Demon Lover (21 page)

"Oh,
damn you
, you insufferable—" Julie slapped at his hand, forcing words through teeth clamped tightly on her rage. She was hurt and bewildered by the bitterness and anger in him—too hurt to recognize then that he had slipped back into his own past and wasn’t seeing her at all. "Well, I know
your
type, too! I’ll just bet you were one of those insufferably macho superjocks—the kind that went around bragging about conquests that never happened, making damn sure I didn’t have any ‘image’ left to protect!"

Her voice had risen to a shout that rang in the silent morning. After a long moment, Chayne drew a breath and let it out in a low whistle. He lowered his head and rubbed at the back of his neck, muttering something that sounded like "touched a nerve."

"Julie…" His hand riffled through her hair and closed on the back of her neck. "I’m sorry."

She closed her eyes. The warm pressure on her neck moved to her throat and stroked gently up and down over the ache there.

"I don’t know what got into me. I didn’t mean to hurt you. It’s obvious someone already has. Tell me."

"No." Her voice was like sandpaper, and clearing her throat didn’t help. Giving her head a quick, violent shake, she pressed her lips together and reached up to grasp the powerful wrist at her throat. And then somehow, without intending to or understanding how she got there, she was in Chayne’s arms, shaking with silent sobs and held tightly against his warm, iron chest.

He held her while she fought for control, stroking her hair until she had quieted a bit, and then commanded quietly, "Tell me, Julie."

And incredibly she found herself telling him about Carl Swensen. Incredibly, because it was something she had never told a living soul. She told him in detail what Carl had done to her, dredging up from the dank and shadowy basement of her memory all the half–buried pain and fear and humiliation she had suffered as a naive fifteen–year–old.

By the time she had finished she was sobbing like a child again, crying as she had never cried before in all her memory. She wasn’t crying for the relatively minor traumas of a sheltered girl. She wept for the Armageddon in her grown–up woman’s heart. The war was over and she had lost. Surrender was unconditional. There would have to be a morning after, and to Julie the aftermath of a holocaust could not have looked bleaker.

She did love Chayne Younger. Coyote, smuggler, terrorist, criminal, demon—whatever he was, he was right. None of those things mattered. He was only a man, and she loved him. The arms that held her, the hands that stroked her hair, the neck into which she sobbed her anguish, the chest that pressed so hard against hers that she could feel its heartbeat as her own—they all belonged to a man: the man she loved. She never wanted to be anywhere but in those arms, ever.

Please, God,
she prayed,
let me stay here forever. Don’t let there be a tomorrow. Make the real world go away.

Make–believe. Couldn’t it all just be some sort of illusion? It had begun as a charade; why couldn’t the whole mess be make–believe, like a movie set? Chayne wasn’t a smuggler at all—he was a movie producer. And the others—all actors. Tomorrow the helicopter would arrive to disgorge cameras and lights and technicians and extras, and Chayne would smile and explain that it had all been set up in preparation for filming an epic about the history of Baja California.

"…And Julie, I’d like you to meet Rita and Geraldo Moreno, two of Mexico’s biggest film stars. You may have heard of them…"

The fantasy shimmered and dispersed. Chayne was saying, "Hush…hush, it’s all right."

It’s all right.
As if he knew the real cause of her tears.
It’s all right.
As he had told her more than once before.

Julie drew back, wiping her streaming eyes. "It’s all right?" she said incredulously. "It isn’t! It is not!" She knew she must look like a gargoyle, all red and swollen and stuffed up, but she couldn’t help it. "Oh, Chayne—please. Please, why can’t you stop it? You don’t have to do this terrible thing. You can still get out. We can take the camper and just go away." She waited, pleading with her eyes, seeing the answer in his even before he spoke.

"I’m sorry, Julie. I can’t."

"Why? Is it the money? Oh, God—just tell me why."

He shook his head slowly, his eyes dark and unreadable, and said simply, starkly, "I can’t."

"Damn you! Oh, damn you." Her hands, doubled into fists, pounded at his chest with futile passion. "You mercenary son of a— You cold–blooded—"

She froze, her eyes falling to the weal that slashed across his belly. She moved away from him, slowly lifting her swollen eyes to his impassive face.

"That’s it, isn’t it?" She sniffed and wiped at her face with trembling fingers. "It isn’t the money at all, is it? You’re in this for the love of it. It’s in your blood. The thrill, the excitement, the danger." She shook her head in wonder, refusing to see the white, pinched look around his eyes, his twisted mouth. "Oh, I’ve heard of men like you, men who get a taste of war and become addicted to it. War lovers. That’s why you do this, isn’t it? You love it. You can’t live without it. You…are a war lover!"

"
War lover?"
Chayne spat the words back at her. For a moment he looked as if he wanted to strangle her, and then the wild light went out of his eyes, leaving them cold and dead. In a curiously flat, metallic voice he said, "Julie Maguire, shall I tell you what I was doing while you were cartwheeling around your pretty green high school football field?"

The rage in her drained away as quickly as it had filled her, and was replaced by a nameless dread. She’d wanted to know about him, but now she was afraid of that knowledge. There was so much pain in his eyes.

He gave that empty, chilling little laugh he used so often. "I was flying a medevac chopper around the Mekong Delta, sweet Julie, a nice little garden spot complete with some interesting extras like booby traps, pungi pits and Bouncing Bettys. Oh, yeah—and napalm. Do you know what human flesh smells like when it’s been cooked from the inside out, Julie?"

She shook her head in stark horror, but it was too late for escape. He had caught her wrist in a numbing grip, and his eyes had turned inward to confront his own private demons. He rubbed mechanically at his scar for a moment and then, realizing what he was doing, gave that short, deadly laugh. "You seem to be fascinated by this little reminder. Shall I tell you how I got it?"

"No," she whispered desperately. "Please—I’m sorry."

As if she hadn’t spoken, he went on, his words like bullets, cold and impersonal. "I’d set my chopper down near a village—a unit had taken some friendly fire, with heavy casualties. The medic was just a kid—no more than nineteen—and he’d been hit, too. He was running around with a scalp wound as big as my hand, but he’d stuck a pressure bandage on it and put his helmet on over it to hold it in place, and he was doing what he could. I’d taken on almost a full load—all but the dead and good–as–dead—when a Vietnamese woman came running up, clutching this bundle to her breast. She wasn’t much more than a girl, really, not even as big as you are."

His voice had lost the harshness of anger and had gone soft and faraway. "Just a little bit of a thing. And she kept crying, ‘
Napalm, napalm,’
and holding on to that bundle." He looked right at her then, but Julie wondered whether he really saw her. His eyes were violet with anguish. "I put her in the chopper. If you’d ever seen what napalm does to human beings, you’d know why I didn’t look in that bundle.

"I went back for the medic. He didn’t want to leave, but I managed to convince him there wasn’t any reason for him to stay. He couldn’t even stand up, he’d lost so much blood, so I hoisted his arm over my shoulders and got a good grip on his belt and we started for the chopper.

"We both saw her at the same time—the woman." Chayne’s eyes stared sightlessly past Julie; she knew he was seeing it all over again—the stark, numbing horror was there, in his face. "She was V.C. And what she had in that bundle wasn’t a baby, it was grenades. She was standing there in the doorway of the chopper, and she looked us right in the eye and pulled out a grenade. I let go of the medic—there was an M–16 right there on the ground. I picked it up and aimed it at her—had her right there in my sights—but I didn’t fire. She pulled the pin on the grenade. And I didn’t…couldn’t…shoot her."

Chayne’s voice trailed off. He released her wrist and lay back, one arm across his eyes. Julie wondered if he would continue; she sensed the story wasn’t finished. After a moment his voice came again, sounding empty and tired.

"The medic bellowed like a wounded bull, put his head down and charged. I don’t know where he got the strength." He fell silent again while Julie’s heart pulsed agonizingly in slow motion. "A piece of that boy’s helmet tore a hole in my belly. So much," he said woodenly, "for the excitement…the thrill of war."

Julie sat absolutely still, beyond tears. In spite of the sun that burned her naked back, she felt cold, and there was an odd humming in her ears, like a high–voltage power line. She focused her eyes on Chayne, staring at him until her eyes burned, seeing the explosion in slow motion and living color.

She knew what he’d just done, and what it must have cost him. He had given her a piece of his deepest hidden self, a glimpse of a facet of his personality she was quite certain he didn’t allow very many people to see. It was a moment she knew might never come again, even if by some miracle she were to grow old with him.

What a rare and complex man he was. He was like a flower with thousands of petals, and she could spend a lifetime pulling them away one by one and still never reach his core. Now he had pulled a handful of those petals from his most vulnerable spot and tossed them into her lap, like a gift. Now he waited, tense and exposed, to see what she would do with them.

She knew what she wanted to do. She wanted to comfort him as he had comforted her, but where she had gone into his arms like filings to a magnet, he lay like an effigy, cold and withdrawn, the arm across his face a barricade against her.

Slowly, slowly, she put out her hand…and drew it back. And then, summoning all her courage, she reached out once more and touched her fingers to the ridge that marred the walnut satin of his belly.

His abdomen jerked, shrinking reflexively from her touch. And as before, his fingers closed on her wrist, pulling her hand away.

For a moment Julie knew frustration and defeat. Then she lifted her head, set her chin in determined lines and bent to touch her lips to the taut, sun–warmed skin of his torso. Her exploring tongue found the scar ridges and traced them, hesitantly at first, down across the quivering concavity of belly to the soft furring of hair below his navel.

There was the sibilant gasp of indrawn breath and then the suspension of breathing. The fingers on her wrist tightened until they hurt, but beneath her lips his belly muscles quivered like captive butterflies.

"Julie," his voice rasped. "What are you doing?"

She lifted her head just far enough to look into his bright, pain–filled eyes, then smiled and licked the salt taste of him from her lips.

"Hush…and let me heal your wound," she said, ducking her head to expel the words in soft puffs against his skin. "In the oldest and most natural way in the world."

F
OR ONE TIMELESS
moment there was absolute stillness; the flesh beneath her lips was as rigid as carved walnut. And then several quick tremors shuddered through Chayne’s body, and he embraced her head with his hands.

There was so much tension in him! Julie could almost hear it, not with her ears but with a new and special sense that was tuned to him alone. There was a curious restraint, too, as if he were trying to keep himself in check, like a man afraid of his own strength. Was he afraid of hurting her? He was holding her so tightly against him. Or—strong, macho man that he was—was he only afraid of his own emotions?

For Julie, his unexpected vulnerability was the battering ram that shattered the last tattered remnants of her defenses. Emotion burst through her like a supernova; she felt bigger, brighter, more powerful than a thousand suns. So this is love, she thought, dazed, as she tucked her arms around Chayne’s waist and held him as tightly as he held her. She felt as fiercely protective as a mother tiger—savage…ruthless. At that moment she knew she would kill for the man she held in her arms; she would die for him; and if he were indeed a demon, she would gladly give him her soul.

"God, Julie." Chayne’s voice was raw, as if it hurt his chest to talk. "I’m sorry."

"Shh…it’s all right."

"Please forgive me, Julie. I had no right—"

"Yes! Yes, you did."

"No. I had no right to lay all that on you. It was unforgivable."

"Chayne—"

"Inexcusable. I’m sorry, Julie, you didn’t deserve—Ouch!" He lifted both his head and hers and gave her a fierce, incredulous glare. "What did you do,
bite
me?"

"Just getting your attention," Julie said serenely, and ducked her head to nuzzle the spot on his abdomen she had just caught—not gently—between her teeth.

"My attention!"

"Hush. And now that I have it, do you suppose you could shut up?"

There was a moment’s shocked silence, and then he laughed out loud, an unrestrained, almost boyish peal of delight. The sound of it sent another seismic wave of emotion trembling through her as he hauled her up over his body and wrapped his arms around her, hugging her so hard her bones cracked. And then she was laughing and hugging him with all her strength, and for a while they clung to each other, breathless and shaking.

Presently Julie gave a series of small settling–down sighs and relaxed, her moist cheek pillowed on Chayne’s chest. His hair tickled her nose. She twitched it, then turned her face into his chest, located the smooth flat circle of his nipple and kissed it.

Chayne, who had relaxed his arms, squeezed her again and began to stroke her back. "Ah, Julie," he sighed. "You do heal me."