Shadowlight (25 page)

I want to kiss your mouth.

What else did he want from her? What else would he take?

Once she finished the translations, she left the notebook beside the books and returned to her room, where she sat and mentally reviewed everything she had seen in the tunnels and rooms. It would be next to impossible to steal a knife from the kitchen; Rowan immediately noticed anything that was out of place. She’d never seen any hand tools around that might help her pry loose the bricks. Some of the daggers in the display cases looked strong enough, but the cases were always kept locked.

The dinner hour came and went, but Jessa didn’t bother to join Rowan and Matthias in the kitchen. She couldn’t bring herself to keep up the pretense anymore.

She tried to nap, but her thoughts refused to let her sleep. She took one of the paperbacks Matthias had given her, but the beautifully written words of Val McDermid’s historical mystery danced before her eyes. Finally she gave up trying to entertain herself and went to get something to snack on from the kitchen.

When she saw Matthias working at the counter, she almost turned around and went back to her room.

“You did not come for the evening meal,” he said without looking at her.

“I forgot the time.” She smelled something sweet. “I’m not very hungry anyway.” At the same time, her stomach growled.

“Sit down,” he said, taking some strawberries from the bowl Rowan kept on the kitchen table. “I will share my fruit with you.”

Jessa watched Matthias sort through and pile the strawberries into a crystal bowl before he began adding other things to them. After seeing him work out with his odd stone weights she expected him to be clumsy or heavy-handed, but instead he worked with a chef’s confident skill.

“Do you always cook for your prisoners?” She winced as she saw him pour balsamic vinegar over the fruit. “Or is this your way of getting rid of them?”

“You do not eat as you should. That is why you are so quick to anger.” He added sugar and cream to the bowl before bringing it to the table. “An empty belly only feeds the temper.” He reached for the pepper grinder and twisted it over the fruit.

Jessa muffled a laugh. “Just out of curiosity, have you ever heard of using a cookbook?”

“No.” He swirled the bowl a few times before he reached in and plucked out one of the cream-coated strawberries, holding it by its green top as he offered it to her.

“Thanks, but I’m not crazy about—”

“Taste.” He rubbed the tip of the strawberry across her bottom lip, smearing some of the cream mixture along the curve when she didn’t cooperate. “Are you afraid you will like it?”

She bit the strawberry in half, intending to spit the vile thing back into his face. Then the warm berry’s tart juice, made silky and sweet by the sugar and smooth cream, filled her mouth. The vinegar and pepper only amplified the tastes, giving it a very subtle edge and touch of heat.

“Oh.” Jessa didn’t realize she had closed her eyes until she opened them. “That’s … different.”

Matthias’s faint smile didn’t reach the translucent jade of his eyes as he brought the rest of the strawberry to his mouth, his teeth neatly separating the berry from the top. His jaw muscles flexed as he slowly chewed and swallowed, but his eyes never left hers.

“Okay, so I was wrong.” Feeling a little self-conscious, she licked the cream from her lips. “It’s good.” She tried to take another.

One big hand pushed the bowl out of her reach. “Only good?”

He had to rub it in, of course. “It’s great.”

“Do you want another?” He took a second berry from the bowl, but when she tried to take it from him, he moved his hand away. “Open your mouth.”

Jessa didn’t like the way he was looking at her—as if
she
were something he wanted to bite. “I can feed myself, you know.”

“Not very well.” He held the strawberry under her nose. “Open.”

With a sigh she imitated a guppy.

Matthias didn’t let her have it this time. Instead he teased her, placing the berry between her lips and then taking it away before she could take a bite, rubbing it here and there until she grabbed his wrist.

Shadowlight.

Jessa stood at the edge of a winter forest. Thick, icy air wrapped around her, and snow was everywhere, under her feet, weighing down the tree branches, and slowly swirling above her head, spinning and floating as it fell from the sky. The setting sun polished each flake until they glinted like tiny bits of glass. Ahead of her a clearing funneled its thick white drifts between two enormous, frost-covered stones.

Sunlight.

Her heart beat once, twice, and then she was back in the kitchen, still trying to arm-wrestle a strawberry away from Matthias.

Disoriented as she was by the unexpected touch-sight, she couldn’t seem to let go of his wrist. “Is this really necessary?”

“When you want something, it is.” He didn’t seem to notice anything was wrong with her. With a deliberate show of strength, he brought the strawberry to his mouth, biting it so that streams of juice and cream ran down his palm and onto her fingers.

Jessa released him, but now he took hold of her wrist and guided her hand to his mouth. The shock of returning to herself so quickly faded as he put his tongue to her skin and slowly licked one finger and then another clean. Her breath rasped in her throat as he took the tip of her smallest finger into his mouth and sucked lightly.

“What are you doing?” she heard herself ask, her voice so low and distant it seemed to come from that faraway winter forest.

“Tasting.” His free hand spanned the front of her throat before he slid it under her hair and curled it over the back of her neck. “Do you want more?”

He didn’t mean the strawberries, which was fine, because she couldn’t think about them. As she tried to form the word “no,” his tongue found the center of her palm and stroked it before his teeth tested the sensitive mound of flesh beneath her thumb.

That love bite set something loose inside her, a hot, heavy, feline ache that climbed over her breasts and inched down to curl in her lap, sinking sharp little claws into the tense muscles of her thighs and drawing a thick, silky tail of sensation between them.

His hand on her nape tugged, urging her forward. He was going to kiss her.

In her mind she saw herself crossing the now unbearable distance between them, pressing his mouth to the tight peak throbbing over her heart. She saw her own hands tearing open her blouse so he could get at it, so he could suck her properly, while she took his gilded hair in small, tight fists—

His face blurred before her eyes as he came closer, and the warmth of his breath touched her lips. “Jezebel …”

The name and all its secrets hit her like a slap, and she jerked, finding her feet and almost knocking over the chair as she backed away. A stumble later she had put three feet and a fortress of sanity between them.

If Jessa understood anything, it was the shadowlight. It never lied to her, never showed her anything but cold, hard truth. Matthias had walked through that winter forest; he had left something terrible in it. He might have killed and buried someone there; that might explain what she had seen and felt the first time she’d touched him.

“I think I’ve had enough.” A quick turn allowed her to hide most of the shaking and the stupid look she felt sure was plastered on her face. “Good night.”

Jessa didn’t hear him following her, but halfway to her room she felt him loom up behind her. Confronting him interested her about as much as encouraging him, so she kept moving. She reached her room and turned the pretty porcelain knob when his hand shot past her cheek and flattened against the edge to hold the door in place.

A wall of hard chest muscle brushed her shoulders before he bent his head to murmur beside her ear, “You’re afraid of me. Why?”

Afraid of him? If he didn’t soon get away from her, she was going to climb up him and the wall and dig her way out of here with her bare hands.

Or worse, she wouldn’t.

“I’m tired of you.” She pulled on the knob and managed to get the door to open an inch before he shoved it closed again.

Jessa ducked under his arm to get out from under him, but he turned her and had her up against the wall before she could blink. This close she could see every detail of the mark on his throat. What sort of man believed that forever was a black snake biting its own tail? She forced herself to look up into his face, but light from behind him effectively masked his features.

“You are still empty.” His fingers spread over her abdomen, the edges of his fingernails scratching the fabric of her skirt as he pressed them in and out in a kneading motion. “Do you feel it here?” His hand shifted lower, stopping just short of sliding between her legs. “Or here?”

“I said I would stay here and let you protect me from Genaro,” Jessa said, keeping her tone reasonable. “You never said that I’d have to sleep with you for it.”

“Sleep with me?” He sounded amused. “That is not what I want.”

“Good.” Now she was lying, too. “Just so we’re clear.”

“Just so we’re clear,” he repeated, almost thoughtfully. “It means so that we understand each other, yes?”

“That’s it. No sleeping together. No dreams.” She glanced down meaningfully, but he didn’t step back. “Now you say good-night and go away.”

“But you do not yet understand me. When I have you”—he clamped his hands around her waist—“you will not dream. You will not sleep.”

Jessa grabbed his shoulders as he lifted her off her feet and pinned her to the wall. His head bent, but instead of forcing a kiss on her lips he put his mouth to her ear.

“When I have you,” he said again, “there will be nothing between us. No clothes. No fear. No words.”

The smell of him, all summer heat, clouded her thoughts. “It doesn’t work like that.”

“You will give yourself to me. I will take you.” He pushed the hem of her skirt up with his knee and nudged her thighs apart. “I will put myself inside you here, where you need me. Where I need to be.” He bit her earlobe, the side of her jaw, and the spot where her neck curved into her shoulder before he lifted his head. “That is how it will work. Am I clear to you?”

Jessa closed her arms around his neck and held on as the unyielding iron of his thigh rubbed against her. Sweat traced the line of her back as her struggle turned inside out and she fought the wild heat rising inside her. If she didn’t put a stop to this now she would do anything he wanted, right here against the wall.

“That’s enough.” She pushed at his shoulders. “Put me down. I can’t do this. Not with you.”

“You will,” he said, his mouth as cool and hard as his words against her lips.

I really love Italy, and Donnie is the best fiancé a girl could have. But honestly, Mom, I hate climbing mountains. It’s cold, it’s wet, and there’s nothing but rocks and trees and more rocks and trees. When we get back from this trip, and you ever hear me or Donnie say the words “mountain climbing” again, I want you to slap some sense into both of us.

Saturday Donnie and I drove to the Alps and stopped at that inn I told you about, the really pretty one at the base of the mountain in that pretty town. We were just planning to stay there for the night and make a one-day trip to Berlin to get some chocolate and that cuckoo clock Grandma wanted. Well, you know how Donnie gets the minute he’s near anything taller than a hill, and then he met this group of German rock climbers. They got to talking and next thing I know this chick Gerta is lending me some of her gear so we can go climbing with them.

I didn’t want to go. Seriously! Our tour guide back in Rome told us it was the wrong time of year to climb. But you know Donnie. Show him a rock hammer and he’s strapping on his boots. Anyway, the Germans were pretty nice for climbers, and that girl Gerta helped me keep up. Still, it took five hours to climb up from the inn to this stupid pass, and by the time we got to the top I was ready to ralph up my breakfast in Donnie’s lap. Everything was all slushy and dripping, and then this huge slab of snow and ice just collapsed and rolled down the mountain. I swear, if we hadn’t stopped under this big boulder overhang thing, your little girl wouldn’t be writing this letter. Seriously.

I wanted to go down right then, but one of the Germans spotted another climber in the snow and yelled, and of course we had to slog through all this crap that came off the top of the mountain to dig the poor guy out. At first I thought he was dead for sure, and then he opened his eyes and sat up and—oh, God, this is, like, the most embarrassing thing—he was totally naked. The only thing on his bod was this wicked tat of a snake.

Fritz, one of the German guys, said people do that sometimes when they get hypothermia—they get a little weird in the head, think it’s hot instead of cold and then start stripping. Seriously! Thank heavens Donnie had a change of clothes in his pack or the poor guy would have finished freezing to death.

The amazing thing was that even though he was buck naked and got hit by an avalanche and everything, he wasn’t hurt, not really. I mean, he had a bad cut on his head, and he was kind of out of it, but no broken bones or anything like that. Gerta thought he might have some kind of, like, brain injury, because he couldn’t talk or tell us his name or anything. He didn’t seem to understand us, either, no matter what language we used. I said some stuff I remembered from high school French class, and Donnie tried Italian and Spanish, but no luck. Did you know Germans speak, like, twenty different languages? They tried everything they knew, until Gerta said he was probably, like, really traumatized from getting caught in the avalanche and we should take him down to the inn and get a doctor to take a look at him.

I thought it would take forever to climb back down with this guy being hurt and all, but he kept up with us and even showed Fritz this faster way down, so he must have been a really experienced climber. He didn’t seem upset until we got to the inn, and then he got a little freaked out. He kept looking around like he didn’t know where he was. Donnie said it was a delayed reaction or something. First the guy looked like he was going to pass out right there in the parking lot, and the Germans had to grab him to keep him from running out into the middle of the street.

The people at the inn didn’t know who he was, but since he was hurt and kind of starved-looking they were really nice and gave him a room and a huge free meal and stuff. They also called this doctor from the village who checked him out. Later he came by to talk to me and Donnie, and said the man had some sort of amnesia that usually happens to people after they go through wars and stuff. The name of it had letters, like PMS, but I can’t remember exactly what they are now.

I almost freaked out the next morning when we went to check on him, and the innkeeper said he borrowed some gear from the Germans and went back up the mountain. Seriously! You’d think after what he’d been through he’d be scared to climb, but no, the guy jumped right back on the horse. He didn’t come back until just before we were going to leave, and he looked better, but I think he was really upset. He still couldn’t talk to us, but he used his hands to, like, say thank-you, and gave Donnie and Fritz each an old, nasty-looking coin.

I wanted Donnie to throw that thing away, it was so covered with crud, but he said he thought it was really old and we should have it appraised. So while we were in Berlin Donnie took it to this coin dealer, and the dealer washed off the crud and got all quiet and then he told Donnie that it was pure gold and in mint condition and stuff. Get this, Mom: It’s, like, two thousand years old and worth a huge pile of money. Seriously!

The dealer said we could get a lot more money for it from a collector in the States. Donnie’s worried we could get in trouble for taking it out of Italy, but I’m just going to stick it in my bra. Like customs is going to look there, right? So when we get home we’re going to sell it and use the money to pay for a really nice wedding. Donnie said if we sell it to the right person there might even be enough left over for us to put a down payment on a town house. Tell Daddy, since I know that will make him happy, ha ha ha.

Oh, I almost forgot—I don’t know what happened to the man with amnesia, but he was gone when we stopped at the inn on our way back to Rome. The innkeeper said he just walked down the road the day we left and disappeared. Donnie thought about calling the newspapers, you know? But I told him that they would for sure want to know where that guy found the coin and if there were more, etc. So we’re not going to tell anyone. I know—you and Daddy would say we should go to the police, but we really did save that man’s life. So we’re looking at this like a little reward for being Good Samaritans, that’s all.

We’re going on to Venice like we planned, and I’ll call you from there to make sure you have the right flight number and gate and stuff and when we’ll be arriving at LAX. Give Daddy and Jimmy and Sarah a hug for me, and see you next week!