Ghost Planet (17 page)

“God, how did I miss it? Yes, it makes sense … but…” Good as it was, I found a hole. “What about the people who struggle with following the protocol? Shouldn’t detachment happen in those cases? I mean if that’s it,
I
should have detached.”

“Unless there’s some threshold, a necessary period of interaction. Or could be there’s also some kind of trigger.”

“Right,” I agreed. “It’s brilliant, Murphy. If we could just get out of here, we could test it.”

He smiled and raised his hand to my cheek. “We’re going to get out of here.”

Despite the smile, the dark cloud had parked on his brow again. I worried he was hiding something from me.

“Please tell me what’s wrong,” I whispered.

His lips parted like he was going to answer, but instead he slowly traced my bottom lip with his thumb.

“Murphy…”
Don’t change the subject.
But it was too late. I’d already forgotten what we were talking about.

“Remember back in New Seattle you asked me not to kiss you? You said it wasn’t what you wanted.”

Oh, help.
I swallowed. “I don’t think that’s
exactly
what I said. I think it was more along the lines of it not being a great idea.”

“I’m sure you were right about that.” His lips touched the tip of my nose. “And yet.”

If I lifted my chin even a fraction, my lips would meet his. Trembling, I dropped it instead, staring into the little well at the base of his throat.

He cupped my face in his hands and brought our gazes back in line. “Would you be angry if I kissed you now?”

My heart bashed itself against the bars of its cage. “What if I said ‘yes’?”

Murphy smiled. “I might do it anyway.”

“Then why bother asking—”

“Elizabeth.” He pulled me close. “Shh.”

There was nothing tentative about his kiss—his lips moved urgently against mine, opening me up to him. My hands slid up to clutch his shoulders, and my lips and tongue followed his lead.

Coiling his arms around me, he dragged me into his lap. “Do you trust me, Elizabeth?” he whispered.

Breathless, I tilted my head back to look at him. “What?”

He kissed me again, softly this time, and murmured against my lips, “Do you
trust
me, love? I need you to answer me.”

He’d broken his own protocol, throwing away his career in the process, because he believed it was the right thing to do. For punishment they’d locked him away in Mitchell’s dungeon, and still he wanted to be with me. To
help
me. Did I trust him?

“I do, Murphy.”

His eyes warmed and I pulled him close again. I let my back arch as I kissed him, and his hand glided down my cheek and neck, over one breast, and down to my hip, igniting every nerve ending in its path. His fingertips teased the skin between my pajama top and bottom, and I felt the tingle of heat a few inches lower.

I couldn’t remember anything that felt as good as him touching me.

I was struggling with the simple task of breathing in and out when his hand slipped into my top, brushing the outside of one breast. Heat flashed across my skin.

“Do you think they’re watching us?” I gasped.

His fingers stroked the nipple lightly, and a whimper of longing forced its way from my throat. He said, “Let’s turn out the light and pretend we’re somewhere else.”

Pressing my forehead against his cheek, I sat holding him, asking myself what came next. Unfortunately no one seemed available to take my call. The heat pulsing at my core was causing automatic shutdown of various functions, and rational thought had been the first to clock out.

“Do you know how long we have?” I asked feebly.

“They said they’d be back in the morning.”

“They’re letting you stay the night? Did they say why?”

“Love,” he groaned, dropping his lips to my throat, “I don’t
care
why.”

His mouth moved into the vee of my top, and his hands glided up my back.

Sucking in a deep breath, I untangled myself and wriggled away. His half-choked groan of disappointment was pitiful, but before it concluded I’d tapped the light panel at the head of the bed. Except for a single, amber perimeter light glowing just enough to guide a sleepwalker to the bathroom, the darkness was complete.

One second after the light blinked out, I felt his hands at my waist and his breath in my ear. He raised me to my knees, hands moving up my sides, lifting my top over my head. He trailed his hands down my arms, letting them settle on my breasts. I gasped as he pulled my back into his chest. Even through his shirt, his chest felt hot and solid against me. His muscles flexed around my shoulders as he squeezed me closer.

My backside connected with his hips and my breath caught in my throat.

“I feel like I’m going up in flames,” he muttered low in my ear. “Jesus … how I’ve wanted you.”

His hands glided down to my abdomen, fingers slipping in and out of the waistband of my pants.

“Murphy,” I groaned. “I wish I could see you.”

He grasped my shoulders, turning me, and placed my hands on his chest.

“See me.”

I fumbled for the hem of his shirt and tugged it over his head. Then I flattened my palms against him, moving them slowly over the muscles of his chest and shoulders, down his flat abdomen to the light tracing of hair that lead into his jeans.

“Take these off,” I said, running my fingers along his belly, above his jeans.

“Yes, ma’am.”

On an impulse I grabbed a belt loop and held him in place. I bent and planted a kiss low on his stomach and he quivered. Just the smell of his body was enough to reduce me to a tingling mass of sensory cells.

While he tugged and kicked and worked himself free of his jeans, I pushed my pants over my hips and dropped them on the floor.

We came back to the middle of the bed and he put his arms around me. He bent to kiss me, hands sliding down over my backside. He crushed me against him, the evidence of his arousal hard against my stomach.

I took hold of his shoulders, pulling him with me as I sank back onto the bed. His fingers circled and stroked my breasts, and I arched hard against him. When I finally felt the moist warmth of his tongue against my nipple, I gasped and tensed against him. The first gentle sucking sensation forced a cry from my lips.

“Kiss me,” I pleaded.
Keep me quiet
.

Murphy raised his head and found my lips. He took my upper lip gently between his teeth and slipped a hand under one hip. I pressed my legs apart, and his body settled between them. He reached down, fingers sliding and caressing, and we moaned together.

“Is that the spot, then?” he whispered.

“I—”

Whatever I’d been about to say was incinerated in the explosion that followed. I clung to him, shuddering, whimpering to keep from crying out. Flares erupted along the length of my spine, and my body went taut as heat arced across my abdomen. A cry started out of my throat and he covered my mouth with his. I wrapped my legs around him, and he gave me a deep, forceful kiss that receded to soft and sweet as the flares burned down to glowing embers.

“Okay?”

I whimpered again, rubbing the back of his neck as I tried to find my voice.

“I’ll take that as a ‘yes,’” he said with a chuckle. His hand stroked up my side and cupped one breast.

“Why don’t you come a little closer?”

I felt his smile against my cheek. “Relax a minute. There’s no rush,” he said.

“That friend of yours cozying up against my thigh might beg to differ.”

Murphy laughed, nuzzling me. “Kind of you to worry about my friend.”

“Well, I admit I was hoping you might introduce us.”

He kissed my earlobe. “I think you can hardly avoid the acquaintance at this point.”

“Which point would that be?” I reached down and touched him, lightly stroking with my fingertip. “This one?”

He growled and shifted his hips. I pulled my knees back, ready to feel him inside of me.

But he froze above me. “Elizabeth, I—this is your first time, isn’t it? I mean, technically. Physiologically. Do you think…?”

My mouth dropped open. “Oh God, it never occurred to me. I … I don’t know. But it doesn’t matter.”

“You’re sure…”

I pulled his head down, murmuring in his ear, “You’re going to make me beg?”

“Mmm, maybe.” He pushed gently into me, both of us gasping from the sensation and sudden closeness. He kept his thrusts shallow and slow until the aching became more than I could stand. It wasn’t a virginal ache—it was an ache of anticipation drawn out to the point of torture. I squeezed his hips and pulled him all the way in. He gave a shuddering moan.

“Elizabeth, you feel … you feel
amazing
.” He kissed my neck. “Am I hurting you?”

“Hurting—
no
. Don’t stop, Murphy.”

He moved in widening spirals, opening me bit by bit so he could push deeper, his slow, building rhythm intensifying my need. I drifted right to the edge, fingers digging into his back, and the spirals tightened, came faster, until the final explosion rocked my body, blasting me right out of that godforsaken cell.

*   *   *

His forehead kissed mine, and we lay panting together, sharing a moment of quiet, self-conscious laughter. I forgot where (and what) we were—we could have been any two people in any universe.

Murphy sank beside me and I listened to his breathing level off. I wished I could see his face.

“Will you tell me what’s wrong?”

He cleared his throat. “That’s not the sort of thing a man generally wants to hear when he’s just made love to a woman for the first time.”

I smiled and rose up on my elbow. “I’ve never felt anything like that. I want to do it again as soon as possible. But something’s bothering you.”

“
Much
better, love. Anything that was wrong you’ve made me forget.”

I frowned into the blackness. “Murphy.”

His hand came to my face and stroked back my hair. “The only thing either of us should be worrying about is getting out of here. There’s nothing more important. Except maybe this.”

Murphy pressed me back down on the bed, giving me a soft, teasing kiss. He shifted his body over me and I felt him coming to life again.

He rubbed his cheek against mine and worked himself back inside me without any guidance. I moaned, protesting weakly, “I want to talk.”

“Go ahead, I love listening to you talk.” Nuzzling my ear, he began to rock against me. Just as I was letting go, giving in again to the rhythm of his body, he hesitated.

“It’s important to me that you want this, love. I know you have concerns—doubts—about us. But I don’t want you to have regrets about—
this
.”

I took a deep breath and let it out, trailing my fingers down his back. “I don’t know that it’s the right thing, Murphy, diving in like this when we’re caught in this trap. When there are so many unanswered questions. But no, I don’t regret it. For a week I thought I was dying. Right now I feel more alive than I’ve ever felt.”

“I feel exactly the same,” he breathed, raising goose bumps on my arms. “You’ve woken up every cell in my body.”

He kissed me harder. His thrusts picked up speed and I matched him, coiling arms and legs around him to lock into his rhythm. At the moment of zero gravity he rolled onto his back, pulling me with him, and the movement of our bodies forced him deeper. I gave a strangled cry at the sharp, exquisite sensation.

We drifted slowly back down to the planet. I gave a murmur of contentment and burrowed against him. He wrapped me in his arms and kissed my forehead.

“They don’t let me out of my cell, ever.” He whispered low in my ear. “Not until now. It’s going to fall to you to find a way out of here. Give it all your attention, and I will too. We have to leave here as soon as possible.”

As I opened my mouth to demand he tell me what the hell was going on, the door hissed. In strode two security guards, neither of them Sarah. Murphy shifted his body so I was between him and the wall. The lights came up all the way, momentarily blinding me.

“That looks cozy,” chuckled the big guard from the med lab. “Get up and get dressed, doc. Visiting hours are over.”

Murphy reached down to the foot of the bed for the blanket, pulling it over me before he got up.

The look he cast back on his way out the door left me shaking in the empty bed.

*   *   *

I had no prayer of sleeping. To have Murphy wrenched out of my arms at that moment, after warmth and closeness and connection, left me feeling sick with loneliness.

More than that, he had frightened me. He knew something I didn’t—something he was afraid to tell me. The stuff I knew about was bad enough. If I didn’t come up with some answers for Mitchell, she was going to try detachment. Did I dare tell her about our theory?

I felt like I’d just dozed off when breakfast arrived the next morning. Any hope of a nap was given up when Sarah arrived shortly after. But when I saw what she’d brought me I forgave her.
Real
clothes. Not my own, but all the right sizes—lightweight pants with an overabundance of pockets, like the scientists wore in the field, and a t-shirt and brown sweater with long bell sleeves. I couldn’t help wondering what had happened to the person who’d worn them before me.

“We’re going outside today,” Sarah announced.

I glanced up, wondering if I’d misunderstood. “Out of the building?”

“For a walk on the grounds. Get dressed.”

I complied as quickly as I could, afraid whoever was allowing this might change their mind, and she led me out into the corridor. The exam rooms, and Murphy, were to the left, but this time we headed right, toward the nurses’ station.

“Aren’t we forgetting something?” I asked her.

“He’s coming too, but no contact today.”

I looked back at his door. “Why not?”

“You’re asking the wrong person.”

I gave up trying to figure out what the White Witch was up to and determined to make the most of the time outside. I needed the air—Murphy probably more so than me—and it would give us a chance to focus on our escape.