Forever

by Jacquelyn Frank

  “I thought shrinks weren’t supposed to say their patients were crazy,” he said, amusement shaping his fine mouth into a broaching smile. It kind of pissed her off even more.

  “Well I think I’m staring at a big fat exception to the rule,” she spat.

  “No doubt. Are you going to let me explain?”

  “Do I have a choice?”

  “My my, Marissa, you do get plucky when you’re nervous. Your defense mechanism is showing.”

  “You’re an ass,” she bit off. Then she realized she was insulting a very powerful ass and she swallowed audibly.

  “And you are either very, very brave, or very, very foolhardy.”

  “I’m teetering on a little bit of both,” she said with a weak, breathy sort of laugh.

  “I’m not going to hurt you,” he said. And in that tone of voice, with all that rich bass reaching out to cuddle her up in its unexpected tranquility, she felt herself craving the ability to believe him. The desire frustrated her to no end. She was a strong, independent, professional woman! She shouldn’t get all googly-eyed and mushy-hearted over the charming, handsome demigod who could smite her with a dirty look.

  She swallowed noisily.

  “You’ll forgive me if I don’t believe you,” she said, thinking it would have sounded much stronger if she weren’t breathing so damn hard. Her blood was racing through her veins, just as her breath raced in and out of her lungs.

  “Oh, but you do believe me,” he said, his tone even more coaxing, his hand lifting in a supplicating gesture. “If you didn’t, you would have run away from me long before now.”

  “Well, as you’re always pointing out, I’m not exactly wearing the right shoes for a foot race.”

  Jackson watched her tip a foot forward onto the ball of the black suede wedges she wore. They, like most of her shoe wardrobe, were no shorter than two inches in the heel, albeit not the four inches he was used to seeing her in. When she wore those shoes, she could look him dead in the eye. It was strangely erotic. She was not petite … not delicate. She was athletic and wickedly curvy, like a seductive Amazon woman, and he’d always had a weakness for women who could hold their own in a wrestling match with him.

  And wrestling with Marissa was getting delightfully trickier with every passing moment. Jackson supposed he should be more concerned. After all, his secret was out … and to the worst possible witness he could have imagined. Instead, he felt as though his entire body was revitalized, even beyond the typical rush of adrenaline.

  “Good point,” he said almost absently as he scanned the woods around them. Something was a little … off. He didn’t really know what it was, but it just was. Whether it was a cop’s gut instincts or the paranormal sense of the Bodywalker inside of him, his skin began to hum with the need to get them out of there.

  Problem was, he was as naked as the day he was born and the entire police department and a good portion of the town lay less than a mile away to make me feel …umAP from them. Even now he could hear the distant disturbances in the trees and underbrush as clumsy men and women stomped all over the woods looking for a lost child.

  The last thing he should be doing was wasting time toying with Marissa. But apparently he had zero self-control in the matter. Maybe it was because, in spite of all the damp pungent odors of the thick woods, he could smell her. Sweet and strong with an underlying streak of something undeniably sexual. It was how he had always imagined Marilyn Monroe must have smelled like. Living, breathing, oozing feminine lures. She was dazzlingly perfect, somehow having managed to keep herself from looking like she’d spent the past few hours tromping through the woods. It was one of the things that fascinated him. How did she manage to look and smell so temptingly perfect all throughout the entire day? And night.

  And day.

  He looked up at the lightening sky around them.

  “Listen to me Marissa. I have to get indoors, away from the touch of the sun before it breaks fully above the horizon line. If I’m caught in the sun it will paralyze me.”

  Her guffaw burst out in two paths, half by mouth and the other through her nose as she started to turn visibly pink along her skin.

  “If you tell me you’re a fucking vampire I’m going to find a very big stick, aim for your heart, and make you prove it.”

  “There’s no such thing as vampires,” he said with a wry little laugh of his own. “But you’ve already borne witness that there are more things in this world than the average human being is capable of understanding.”

  “I’ve seen you in sunlight,” she scoffed at him.

  “And yesterday was the very last day I could let myself go out in it. From this moment onward the touch of the sun is like poison to me.” He hesitated, and she leaned in toward him with unabashed curiosity. She knew there was something unexplainable about him, knew he was, indeed, different. Dangerously different. And still she leaned closer.

  “Poison?” she echoed. “Like …” She narrowed her eyes on him suspiciously. “Like turning to a poof of ash?” She made a small explosive sound with her lips, her hands blossoming outward to illustrate a mushrooming blast.

  “Nothing so dramatic,” he lied. As far as he was concerned, falling into a deathlike coma unable to move a single inch probably had its own moments of drama. Especially to an inexperienced onlooker. “I’d be happy to explain it after we find some kind of shelter. And”—he indicated his naked state—“I can’t exactly march out of here past the base of operations and not draw attention.”

  She giggled at that, probably in an attempt to hide the scorching blush blooming over her cheekbones as she let his encompassing hand gesture invite her to yet another eyeful of all things Jackson, including that wickedly naughty tattoo just begging to be touched, stroked, inspected …

  When he realized she was staring at him, openly contemplating him, it was all Jackson could do to keep himself from grinning. Or teasing. Either was bound to earn him a projectile shoe upside his head. He fiercely pushed away the awareness that threatened to crawl up inside him, along with a host of illicit thoughts.

  Marissa nibbled nervously at the inside of her lower lip. She could just march off to safety, leaving him there vulnerable and butt-ass naked and make him entirely someone else’s problem. If she had an ounce of brains in her head that was exactly what she ought to do. But …

  “You can leave me if you like,” he offered her quietly. “This really shouldn’t even be your problem.”

  Okay, now that was creepy. How’d he know she was just contemplating that as a possible option for action?

  “I can’t just leave you here,” she said, brushing flecks of bark off her skirt in a nervous gesture she didn’t usually allow herself to indulge in. Then she realized there was probably a whole hell of a lot of the stuff stuck in her hair. The man had wrecked half a forest, after all.

  Among other things.

  She had to be in shock. It was the only explanation for her inappropriate, leapfrogging thoughts. And to be honest, this whole holding on to her sanity thing was beginning to wear a little thin.

  Looking back she wasn’t sure what finally compelled her to run, but some stupid part of her PTSD brain thought it was a good idea and somehow thought she might be able to make it to some of the humans she could hear in the distance. As if they could actually help her.

  She made it all of five feet before he was on her.

  She lashed out wildly, connecting with something.

  “Ow! Marissa!”

  “Let go of me! Leave me alone!” she screamed at him.

  “Marissa, knock it off!”

  She didn’t. She stomped down hard on his foot, for all the good that would do. And she couldn’t believe he’d just said “ow.” Those other two had beaten him, burned him, and practically blown him up and he’d barely flinched. But one little elbow from little old her and she was supposed to believe she’d hurt him?

  Not freaking likely.

  Then in a sudden flight of movement he
r feet came up off the ground and she went hurtling forward. All of a sudden, there was a rock face in front of her and she screeched as they blasted right into it.

  And through it.

  A cave or cavern, hidden by all the overgrowth, barely big enough to walk around in.

  But she didn’t have the opportunity to take even a single step. He launched her straight into the back of the little cave, smacking both their bodies up against the wall, with her front pressing into the cold stone and his front pressed hard and hot all along the back of her body.

  Marissa gasped for every breath, the wall cold against her cheek and breasts. She watched his hand touch the stone near her face, just the tips of his fingers, drawing close to her while his other hand was on the other side of her, caging her in. And if the stone was cold, the looming strength of his body at her back was hot. He wasn’t touching her right then, but all she had to do was push away from the wall by just a pair of inches and she would find herself curved into his whipcord-strong body. It took everything she had to keep from doing exactly that. She forced herself, instead, to remember just how terrified she was of him. She was. Wasn’t she?

  “Marissa,” he breathed just behind her ear. “Marissa, Marissa, Marissa.” He said it so slowly. Just her name. The first one reproving. The second exasperated. The third calm. And the fourth … suggestive. It was just her name, but it was so much more than that.

  “You think you know me,” he said in a whisper. “You think I’m still the man who sat in your office struggling to deal with grief and loss. You still think I’m a patient. I’m wounded. I’m … human.”

  “A-aren’t you?” she stammered. She definitely wasn’t at all sure of that. Not anymore. Never again.

  “Fair question,” he said, his breath washing hotly down over her shoulder. “I’m willing to explain if you are willing to listen.”

  “I-I don’t see how I have any choice,” she said, struggling to speak as chills of fear and excitement chased each other down her skin over her spine. Just a little closer, part of her whispered. Run away, run far far away, another part whispered.

  “Now, there you’re wrong. With me you will always have a choice. I can’t promise a lot of things, but I can promise you that. Go on. Ask me to let you go. See what happens.”

  Marissa’s heart thundered against the press of the wall, her palms sweaty where they were braced against the cool stone. There it was, the perfect opportunity to get away, to be free. If he meant what he was saying she could leave. She could run away. She had that choice.

  She opened her mouth. She had every intention of asking him to let her go. But instead a shaky whisper left her.

  “If you’re not human, what are you?”

  Goddammit, her curiosity was going to be the death of her, she thought fiercely.

  “Oh, I’m human,” he assured her. “But I’m more than just the human male you know as Jackson Waverly. So much more.”

  “So I gathered,” she said roughly.

  His lips were against her temple and she felt him smile. For some reason it calmed her to know he was smiling. It was a ridiculous reaction, but it was there just the same.

  “I want to tell you a story, Marissa. Short and sweet. Something to help answer a few of the questions swimming around in your head.” He lifted a hand away from the wall and brushed cool fingers across her lips. The coolness turned to fire, as though he’d turned to flame against her, only this reaction was all her, coming from within her. Could he manipulate her body? With all she had seen him do … what couldn’t he do?

  “Once upon a time, a very long time ago, when pharaohs walked this earth and built tremendous monuments in the scorching desert sands, there lived a powerful and intense man … a king … named Menes. Menes was a great warrior as well as king. His great campaigns unified upper and lower Egypt. Brought disparate nations together under a single monarchy. It began a long age of Egyptian prosperity … and he was revered for it. They called him Scorpion … deadly … respected … acknowledged.

  “And though he had two wives, he never knew love in his original lifetime. No …” She felt him breathe a sigh across her cheek. “He didn’t even know the love of his son. He was foolish. He was focused on conquering the lands within his reach, thinking that was a value that was needed to make a life truly satisfying.” once againag.

  “But what …”

  “Shh,” he said against her ear. “Wait for it, angel. You’ll ruin the story.”

  The truth was, his story was having a calming effect. Although how calm she could be with all that intense male power against her back was relative. But he was distracting her from her fear of him. And it occurred to her that this was probably precisely why he was doing this.

  “Do you know what happens to great men of such hubris?” he asked her, his lips moving against the shell of her ear as he spoke.

  “They fall,” she answered breathlessly.

  “They fall,” he agreed. “They die in ignominious ways. They fail to be remembered for what they wanted to be remembered for. They become a punch line. Did you hear about the great pharaoh? Oh, yeah … didn’t he get mauled by a hippo?”

  She didn’t want to laugh. At least she didn’t understand how she could possibly find humor at that moment. But the breathy laugh escaped her just the same.

  “Life can be so bitterly amusing,” he said, and she could imagine the grim expression to match the tone of his voice. “But death can be ironic. As can rebirth.” His lips turned against her ear once more. “I was given a second chance I did not deserve. I was given a love for the ages that I did not deserve. I was given all of this, angel, and all I had to do was trade away ever knowing the finality of peaceful death. Instead I live forever, and die again and again and again. Each time more painful than the last … or so it seems. This time I was reborn in this body, my soul sharing this space with the man you know as Jackson Waverly. We have since become one in most ways. And we are called the king of all of our kind. We are pharaoh of all the Bodywalkers.”

  It took a long minute after he stopped for her to grasp that he was dead serious about this claim.

  “Okay, wait a minute. A pharaoh? A king? Jesus Christ, I would never have taken you for having a god complex,” she spat out. “This is preposterous!”

  “This is real. As real as the strength and body pressed against your back.” He leaned forward into her to illustrate his point. “As real as the heat of life that burns inside of me. A heat that rises every single time we lay eyes on you.”

  “Will you stop calling yourself a we?” she barked at him, trying to throw her temper at him in order to cover the liquid burn of arousal that splashed up against her every nerve ending just from the feel of him. “I swear to god I’m going to have them put a psych hold on you!”

  “And what about you, Marissa? Are you crazy? Or did you really see what you saw only a little while ago? Did what you see have any human explanation? When you tell someone else about it, will they believe you or threaten you with a psych hold?”

  Tears, inexplicable and wild, leapt into her eyes, her heart racing once again as she realized just how right he was. She wished, oh how she wished, she could unsee what had been seen. She wanted to go back. She wanted to once again be ignorant that these deadly things truly existed in their world. She knew without a doubt that ignorance was bliss in this instance.

  “Menes,” she whispered.

  “Yes,” he whispered back She nervously licked her lipsvg., again ending with a warm wash of breath over her that caused her nipples to tighten painfully against the wall she was still leaning on. “And Jackson,” he added. “Two souls, one body. We call ourselves Bodywalkers. And you do not remember this, but you were there the moment I was reborn.”

  She scoffed … well, half a scoff because he chose that moment to run the knuckles of his hand over her cheek and the sensation was ridiculously electrifying.

  Why? Why, she demanded of herself, does his touch always seem so
electrifying! It was just a touch!

  “I don’t know what you’re …”

  “Dream. Remember the dream you had when a blast of energy sent me crashing into a windshield. You cried over my body—”

  “Oh my god! Oh my god, please shut up! Let me go!” She had already been trembling from head to toe, but now she was shaking because she was so incredulous and upset by his words … by the implication of his words. “It was just a dream! Just a—”

  “If it were just a dream, then how would I know about it?” he asked, completely ignoring her request to be freed. “How would I know that you cried over me, dropping beautifully tender tears onto my face?”

  Marissa’s chest ached, partly from the way her heart was racing and now also because the emotion she had felt from that dream came rushing back over her. She wanted to push it away. To run away. To be anywhere but there and feeling what she was being forced to feel.

  “Please. Please,” she whispered. “Please stop.”

  Then Jackson’s hands were on her shoulders, and she felt him stepping back half a step. The relief she should have felt didn’t come because her traitorous body whimpered like a child who’d just had its favorite teddy bear taken away. Jackson pulled her away from the wall, but only enough to turn her around, his hands sliding up, his thumbs touching the underside of her chin and tipping her head back so that she was coaxed to look up into his eyes.

  “My people have lived among and within your people for centuries,” he said, the gentility of his voice reassuring and comforting in spite of her need to hold on to her panic and fear, because she knew that letting them go would mean acceptance and she did not, under any circumstances, want to accept what he was saying. “I will not claim we never harm anyone.”