Her expression turned stubborn. “I need you. I’m not leaving without you, Walker. Where you go, I go.”
She thought herself in love with him, and while he knew that wouldn’t last, he couldn’t resist basking for a time in the pleasure of it. “Then you are going back to town with me.”
Lilah put on her coat, but when she reached for the snowshoes, he took them and tucked them under his arm.
“I need those,” she warned.
“Not with me.” He held out his hand.
She grumbled as he banked the fire and led her outside. “I can’t slog through the snow like you. My legs will turn into icicles and fall off.” She frowned as she took a step onto the surface of the drift nearest the door. “I’m not sinking. Why am I not sinking?”
A flicker of movement caught his eye, but before he could catch sight of what made it, Lilah stepped in front of him.
“I know sunlight melts the top layers, and the cold air freezes them again, but not this fast.” She tried to push her boot through the snow. “It’s not budging.”
Instead of walking down the slope, she went around to the back of the cabin, and peered up at the peaks above. As she moved around to get a better view, she stumbled over a pair of planks sticking up out of the snow.
“Look at this.” She brushed the snow away from the surface of the crude cross. “Josiah Paul Jemmet. It’s a grave marker.”
He found three others hidden by snow and brush and read the names from them. “Anna Peterson Jemmet. Daniel Ethan Jemmet. David Nathan Jemmet.”
Lilah stood. “Why is everyone in this town named after dead people?”
Chapter 15
“I
don’t know.” He took her arm. “But we’d better I go.”
Something was watching them from the cover of the trees; he could feel the eyes tracking their movements. There was also something about the watcher that crept inside him and pulled at him, as if trying to lure him away from the woman. He turned his back on it and hustled Lilah around the cabin and down the slope, boosting her over obstacles and steadying her with his arm when she stumbled.
“Your mother should have named you Runner,” she grumbled breathlessly as the trees thinned and the back of the inn appeared. “I need a bath, and coffee. Lots of coffee. Maybe a bathtub filled with coffee. Are you a coffee or tea person in the morning?”
“Neither.” He glanced up at the mountain. Whatever had been outside the cabin had followed them. He was sure of it.
“Walker?”
He forced himself to look at her. “I will have whatever you like. Come.”
Once inside the inn, he helped her put away the things she had borrowed from Annie before he led her back to their room. He secured the door, and then stood beside it listening for any sound.
“Hey.” She came to stand beside him. “Don’t worry, Annie won’t wake up for a couple more hours.”
“Good.” He pulled off the knit hat from his head, and hair fell into his eyes—hair that was twice as long as it had been last night. He could not be seen like this. “Are there scissors in the bath?”
She nodded, and reached up to brush the black tangle back from his face. “Do we have to cut it?” She rubbed some strands between her fingertips. “I like you with all this Goth hair.”
He smiled a little. “Goth?”
“I can’t call it coal black; that’s too cliché. Tar is too gross.” She slid her fingers up to his scalp. “Onyx isn’t this silky. Neither is lava rock.” She dodged his mouth. “Oh, no, mister. I smell.”
“You smell of me. I like it.” He pulled her against him. “I want to kiss you.”
“You can do that.” She tugged him toward the bath. “But you have to scrub my back first.”
The same wild, unreasonable desire for her flared inside him, but this time he would show her that he was not a beast. He let her draw him into the bathroom, but when she began unfastening the buttons on his shirt, he stopped her.
“That will wait.” He bent to attend to the tub, and once it was filling, he began to undress her.
“A shower would be quicker,” she said.
“Not everything must be fast.” He took care not to tear at her damp clothes, but drew them off with all the care of a personal valet. From the basket on the counter he took the bow, untying the ribbon and gathering her hair up with it until it spilled from her crown like a fountain of fire. He helped her into the tub, and when she settled down, he quickly stripped off his own clothes and stepped in behind her. The water rose around them as he slid down and cradled her between his legs.
“You don’t really have to scrub my back, you know,” she said, sighing with pleasure as she nestled against him. “We could just soak for a couple days.”
“We could.” He picked up a bar of scented soap and worked it between his wet hands until they were white and slick with lather. “But the water would grow cold, and the innkeeper suspicious.” He placed his hands on her shoulders, smoothing them down her arms and back up to cup her throat. He had never taken a moment to appreciate how lovely and soft her skin was, delicately smooth but firm and resilient.
Her bottom wriggled against him as he lifted one of her arms from the water and soaped it down to her hand, covering her palm with his and then bringing her hand to her breast. He pushed his fingers through the backs of hers, and used them together to encircle the fullness, brushing her nipple with the inner pads until the plump peak contracted into a tight, pebbly bead.
Lilah made a low sound, but when she tried to turn, he held her in place. “Not yet.”
He attended to her other breast, and then took up the soap again. He shifted her up so he could rub the sweet curve of her belly, and slide his hand over the twin bows of her hip bones. Her head fell back against his shoulder as he massaged her thighs beneath the water, and stroked the sensitive creases behind her knees.
“I see what you’re doing,” she said, her words rushing with her breath. “This isn’t a bath. It’s revenge.”
He lifted her so that his erection slid between her buttocks, but he left it to rest there while he stroked the inside of her thigh. “This is for you, my heart. Not for me.”
She took in a sharp breath as his fingers drifted up and toyed with the curls over her mound. “Can I make a request?”
He brushed his lips over her ear. “Anything.”
“I want to feel you inside me.” She went still as he pressed two fingers between her folds, finding her and slowly filling her. “Could you . . . ?” She broke off, her breasts arching as her hips rolled. “Walker, please.”
As hard as he wanted to thrust his cock inside her, he held back. He had done little more than ravage her; now he would show her that he could also give her the tenderness and care she deserved.
Water slopped over the side of the tub as he turned her to face him, pulling her legs around his waist and perching her against his hips. He looked down to see the head of his penis protruding from her curls, and worked it in slow strokes against her.
Her eyelids drooped and her lips parted as she rubbed back. “Oh, that’s . . . just . . . oh.” She shivered as his ridge rode her clit, and clamped her hands on his shoulders. “You feel so good.”
He’d never held himself back like this, intent only on pleasing his lover, and now he understood how much he had denied himself. For him the act had never been much more than ridding his body of an uncomfortable need and finding a few hours of oblivion.
Watching Lilah finding her pleasure sank through the fortress around his cold heart, soothing the old wounds that had never healed, fading the shadows of despair and loneliness that had dwelled there for so long. It was an exquisite pain, this melting of the ice of his soul, but it could no longer withstand the force of her fire.
She bent her head to put her lips to his, and he brought her up, sliding against her until he felt the ellipse of tight, soft heat that melted over him like warm honey. Sliding into her body with tongue and cock made him groan, his body bunching under hers as he fought for his control.
Lilah’s breath painted his mouth as she writhed, working him deeper. The ribbon he’d tied in her hair slipped down and her hair spilled over her wet shoulders and curtained their faces.
He cupped the back of her head and put his mouth to her ear, grazing the rim with his teeth before he kissed it. He had never been a man trained for anything but war and death, but he wished he was more for her. He wanted to adorn her with poetry and gray pearls, drape her in love songs and lilac satin. More than that, he wanted to hear her say them again, those words no woman had ever spoken to him.
“Tell me,” he said before he could stop himself. “Tell me again what you feel for me.”
“You know it.” She looked down at his face and smiled, her eyes clear, her expression pure joy. “You’re all over me, inside me, in my bones and my blood and my heart. You’re part of my skin and my breath and my secrets. You’re my love, my lover, my beloved, the sun in my dreams, and the stars in my soul.” She closed her eyes as she reached the brink, and then opened them wide as he pushed deep and brought her over. “I love you.”
She fell against him, boneless and trembling, and he released the chains, falling into the tide of her passion as he poured himself into her, until they were lost together in that nameless place where two were made one.
As the door to the small suburban house opened, and the short, silver-haired woman behind it stared up at him, Samuel Taske put on his most benign smile.
“Mrs. Kimball? I’m Samuel Taske.” When she didn’t move, he gently added, “We spoke last night on the phone.”
“Yes, of course. I wasn’t expecting . . . ” She trailed off and stepped back. “I’m sorry. I’m not quite awake yet. Please, come in.”
He followed her through the hall to a family room, where she asked him to sit and offered him coffee. “I’m fine, thank you.” He braced himself with his cane as he lowered himself carefully onto what appeared to be the sturdiest piece of furniture, the end corner of a brown suede sectional sofa. She hovered, her hands twisting together. “I apologize for dropping in so unexpectedly, but as I told you last night, you may know something that can help me find my brother.”
Martha Kimball had readily accepted his lie about a younger brother who had served in the same region of Afghanistan as her son, and who like Walker Kimball had gone missing. “I don’t know that I can do that, Mr. Taske. They never told us what Walker was doing over there; it was all classified. You’d probably get more information from the Marine Corps.”
He’d already acquired Walker Kimball’s service records from a civilian data clerk who would now be retiring from her civilian job much sooner than she had anticipated. “Did Walker send a letter to you before he went on that last mission?”
“His unit wasn’t allowed to write home. No letters, no e-mail, not even a video at Christmas.” She drifted around the room, shifting things slightly here and there when she could find nothing to tidy. “I thought that was wrong. Walker would never say or do anything to compromise the mission. We only wanted to know that he was all right. You must have felt the same about your brother.”
“Yes.” Taske’s self-disgust rose another notch. “How did he keep in touch?”
“He would call us when he could, always at strange times. Every time the phone rings, I still run for it.” Martha Kimball stopped in front of him. “The counselor from the base, he said I should begin preparing myself, but I can’t.”
She bent down, picking up a wooden box inlaid with slivers of brass. “His commander sent this to me after my son was declared missing. Until they find his . . . him, it’s all I have.” She held it out to him.
Taske took it and carefully opened the lid. Inside lay an envelope filled with photos of what he assumed was the Kimball family, a compass, and a water-resistant watch with a broken nylon black band. No, not broken, he saw as he examined it, but sliced through, as if someone had been too impatient to unfasten the clasp and had instead cut it off.
Taske palmed the watch before he closed the lid and placed it back on the table. He was able to place the watch in his suit jacket pocket when he reached for his wallet, from which he took one of his business cards.
“If you do hear any news, or there is anything I can do for you, please call me,” he said as he stood and handed her the card. She smiled. “You’re very kind, Mr. Taske. I hope you find your brother soon.”
Taske couldn’t get out of the Kimball house fast enough. To Findley, who was waiting by the car, he said, “James, I am a complete and utter bastard.”
“I can’t agree, sir.” Findley helped him into the car before going around to slide in behind the wheel. “Shall I take you on to the hotel?”
“Yes, please.” He took out the watch he had stolen from Walker Kimball’s grieving mother, holding it between his gloves as he tried to clear his mind. He had stolen one of the few, pitiful artifacts Martha possessed to remind her of her only child’s noble sacrifice. It was one of the most unforgivable things he had ever done.
But as miserable as the guilt that gnawed inside him was, it was nothing compared with the barbed snake coiled around his spine. His doctors had been very clear about the rapid deterioration of his condition. In six months he would be in a wheelchair; in twelve he would be bedridden. The thought of spending the rest of his life staring at a ceiling gave him the strength to strip off his gloves.