He put one hand around the back of her head, cupping her and holding her still. The other hand moved open-palmed down her body, skimming curves, down between her legs. He felt her tense, then she laughed softly against his lips as he fumbled with the seat release. The seat jerked back suddenly, taking her with it. She laughed again, and the sound of it danced and twirled through Paul's nerves.
"A very, very, very long time.” He climbed over the gearbox, put his knees on either side of her waist. She laughed again, throaty and deep, as her arms went around his neck and he leaned into her for another kiss. “I haven't,” he licked at her upper lip, “kissed anyone,” he sent his tongue swirling down her arched throat, “in about one hundred years."
"Exaggeration never hurt anyone.” She arched her body against him.
Paul leaned back as far as he could and took her wrists in one of his hands. He lifted them above her head, and, with his free hand, skimmed the thin cotton shirt up over her head. Kate's eyes widened a little, her lips parting to catch her breath.
"Too much?” Paul asked.
After an instant's hesitation, Kate shook her head. “No. Too much for you?"
"Yes.” He stared at her, still holding her wrists. He wanted to keep her motionless, touch her everywhere, make her twist and scream and writhe. This was Kate, his Kate, under his hand, under his body, her eyes blinking too quickly, her breath coming too fast. He laid one finger against her captured wrist, and slowly, slowly, dragged the tip down the exposed inside of her arm.
Kate sucked in a sharp breath. Her eyes locked on his.
His finger swirled in the crook of her elbow, moved into the hollow of her underarm.
Her body squirmed just a little, but her eyes stayed steady, challenging him.
His finger stopped when it met the lacy top of her bra. He couldn't keep his eyes away. He had to look down and marvel at the sight of his fingertip brushing slowly along the lace, over the rise of her left breast, down into the valley between them. He watched the outline of her nipple swell against the white cotton cup.
With a sound that wasn't entirely human, he fell on her, grinding his mouth against hers, his body against hers.
Suddenly she winced and groaned—in pain, not pleasure. He jerked back.
"The bruises,” she whispered.
Paul looked down. His knee had abraded into the tender blue spots above her ribs.
"Oh, I'm sorry. I'll be..."
Kate rolled her head and reached for him. “I don't care.” She rose up from the seat, arching her body against him. “I don't care."
He knew she wasn't just talking about the pain.
One hand tangled in his hair, asking for more kisses. The other began fumbling with the buttons of his shirt. The sensation captivated him, the way her hands were shaking. Then she caught his lower lip in her teeth, demanding his attention there. He braced his hands on the seat and touched her only with his mouth. She used two hands on the buttons of his shirt, pulling it loose from his belt. He felt the brush of her fingers on his stomach, felt the muscles contract, felt his hips push against her. He couldn't stop it.
She flicked the last button and pushed the shirt open on his chest. She lifted her body and he lowered his. Skin on skin. His nerves flared. His skin melted. He couldn't tell where she began and he ended. He kissed her and it was like falling into water, like drowning. Her fingers began to ease the tongue of his belt from the buckle, and he lifted his hips, pressing his erection against her hand, desperate to be touched, to be loved again.
Her cell phone rang.
"No!” The sound ripped from her.
The insistent buzzing cleared Paul's brain. What was he doing? He couldn't do this.
"Throw the damn thing out the window.” Kate's hands ran up his stomach, his chest, to cup his face in a plea. “Please."
He tried to make his heart slow, his breath come normally. He shook his head, leaned over her body—her sweet, willing, loving body—to feel around for the squalling little device in her purse.
He felt her arms fall to her sides, felt the whisper of air against his shoulder as she sighed. “If it's not my stocking, it's my hair. If it's not my hair, it's the car breaking down. If it's not the car breaking down, the world is about to be smashed by a meteor."
Paul leaned his back against the dash, and handed her the cell phone.
She took it, flipped it open. “Kate Scott.” Her voice was still hoarse. The passion drained abruptly from her face, and she scooted up straight in the seat. “Ellie?” She listened, her brows drawing down into a frown. “Hold on, hold on. You're not at the hospital? When did you leave?” A pause. “I was probably out of range. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry.” Kate's voice talked over the voice in the cell phone. “It's okay, Ellie. It will be okay. It's your choice. I told you that, and I'll back you.” Another pause. Unconsciously, Kate nodded her head, validating and encouraging even though it couldn't be seen. “Listen, Ellie, listen. Can you get to the office? I can meet you there in two hours. You'll be safe, and we can talk about your options. There are shelters you can go to, they will never find you. I promise.” Another pause, longer. “I promise,” Kate said again, in a voice that Paul would believe anytime, anywhere. “Two hours. At the office. I promise."
She clicked the phone off and looked up at Paul. Her lip quivered, and her eyes filled up with tears. “I have to..."
He laid a finger against her beautiful, perfect lips. “Do you want me to take you straight to your office?"
A tear slipped out over her lashes. “Home first. I'll need my car."
He leaned down to kiss away the tear, but she turned her head and wiped it away herself. “I can't. I have to get it back together."
Wordlessly, Paul eased himself back over the gearshift and into the driver's seat. He reached into the back seat, picked up Kate's shirt and offered it to her. She took it without meeting his eyes and shrugged it over her head immediately.
"I'm sorry,” she whispered when she was dressed again. “We have to hurry."
With his own shirt still unbuttoned and open, Paul spun the Mercedes out of the mud and onto the road.
Kate made another call on her cell phone. “Dowd, it's Kate. The hospital called you? Great. Look, I told her to meet me there in two hours. Just hold her until I get there. Don't let Frischler know she's there. She doesn't want to testify. She wants to disappear.” Kate listened for a moment, her mouth coming open by degrees. “Since when do we care about the DA's case? If she doesn't want to testify, I'm not going to do anything but help her stay out of that witness box.” Another pause. “In two hours, maybe less. Just keep her there.” She closed the phone with a muttered curse.
Paul focused his attention on driving as quickly as he could down the winding mountain road. He tried to ignore that his skin still danced with the electricity of Kate's touch, that his lips were still warm and tingling, that under his belt he was as eager and desperate and hard as he had ever been. His body and soul and heart felt stretched on a rack, quivering, straining, helpless. The demon wails rippled through his blood.
Kate didn't speak. She took a brush from her purse and began dragging it through her tousled curls. Paul could see the self-recriminations, the guilt, written plainly on her face. She blamed herself for indulging while someone was counting on her. He put his eyes on the road again and drove a little faster.
When Bonaventure came into sight, Paul was suddenly gripped by the sense of no time, no time, he had run out of time. The black envelope, Laurie dying, and the sun hung so low in the sky.
"Kate."
She jumped a little; they had been silent for so long.
The car came to the first stop sign. Kate's house was just six blocks away.
"Listen, can you meet me?” Another stop sign, a left turn. “Can you meet me in your backyard, there, by that big tree? At dawn?"
She threw him a startled look. “At dawn?"
He nodded. “I'll explain everything then. I guarantee it.” Show
ing her was the only way he could make her understand. Make her believe. “Will you?"
She looked at the cell phone in her hand. “If I can. I don't ... there's no way to know how long I'm going to be tied up. Wait. No.” She straightened her spine. “Yes, I'll meet you. Under the big tree. At dawn.” She looked over at him, her green eyes steady. “I promise."
It was that same tone, and he believed her.
He pulled up into her drive. She already had her purse balanced on her knees. “If I kiss you goodbye I won't be able to get out of this car, until...” She couldn't even look at him.
"At dawn.” He pointed out the windshield. “Right here. The big tree."
Kate nodded, reached across the gearshift to grip his arm. Love and need and confusion and frustration went up between them like lit gunpowder. She jerked back as if burned, then hopped out of his car and into hers.
Her little blue Chevy whipped from the lot, squealed away while he sat, the Mercedes idling, frozen with the audacity of what he would do, come dawn.
Chapter Ten
Paul sat behind the wheel of the Mercedes as it idled at the curb opposite his house. Kate was gone, lost to him until dawn. And when she saw what sunrise did to him ... well, it was better than what sunset did to him. Even so, Paul feared she would run screaming out of his life forever. And now the basement light was on. The barely discernible flicker crept like a spider down the back of his neck. Only one person ever went into the basement, and only at one time during the year. Sander.
Paul pressed his forehead against the warm leather cover of the steering wheel. The engine's purr vibrated through his skull. “I can't do this."
What was left of his life had depended completely on Sander for a hundred years, longer than people knew their parents or lived with their spouses. He hated Sander. The emotion was like acid at the back of his throat, like broken glass under his skin. It was the one reliable truth of his cursed existence.
This year, right now, he had to go inside and pretend that the acid of his hate had transformed into submissive milk. And his hard-on for Kate still hadn't subsided.
"Shit.” His voice sounded hoarse—half with anguish, he thought, and half with left-over excitement. “Shit!"
Damn Alina anyway. He couldn't retreat by cutting his own throat. The unforgiving mechanics of the curse made his body vulnerable only to violence from Sander and Sander vulnerable only to violence from him. In the heat of the Provencal summer of ‘52, he'd put the muzzle of a .45 against his temple and tested it. He'd laid on his apartment floor for days, feeling the itch as his skull regrew around the bullet hole. Suicide was not an out. And if he killed Sander, the demon would overwhelm him, and he'd be trapped inside that black-and-white prison forever.
The demon sent him a bolstering shot of rage. Paul clenched his eyes shut and dug his fingernails into the leather of the steering wheel cover. The demon strafed his nerves with more anger, this time edged with desperation.
It wasn't just for himself he had to try this. He had to be the man who made Kate happy, who made her realize that life was a dance and not a military march. If he didn't pretend to submit to Sander and get the demon's name, Vern might go ahead and throw his life down at Paul's feet, along with Gloria's and Alina's. And whatever that thing was locked up inside him, and whatever it was that locked him up inside it every night, deserved to be free as well. He could free them all, even Sander, if he could just learn the demon's name.
Paul lifted his head and took a long, gulping breath. He could still taste the lingering presence of Kate in the air. His lips remembered the vibrations of her laughter as he'd kissed his way down her throat. The flesh of his stomach contracted under the remembered feather sweep of her palms.
He looked at his reflection in the rearview mirror. His skin glowed with a flush of excitement. His lips parted and touched and parted again in their need to kiss or be kissed. And behind the fly of his jeans, he remained eager and hard. It had been too long. He couldn't call his body to heel.
Paul dragged his fingers through his hair. Alright then. Let Sander think I look this way for him.
He put the Mercedes in gear, pulled back onto the street, and eased into the driveway. His hands shook when he turned off the ignition, sending his key ring rattling against the steering column.
"Shit."
Propelled by the demon's rage, he managed to move himself out of the car, up the stairs and through the front door. Immediately Paul scented his enemy: a musky, sophisticated cologne.
I have to do this. For Vern. For the demon. For Kate.
"Sander!” He hated the taste of that name in his mouth.
Paul heard the soft tread of footsteps rising from the basement. Smoothly oiled locks clicked like claws across glass. The basement door opened, and out of the darkness stepped Sander Wald.
"Paul.” He smoothed non-existent wrinkles from his gray silk shirt. Silver glittered at the cuffs. He smiled, breaking the smooth mask of his face. “It's so nice to see you."
Every year, Sander's smallness shocked Paul. In his mind, Sander loomed like a shadow in a funhouse mirror. In person, he was like wheat, thin and flimsy and topped with gold.
"I brought some wine.” Sander locked the basement door behind him, then held out his arm to invite Paul into the kitchen.
Paul crossed into the kitchen, feeling Sander at his back like an executioner's axe. In the center of the table stood a bottle and two matched goblets. Around them, carefully arranged, were the remnants of the flowers, the white petals gone to brown and curled up at the edges.
So much for looking submissive. Paul swallowed a bitter laugh.
"You didn't like my flowers, I see,” Sander said, sliding past him to sit at the opposite side of the table.
"Why did you send them?” Paul asked, managing to allow honest curiosity to cover up his disgust.
"Sit down. I'll pour."
Paul remained on his feet, waiting for an answer. Any sudden show of submission now wouldn't ring true. “Why did you send them?” he said, putting a faint echo of belligerence in his voice.
Sander sighed. His fingers sifted through the ruined petals. “It was meant to be a sign of a truce, Paul."
Paul barked out a disdainful laugh.
Sander shot to his feet. The chair legs scraped against the floor.
Paul took an involuntary step back. He saw a light gleam in Sander's eyes. He liked fear, and Paul didn't have to pretend to be afraid. Humiliation flooded through him, and the light in Sander's eyes burned brighter.
Maybe he has broken me after all. Fear wailed through him. The demon infused him with angry strength. Paul flung a mental arm into his memories and drew Kate out to stand beside him.
"A truce?” His voice was hoarse. He cleared his throat.
Sander smiled, gentle again. “Sit with me, Paul. Drink with me.” He sat, and tilted the bottle for Paul's inspection. “Meo-Camuzet's Vosne-Romanee Les Chaumes 2001."
A very good Burgundy. Paul's current favorite.
With his feet, Sander kicked the chair out from under the table towards Paul. Paul jumped, and Sander showed more teeth. “Sit."
Paul sat.
Sander filled the two goblets. The wine danced with deep red shadows as he held out the glass.
"Drink."
Paul took the goblet. He forced himself to let his fingers brush Sander's in the exchange. A horrible flurry of sensation danced through his palm and up his wrist. His erection refused to wilt.
Sander raised his glass. “To another year."
Paul had a vision: smashing the goblet on the tabletop and plunging the jagged remnants into Sander's throat. But he just raised his glass, too, and whispered, “Another year."
"I've had better years, I'm sorry to say.” Sander twirled the wine, sniffed delicately. “How was yours?” He took a sip, slurping air through his teeth.
Paul didn't trust himself to answer. He held himself still, his fingers tight around the stem of the goblet.
"Try the wine, Paul."
Under the coaxing veneer, Paul heard absolute command. He didn't realize he'd obeyed until the shimmering bouquet of the Burgundy danced in his mouth. For a moment, the sheer pleasure of it overwhelmed him. He tasted faded roses on the finish. An instinctive murmur of appreciation escaped his throat.
"Even after all this time, you still enjoy the taste."
Did he hear envy in Sander's tone? Paul put his goblet back on the table, all his senses on alert. “A truce, you said?"
Sander's lips turned upward. Paul had the distinct feeling of putting his foot in a snare. “I found that I missed our lunches.” In one dizzying moment, the ice of Sander's face melted. His eyes glowed with softer emotions: regret, affection, even a hint of embarrassment. “Did you?"
The floor seemed to slip away from beneath Paul's feet. He clung to the table so he wouldn't fall.
"Did you miss them, Paul?” Sander prompted.
"No,” Paul said, but he heard the confusion in his voice. He didn't have to fake it. He'd been so lost and lonely, so grateful to spend time with the only person left on the planet who knew him, his past, who shared something with him beyond an impersonal common humanity. If it weren't for the echo of Kate's laughter, the imprint of her kiss, he would be saying “yes” and meaning it, saying “yes” and asking for more.
I can't do this. I can't pretend. If he did, it might not be pretend. It might be real. He might not just break, but come apart completely.
The demon threw itself against the walls of its prison, rattling Paul's bones.
Sander's tongue flicked out and wet his thin lips. “I had thought,” he said, his voice wrapped in disappointment, “when I left you last year that we were on the cusp of coming to an understanding.” He stood up. “I'll be back for the ritual."
Bonds of Darkness Page 11