The 13th Guest (5 page)

Sometime later, he opened his eyes. He vaguely remembered pulling her up against him and rolling them both over. He couldn’t remember how much time had passed since he’d been intimate with anyone—and he yawned as his body reminded him he was out of practice. Amelia breathed deeply, her cheek pressed up against his chest. Her eyes were closed.

He stared at her, barely letting himself blink for fear of waking her. This had actually happened. He hadn’t dreamed the encounter.

Happiness surged within him, and he smiled. When had he last felt so relaxed? His cock jerked. He was ready for another round.

He
had
promised Amelia they’d go all night. He tweaked her nipple.

How should he wake her? Erotic possibilities flitted through his mind…

Chapter Five

T
he pounding on the door made Amelia groan. She raised her head and looked around. Early morning sun crept in through the shades. Next to her, Damek snored.

If they were going to do this for the rest of the week—and after the night they’d shared she hoped they were—she’d have to find out if they sold earplugs in the gift shop. She stood up, grabbed Damek’s shirt to cover herself, and headed to see who was out there.

Damek’s shirt came to just above her knees. Not exactly modest, but not risqué either. Still, she tugged on it wishing it were a bit longer. Who knew who stood outside? She shivered, a sense of foreboding coming over her. It could be someone who would make her wish she’d put on snow pants and a turtleneck.

Anyone could be out there. Even the psycho with the gun. At point blank range he could probably hit her. She shuddered.

She cleared her throat. “Who’s out there?”

“It’s Cemil Rowan.”

“Oh. Okay.” She hadn’t talked to him much the day before, but he’d seemed like a nice, gentle man who would most likely not be wielding a gun. She hoped.

Amelia let him in. “What’s going on?”

“It’s our early morning hike.” He stared at her outfit. “I take it you’re not ready.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. I’m sorry.” Her mind whirled. An early morning hike?

“On your card that Sage gave you at dinner, it listed this morning as a time for you and me to take an early morning hike.”

“Oh.” She paused. Her mind did not want to work at full capacity. “I have no idea what happened to that card.”

Truth was, it could be anywhere. Had she left it by the cliff, or had it gone askew somewhere between there and the hottest night of sex she’d ever had?

“You’re obviously not ready.” Cemil smiled.

“What time is it?” She didn’t usually get this muddled after sex. Damek had fried her brain.

“It’s six.” He yawned. “No, I’m sorry. It’s ten past six. Go get dressed. Try not to wake Damek. He’s not slept this well in years.”

So Cemil knew Damek had spent the night in her bed. Her cheeks heated, and she turned around.

She’d wanted to come to the Wiccan Haus, which meant doing what the proprietors of the place ordered. If hiking at six in the morning was part of what they did, she would do it.

Her muscles ached. She’d really rather be climbing back into bed with the man who had given her a total of eight orgasms the night before. He might have gone for nine, but she’d passed out.

He could do amazing things with his tongue.

Those thoughts preoccupied her while she quietly dressed herself. Damek hadn’t budged. His face, quiet and easy in sleep, made him look untroubled. That wasn’t the case. He carried a suitcase worth of baggage on his shoulders. Still, if Cemil spoke the truth, Damek slept better than he had in a long time.

She smiled. Apparently having sex with her had produced some kind of healing in him.

Maybe she should suggest all her patients go out and get laid. Regularly. She giggled. Damek stirred but didn’t wake.

She dressed quickly in sweats and a T-shirt she found in the dresser and headed out to see Cemil again.

He leaned against the door staring out at the woods behind him, his blond hair a halo in the early morning sunlight. He smiled. “Ready? I’m glad your stuff fits. We realized you wouldn’t have any clothing.”

“That was very thoughtful, considering I shoved my presence on all of you when I’d been told no.”

Cemil nodded and led her into the woods. “Yes, that doesn’t seem like you, now that I have you here. But people looking to heal will do whatever they have to do to get better. You really wanted to be better.”

“I wanted to know how you made people better.”

He cocked his head to the side when they rounded the corner to the path that led out of the woods. “That’s what you told yourself, how you hid the truth even from yourself. Do me a favor as we bring in the day on this beautiful island. Do not lie while we walk. The sun is too new to waste a second of it with untruths.”

“Okay.” She swallowed. “I’ll admit. I hoped that, in addition to seeing what and how you make everyone so much better after they’ve been here, I might learn some tricks to help myself as well.”

“That I’ll buy.” He laughed. “I’m going to show you what I have in mind. You know, to teach you what I do here and also to get to the root of what is keeping you from moving forward.”

She followed him, knowing where he was going to take her. Where else could they be going except the cliffs? She’d freaked out at the breathing class. Cemil was going to make her face her fears.

Amelia bit down on her lip so hard it bled. She wiped the small drop of it away with her tongue. Daytime meant the vampires wouldn’t be attracted to the smell.

This early in the day, before breakfast and coffee, and she’d have to talk about what she never discussed.

“Hey—” She doubted he’d be easily distracted, but it was worth a try. Some of her patients had managed to get her off topic. Maybe Cemil could be moved to discuss something else. “Should we be out here like this? Isn’t it possible we could get shot at?”

He narrowed his gaze at her. “I know what you’re doing.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Really? What am I doing?”

“Your discomfort radiates off you until it blocks out everything else you’re feeling. It’s…all consuming. I’m going to indulge you and tell you that Myron saw no danger in us walking together this morning. Whoever is after you seems to like to sleep late.”

Bizarre
. “And we still don’t know who it is?”

“No. It’s still blocked. All things in their time. We’ll keep everyone safe, and then we’ll wait and see.”

“I don’t die while you wait and see?”

He laughed. “No one has died here. Rekkus and Cyrus won’t allow it. You won’t be the first.”

They stopped in front of the cliffs. Cemil looked up at the sun and closed his eyes for a second before opening them again. “It’s a beautiful morning.”

She was seriously not going to make small talk. Every nerve ending in her body stood on alert. “It rained that night. We didn’t get much precipitation at the time, although the Midwest is flooding now, from what I understand.”

Cemil crossed his arms over his chest. “Go on.”

She stared up at the clouds, down at the dirt, anywhere but at him. Her skin itched. “They were out to dinner. My father lost control of the car. I have no idea if they were drinking. No one would tell a child anything like that, and as I got older I didn’t ask.”

“And they drove off the cliff and died.” Cemil nodded. “Yes, I know.”

“If you knew, then why bother making me talk about it? Or is this the standard ‘talking about it will make me feel better’ routine?”

“Your parents died.” He kicked a stone. “That’s not why you came to this island. Their death is not the reason you stowed away on a boat and risked everything to get here.”

Her throat went dry. “That’s my issue. You wanted to discuss it, and there it is.”

“Nonsense. You and I both know that’s not true.”

She turned her back on him. Childish, but it made her feel better. Slightly.

“I really don’t want to talk about this. Nothing will improve. This is my life. I have to live with it as it is.”

“No. You don’t.” Cemil touched her arm. “We make the life we want. Circumstances can dictate things. But your parents driving off a cliff—”

His words made her head pound. “Didn’t cause me to not have my own family, to not hold my own baby in my arms—and I’m almost too old to do it now.”

“Then why haven’t you done what you wanted? If you wanted to be a mother, why did you not pursue it?”

She turned around to glare at him. “Because people die. They drive off cliffs in the middle of the night. They don’t come home. What if that happened to my child? Or something happened to me? How could I face it?”

Tears swam from her eyes, and she did nothing to stop them.

“Those are real fears. It’s all part of living. Step out the door, get slammed into by taxi cab. Or maybe you die in your sleep when you’re ninety. You know that as well as anyone.” Cemil stared off in the distance. “And you’re not happy. These walls you’ve erected to spare yourself any future pain, they’re not working for you.”

“I know.”

That was why she’d come. Stealing aboard a boat and sneaking here had been a challenge. If she could face it, maybe she could find a way to do other things too. Maybe she wouldn’t be such a coward. Tears swam in her eyes.

“Cemil.” Damek’s enraged voice rang out into the quiet of the morning.

Amelia jumped and turned to look at him. Her heart rate pumped up.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Damek’s hands were fisted.

Her panties pooled with heat.

He’d woken up, alone, and for five minutes had obsessed in a frantic state, wondering if she’d died. Had someone come in and taken her from his arms and murdered her while he slept? His hands still shook from those five minutes that had felt more like five hours.

Then he’d stumbled on the card that Sage had written.

Cemil had come for her. Damek had stomped around getting dressed and then found them on the edge of the cliff she hated.

Everything had been fine until he’d seen her tears, and then he’d wanted to pound on something. “Why is she crying?”

He spoke directly to Cemil, because looking at Amelia made his chest ache. She should never cry, unless she were wrapped in his arms with tears streaming down her cheeks caused by extreme pleasure.

“As you know”—Cemil smiled—“healing can be painful. She just took a big step.”

“If she has to cry to do it, she’s not ready for it. I don’t want her upset.”

Cemil grinned. If Damek believed in violence as a quick answer, he might have punched him in the face. The man looked…amused.

“Why don’t you two talk things over? I think my job here is done. For now.”

Cemil grinned and patted Amelia on the arm.

Damek forced himself to count to ten in his head. She hadn’t died, and even though an occasional tear still slipped down her cheek, she seemed unharmed.

Finally, he spoke. “Are you okay?”

“Yes.” She wiped at her eyes. “Cemil was just getting me to admit aloud some truths that needed to be said.”

He wanted to ask her why. He’d all but unburdened his soul to her the day before. However, he wasn’t going to push.

“I, um—” She twirled a piece of her hair. “My parents were killed when I was young. They went out for dinner, never came back. The babysitter had to wake me to ask who to call.”

He walked forward, taking her hands in his own. Something inside of him settled. “That’s awful. I lost Zoe, but we were both grownups. You must have been so scared.”

“Right.” She nodded. “I’m sure I was. The whole thing is a blur.”

He pointed to the cliff. “That’s why you didn’t like being there last night.”

“I’m actually not afraid of cliffs. They’ve come to represent something to me, however, and I think it was time I claimed them for what they were. They are my excuse for not doing what I’m afraid of.”

“Which would be what?”

Fearful? Nothing could be further from the truth. He walked to the edge of the cliff and sat, dangling his feet over the side. She sat next to him. He didn’t know what she was afraid of, but admitting to those thoughts always came with a personal cost.

She hadn’t answered him, and he waited.

Finally, she spoke. “I’m afraid to have a family, to have a baby, to admit that I need other people and want to have a life outside of my office.” Her voice shook. “But those are the things I want.”

He stroked the side of her face. Of course she should have those things if she wanted them.

“Why have you held back?”

“Because people fall off cliffs.” She rubbed her forehead. “I mean, you know it. You lost Zoe. I hear my patients talk about it all the time. You have something you love and then it’s gone. Rather than throw myself off the proverbial cliff of risk taking, I’ve been keeping myself really busy. Keeping myself away from the edge.”

“Doctor Amelia.”

She turned slightly red, and pleasure surged through his veins. “I did lose Zoe, and it’s not a secret that it has screwed me up a little bit. I’ll never know what happened that day. Part of me is always going to blame myself.”

She started to say something, but he cut her off. “Never in all that time, in the years when I’ve missed her, been secretly angry at her, or just plain lonely and sad, have I wished I hadn’t met her or married her.”

She opened and closed her mouth. He waited to see if she’d respond, and when she didn’t, he went on.

“I would do it again, even knowing how it would end, because the time we had together was filled with love, laughter, and great memories. It would be awful to imagine not having that together.”

Amelia closed her eyes. “I know that.” She opened her lids to gaze at him.

He wished he could take away her pain by just squeezing her in his arms.

“I think it’s amazing you had that time, had that love. When I leave here, I’ll be alone. I’ve never known the type of love you had.”