My Immortal (16 page)

“Oh. Sorry. But why would you be worried about me? I’m fine. In fact, I’m fabulous. I met this guy…he is amazing. He’s perfect, and I’ve finally figured out who I am, you know what I mean? It’s like I can define myself in him.” Lizzie gave a dreamy sigh in Marley’s ear.

Marley felt slapped. All the months, all this worry, and Lizzie had just run off with another guy? Her voice sounded sharp and shrill, even to her own ears. “Why haven’t you checked on Sebastian? Let someone know where to reach you?”

“He’s fine with Rachel. God, you sound so pissy. I haven’t talked to you in months and you’re already yelling at me.”

“Because I was worried about you! I thought you were dead in a ditch and you’re just off playing house with the flavor of the week? What if something had happened to your son?”

“Nothing happened, obviously,” Lizzie said with annoyance. “Give me a break.”

Marley closed her eyes and prayed. She had never been so angry with her sister in her entire life. This was too much. This was beyond what she could tolerate. “Where are you, Lizzie?”

“Shreveport. Where are you, Miss Piss?”

“New Orleans.”

“No shit? Wow, that’s cool. Let’s get together this weekend. Alex and I are going to a party at a plantation on Saturday. Where are you staying? I’ll ask Alex if he minds dropping me off at your hotel so we can have dinner together. I’m so impressed, Mar. You never go anywhere. Are you actually sightseeing by yourself?”

Marley looked out on Royal Street, her temples throbbing, neck tightening. As a matter of fact, she was sightseeing. But she wanted to throttle her sister six ways to Sunday. How could she not miss her son? “I came down here looking for you at Rosa de Montana when we didn’t hear from you. I’m staying there.”

“You’re staying there? Ohmigod, that’s so hot. Now I will definitely see you on Saturday, because that’s the party we’re going to. So what do you think of Damien? I can’t believe you managed an invite to stay in his house. That is so cool. Has he gotten in your pants yet? I know you have like a vault door over your zipper, but if anyone can get past your security, it’s Damien du Bourg.” Lizzie giggled.

Marley wanted to throw up, forehead clammy, stomach hot and roiling. Lizzie thought Marley was a joke, her prudishness a challenge to a man like Damien.

Maybe she was right.

Damien had barely put any effort into the chase—one dinner and an invitation to stay at the plantation—and she’d already let him touch her.

But worse than any of that was her realization that Lizzie didn’t really care about Marley’s feelings. Nor did Lizzie care about her son, and a piece of Marley’s love for her sister shriveled up and died.

“I was spending a lot of money on the hotel, and Damien was nice enough to offer me a place to stay,” she said, crossing her arm over her stomach. She suddenly felt cold, despite the balmy evening warmth.

“Whatever.” Lizzie snorted. “If you believe that, you are so dumb.”

Dumb was exactly how she felt. And numb. “Call Rachel, okay? Give her a number where she can reach you.”

“Fine.” There was a rustling, than Lizzie said, “Gotta go, sweetie. See you Saturday. Love you!”

“I…” Marley wasn’t sure what she was going to say, but Lizzie didn’t wait for her answer anyway. She had already hung up.

There was a row of tables inside a bakery across the street, the gallery windows and doors thrown open to the fresh air. Marley walked over, ordered a cup of coffee, sat down, and fought the lump in her throat. The sounds of the cars, the people, all rushed around her, but she felt disconnected, goose bumps on her arms, a hard icicle of pain stabbing into her chest.

She sat there for an hour, noiseless tears creeping down her cheeks, until the coffee she hadn’t touched was cold and the counter staff started giving her curious looks. They didn’t know what she was doing. Marley didn’t either.

The sobs came in the car during the hour-long drive back, ugly loud tears that shook her shoulders, blinded her, took over so violently that she parked at the gates of Rosa de Montana and let them have their way with her. Ten minutes later, when she pulled around by the house, Damien came out of the
pigeonnier
and opened her car door.

“Marley. I didn’t expect you to be gone so long. I was getting worried about you.”

She stepped out, knowing she looked like hell, knowing she’d never be able to hide the puffy eyes, splotchy cheeks, and sniffling nose. She didn’t care.

“What happened? What’s the matter?” He took in her appearance, put his hands on her shoulders and pulled her into his chest. “Marley…did the police find Lizzie?”

Did they find Lizzie’s body?
She could hear the unspoken words as clearly as if he’d yelled them. In some ways, she’d been better prepared to hear that horrible conclusion than what she’d actually heard.

The strong arms around her were comforting, and his chest was hard, solid, smelling like cigar. “Do you smoke?” she asked him, surprised by that. She’d never seen him smoking, but the rich tobacco scent seemed right on him, and she wanted to bury her nose in the cotton of his shirt, absorb him into her.

“On occasion. When I’m worried or thinking hard.” He squeezed her waist. “What the hell’s going on, Marley?”

She pulled back and looked up at him. “Lizzie called me. She’s fine and can’t imagine why I was worried about her.”

“Oh, shit. I’m sorry…I mean, I’m glad she’s alright, but I’m so sorry that…”

“That’s she’s a selfish bitch? Yeah, me too.” Marley felt tears pooling in her eyes again. “She didn’t even ask about Sebastian. How can she not wonder about him? Miss him? I don’t give a shit what she does to me, but when she neglects him, she hurts that little boy. He’s just a baby, for God’s sake. I’m so…” She shook her head, pulling away from him.

“Disgusted? Angry? You have every right to be.”

“You said it would be like this, that Lizzie was just off screwing around, and you were right. Lizzie said I’m dumb, and she’s right too. I am. I’m dumb enough to keep thinking that she’ll start caring about something other than herself.” When he reached for her again, Marley backed up, tears gushing again, blinding her. She twisted her hair into a bun and looked away, out toward the green hill that hid the river. “I hate feeling like this, so stupid, so ashamed.”

“Why the hell should you feel bad?” Damien asked, his voice rising. “You haven’t done anything wrong here. Lizzie should feel ashamed, not you. But you know she never will, and you can’t blame yourself for her flaws. You said yourself you think she’s bipolar. She probably needs medication. That is not your fault, Marley, and you can’t fix what’s wrong with her.”

Marley let go of her hair, all the rage inside her scaring her. She had never felt this intense, red, wet anger, this consuming, head-splitting furiousness, and she was ashamed, no matter what Damien said. Everything felt out of control, wild, insane. “I’m jealous of her,” she said, amazed she had the courage to say the words out loud.

“Why? You are a thousand times better a person.”

“But…” Marley swiped at her tears and clenched her fists. It was getting dark on the driveway, the night dropping down on them, gravel and shells under her sandals making noise as she paced back and forth, back and forth.

“Just say it.”

“I am jealous of Lizzie. Because she is a mother and I’m not. If I’m such a good person, why does that little boy belong to her and not to me?” Marley had never admitted that secret thought out loud. Maybe hadn’t even admitted it to herself. It felt horrible and wonderful all at the same time to purge its smallness out of herself. She wanted a child and she was angry that her sister, her flawed and selfish sister, had one she took for granted, casually treated like a pair of jeans that fell in and out of favor depending on her mood. It wasn’t fair, and it made Marley angry.

“Because you follow the rules and Lizzie doesn’t. Because she doesn’t think about anyone else but herself and you do. Any woman can be a mother by accident, but you’ll be a mother by choice, and your child will be very fortunate.”

He was trying really hard to be sweet and patient, even as he looked like he’d rather smack some sense into her, and Marley suddenly felt like laughing, an embarrassed giggle actually erupting from her mouth. She must sound like a complete and total lunatic stating the absolute obvious.

“God, thank you, Damien. I’m sorry all of this has been dumped in your lap. You’re probably regretting the day I showed up. I’ve got a whole department store full of baggage and I’m spilling it all over your driveway. I’m jealous of my sister. I admit it. Jealous because I want to have a baby and yet I have no clue how to go about finding a husband.”

“First of all, I don’t regret you showing up here. In fact, I’m very glad you did. I was feeling sorry for myself, you know, and you showed me I was being an ass. But if you want a baby, have a baby. Who the hell says you need a husband?”

Marley gave a watery laugh. He made it sound so easy, so simple. “I had actually decided to adopt a baby when I realized Lizzie was missing.”

“See? That sounds like a perfect solution. Stop taking care of your sister, who obviously doesn’t appreciate it, and start taking care of you.”

The lure of that was fantastically attractive. Marley took a deep breath, wiping her eyes on the sleeve of her shrug. “Why does it smell different out here at night? It smells damp or something.” The sounds of the insects were alive and buzzing all around her in the moss and trees.

“That’s the swamp, back on the other side of the sugar cane.”

“Take me into the swamp, Damien. Show me your property.” Marley suddenly felt reckless, desperate to do something, anything, unwilling to sit down and be alone with her ugly, unpleasant thoughts.

“Right now?”

It was stupid, insane, and he was going to say no, of course, but it felt good, wild, demanding, to ask for it. “Yes, right now.”

“Okay. We can take the boat out.”

Marley stared at him. “Are you serious? You’ll actually take me out there in the dark?”

“Sure. I have headlights on my boat and I’ve been out there in the dark plenty of times. I know my swamp.” He tilted his head. “You thought I’d say no.”

She nodded. “I thought you’d politely tell the good girl who’s fallen off her rocker to go in the house and take a Valium and go to bed. That everything would seem better in the morning.”

“Don’t you watch talk shows? That would be repressing your feelings. Sometimes you need to reach out, step outside of what makes sense, and let everything out. I understand that. God, do I understand that.” Damien reached for her hand. “You’re safe with me. Get as wild as you want, Marley.”

For the first time in her life, Marley understood the allure of danger, of speed, of accepting a thrilling dare and rushing off into the dark with it. On acting with utter impulse and not questioning it, doubting it, worrying it, or picking it apart.

Lizzie had never been tormented by her choices. She dove headfirst into random waters that looked sparkling and warm, and occasionally actually were. More often than not Lizzie crashed on the rocks, a violent splat on hard, unforgiving boulders, but she always dove again.

Marley had always wanted to dive, just once, arc up into the air like a dolphin and hurl herself off into oblivion, but she never had. Riding in the swamp with Damien felt like she had leaped off that cliff.

It was reckless, heading out into total darkness with a man she really didn’t know all that well. The motor drowned out the sound of the swamp, and it was too dark for her to see anything. Marley felt the humid spray of the water being tossed up by the boat cutting through the reeds and wondered how Damien could even see where they were going.

“If you look over the side you can see the reds of the gators’ eyes,” he said, leaning back toward her to talk, one hand still on the motor.

Marley gripped the bench she was sitting on. “Are you serious?” The concept of red-eyed alligators was fascinating and frightening all at once. She hooked her feet under the bench, gripped the seat, and leaned toward the side, peering into the darkness. The first thing she saw made her jump back into the middle of the boat. “Holy crap, there’s one right next to the boat.”

It was smaller than she expected, but the red eyes glowed, staring at her, mysterious and strange, watching her pull back, judging, like he knew she was afraid, knew she was a fraud, that she would always be a doormat, never wild, never fun. Marley scooted closer to the edge, defiant, locking her gaze onto his. She wouldn’t be afraid, she was tired of being afraid, tired of being safe and boring and lonely.

“What are you looking at?” she asked the gator. “I can be here if I want to.”

Damien laughed and killed the engine. The boat glided, cutting through the water smoothly. “I don’t think he cares if you’re here or not.”

“Then he can quit looking at us.” Marley swiveled around and stuck her tongue out at him in the dark as they moved past him.

“That’s not all there is in the water…Legend has it this swamp is haunted.”

Wonderful. Marley tried to sound skeptical, but her voice cracked. “Haunted by what?” Glancing around, she couldn’t help but think that if any place was going to be haunted, this murky swamp would be it.

“By the spirit of a slave, passing through on his way north after escaping from a plantation down the road.”

Damien paused and Marley was sure she didn’t want to know the rest. Yet she found herself saying, “So he died here? How?”

“He was eaten by a gator, just torn to pieces and scattered around. Yet they say he didn’t die right away, but suffered, lying there with no legs and a missing arm, just bleeding to death, slowly and painfully.”

“That’s horrible.”

“Yes, it is. And they say while he was dying he called up the powers of voodoo and cursed the swamp, cursed the gator, cursed his master, and all white men. Now, in death, he appears to men, so hideous that the very sight of him causes instant death to those who look at him.”

“Really.”

Damien gave a half smile. “Really. At least four men have been found dead in this swamp over the past hundred and fifty years, with no explanation for what happened to them. Was it Old Jacques? Let’s hope we never know.”

Goose bumps ran up her arms. He had a creepy voice when he wanted to. There was an edge to it, a wildness, that almost thrilled her as they floated in the dark.

A soft thump distracted her. “What was that?” It sounded like something had hit the boat, and her heart was starting to race. Damien had told his story too well, and she was envisioning the dead slave dropping down onto the bench next to her in the dark.

“Just sit still for a minute, Marley,” Damien said in a low voice, shifting closer to her with slow, calculated moves.

“Why?” She froze in place, sudden fear sending bile up into her throat and her heart doing a frenzied crescendo. “What’s wrong?”

Damien shot forward, his hand reaching out and grabbing something off the bench next to her. Marley gave a startled yelp. “What the hell is that?”

“Cottonmouth.” Damien extended his arm over the side of the boat and flung the snake back into the swamp. They heard it splash into the water. “They’re poisonous.”

Marley grabbed the top of her cotton shirt and pulled it off her neck, her throat tight. “Jesus Christ.” She shivered, feeling like something was brushing across her chest, her arms. “How did you know it was there?”

“That sound. It dropped out of the tree. I’m used to them.”

Her eyes had adjusted to the darkness and she could see Damien shrug, returning to the bench in front of her. He was wearing a dark T-shirt that blended into the night, but she could see the outline of his body, see his face lighter and brighter above his shadowy shoulders. The story Anna had told her rose in her mind. She could picture Damien’s ancestor, his Damien predecessor in the nineteenth century, out here in the swamp, gathering up his cottonmouth collection.

There was no fear from Damien, instead a nonchalance, a total simpatico with his surroundings.

“Death’s Door,” she whispered.

His head turned slowly. “What did you say?”

“Death’s Door. That’s what Anna called the Damien who gave her great-grandmother that house. She said he got the nickname by defying death, that he was reckless and unafraid, and buried bodies after a cholera epidemic.” Marley loosened her grip on the wooden bench. “I was thinking that he must have looked like you.”

“Perhaps.”

“What’s it like to know this is yours…that your family has been here for two hundred years?” She found herself envious of that sense of tradition, that total understanding of who and what you were.

“There is pride, and yet there’s a sense of hopelessness. That I can’t hold on to this forever, that eventually the house will collapse and the land will have to be sold.”

Marley hadn’t thought the future was so precarious for the plantation. She had assumed Damien would keep it, nourish it, pass it down to the next generation. “But why? Don’t you want to give it to your children?”

Damien gave a bitter laugh. “Do you see any children, Marley? There’s only me, and a big empty house.”

“You’re not happy, are you?” Of course she had known that, she had sensed it from the first day, felt that his pain surrounded him, kept him cut off from everyone else. Now she knew that his wife had died when he was way too young to have known so much loss and she knew it was a stupid question to ask. He obviously wasn’t happy.

“Not particularly. But then most people aren’t. And by the way, you should sift through whatever Anna tells you. She loves to tell a good story, and it’s not always true.”

“Are you telling me Death’s Door didn’t exist?” At the same time he was very smoothly changing the subject.

“No, he existed. And he did some truly insane things. I think that he wanted to die. But he didn’t. No matter what risk he took, he didn’t die.”

Marley suddenly understood why Damien threw his adult parties. It kept him firmly standing in that careless existence, defiantly selfish, living only in the moment, never having to face the future.

“You’ll have children someday,” she told him. “And they’ll be grateful you kept this house.”

He gave a soft laugh. “Marley Turner, you are bleeding compassion again. Maybe I don’t want children. Maybe I think they’re all time-sucking, whiny brats who grow up, throw you in a nursing home, and steal your money.”

“And maybe I think you’re a lousy liar.”

“And I think if you had to drag me into the swamp at eleven o’clock at night the very least you can do is make it worth my while.”

That was a tone she recognized, and a fissure of excitement raced up her spine. “How could I do that?”

“You could give me a kiss.”

As the last word left his mouth, his lips covered hers, with that dominating, dauntless possessiveness he had used on her before. That confidence, arrogance, that she would like what he was doing, would welcome his touch. He was right, of course. His kiss took her in, dragged her under, lifted her up and out of herself to where the only thing that mattered was her, him, and the way he made her body come alive with desire.

Damien’s tongue moved deftly across hers, his fingers in her hair, his knee pushing hers open, out, so he could move between her legs. He didn’t try to touch her anywhere else, and they blended their mouths together for several hot, thrusting minutes. Marley marveled at his restraint, at his skill in waiting, waiting, building the tension between them higher and higher. She was already growing clumsy in her technique, mouth slipping in her desperation, fingers grasping at his chest, hips pushing forward trying to gain contact.

Instead of appeasing her, easing her ache, taking them to the next logical step, Damien pulled back, wiped his lips. “That was worth coming into the swamp at eleven o’clock. Thank you.” He settled back on the opposite bench with perfect nonchalance, even if his breathing was a little labored.

“That’s all you want?” she said with no attempt to hide her dismay. Okay, there was teasing, and then there was just insanity. He couldn’t get her all revved up like that and then not take her for a spin.

“Are you offering more?” he asked, voice silken, erotic, forearms on his knees, expression dark and dangerous.

“Yes.” That was why she was out here, to forget about Lizzie, forget about responsibilities, to just do what she wanted to do for once. And she wanted to do Damien.

“Good. But maybe we should head back. I don’t think a boat is the best place for what I think we both have in mind.”

“Why, what could happen?” Granted, it might be hard to maneuver on a wooden bench, but doing it in a boat seemed sufficiently wild to satisfy her feverish need to be free of constraints.

“We could capsize. We could float into the reeds and get the motor tangled. We could drift too close to the bank and get stuck.”

“Couldn’t those things happen anyway?” Marley glanced around, but she couldn’t see the shore. It was too dark to see much of anything.

“
Mais non,
not when I’m in control. But if I’m on the floorboards with you, I’m not in control.”

That sounded kind of pleasing. “So if we get tangled up and stuck, do we languish out here indefinitely, shriveling up and dying of dehydration?”

Damien gave a soft laugh. “No. We use my cell phone and call for help. Or if we’re close to shore, we get out and walk home.”

“Hmmm.” Marley slipped her butt down onto the floor of the boat to test stability. It rocked ominously from her movement. She looked up at the midnight sky, inky black and dotted with stars. “I guess we’d better go back then. All this thinking about it has spoiled the moment anyway.”

He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t move to start the motor either.

“Do you ever wonder if any of this is real, Damien?” Marley stared up and up, her neck straining as she looked past the leaves of the trees, the dripping Spanish moss, to the endless expanse of sky. She stretched her arms to the sides of the boat. “How do we know we’re really here?”

“Je pense, donc je suis,”
he said, leaning forward, forearms on his knees.

“What?”

“‘I think, therefore I am.’ Descartes. Your existence is confirmed by the fact that you can ask the question in the first place. We are all very real, Marley. Painfully real.”

Somehow she felt bright and shiny and hard and real, and yet at the same time so odd, so strange, so dreamy, so outside of her normal life that this all could have been a sleep-induced fantasy. “If a tree falls in the woods and there’s no one there to hear it, does it make a sound? I guess no one knows but the tree.”

Damien shifted onto the floor, the boat listing left, then right, with his movement. He was on his haunches, leaning toward her, his face stark and close. “If a woman is pleasured in the swamp and there’s no one there to hear it, does she make a sound?”

Marley laughed. “Hmm…good question. I guess
she
hears it.”

“And the man who pleasures her.”

“True.”

“Let’s test the theory.” Damien’s fingers landed right on her nipples with amazing accuracy.

“I thought you said we should go back.”

“And spoil the moment? I don’t think so.”

She understood then that he was going to give her what she had asked for, a wild ride into licentiousness, an abandonment of convention, even if it wasn’t logical or comfortable or safe.

Damien popped the snap on her shorts, yanked down her zipper. His hand cupped her panties as his lips traced over her breast. Need rose in her fast and hard, startling her with its speed, its velocity. When he bit her nipple, tweaking it sharply between his teeth, she let out a cry, not of pain, but of pleasure.

Then he had her shirt up and over her shoulders, her head, and down on the floor of the boat. “Sit on the seat,” he demanded.

It was a command, and she didn’t hesitate to follow it. Marley scrambled backward, pulling herself up with trembling hands, curious what he had planned, wondering how they could do this. As she was rising, he tugged down her shorts, so quickly and efficiently that she barely had time to blink before the warm air rushed over her bare thighs. She found herself standing straight up in a rocking boat in her bra and panties, shorts around her ankles, afraid to move and set the boat rocking. And afraid to shift the mood, ruin his plan, allow her fears and insecurities to seep in. She wanted to stay, just like that, desired and in desire, for as long as the moment could draw out.

Damien pulled his shirt off and brushed past her legs to lay it out on the bench. “Sit down.”

Even as she was bending her knees, he was skimming her panties down past her thighs, exposing her sex to him in a way that could have embarrassed but instead only excited her. She sank to the bench, her bare backside touching the soft warmth of his cotton shirt. He had the shorts and panties off her ankles and her bra unhooked and likewise disposed of in about thirty seconds, his movements swift and sure, demanding. Marley sat naked in the dark, breathing hard, her skin tingling and prickling from all his brushes and touches and yanks.