike of pleasure again.
He gripped her hip and said sharply, “Mary.”
She exploded into laughter, threw her arms around him and hugged him tight. “It’s okay. Just do it.”
He growled, cut loose and fucked her, driving in long, hard strokes. She slammed back against the mattress, and the wildness was so exhilarating, she stretched both arms over her head and whined high in the back of her throat. She used to have absolutely no interest in sex or making love. How she had ever thought she might be frigid, she had no idea, because this was so bloody fabulous, she could barely stop from screaming.
Then he put a hand between them and found her sweet spot. Still fucking her, he worked her with his fingers, and she lost all vestige of control. She bucked underneath him and clawed at his shoulders. There was light shining in her eyes.
No, that wasn’t light, it was Michael’s spirit. The tiger that lived in his human body roared at her in a wild frenzy.
She convulsed into the most savage climax she had ever experienced. The peak hit her—body and mind—and she froze in incredulity. It was the whitest, purest light. It rolled out of her and into him.
Then he twisted and bucked on her, and his own highest point doubled back on her. They fed it back and forth to each other as they rocked together. It was very slow to die away.
“What the hell,” he whispered in awe.
She was shaking. He was shaking. They were wrapped around each other so tightly, she didn’t know where her skin left off and became his.
Love. In love. The words simply didn’t encompass the reality of this.
“I just have no words for what you mean to me.” Tears spilled out the corners of her eyes.
He covered the back of her head with one big hand, and gripped her even tighter. “Jesus, woman,” he said from the back of his throat. “Neither do I.”
Chapter Twenty-four
AFTERWARD, MARY DIDN’T fall back asleep so much as plunge into blackness.
She was the first one to awaken, and awareness felt pure and new. She opened her eyes to discover light streaming in through a crack between the dark, heavy curtains. The digital alarm clock said that it was close to noon. They had slept the morning away.
Michael lay sprawled on his stomach beside her, his arm lying across her torso. She settled her pillow into a new position and scooted up the bed until her head and shoulders were propped against the headboard.
Michael roused long enough to curl around her body. She tucked the covers around his shoulders, noting the red scratches she had left on his skin. He fell back to sleep, this time with both an arm and a leg draped over her, head pillowed on her narrow shoulder. Alert and at peace, she rested with her arms around him.
She could hear Astra moving around the cabin. Cabinet doors opened and closed in the kitchen.
Then, very quietly, the knob on their door moved. The door eased open, and Astra peered inside. The light from the large central common room shone through the thin white nimbus of hair around her head. There was something poised about that shabby, skinny figure, an alert listening attitude in how she held her head.
Mary led her eyelids fall. She watched the older woman between the veil of her eyelashes with a potent cocktail of emotions.
Astra looked like a shadow puppet, held together by pins and wishes. Was there also a forlorn, wistful air about the little old woman? Or did she project an extrapolation of her own self onto Astra?
Behind that shadow puppet was an entity Mary thought she loved, or at least it was someone she had loved once. Now she needed, respected and pitied the older woman, but she also couldn’t quite bring herself to trust Astra.
I don’t know how you can bear to be who you are, Mary thought, taking care to keep the thought locked within the privacy of her own head. She wondered if Astra could see that her eyes were open. The thought unsettled her even further. If so, they were staring at each other in silence, like two opponents sizing each other’s strengths and weaknesses. A chill washed through her.
Michael’s head rested against the bare curve of her collarbone. She felt the whispery brush of his eyelashes as he opened his eyes.
In a quiet move, Astra closed the door and walked away from the bedroom.
Mary expelled a shaky breath. Michael’s arm tightened around her. He put a finger at the racing pulse in her neck. He whispered, “What’s wrong?”
She shook her head. “I’m being too imaginative.”
“Okay. What’s wrong?”
She discovered another new experience, an impulse to smack him, and strangled it. Instead she confessed in a bare thread of sound, “Astra scares me sometimes. I don’t know why. Like I said, I’m being too imaginative.”
“No you’re not.” He rolled away from her, perched on the edge of the bed, reached for his shirt and dragged it over his head. “You should be scared of her.”
“Why?” She levered up to sit beside him.
He reached for his wristwatch and strapped it on. “She cares for us, enjoys our companionship and misses us when we’re gone. I don’t doubt any of that. But she is not our ally. Not in the final reckoning of things. If she suspects that we might get in her way, she wouldn’t hesitate to kill or destroy us.” He rubbed the back of his neck and sighed. “But I like to think she would be sad about it.”
Disappointment shadowed the peace she had felt when she had awakened. “We’re all she has left here of her people. We’re her family. We came here to help her.”
“We did,” he agreed. He braced a hand on the mattress behind her spine, half-twisted to face her. “But the fight has gone on for too long. We’ve gotten heartsick and soul-scarred and out of patience. She has watched the Deceiver destroy most of us, and there will be no reinforcements from home. Nobody else is coming. That was decided before the group left.”
She looked up into his shadowed face and blew out a breath. “I don’t want to die. We just found each other. We’ve just gotten good again.”
He kissed her forehead. “I don’t either. Yet our purpose is not to fight for survival. We’re here to destroy the Deceiver, and we promised to do whatever it takes. One of Astra’s tasks is to make sure we remember that. If she can’t hold us to that purpose she’s got to clear us out of the road.”
She gritted her teeth against a surge of rebellion. Why would Astra have to clear them out of the road? Why couldn’t she just leave them in peace?
Then she thought of the life she had lived nine hundred years ago, and how the Deceiver had preyed upon her and her human family. Astra couldn’t leave them in peace because as long as the Deceiver
existed, there was no peace to be found for them anywhere on Earth. She rubbed her eyes.
“I don’t know how can she live that way.”
“She’s been under an intolerable pressure for a long time. The thing is, I’m not sure what it has done to her sanity.” He frowned, put an arm around her and pulled her against his side. “I don’t remember enough about our original life, but she seems changed somehow from who she originally had been. She’s different in a way that I haven’t been able to pinpoint.”
She searched his face. “What do you think it is?”
“I don’t know. I just don’t want you to trust her blindly because of who she once was to us. We’ve all changed in ways I don’t think any of us understand, but you and I have become the most human.” He paused. “We should get dressed. We all have to talk.”
She nodded. “I know.”
He shifted to face her and sank his hands into her hair. She held still as he rubbed his face in the thick, curling mass. Then he lifted his head to smile at her. He whispered, “I love your hair.”
She leaned against him, feeling warm all over. He was such a settled, mature man. In many ways, he was more worldly and informed than she was. The wonder that filled his expression in that moment made tears well in her eyes.
“It’s a pain in the neck at the best of times,” she said softly. “I keep it long enough so that I can pull it out of the way, but after everything that’s happened this last week, I think it might be better if I just cut it short.”
“Please don’t. It’s gorgeous.”
“All right.”
“Thank you.” He smiled, cupped her face and kissed her, his lips lingering over the shape of hers. She stroked his cheek, kissing him back. He pulled away and gave her a grave look. “Now we talk.”
She grimaced. “I hope we at least get a cup of coffee first.”