Her soft face had gone softer still, all the worried tension melting out of it. Her eyes shone and her pursed-up mouth had relaxed to its usual sweet fullness. “Oh, Justin…” She lifted a hand from her lap and stretched it across the table to him. “Come on. Take a chance. Take a chance on me.”
And before he could think twice, he was leaning toward her, reaching right back. Their hands met and heat shot up his arm, broke into a million swift, burning arrows that splintered off in all directions, hitting every nerve in his body at once.
All he could say was one word: her name. “Katie.”
And then, as one, they stood. They stepped around the barrier of the table and there was a moment—painful and electric—when he almost managed to make himself let go, almost stepped back, almost told her, Katie, I can’t. Can’t touch you, can’t hold you…
But the pull was too strong. It wouldn’t be denied.
He gathered her in and she landed against him, soft and warm and so willing, smelling of shampoo and sweetness, naked beneath the fuzzy red flannel.
“Katie.” He buried his face in her fragrant hair. “Katie.”
She nuzzled his chest, pressed her lips there, sent a warm, thrilling breath through the wool of the old sweater. The warmth spread, borne on that breath, a caress of hope and life itself. He held her tighter.
And she turned her head, pressing her mouth to his neck, a velvety pressure. Her lips opened slightly. He felt the wet brush of her tongue.
He groaned deep in his throat and an answering sound came from her, a soft, heated, purring sound. It vibrated through him, that sound, right down to the core of him.
He felt himself harden in an instant, and he did what he had to do, what he longed to do, sliding his hands down, over the tempting swell of her hips and under, tucking her into him, making her feel him, feel his need and his hunger.
She gasped, the sound purely female, speaking better than any words could of her eagerness, of her complete surrender.
Mine. The word exploded in his brain, bright as a shooting star in a dark winter world. Mine.
She gasped again and she tipped her head back, offering her mouth.
He took it, his blood roaring in his ears, his body burning, on fire.
All his lies, all his scheming, his lifelong quest for justice—all that was nothing. There was only Katie, the promise of Katie, the truth of Katie, held close in his hungry arms.
As he plunged his tongue into her eager mouth and cupped her bottom in his hands, pressing her harder into him, as his blood pounded through his veins and his heart beat so hard it was like thunder in his ears, he knew…
This…this was what mattered. This woman’s tender heart, her lips, her breath, her yearning, willing body.
This was his truth. His real justice.
The truth that could save him.
The truth he could never claim.
He knew he had to stop this, that he owed it to her.
Somehow, from some deep hidden resource of rightness within him, he managed to break the never-ending kiss.
He tore his mouth from hers, groaning at the effort. “Katie.”
But she only reached up, touched his mouth and whispered, “Shh, it’s okay.”
He bit the soft pad of her finger. She cried out—not in pain; it had been a gentle bite—but in hunger, with a fire that answered his own.
Her cry of need broke him. His last resistance shattered into a thousand tiny shards. He surrendered to the pounding of his own blood, the yearning like fire spreading through his veins.
She pulled her hand from his mouth and he cupped her head and claimed her lips again.
He kissed her and she kissed him back and he took a step and she moved with him.
No stumbling, not this time. Backward she went, knowing where he guided her, through the open door to the central room, down the roped-off walkway to…
The big, old bed with the pineapple finials, the bed that had once stood in a Douglas bedroom over a hundred years ago.
Was that irony?
Probably.
Did it matter? Did he care?
Not right then. Right then, there was nothing and no one but Katie in the world.
Nothing mattered, nothing even existed, but her tender lips and the wetness beyond, her soft, willing body, her eager sighs, the light and heat that seemed to radiate from her, warming him down to a place that, until she had found him, had lain forever cold, forever shadowed.
A place unknown even to him.
He held her close, his willing prisoner, with one arm. With the other he reached back, found the hook that held the thick rope to the pole and released it.
He let it drop. With a heavy, final thumping sound, it hit the hardwood floor.
She clasped his shoulders.
And then she was the one waltzing him backward, around the carved trunk at the end of the bed, to the knotted rag rug that waited beside it.
She pushed him onto the tangled blankets. The bed was high; he had to lift himself up to it, and he did, with little effort, bringing her with him, so she rested on top of him, a tempting pressure all along the length of him.
Until he rolled and captured her beneath him.
“Oh!” Her lids fluttered open and he looked for the briefest, sweetest moment into those honey-brown eyes. “Oh…” And her lashes settled, feather-soft, against her cheeks.
He shut his own eyes and lost himself in the sensation.
Of kissing her. Of touching her.
He slid to the side a little and put his weight on one arm, bringing the other up, laying his hand between her small, soft breasts, feeling the heat of her and beneath that, the strong, hungry beating of her heart.
The buttonholes on the old pajamas were worn and loose. The red plastic buttons slipped free with no difficulty at all. He undid them, one by one, only pausing when he once again got so lost in her kiss he could do nothing but press his mouth tighter to hers.
When all the buttons were undone, he eased the sides of the top open to reveal her beautiful white breasts. He took one in his hand.
“Oh,” she cried, and “Oh!” again, as he positioned the hard, pink little nipple for his mouth.
He took it, closing his lips around it, and she moaned as he caught it lightly in his teeth and flicked his tongue across it, felt the puckered nub of flesh tighten all the more. She arched her back and clutched his head, her fingers threaded in his hair. He drew on her sweetness and more cries escaped her. The pleading, hungry sounds enflamed him, driving him on.
To know her.
In spite of everything, in spite of the lies he’d told
and the harm he would do her. To know her, anyway, in the deepest, most complete way.
To find the truth in spite of himself, here, in this moment, in the dark windowless quiet, with the artifacts of other, long-lost lives all around them.
Here among the ghosts of the past.
His body on fire with her, her scent all around him, her yielding flesh under his hands, his heart pounding out her name, it seemed to him he could sense them, those long-lost souls, that he could feel them.
The pioneers who came before. The hopeful families seeking a brighter future, the miners struck hard by gold fever, scouring streams, digging