What Doesn't Kill Her (Cape Charade #2)(60)

Kellen hadn’t seen the lookout from the outside before, what with being unconscious and flung over Max’s shoulder when she arrived. Now she examined the twelve-foot-tall foundation of concrete block topped with a white-painted hut surrounded on all sides by a three-foot wide deck. She saw solar panels on the roof and a few crooked wires sticking up like Dr. Seuss reindeer antlers. “Interesting. How is he generating enough power to run the place?” Casual conversation with Max. Very good.

“I believe he’s an inventor.”

“As well as a doctor, and verifier and restorer of antiquities? And a master of disguise? Because I swear without the beard and the glasses, he would be a different person.” She got to the top of the stairs and turned like a bobcat on the defensive. “Max, if you want, you can start down the mountain. You probably want to get back. I’ll rest for a couple of days and—”

“Really? After what’s happened?” He stood on the step below her, exactly her height, too close, breathing her oxygen, looking in her eyes. “You think that I would leave you to walk down alone? That’s what you think of me?”

“No, I just... I don’t know what we’re going to...” Frustrated, she burst out, “I wish I could remember more about us. I wish I could remember if we worked.”

“If we worked?”

“If we could have made it together.”

He smiled, a slow, wicked curl of amusement. “I can help with one aspect of whether we worked.” Without touching her with his hands, he tilted his head, leaned in and kissed her.



31


Some men considered kissing nothing but a preliminary to the main event.

Some men considered kissing a coin to be repaid at the time and place of their choosing.

This man kissed for the bliss of sharing breath, sharing touch, sharing pleasure. Max tasted Kellen as if she was a glorious feast to be savored, one flavor at a time. The kiss intensified until she cupped her hands around his neck, held him in place and took control.

Then he climbed that last stair, crowded her against the lookout’s wooden wall and kissed her in the sunlight, body to body. Heat built so fast she could hardly breathe. She tore her mouth away and thumped her head against the white-painted boards. “Look. Here’s the thing. The same problems that stop me from walking down the hill make this, um...”

“Lovemaking?”

“That. Make it difficult for me to fully, sort of, participate—”

“In the lovemaking?”

“Yes. In that.”

He moved back to the stairway, pulled it up and hooked it.

Kellen and Max were isolated and safe from the world.

“Eight years is a long time, and I promise I can take my time, work around your injuries, make the lovemaking good for you.”

He irritated her with his emphasis and repetition of that word. “How will you do that?”

His brown eyes glinted with humor and promise. “I’ve practiced a lot when I was alone.”

She gave a spurt of laughter and surprise, and grappled with the information he had so tactfully presented. “You didn’t... You haven’t...”

“No.”

“But you thought I was dead.”

“You weren’t dead. You were gone. You were my woman. We had made promises. Not in a church, but with our bodies. I was always waiting for your return.”

She blurted, “No wonder your mother doesn’t like me!”

He threw back his head and laughed, all big grand amusement and beneath that, a simmering pool of waiting molten sensuality.

How did she feel about him waiting for her when he had no assurance she would ever return? Flattered and...and terrified. Because she wasn’t anyone special. She had no exotic, erotic gifts. She cleared her throat. “I guess I should say that I never had any sexual relations while I was gone...either.”

He caught his toe on a board on the deck and stumbled, righted himself and asked, “Why not?”

“I never trusted another man enough to open my body to him.”

Max took a breath. “I should say that it doesn’t matter, that however you lived your life was fine with me. But that would be a lie. Eight years ago, I won your trust. Won’t you trust me again?” He held out his hand, palm up.

He had done that before, always leading, never coercing. “I have friends,” she said. “After battles fought side by side, I trust them. They proved themselves to me and I proved myself to them. But you—you’re different. I already do trust you. You are the one person I’ve always trusted. Maybe it’s chemistry. I think it’s an instinct in my mind and a wisdom in my soul.” She put her hand in his.

He left the door open to the breeze and the birdsong and led her inside to the bed.

Max made good on his promise.

Long and slow and warm. Kisses on every bruise, care for every injury, words that cherished and enhanced.

This man not only loved to kiss for the pleasure of kissing. Each caress was a sensuous pleasure, the act of love was an act of worship that escalated into a steady deep rhythm: sweat and whimpers and groans and triumph.

And after...oh, after was a slow descent from the heights, cushioned by touch and breath and joy. Then sleep and waking, stretching to find her body felt better—sex as a cure-all?—and smiling as she watched him naked in the kitchen, stirring up something on the stove.