Dark Journey (7 page)

He wasn't sure about Laura. Whether she would need persuasion or force. Seduction, or simply the crook of his finger.

He knew only that he wanted her, needed her so badly that his self-control was close to shattering. Those voices crying to him wouldn't have long to wait.

L
aura lay in bed, listening. She'd heard him on the balcony, and it had taken all her strength of will not to throw back the heavy covers and go to him. He was courting death out there in the freezing rain, and she wanted to bring him inside, to warm him, to find out what lay behind those mirrored sun-glasses.

She didn't, of course. She knew all too well what Jeremy had said to him in his soft, mellifluous voice. If Alex had had any interest in her, it would have vanished instantly when Jeremy told him how sick she was.

But then, she'd already told him herself, and it hadn't seemed to shock him. Her father had always warned her of unscrupulous men who would come after her, try to seduce her, marry her, knowing that she would die and they would inherit her share of the Fitzpatrick fortune. Perhaps Alex was one of those. After all, what did she know about him? A ski bum, appearing suddenly on the tightly patrolled slopes of Taylor Butte just as the world and the weather went haywire.

She thought she could feel something between the two of them. Some strand, some rope, of longing, of recognition. She was probably going crazy from the stress of William's last weeks and the demands of her own failing body. She had thought she would die tonight, alone in the forest. She'd felt the pain, the sudden cessation of breath and life and heartbeat, and when she looked up, she'd seen nothing but a clear white light.

And Alex, holding out a hand to her.

She hadn't taken that hand, a fact that stayed with her, oddly enough. She'd wanted to. With all her damaged heart, she'd wanted to.

But instead, she'd opened her eyes, struggled to her feet unaided and brought him home with her.

What would he do if she got out of bed and walked into his room? Would he welcome her into his bed? Would he expect knowledge and experience? Would he give her pleasure? Would she die?

She would never find out the answers to those questions. She would do as her family expected of her. She would die, sooner or later, a virgin, never knowing life or sex or passion. She would be a good girl, as the good Fitzpatricks expected her to be.

She punched the pillow, hard, before she turned over and went to sleep.

"Y
ou're up early." Laura poured herself a cup of herb tea, ignoring the tantalizing odor of dark-roasted coffee with a stoic effort. Her doctor had banned even decaffeinated coffee in the past few years, and the enticing scent was almost more torment than the sound of Alex had been, tossing in the bed beyond her wall.

Jeremy yawned, then rubbed his bristly jaw. "I fell asleep by Father's bed," he admitted. "Lucky for me, Cynthia isn't the type to worry."

Laura glanced out at the overcast morning. The wind still whipped through the treetops; the thunder still rumbled. "You've rather gone beyond that stage in your marriage, haven't you?" She took a scone, ignored the butter and sat down next to her brother.

Jeremy managed a boyish smile as he drained his cup of fresh-ground coffee with unappreciative haste. "Well, we've actually been talking about a future."

Laura stared at him. "A future? You mean a reconciliation? I thought things were years past that."

Jeremy shrugged. "Life is full of possibilities, don't you think? On a morning like this, I feel incredibly alive. Like I could do just about anything I wanted."

Laura looked out at the stormy violence of the day, then back to her usually stolid older brother. "I think you should go down to the cottage and get some sleep," she said flatly. "I know why you stayed here, and I'm not very happy about it."

The change in his shallow blue eyes was startling, brief and just a bit frightening. Absurd – there was nothing the least bit frightening about Jeremy. "What do you mean?" he said in a completely expressionless voice.

"You wanted to play chaperone for me, didn't you? For some reason you thought I'd go traipsing off to bed with a perfect stranger, and you didn't even trust your heavy-handed warnings to make him keep his distance."

The tension vanished from his shoulders as swiftly as it had come. "You said he was an old friend," Jeremy murmured. "Not a stranger."

She wasn't used to lying. As a matter of fact, she didn't know where the lie had come from in the first place, or whether it was, indeed, a lie. Alex didn't feel like a stranger. He felt like part of her, and, in some inexplicable way, he seemed bound to her past and her future. And now, suddenly, to her present, as well.

"I wasn't sure you believed me," she said, amazed at how easily the lies were coming.

Jeremy reached out and put his hand over hers. It was a soft hand, with short, pudgy fingers, a hand that had never known a day's physical labor. "We're family, Laura," he said earnestly. "If not by blood, then by caring. We're the Fitzpatricks. We don't lie to each other."

She didn't move. She wanted to pull her hand away from his—an odd reaction, when physical touches were so scarce in her family that she'd always tried to cherish them. She let her hand rest beneath his and summoned up a semblance of a smile.

"It would be wonderful if you and Cynthia could manage to patch things up," she said, still not quite certain if she thought so.

"I'm ever hopeful," Jeremy said, releasing her hand to drain his coffee. "In the meantime, I think I'll grab a shower and a shave while I'm up here. The guest house has its own generator, but it's not as powerful as the one up here. Might as well save the hot water for the others." He rose, an affable expression on his face that suddenly froze when he looked past her shoulder to the door.

Laura didn't need to turn to guess who stood there. She'd felt his presence moments before, with an imperceptible tightening of her skin, a sudden, dangerous racing of her heart, a flush of heat across her face.

"Good morning," Alex said, his voice soft, husky, faintly accented.

"You're up early." Some of Jeremy's good cheer had vanished. "I thought the French slept late."

Alex's laugh was low and faintly derisive. "The French sleep however they wish to. I personally have little need of sleep."

The tension in the room was almost painful, and Laura dived in, determined to lighten things up. "Besides, Alex is a skier. They rise early so they don't miss the first runs. Or so I've been told."

God, what an incredibly stupid thing to say,
she told herself, feeling the color flood her face.

"Very true,
ma chere,
" Alex murmured.

Laura turned to look at him. He was dressed all in black, his midnight hair tied back from his angular face. The mirrored sunglasses were firmly in place against the dim light of the day.

Jeremy stood there, rigid, unmoving, the empty cup in his hand, clearly loath to leave the two of them alone. Laura cleared her throat, but Jeremy didn't even spare her a glance—all his attention was trained on the man who'd just entered the room.

"Do you mind if I pour myself a cup of coffee?" Alex asked.

"Help yourself to anything," Laura said firmly. "And weren't you going to take a shower, Jeremy?"

"I can wait," her brother said stubbornly.

"Don't you think Cynthia might be worried about where you were last night?"

Jeremy gave himself a little shake, and his laughter sounded only slightly hollow. "You're right, of course. I won't be gone long."

If Alex heard the warning in Jeremy's voice, he chose to ignore it. He sat down next to Laura, a mug of coffee in one of his elegant, long-fingered hands. He placed a second mug of coffee in front of her.

She looked up at him, biting her lip. "I don't drink coffee," she said.

"You don't like it?"

"I love it. My heart can't take it. The doctors say even decaffeinated coffee has too much stimulant for my heart, and this is high-test. Mrs. Hawkins doesn't make coffee for wimps."

"Do you want it?"

"Yes."

"Then drink it."

She reached for it. The heat from the coffee warmed the handle of the mug, and she wanted it almost as much as she wanted him.

"Are you trying to kill me?" she asked, attempting to keep her voice light and humorous. It came out dead serious.

He shook his head, and she could see her reflection in the sunglasses. She looked pale, vulnerable, longing. "Nothing will harm you today," he said.

She believed him. She took a drink of the coffee, the bitter, smoky taste of it dancing on her tongue. When she set the cup down she looked at him, feeling the energy dance through her veins.

Reaching out, he touched her, putting his cool fingers against her flushed cheek in a faint, almost tentative caress. Almost as if he were afraid it might hurt her.

She smiled at him, feeling the slight tremor in her lips, in her heart. "You see," he murmured. "Nothing will hurt you today."

She stared at him, breathless, as he moved closer, his cool, cool fingers stroking her cheek. His lips were damp from the coffee, as were hers, and she wondered what French roast coffee would taste like on the mouth of a French man. She knew she was about to find out.

His lips were cool, as well. Cool, damp, a faint, almost tentative pressure against her own firmly closed ones. He drew back, and she stared at him. And at her own reflection in his mirrored glasses.

"Open your mouth for me, Laura," he whispered. It was not a request.

She obeyed. His mouth covered hers, open, wet, possessive, and she tasted his tongue. She didn't know whether she would have pulled away, but his fingers had threaded through her hair, holding her head in place, and he deepened the kiss into a long, thorough caress of tongue and teeth and lips, heart and soul, enticing her, seducing her, until she caught her breath and kissed him back, letting him lure her tongue forward, dancing with his, the intimacy shocking, arousing, devastating.

When he pulled away from her, his hand was still tight in her hair. She opened her eyes to stare up at his mirrored eyes. "Is that why they call it French kissing?" she asked dazedly.

He laughed then. The sound was soft, surprising, almost unbearably intimate. "Did you like it?"

"Yes."

"Do you want more?"

"Yes." The word was a sibilant sound in the quiet morning, and he moved closer again, his mouth hovering over hers.

The scream that tore through the house was blood-curdling in its horror. High-pitched, a hollow, keening, sexless wail of such abject terror that Laura tore herself away from Alex, knocking the coffee over as she jumped up. The liquid spread like a black stain, soaking into the white tablecloth, spilling onto Laura's jeans, burning her.

"Oh, God," she moaned, barely aware of her burned flesh. "It sounds as if someone died."

"I doubt it," Alex said in a dry voice. He rose, taking her hand. "Shall we see?"

J
eremy stood in the hallway, his color ashen. He was staring at the front door with an expression of abject horror, but the three people crowding inside the tiled entryway were too busy arguing to pay much attention to him.