by Molly Harper
He dropped his shirt on a relatively dry-looking, flat rock. “Come on, how can you see water like that and not want to wash up?”
“Would you like me to alphabetize my reasons or organize them by importance?”
He grinned broadly, teeth gleaming in the bluish glow of the moon, as he wriggled his hips and let his pants fall around his ankles. “I figured you would have them. Hit me.”
I stared up at the host of gloriously visible stars above us, to avoid the spectacle of Finn standing there in very little besides a naughty smile. I’d guessed he was fit just from the highly unlikely triangular hip-to-shoulder ratio. But good Lord. His abdominals had abdominals. He looked like a nocturnal commercial for boxer briefs.
While my rational brain knew the name for those abdominal muscles that formed a distinct V shape over his hip bones, the rest of my brain was concentrated on keeping me from making “grabby paws” at said hip bones and keeping up conversation.
“That’s a very dangerous offer to make to a woman you’ve thrown out of a plane.”
“You keep saying ‘thrown.’ What do you mean, ‘thrown’?” he exclaimed, throwing his arms wide, which did some interesting things in terms of moving parts of his anatomy. “I jumped, cradling you carefully in my arms and using my body to shield you from harm.”
“It’s very difficult to make that distinction when you’re paralyzed with fear.”
“Fine, but why don’t you want to swim in the lake? Despite the fact that we’re dirty, sticky, and somewhat smelly and deserve to do something nice for ourselves?”
“I’ve seen a horror movie? I’ve seen wacky camp movies? The minute I take my clothes off and leave them on the shore, either I will be hacked up by a psycho in a hockey mask, or some smartass kids from the rival camp will steal them so I have to streak.”
“Rest assured that if any delinquents or serial killers try to get you, I will use my vampire speed to defend you or your clothes. What else have you got?”
“It’s dark and unchlorinated, and I can’t see the bottom. I don’t know what kind of gross fish and possible lake monsters are living in that water.”
“The lake monster thing seems unlikely, but even if there was some ancient predator lurking in central Kentucky, wouldn’t I be able to take it?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never seen you fistfight Nessie.”
“All right, I give you my solemn vow to protect you from all prehistoric lake monsters. What else?”
“We don’t know what people have been doing in that water. The bottom could be littered with fishhooks and broken bottles and used hypodermic needles that we could step on.”
He knelt in front of me and laid his palms on my fully clothed thighs. “You think there’s a big population of hard-drinking fishermen with intravenous drug problems in this particular state nature preserve?”
“I don’t know. I wouldn’t have guessed we would find a fully stocked deer-sniping bunker in the trees, but we did.”
Finn rolled his eyes and kicked off his shoes, then tugged off my carefully tied boots in record time. My bag disappeared from my shoulder and landed safely next to his clothes on the rock. And somehow my clothes, save for my sensible white cotton underwear and bra, seemed to evaporate off as a blur of white moved around me.
And then the bra and panties disappeared, too, appearing in a perfectly folded pile next to his clothes.
“What are you doing! That is a misuse of vampire speed!” I cried, clapping my hands over my important bits. The blur stopped, and a half-naked Finn stood before me. Grinning, he dropped his underwear, and I averted my eyes from sheer embarrassment.
Caught between mortification and shock, I ended up giggling hysterically instead of screaming, my laughter echoing off the surface of the water and bouncing into the trees. “What is wrong with you? And is there a medication for it?”
Well, in terms of responses to panic, frantic laughter was a new one.
Ignoring my attempts to cover myself, Finn scooped me up bridal-style and carried me out into the water. Even through my squirming and laughing, I noted that his hands stayed in “respectable” locations—behind my knees, under my arms. “We’re going to wash off. I will protect you from ax murderers and sea monsters and hypodermic needles.”
“Lake monsters,” I corrected.
“Those, too.”
I squealed, sealing my face against the crook of Finn’s neck, accepting that no matter what I did, he was going to take me out into this lake. I’d never been skinny-dipping before, a fact I was sure would shock Finn not at all. I’d never even swum in a lake, beyond our postcrash aqua-dash. And I wasn’t sure how I felt about doing it now. Part of me welcomed the respite, the chance to be even partially clean, but the idea of leaving the book on the shore, unprotected, when Ernie the pilot or some overcurious bear could wander by and—
“Holy hell, that’s cold!” I exclaimed, as the water slapped against my ass like an unforgiving palm. I was practically climbing Finn, clamping my arms around his neck and scrambling up his chest to try to get away from the uncomfortably chilly water. And I was basically smashing his face into my naked cleavage in the process.
“Sorry,” I muttered, hissing as I loosened my grip and dropped back into the freezing-freaking-cold water.
He smirked. “I wasn’t complaining.”
“You are to immediately delete my naked breasts from your memory!” I told him, shivering at the cool water flowing over my skin. I could practically feel the layers of sweat and grime dissolving.
“Nope. I never forget a beautiful pair of breasts,” he said solemnly. He dropped my legs into the water so he could tap his temple with his fingers. “They are forever stored in the ‘beautiful breast storage’ vault. Also, if you keep shivering against me like that, we’re going to have some other issues to resolve.”
I slapped at the surface of the water, splashing his smug face. He gasped, dropping me into the lake full-on. I sprang to the surface, wheezing with shock. He splashed me, and I smacked the water back at him. Soon we were diving and rough-housing like a pair of kids. I would never admit it, but it eventually felt rather nice.
“See?” he said. “This isn’t so bad.”
“The water still smells a little weird,” I complained lightly.
Scoffing, he ducked my head under the surface, plunging me into the cool, quiet wet. I bobbed up and flopped onto my back, letting my long, wet hair smack him in the face. He laughed, diving out of the way.
With him splashing contentedly out of my range, I floated on my back, staring at the stars above us. With so little light pollution out here in the sticks, the bits of stardust stood out, bold and clear. They looked so close it felt like I could reach out and touch them. The little specks of light were reflecting perfectly against the surface of the water, making it seem as though we were swimming among them.
I felt very small and insignificant in comparison to this vast expanse of sky, which I supposed was the whole point of people staring up at the stars. And still, I felt more relaxed than I had in days. It could have been the clean hair and the distinct lack of someone trying to kill me, but my “ordeal” suddenly didn’t seem so bad, especially with that sky spreading over my head.
When was the last time I had done something like this? I obviously wasn’t a camper. I didn’t go stargazing. I rarely left my apartment unless it was for research. When was the last time I had contemplated something outside my little sphere? I’d become so focused on controlling my health, my environment, my career, that I couldn’t see anything beyond it. I’d become completely self-involved, the center of my own universe. The only other person to achieve this anti-Copernican feat was my mother . . . Great. I’d become my freaking mother.
Competent or not, my therapist was getting fired when I got home.
Quietly, I heard Finn paddle up to my side, nudging my shoulder so I spun in a wide circle. He balanced his chin on my shoulder, and I felt his feet bump against my knees und
er the water, as if he was cradling my body with his under the surface.
I curled my hand around his head, securing us together as we spun. I didn’t want to live my life like that anymore, trapped in a fishbowl of my own making. I didn’t know if Finn would be the right person for me to try to expand that sphere with, but for now, I appreciated his company and damned if I didn’t enjoy his attention. He made me feel . . . Well, he made me want to curl into a tiny shrimp-shaped ball of insecurity when he took his shirt off. But he made me try new things and challenge myself, and he made me laugh. He made me angry, and I wasn’t afraid to let him know when he did it; a minor miracle, considering I’d spent years burying my negative emotions under layers of guilt and compliance. He was not my ideal man, by any definition I’d ever used for myself. But he might be what I needed.
“Admit that I was right.” His voice was a smug tickle against the shell of my ear.
“OK, OK, we needed a bath,” I confessed. “We were getting a little gamey.”
“You know, a lesser vampire would take advantage of the situation,” he said, ghosting his hand over my bare belly under the water. “Moonlight, nudity, your tender gratitude.”
I rolled, treading so close to him my feet bumped against his shins. “I think you’re overestimating the tenderness of my gratitude.”
He squinted at me for a long moment. “Am I?”
A teasing grin quirked my lips. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but I don’t like you that much.”
“You know, you’re right about a lot of things,” he told me. “But not that. You like me plenty.”
The sly smile slipped from his lips, and for once, he looked earnest. He slowly ducked his head and kissed me. Actually, “kissed” wasn’t an adequate word for what he did to my mouth. It was like he was speaking some language all his own and was trying to teach me with lips and teeth and tongue.
His hands slipped along my body under the cool water, pinning me against him, letting me appreciate the firm smoothness of his skin. My knees rose, bracing against his hips to anchor me to him. He turned us, round and round, as he spanned his hand across my collarbone. I twisted my fingers into his hair and pulled him close.
His fingers explored, teasing and petting me until I was gasping against his mouth. I didn’t think. The noise in my head receded. I didn’t think about the book or the danger or the miles and miles of woods between us and civilization. There was only Finn and his lips and the sensation of the water against my skin.
And that’s when the trouble started.
Maybe it was the sense memory, revived from being submerged in the cold water again. Or maybe it was that at the touch of Finn’s lips, my brain basically shut down all nonessential functions, such as worrying or second-guessing myself, giving it time to reboot like an overworked hard drive. Or it could have been the scent of Finn and the coppery water that brought forth a question that had been nagging at the far reaches of my brain.
Why hadn’t Finn done anything when Ernie was attacking me on the plane?
In my head, the mid-flight knife fight with Ernie played out. I could see the shiny black edge bursting through the cushion, barely missing my face. I could feel the tilt of the plane under my feet, the sick sensation of dropping from the sky on the mad whim of the wind. Finn was sitting in his seat, frozen, while I knocked the knife out of the pilot’s grasp. His face was impassive, and his eyes were blank.
And this was the part that my mind just couldn’t process: Ernie looked at Finn with disgust and asked, “What are you doing?”
At the time, I’d been confused about whom he was talking to. And then the fear and the adrenaline clouded my brain, keeping me from recalling some of the finer points of our earliest moments of misadventure. But now, I realized, Ernie had been talking to Finn. He was asking, “Aren’t you going to do anything?” as if Finn was somehow falling down on the job. There was something Finn was supposed to be doing that he wasn’t.
Because Finn was supposed to be helping Ernie take the book from me.
He was supposed to be helping Ernie, not sitting there like a handsome statue, watching it play out. And Ernie wasn’t pleased to be carrying all of the weight in my robbery and/or murder.
Finn was working with Ernie, or at the very least, he knew something he wasn’t letting on. Maybe the only reason he was keeping me safe from the psycho pilot was to keep the book for himself? Maybe he wanted to deliver the book to whoever had hired Ernie, along with someone who could help interpret its value? Or maybe he was just pissed off that whoever had hired him had hired someone else to crash the plane and take Finn down with it, so he was throwing any roadblocks he could into his employers’ path. Maybe my brain was running off on some paranoid track. But something was wrong. Something had been wrong since the moment I’d stepped onto that damn plane.
Why would Finn kiss me? Why would he keep me safe? Why would he work so hard to get water and food for me? Because he was trying to get me to trust him. Because it would make me easier to manage if I was healthy and grateful to him. It would make me easier to handle, the way he was handling me—quite literally—now.
I pulled away from Finn, and he followed, his mouth making hungry motions against the air. “What?”
Right. Not the time to panic. I was just naked, in a dirty body of water, with an apex predator who’d lied to me and strung me along for his own amusement and/or possible profit. Also, his hands were on my bare breasts.
I would panic later, after I got away from him. I would give myself a stern talking to about my pattern of trusting handsome faces and letting myself get distracted from my goals. But for right now, I needed to get out of a situation where Finn could very easily drown me if he suspected I’d figured him out.
Betrayal bloomed hot and sharp in my chest, like acid being poured over a long-scarred wound. How could I have trusted Finn, even a little bit? How could I have not guessed what he was after all along? Had I really thought he liked me? Was I really that pathetic? Had he been laughing at me this whole time? Was I ever going to learn?
I stroked backward, away from him, a vacant smile pasted on my lips. His hands stretched out toward me, as if to follow, but he hung back, staring at me. His head cocked to the side as he studied me, most likely because I was the first person to voluntarily break off a kiss with him since the 1960s.
“We should get going,” I told him, fighting hard to keep my voice steady. I prayed that Finn couldn’t hear the pounding of my thoroughly cracked heart. “We don’t want to waste too much time.”
It was all details, keeping my face neutral, making my limbs move smoothly as I swam steadily back to shore. He treaded along beside me, frowning all the while. “You all right, kitten?”
I bit back a sob that threatened to make my whole body convulse. He was really playing up the whole “smitten vampire” angle to perfection, with the cute nicknames and the feigned concern. It was a lie. Every time he smiled at me. Every time he touched me with gentleness. Every time he called me “kitten.” All lies. Unless, of course, in World War II–era Cleveland, “kitten” had originally meant “you hormone-addled moron.”
I could taste bile rising in my throat, and I prayed I wouldn’t throw up my crackers. And Finn was still talking in this halting, worried manner that made it even harder not to scream.
“I shouldn’t have stripped you like that, without your permission. I’m sorry. I know you’re not used to that sort of thing.”
I gritted my teeth against my nausea and the bite of cool evening air against my wet face and hair. Of course, I wouldn’t be used to being naked with a man, skinny-dipping and kissing and being generally naughty. But it was the way he said it, the pity, like I was some invalid, that grated across my nerves.
I rose out of the water, thankful that the bandages protected my injured feet from the bottom muck. I crossed my arms over my chest and scrambled as gracefully as I could to my clothes. Sliding into the jeans and sweater felt blissful against my s
kin, even if the clothes were dirty. They were warm and dry, and I was chilled to the bone, soaked through with regret and anger.
I should have known, I told myself sternly. Hadn’t I learned anything from Michael? The loss of my doctorate wasn’t enough to warn me off pretty men and their empty promises? When the hell was I going to grow up?
It was my mother’s voice inside my head, demanding these things of me, making me feel like that stupid, slow, small girl who was never quite enough. I closed my eyes against it and focused on Finn’s voice. He was still talking, asking me to say something, anything, but I ignored him as I reached the shore. I wrung the water out of my hair, resigned to dreadlocks by the time I left this place, and tied it up with an elastic. I slid into my boots and tied them tight. I slung the bag over my shoulder.
Finn, of course, was already dressed, because of his dirty, cheating vampire superpowers. But he hadn’t put his shoes on yet, and that was something I hoped would work to my advantage. He put a cool hand around my shoulder, attempting to turn me. “Kitten, please talk to me.”
I’d warned him not to call me “kitten.”
My hand wrapped around the strap of the purse, gathering it into the tightest, densest parcel I could manage. Finn was faster than me, and stronger; that wasn’t going to change. But he expected me to be his timid little kitty cat. He would not expect me to smack him in the face with my purse.
“You sonofabitch!” I yelled, swinging the bag directly at his face. As I smacked him over and over, I let loose a string of profanity that would have sent my mother into an early stroke. “How could you?” I demanded. “I trusted you!”
He swept my feet out from under me, sending me pitching into the damp grass. He straddled my hips, but I still had hold of my bag. I grabbed the ceramic knife and swept it forward, pressing it against his throat. I forced him to sit up, rolling us so that he was sprawled on the ground and I straddled him.