Falling Light (Game of Shadows #2)(77)

When she was finished getting clean, it was time to put the bread in the oven. She brushed and braided her hair while the bread baked. When the bread was finished, she set four beautiful, golden brown loaves on the counter to cool. Whatever else she might say about Astra, the older woman was a hell of a good cook.

After Michael refueled the boat, he stocked it with a variety of weapons, which was when Mary found out what was stored in all the army-style lockers in the office-like room. She helped him carry loads down the path. By then, the bread had cooled enough that she made sandwiches, wrapped them and stored them in the fridge, just as Astra had done earlier. While she did that, Michael showered and shaved.

It was eight o’clock by the time they had finished. The sun had not yet set, and long evening shadows lay across the clearing.

Michael said, “We should go to bed, just in case she does end up waking us at three in the morning.”

She followed him into his room and sat on the edge of the bed.

He sat beside her and took her hand. “What has caused that look on your face?”

She didn’t try to dissemble. “I’m okay. I just have a lot of things to reconcile in my head. Things that have happened. Things that I’ve done. Things aren’t going to magically settle into place after a conversation or two. It’s going to take me some time. In the cosmic scheme of things, it’s not that big of a deal, and I don’t want to expend any energy on it right now.”

“There’s nothing to reconcile,” he said. “You did whatever you did in order to survive. End of discussion.”

“Easy for you to say.” One corner of her mouth lifted. She noticed he was still frowning. “What’s wrong with you?”

He shook his head.

It was her turn to be stubborn and pry. She persisted. “What’s wrong? Tell me.”

“I’m not trying to hide anything.” His mouth tightened into a grim line. “I don’t know what’s wrong. Something.”

Dread didn’t pulse through her body as much as breathe a delicate chill on the back of her neck. She thought back over the afternoon and evening and slid closer to him until their thighs pressed together. He put his arm around her, pulling her close against his torso. She rested her head on his shoulder.

Aloud she asked, “Is it something I’ve done?”

He shook his head again and tightened his arm. “Absolutely not.” He paused. “Everything Astra said made sense, didn’t it?”

She thought back over their last conversation and nodded. “She’s been focused on this task for so long. If she says to wait, there must be a good reason for it. It’s to our advantage to have her find out what she can before we act, and in the meantime, we were able to get the boat prepared and see to some of our other needs.”

“Yeah.” He scratched his lean jaw. “Yet something’s niggling at me.”

“What do you want to do about it?”

“We do the sensible thing and rest. Tomorrow’s going to be a bitch. We should sleep in our clothes in case we have to move fast.”

“That sounds wise.”

“Yeah,” he growled. “Too damned wise.”

He tilted her head up and kissed her with such passion, she felt like she went winging out of her body just to be closer to him. She ran her hands compulsively down his body. He yanked up her thermal shirt, urging her arms over her head so that he could pull it off. She could barely stop kissing him long enough to comply. He tore off his own T-shirt and kicked off his jeans while she wriggled out of hers.

He shoved her back onto the bed and fell on her. He muttered, “I’ll never get enough of you.”

He would never be the type of man to say pretty things. Everything he said came straight from the gut with a kind of raw honesty that meant far more to her than pretty things. And she knew he would guard her passionately, with all the considerable force of his being.

“I’m here,” she whispered. She bit along his jaw, small, quick nips. “I’ll always be here.”

“Swear it,” the tiger said. He pulled her braid out and pinned her down, gripping her by the hair, eyes blazing.

“Yes, of course. I swear.”

He took her, harder than before, until she rose out of her body with the force of her climax. Her pleasure spilled out of her, into him and doubled back, until together they reached one soaring, pure note of vibration.

She still had no words for the immensity of the experience. They existed, spirits entwined together, until reluctantly they fell away, back into their own bodies.

After resting for a time, he stirred and pulled away from her to gather their clothes together. They dressed and settled back on the bed. She took the side by the wall. Michael wrapped his arms around her.

She rested her head on his shoulder and stared into the dark, and tried so hard to hold on to what they had just shared, but after several minutes, dread crept back and darkened the pleasure.

No, she thought. I can’t lose this so soon. Her fingers tangled in his shirt.

As if he had read her mind, Michael covered her hand with his and whispered fiercely, “We will make it through this. We will get more time. I swear it.”

She nodded and hid her face in him. He was the first to fall asleep, one hand buried in the soft, loose mass of her hair.

She supposed his being horribly pragmatic had its moments. She tried to follow his example. After she faked it for a while, she managed to fall into an uneasy doze.