“We’re going in one now. This is the altar.” For a moment the light was blocked by his body as he entered a smaller chamber. Then he turned and the steady lamplight fell over the stone walls, illuminating a small cave nestled within the larger one.
It was a sanctum indeed, and comforting to have the roof closer and fewer shadows collecting at the edges of the light. A slab of smoothed stone ran parallel to the back wall, and it was difficult to tell in the flickering illumination, but Caroline thought she saw symbols inscribed on the rocks above.
“How did you find this place, the Cave of Zeus?”
“It’s been part of the local knowledge for centuries. The villagers’ ancestors worshipped here, or perhaps the people their ancestors displaced. After I’d been on Crete nearly a year, the villagers entrusted me with the location. I had to make solemn promises to help protect the place from harm, which I think includes forbidding Legault to dig about in here.”
“I’d imagine it would.”
“Still, I’ve found…” Alex set the lantern on a corner of the altar and knelt, scraping aside pebbles at the base. “Look here.”
He offered his hand, palm up, and Caroline set her fingers to the ancient bronze coin cupped there.
“How splendid.” She traced the coin, feeling the marks made by a long-ago craftsman. “How old, do you think?”
“Before the Caesars, maybe even longer.” He tucked the coin back at the base of the plinth, smoothing the loose pebbles. “Let’s make sure Pen and Nikos haven’t gone astray.”
He rose, gave a cursory brush to the knees of his trousers, then led the way back into the dim outer cathedral.
“Did you feel that?” Caroline stopped short, apprehension a cold breath on the back of her neck. “The floor shifted. Do you think—”
The rest of her words were lost in a deep, rising rumble of earth, a clatter of stone as the cave moved again. She let out a cry and Alex grabbed her shoulder and pushed her toward the cavern wall. She stumbled, the noise of falling rock terrifyingly loud around them, the lantern swinging crazily in his hold, rock dust hanging like smoke in air that seemed too solid to breathe.
“Shelter—go in!” He pushed her forward into a crevice that pierced the wall of the main cavern, one of the small, mysterious openings she had noted earlier.
Blindly thankful, she pressed into it. Stone walls on either side of her, but ahead the way was open. She held out her hands and stepped forward. Let there not be spiders. They did not like the cold, did they? She shuddered and kept going, Alex close behind. The earth shivered again. One strong arm looped about her waist and he drew her against him, shielding her from the wild stones tumbling and clattering outside their small refuge. His lips against her hair, the comforting solidity of him in the semidarkness as they waited for the world to be still. Her heart clamored with fear.
A tremendous, earth-thudding crash shook through her body and she flinched in his embrace. She closed her eyes and pressed her cheek against his chest. No matter what happened, she would be safe with him. Her breath escaped in little, frantic bursts.
“Shh,” he breathed, arm tightening around her.
With a last grumble and grind of stone, the quake subsided. She forced her breathing to smooth. “Was that…I knew Crete suffered mild tremors…but that!”
“That was more than a mild tremor.” Concern etched his voice. “Are you unharmed?”
“Yes.” Shaken but—“Pen!” She pivoted in his embrace. “We must find her!” Her mind offered up a dreadful image of the girl lying beneath tumbled stones, bruised and bleeding, or worse….
He released her and turned, leading the way back up the tunnel. The lantern cast a circle of dusky light around them.
“Bloody hell.” Alex stopped and she craned, trying to see past.
“What? What is it?” Not Pen, please not Pen.
He stepped forward over the rubble littering the floor and lifted the lantern. “The way is blocked,” he said, voice tight. Where there had been an opening back to the main cave now was only a tumbled matrix of rock.
“But—we have to get back.” Her throat was dry, and she tasted dust on her lips.
“Too much stone has fallen from the wall in the main cavern. Here.” He thrust the lantern at her. “Maybe I can clear enough at the top to get through.”
Taking the light, she retreated, giving him room to throw down the stones he was dislodging. Twice he had to leap clear as his prying released larger rocks. But for every stone he threw down, another took its place. At length he stopped. Caroline saw his hands were dusty and nicked, a long scrape tracing redly down the back of one wrist.
He looked at her, expression set. “Caroline, I don’t think we can get through. It’s packed solid, and there’s a great boulder wedged in the way.”
The growing seriousness of their situation was beginning to constrict her, darker even than the shadows cast by their sole lantern. She fought a rising sense of panic and made herself take long, even breaths. They had to get out. Her mind skittered away from the thought they might be trapped. Her hands were cold.
“Do you think yelling will help?”
They tried, but the earth muffled their voices—and who knew if there was anyone to hear? Pen. Fear for the girl lodged in her chest and she redoubled her cries. But variations of We’re in here! and Help! and Can you hear us?! could go on only so long.
“I don’t think that worked.” Hoarse and weary, she slumped against the wall.
“We can’t know that.” He slid down beside her. “Let’s wait a bit and see if there’s any response.”
He set his arm around her shoulders and she leaned into him, resting her head over his heartbeat and closing her eyes, closing out the sight of stone, stone, stone. The enormity of their predicament seeped like ice into her bones. Even his presence could not warm her.
“Will this be our grave?” She opened her eyes, vision blurred by tears.
“No!” He spoke as if by will alone he could hold back their fate. “No. There’s a chance the passage opens up, connects back to the main cavern. If we can’t go back, we will go forward.”
She nodded and felt his lips brush her cheek.
“Don’t lose hope,” he said.
No—it was not in her nature. She sat and gave him a wavering smile. “Wandering the labyrinth? But…I didn’t bring any string.”
A brief spark of humor lit his eyes, despite the strain at the corners of his mouth. “If we find the main cavern we won’t need string. And if we don’t…” His voice trailed off.
“We won’t need string then, either,” she said, filling the pause.
He stood and picked up the lantern. “Let’s go, while we still have light to see by.”
She shook out her skirts, then followed him. The rough corridor continued a few dozen yards, stone walls close on either side, then began sloping down. What was that ahead? Her heart jolted. Another light? Were they found? She peered around Alex’s shoulder.
No. It was no rescue. Only their own light, mirrored in the still surface of an underground pool. She wrapped her arms about herself.
Alex stopped at the edge, the black water silently spreading before them, and lifted the lantern high. The passageway they stood in opened into a larger cave—she could sense the expanse more than see it, but there were no stars reflected in the pool that covered the floor. Only a blind and sightless sky, a roof of stone arching over them.
“Is it very deep?” Dread stirred in her again, woken by the dark, nameless water. Remember to breathe. In. Out.
Think of Hyde Park on a sunny afternoon. The neatly kept rosebushes in her uncle’s garden. The wind off the sea, blowing her hair back from her face.
“There’s only one way to find out.” Alex removed his coat, then began stripping off his shirt.
Her eyes widened at the sight of his chest bared in the lamplight. Shadows in the hollow of his collarbone, tracing the firm lines of his muscled shoulders. He bent to his bo
ots and she took a step forward.
“Alex. Are you sure…?”
He kicked the footwear off and set his hands to his belt. “We don’t know how deep it is. And I prefer my clothing dry.” His voice was serious as he unfastened his trousers. She turned her eyes away but could not help looking a moment later.
Half illuminated, half shadowed as he set the light at the water’s edge, he was naked. He was perfect. She stared at him, this primal creature who had shed his skin of linen and wool to emerge wild and beautiful in the ancient darkness.
“You’re not taking the lantern?”
He shook his head. “No. I can’t risk sinking over my head and losing the light.”
“Be careful.” She wet her lips, watching as he waded into the still water. Fire-sparked ripples spread before him as he went deeper, his footsteps wary.
The outrageousness of his undressing had distracted her, but as he went farther into the shadows her fear returned. Darkness crouched at the edge of the small circle of light. Trapped, a mountain of stone between her and the world of the living. What if they did not find a way out? What if Alex slipped under the water and did not return? She could not bear this alone.
A splash, he let out a sound.
“Alex! Are you all right?” Her voice trembled, echoing off invisible walls.
His reply was distant. “There’s a deep spot here, but the rest of the pool is not so bad. We’ll avoid it next time.”
“Next time?” Caroline twisted her hands in her skirts.
For the space of a long minute, perhaps two, she could hear nothing. Then his voice came to her again from over the water.
“Courage. I’ve found the other side. It’s a smooth shore—we’ll need the light to see more. I’m coming back now.”
At least there was another side—a place to go to. It was enough to keep the dread from overtaking her. She leaned forward, watching for him, listening to him moving through the still water as he returned. Ripples preceded him, the motion drawing her eye until she could see him, striding waist deep in the inky pool. He emerged like some dark god, naked and streaming with water. The lamplight cast a warm glow over him, sparkled off the rivulets and drops. He was a creature of fire and night, so magnificent she could not take her eyes from him.
Without a word he bundled his clothes, secured them with the belt. Then he faced her.
“Your turn.”
“I…I beg your pardon?”
She could think of nothing else to say. Until that moment she had not thought—had not been able to think—that she would have to cross as well. But there was no way back, only forward, and to cross that water required becoming a different creature altogether.
Her hands went to the buttons of her blouse, paused. She glanced up at him, but he did not turn away to shield her modesty, just as she had not done the same for him. He simply waited for her to shed her clothes and stand beside him in the lamplight, every bit as naked and exposed as he was now.
Caroline swallowed. They were lost in a different world, governed by different rules. It seemed somehow fitting that he should stand there, glorious and bold in his own skin, and watch her with dark and shining eyes. She pushed the top button through, then the next, letting the fabric fall open over the thin cloth of her chemise.
A shrug and the blouse slithered off her shoulders, drifted to the floor. Her skirts were easy enough. Four buttons and they, too, slid down to pool at her feet. Nothing now but the thin slip of her undergarment. No corset—she had never favored them, and here on Crete no one cared if she was laced into a fortress of clothing.
His eyes shone as he watched her, his shoulders back, his black hair gleaming, his body hard and aroused. There was invitation and challenge in his gaze.
Grasping the fabric with both hands, she drew her chemise up, the slide of thin cotton giving way to cool air against her skin. Up, and over her head. Caroline shook her hair free and stood, half defiant, holding the garment in one hand.
The look in his eyes brought heat rushing through her, and a curious sense of freedom. She saw herself suddenly as he did, a goddess made manifest, surrounded by a sphere of light within a sphere of darkness. Persephone to his Hades, light to his shadow.
He knelt and gathered her discarded garments. Without a word she handed him the chemise and he bundled her clothing with his, then stood and held out his hand. She took it, lifted the lantern with her free hand, and let him lead her to the edge of the pool.
In that moment before stepping into the mirror-flat water she caught her own pale reflection. The curve of her hips, her round breasts, the triangle of hair above her sex—and him beside her, a darker shadow on the water. Then they waded forward and the image fractured into ripples.
He led her through the midnight water, avoiding the depths. Her heart was racing, her breath deep and shaky, but not from cold. From the heat of his touch, from the heat within her. Something primal unfurled within her, something called to life by the flickering light, the water-marked quiet. The perfection of her own self inside her own body, the perfection of the man beside her.
When they emerged on the far shore she felt transformed by the passage. A different creature, filled with nameless yearning. Her body hummed with awareness of Alex, naked and magnificent beside her. The ground was softer under her feet, not unyielding stone, as he drew her out of the water.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Alex released her hand and unfastened the bundle of clothing, then spread the garments to make a nest for them. The circle of lamplight shimmered with the two of them at their center. There was no need for words. Caroline felt it, an inexorable pulse, as if all of time had been distilled down to this one moment, this one breath. She set the lantern down.
Here, in the silence beneath the earth, there was no need for modesty, for shame. Propriety belonged to the surface and the world of the living. Some corner of her mind insisted she ought to blush and cover herself, to pretend a normalcy that was meaningless. The meaning was deeper here—the mysteries of a man and woman. Their separate perfection. Their joining. She still knew very little of it, but the promise of more saturated her senses.
“Come.” His voice was low, the single word thrumming through her. He opened his arms and she went, stepped unafraid into the circle of his embrace.
A circle of flame as their bodies met, skin to skin. Thighs, hips, his hardness pressing against her, her breasts against his chest. Their lips meeting, softness to softness and yet it was there the fire burned hottest. Sparks ran through her as his arms tightened, pulling her even closer. She slid her hands around his sides, spreading her fingers across his back.
Taut muscles under the skin. She ran her palms over his body, savoring the feel of him, the magnificence she held in her arms. The taste of him, his breath mingling with hers. He shifted, opened his mouth. The stroke of his tongue over hers, the desire uncoiling within her in response. This was wanting, this heavy heat that lay along her body, that made her want to press even closer, that opened her mouth eagerly beneath his. If not for him holding her she would have fallen, her senses so dizzy, consumed by their kiss.
“Wait,” he whispered against her lips.
She opened her eyes, blinked up at him. “Why?”
With a smile that held fierce and tender promises, he took a step back. Her body clamored in protest as the air settled on her skin, replacing his touch.
“I will find a way out for us—I swear it. But we need to save what light we have left. Sit.” He nodded to their clothing spread over the cave floor.
As soon as she had settled he bent over the lantern and blew it out. The darkness was immediate and complete. Caroline closed her eyes, then opened them again. There was no difference.
The rustle of cloth as he settled beside her. Moving as confidently as though he could see, he gathered her against him, lips unerring as he brushed them over hers. She sighed, the sound magnified in the darkness, and welcomed his tongue with her own.
R
obbed of sight, she was vividly aware of touch. Her skin tingled under the caress of his palms as he ran them over her shoulders, down her back, tracing the dip and curve where her hips flared. Her own hands found their way to the silkiness of his hair, and she wove her fingers through the strands. Mouth raised to his kiss, arms lifted, she was yearning upward, buoyed by the rising sensations within her.
Without warning he grasped her hips and lifted her onto him. She gasped against his mouth. Now she was facing him, straddling his legs, and he pulled her even closer until their hips touched. His hard maleness jutted up, pressed directly against the softness, the heat between her legs. A throbbing began there, low and insistent.
A throbbing that intensified as his hands slid around to cup her breasts, thumbs brushing over the taut peaks. So light, that touch, yet the shock coursed through her. Sweet torment as he circled his fingertips around her nipples, the playful touches drawing soft, breathy sounds from her throat. At last he brought thumb and fingers together, squeezing gently. White fire shot from his touch, and she pressed her hips hard against his as lightning flew through her.
“Yes,” he said, his breath warm against her cheek.
Yes. The syllable reverberated inside her, the utter rightness of their bodies, skin to skin, his touch waking sensations she had only half dreamed of.
He bent his head to trail kisses along her neck. She imagined each one shining with heat, shimmering in the darkness like a trail of stars laid across her skin. Along her collarbone, her shoulders. Down the curve of her breast until—
“Oh!” The sharp sound of pleasure escaped her as he set his mouth over her nipple. Already sensitized by his touches, the feel of his lips moving on her and the hot lap of his tongue were nearly unbearable. She could not keep still but arched against him, sending her heated breath up into the darkness, the air escaping her lungs as he caressed her.
The world narrowed to only this. The two of them, male and female, in the darkness. Yearning with desire, the scintillation of touch and breath, mouth and skin, the fire leaping between them. His hands slid to her back, bracing her as he savored her breasts, and she felt his breathing quicken in turn.
To Heal a Heart Page 15