Chains of Fire

  But as they worked in the hard-packed snow, their confidence grew.

  When day three was over, they had created a tunnel that burrowed into the avalanche until it reached the stone steps built into the earth, then followed them to ground level and from there took a gradual slope toward the surface. Toward freedom.

  They went to bed exhausted—and hopeful.

  Chapter 19

  “We’ve been in here four days, right?” Isabelle shoveled snow onto the tarp.

  “Right.” Samuel flexed his shoulders, ate an energy bar, and tried to recover enough to take over.

  “I’m thinking my role in Indiana Jones and the Ice Temple of Blisters is about over.”

  “Nice.” He nodded his appreciation. “You might say it’s time to Dial M for Meltdown.”

  They were inching their way toward the surface, making the angle a little sharper, joking around because it helped get their minds off their aching muscles.

  “Heh. Good one. I’m tired of starring in A Ski Lift Named Desire.”

  She was slowing down.

  He was slowing down.

  But it was hard to quit when they both thought they might break free today . . . or tomorrow . . . or the next day. . . . “I’m tired of Saving Private Frostbite.”

  Isabelle rested her shovel on the ground, leaned on the handle, and laughed, long and hard.

  He grinned as he watched her.

  “You look great.” Thinner and paler than she had been when they’d fallen into the set of It’s a Wonderful Popsicle, but her indomitable spirit continued to shine like a beacon in this darkness.

  “So do you. I had no idea you could grow a full beard in four days.”

  He rubbed his hand across his chin. “If I’m making court appearances, I shave twice a day.”

  “Or impressing women?” she asked.

  “No, honey, you know it’s not my beard that impresses women.” He grinned as she sighed with exaggerated disgust.

  “Let me take a turn,” he said.

  “Rest a little longer. I’m okay.” With her shovel, she reached up toward the front of the tunnel and dug into the snow.

  The metal hit something hard.

  Snow fell off in chunks, revealing a tree branch as thick as his thigh.

  He straightened. It wasn’t the first time this had happened—a lot of debris had been swept down with the avalanche.

  But under the force of her blow, the branch shifted.

  The snowbank in front of them shimmered.

  She saw it, too. She said, “Oh, no, you don’t.” She lunged for the branch, tried to steady it.

  Samuel grabbed for her.

  But he was too late.

  With a roar, the tunnel collapsed.

  She went down, buried under chunks of snow and ice.

  He grabbed her feet and started pulling, blindly dragging her backward.

  The collapse continued, moving from the far end of their digging toward the door, filling in every space.

  Five feet from the door, he lost his grip on one of her feet. He stumbled backward. Lost the other foot.

  She vanished in the whiteout.

  The snow continued to tumble, trying to bury him.

  He sputtered and fought, desperate to get back inside the locker room. Grabbing the waiting shovel, he ran back into the chunks of still-settling snow.

  The cave-in had stopped—but there was no sign of Isabelle.

  Fueled by mania, he dug. The distance it had taken them two days to cover he cleared in twenty minutes.

  He told himself that she had freed a space for her face so she could breathe, she had special healing powers because she was Chosen, cold slowed a human’s metabolism so they required less oxygen, he would find her in time.

  I have to find her in time.

  God could not be so cruel as to take her from him. Not now.

  He found her thigh with his shovel, striking with the metal.

  She flinched.

  She is alive. Thank you! She is alive.

  He pulled, but the snow weighed on her too heavily and he couldn’t budge her. So he dug toward her head, stopping to tug occasionally, moving quickly yet cautiously.

  Be careful.

  When he’d unloaded enough of the snow, he pulled her free and turned her over.

  She was white. Cold. Still.

  “No. Listen. Baby.” He put his head to her chest and heard the slow, slow beat of her heart. He tilted her head back, cleared her airway, and breathed into her mouth, into her lungs, heating her, bringing her back to the land of the living. Three breaths and she coughed, struggled, coughed some more. Flipped over onto her knees and gasped, over and over, while he held her shoulders and said, “Isabelle. Come on. You’re okay. Talk to me. Tell me you’re okay. Baby . . .”

  She turned on him ferociously. “I’m okay!” she shouted, and coughed again, her chest heaving as if she could never again get enough air.

  He pulled her close, yanked her out of the tunnel. He brushed snow off her frozen skin, finger-combed chunks of ice out of her hair. And held her, breathing hard, trying to calm his racing heart, knowing he would never be calm again. Then he shook her. Shook her hard. “What were you thinking? When that snow moved, what were you thinking, trying to stop it? Are you crazy? Why didn’t you just run?”

  She turned on him, teeth bared. “I was thinking how close we were to getting out of here. I was thinking I was sick of energy bars. I was thinking we were running out of air. I was thinking we’re going to die down here! That’s what I was thinking!”

  “Let me do the thinking from now on!”

  “Because you’ve done such a great job of getting us out?”

  “I’m working on it!”

  “So am I! Now—I’m going to bed.” She stalked away, stiff-legged with rage and limping from the blow from the shovel. “And I hope I don’t wake up dead!”

  He followed her, still sweaty from the exertion of digging her out, still angry at her for taking a chance, and furious at himself for endangering Isabelle.

  Isabelle.

  He’d known her his whole life. He remembered the charming little girl. The gawky adolescent. The prep-school uniform . . . My God. That summer, they’d spent every day huddled in the third-floor window seat. Even today, those memories shone like old gold, untarnished by the events that followed.

  Today Isabelle had almost died because of his plan, his carelessness.

  He had to find a way out.

  He had to save them.

  Chapter 20

  The door to the third-floor bedroom opened.

  Inside the window seat, Samuel tensed. Waited in silence.

  The curtain opened, and Isabelle smiled down at Samuel’s outstretched form. “Hi, there,” she said.

  He stared at her in her summer shorts, her long, slender legs tanned and smooth, and tried not to think about how they would feel wrapped around his hips. Romancing her was the hardest thing he’d ever had to do . . . literally. He wanted to grab her. He wanted to take off her clothes. He wanted to have sex with her, then have sex again, then . . . He didn’t know how often he could have sex in a row, but with Isabelle, he was pretty sure it was a lot.

  Instead, he read poetry because she liked it, and to return the favor.

  The first time they met, she had, after all, read him a fairy tale.

  They’d spent hours stretched out in the window seat, her head on his chest, his arm around her, while he read Yeats aloud. Now, in a normal voice that showed no sign of his agitation, he asked, “How did you get away from your mother?”

  “I told her I had cramps.” She must have seen his alarm, for she gurgled with laughter. “I don’t really. I’m okay.” She climbed onto the window seat beside him, reached up to pull the curtains closed.

  Her really fine ass was almost in his face, and he bit his lip on a groan. He used to think she was clueless. Now he wasn’t so sure. He was kind of getting the feeling she was using her first-class young bod
y and his obsession to lead him around on a leash.

  Funny thing was, he was good with that. When he was with her, his rage at his parents, biological and adoptive, calmed, and he faced the fact that he could easily enjoy being domesticated . . . by Isabelle.

  He really needed to distract himself or an already painful hard-on would turn into a major case of blue balls—and he preferred to wait a little longer before he was in major agony. “Do you want to read poetry?” he asked.

  “Not today.” She knelt beside his outstretched form.

  He picked up Romeo and Juliet. “Shakespeare, then.” They recited the plays, each taking different parts. Not that he would ever tell the guys.

  “No, although I love to hear you do the ‘Wherefore art thou?’ speech. You’re developing a real dramatic flair.”

  He shrugged as if indifferent to her praise. But weirdly enough, in Shakespeare’s works he discovered the voices of other men like him—impatient, angry, ready to burst out of their lives and do what they wanted.

  He did this stuff to make her happy, and tried not to freak out when he realized he liked it. The poetry, the plays—they were souls encapsulated in words, and through them he saw a different future for himself.

  “What do you want to do?” he asked, and tensed as she leaned over his long form and kissed him with her warm, soft mouth. Once. Twice. She kissed his eyelids, his chin, his throat. Gradually, as she kissed him, she reclined beside him, stretching her legs beside his, leaning her hip against his, pressing her breasts against the side of his chest.

  His heart pounded as her warmth enfolded him. This felt like more than lust to him; this felt like real affection. This felt like . . . love, and he wanted to hold her in his arms forever.

  Taking a fortifying breath, she really kissed him with her tongue and her teeth, nibbling on his lower lip. She let him taste her, sucking his tongue into her mouth until they performed intercourse with their mouths.

  He’d taught her everything he knew about pleasure with your fly zipped, and now she proved that when she let her instincts lead, she could reach far beyond his teachings.

  God.

  He could kiss her forever, but he didn’t dare. Or he would forget who she was, forget who he was, forget his goals and his needs, and become nothing more than Isabelle’s boy toy. So he took her shoulders in his hands and pressed her away from him. “We can’t keep doing this.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you’re a virgin. And I’m not. And I want to have sex with you.” A silence fell between them: deep, dark, frightening . . . exhilarating.

  She chewed her lower lip, her expression considering. “What about . . . if I . . . if I have sex with you, will you stay? Here in Boston? And graduate and go to college?”

  He sat up, angry and . . . hurt. “Because I’m not good enough for you unless I graduate and go to college?”

  “No!” She grabbed his thigh, squeezed hard. “I don’t mean that at all. I just would like to help you make the right decision.”

  In the two months since she first found him here, his hair had grown back to a short shag, and he pushed it back with an outraged motion. “I’m not making deals with you. You’re not going to tell yourself that you’re sacrificing your purity for my sake. You either want me or you don’t. You either trust me to do the right thing or you don’t.”

  “I do want you. I do trust you.” Reaching up, she took his shirt and tugged him down to face her. “I don’t think that I’m more important to you than your destiny.”

  Of course. There was a reason they resonated on basic levels. They shared a common uncertainty, for if their biological parents had despised them so much as to toss them away . . . was that their fate from their adoptive parents? From their friends? Would they ever truly know security?

  He leaned his forehead on hers. “You’re the most important thing in my life, and I’ve wanted you since the first time I saw you. I love you, Isabelle, and I want you to love me, too.”

  “You love me?”

  “For so long.” Since the first time he saw her.

  “I love you, too.” Her smile blossomed. Her blue eyes sparkled.

  She made him feel powerful, beneficent. Because he had never made anyone so happy. “So I need to read to you, or . . . Well, I need to read to you.”

  He tried to sit up.

  Her fingers tightened on his collar. “Sammy. Please. Would you . . . ?”

  He stared at her so long, so hard, he felt faint. Finally he realized he needed to breathe—and gasped like a fish.

  “Are you okay?” She looked concerned.

  He felt himself turn red. Him, the guy voted most likely to score.

  “What do you want?” he asked hoarsely. He was pretty sure he knew, but this was too important to screw up.

  Her lids fluttered down, her dark, long lashes resting against her skin, then fluttered up, and she gazed at him with those amazing blue eyes. “Would you teach me to make love?”

  He needed to say something warm and romantic and reassuring. Not, Yeah! Or, Take off your clothes! Or, I just came in my shorts. But it was tough, because this wasn’t like the other times. This wasn’t a score. This wasn’t screwing. This really was . . . making love. And he needed to do it right.

  Apparently he’d paused too long, because her chin trembled and her eyes filled with tears.

  So he blurted, “I really want to, but I’m nervous because it’s you.”

  She blinked her tears away.

  Her eyes looked the color of the cobalt pastels the girls used in art class.

  She got up on one elbow and stared at him. “You’re nervous? I didn’t know you ever got nervous!”

  “Don’t tell anybody.” He eyed her, serious as death. “Or I’ll have to kill you.”

  She smiled, obviously not alarmed. “I won’t, because . . . I’m nervous, too.”

  A reluctant grin tugged at his mouth. “We’re perfect for each other, aren’t we?”

  “Yes.” She put her hand on his shoulder. “We are.”

  Her T-shirt pulled tight across her breasts.

  He hoped she wasn’t turned off by sweat, because he was sweating with arousal and nerves.

  He’d gotten laid before. Enjoyed it thoroughly. How could he be so freaked this time?

  But he knew the answer. This was the first time it was important.

  Everything he’d read about girls said he had to go slowly, which meant he’d probably come three times before he got her bra off. But he didn’t, and managed the T-shirt and the bra—it was plain white, which made him think she was telling the truth about her panties—and her breasts looked like perfect caramel ice-cream scoops topped with pink sugar roses.

  He had to freeze for a while, keep himself carefully arched over her body, before he could kiss them, lick them, say, “They’re beautiful,” in a voice so sincere he felt like a preacher . . . but he’d never meant anything so much in his life.

  He had to pause again while she pushed his T-shirt up his chest—her palms brushed his nipples on the way past and he almost finished right there—but luckily for him, she was quick and efficient and his suffering was brief. Except then she ran her hands over his arms, over his chest, and winced at the bruise on his breastbone. “I didn’t think you were fighting anymore,” she said.

  “I practice every day, and fight every Thursday night.” She didn’t realize it, but he had compromised for her. He wanted to fight three nights a week.

  Instead he read poetry.

  Nevertheless, her lip trembled with disappointment, and he had to steel himself not to promise to quit altogether. But his trainer thought he had real promise, and it was the only way Samuel could see to get out of this stultifying town without being indebted to anything or anybody.

  So he changed the subject by making fast work of the zipper on her shorts. Pressing his palm flat on her belly, he looked into her eyes and slid his fingers down until he touched her clit.

  She was damp an
d warm, and she clamped her legs together. Then she half closed her eyes as if it felt good.

  So he moved really slowly, touched gently, and after a while—okay, after forever—he got her pants off—and proved to himself once and for all that she really did wear white cotton panties, boy cut.

  Then she wanted to take off his jeans.

  He wanted to rip off his jeans.

  But that would frighten her.

  So he got onto his knees and let her unzip him, touch him through his underwear, then push the denim off his hips. And his underwear. Then she stared at him and said—honest to God, she said—“It’s too big!”

  He didn’t know whether she was being funny or if she thought that was something he needed to hear—he most definitely didn’t; he didn’t need one more bit of encouragement—so he said, “It’s standard-issue. Haven’t you looked at any porn ever?”

  She ducked her head and blushed. “Yes, but it’s gross, and everyone knows they do stuff with Photoshop, so I didn’t think . . .”

  He was not in the mood to discuss whether the stuff on porn sites was faked, so he climbed out of his jeans, shoved them over the edge, and smiled at her. Then he realized—smooth move—the condom was in his pocket on the floor.

  She giggled when he dove for it.

  She still giggled when he came back with the foil packet in his teeth. She took it away from him, placed it on the windowsill, wrapped her arms around his neck, and kissed him. “I’m so glad it’s you,” she said.

  Me, too. But he couldn’t talk. He was too busy trying not to feel her hard little nipples poking into his chest, and the way she squirmed as she kissed him, and . . . Oh, God. She opened her legs and let him settle against her.

  “I like the way your skin feels against mine.” Her eyes looked rapt, her mouth puffy from kissing.

  For the first time, he relaxed a little. Because she was liking this, she was feeling the passion, and more than that, she was feeling the closeness between them—and so was he. So he caressed her breasts some more, touching as much as he liked—which was a lot—and when he slid his fingers down to her hips, she was breathing hard and whimpering softly. Which was good . . . and bad, because it made him have hallucinations about doing this now.