Chapter Sixteen

“No,” I said firmly. Murphy could not be dead. I wouldn’t let him be.

I rolled him onto his back, put my fingertips to the pulse point just beneath his chin. His hair, soft and free, drifted across my wrist. I closed my eyes, concentrated, and felt the featherlight flutter of a pulse.

“Halleluj ah,” I whispered, leaning down to press my cheek against his chest. He wore no shirt and his skin was slightly clammy.

Though I’d felt a pulse, I couldn’t hear a heartbeat, maybe because my own was beating far too loud and fast in my ears.

I sat back. His chest rose and fell with slow, shallow breaths. Perhaps too slow and too shallow; he seemed almost drugged.

“Murphy!” I slapped his cheeks lightly.

Nothing.

I glanced around for some water to toss in his face.

Again, nothing.

How had he gotten here? Why had he stayed? Unless he’d been drugged from the beginning.

I shook him, pinched his arm, smacked the bottom of his feet, everything I’d ever heard of to wake someone up, but he didn’t and I began to get scared. What if he was dying?

“Help,” I muttered.

Leaning over, I lifted one of his eyelids, trying to see if his pupils were fixed, but it was too dark to tell. I sighed and let my head droop until we were nose to nose.

“Come on, Murphy,” I murmured, and his eyes opened, staring directly into mine.

I yelped and straightened so fast my spine cracked. I tried to skitter backward, but he sat up as if he’d been j abbed with a cattle prod, then grabbed me by the arms, dragging me across his lap.

“What—?” was all I managed before he kissed me.

Since I was damn glad to see him, too, I didn’t struggle; I didn’t want to. He was real, he was alive, and man, could he kiss.

He tasted like licorice, sweet and dark, as his tongue teased my lips, then dipped inside to explore.

Sighing, I let him, wrapping my arms around his neck and holding on.

His skin was still cool, but his hands warmed as he trailed them up my arms, then back down, settling at my waist and shifting me so I rolled over his erection. Together we moaned, the sound vibrating against our j oined lips, making mine tingle.

My fingers tangled in the hair at his nape, pressing him closer, angling his head so I could experience every nuance of his mouth.

The broad, bare expanse of his chest gave off a chill, and I ran my hands across it, rubbing back and forth, trying to warm him. My thumbs were drawn to his hardened nipples, brushing over them once, twice, three times.

As if in answer his palms swept from my hips, up my ribs, to my breasts, unfettered beneath the loose cotton blouse. His thumbs ran over the peaks in the same stroking rhythm.

“Cassandra,” he murmured against my mouth. “I thought you were dead.”

We’d both been under the same misconception, which only made what we were doing more a celebration of life than usual. I’d been so frightened, so alone; I had to be with him right now; then I could put every fear and loneliness behind.

I wiggled, uncomfortable. Our angle was all wrong. I attempted to swing my leg across his and straddle him, but my skirt got tangled with my knees. Cursing impatiently, I yanked the thing above my waist and settled across his lap, pressing us intimately together.

He leaned against the outer wall, eyes closed, hair tangled. I ran my hands across his chest again, down his arms, tracing a fingertip below the waistband of his pants.

His lips quirked; one eye opened. Reaching out, he took a fistful of my blouse and yanked me forward, pressing our mouths together again.

I was draped all over him, lips nibbling, teeth nipping, hands exploring. Then we slowed things down and, in doing so, only served to rev things up.

The less he gave, the more I wanted. What had seemed like a bad idea once seemed like a great idea now. My body was afire, drawn to the lingering chill of his.

His icy fingers felt exquisite on the heated skin of my stomach, tracing a delicious pattern across my rib cage. When he cupped my breasts I shivered, leaning back and lifting my blouse over my head, tossing it aside without thought, baring myself to him and the moonlight slanting through the tiny window.

I didn’t stop to think that I was behaving out of character because right now I seemed to be more me than I’d ever been before. Or perhaps this was the new me, a woman born from the ashes of the old.

His tongue did an innovative swirl around my nipple, as our bodies rocked together in a way that was

ordained long before we’d been born.

My legs spread wide, knees clutching his hips, I rode his erection, our clothes at first creating a delicious friction and then an unacceptable barrier. I was on the verge of something spectacular, and I existed only to find it.

I fumbled with his zipper. He shoved my hands aside, performing an acrobatic maneuver that freed him, even as I performed similar feats to remove one leg from my panties so he could plunge inside.

My skirt fell in a curtain around us as I clutched his shoulders; he grasped my hips, and we strove toward the conclusion of what we’d begun all the way back in that alley in Port-au-Prince.

My spine arched, body straining; he tugged on one nipple with his teeth, the sharp sensation causing me to gasp, clench, then shudder as the release broke over me, then he suckled to the gentle rhythm of the pulse deep inside.

He tugged me forward, my cheek against his hair, his face cradled between my breasts. His lingering chill seeped into me, and I groped for a blanket, tossing it over us, creating a cocoon that soon filled with our warmth. We stayed that way, arms around each other, bodies still j oined, as our breathing evened out and we slowly came back to the earth.

But we couldn’t stay that way forever. Eventually I had to climb off him, sit next to him, and ask questions. “You went into that hut in the village; then the next morning you were gone and everyone told me—”

“That I was dead? They told me the same thing about you.”

“Actually, they told me you didn’t exist. That I’d come into the village alone.”

“That makes no sense.”

“Does anything around here?” I asked. “Like how did you wind up in a hut in the middle of nowhere?”

“I’m not sure. I woke up here the morning after we arrived—or at least I think it was the morning after. I was dizzy, had the shivers. Pierre was here. He said I needed to stay away from the village. I had a fever.

Then he told me you’d already died of it.”

He pulled me into his arms again, and I was touched.

“How did you find me?”

I ignored the question, not wanting to get into the snake being my guardian and so on. We had more pressing concerns.

“Why didn’t they leave any water? Medicine? Food? Did you see a doctor?”

“I doubt they have one. Pierre told me to fast. Only when I was purified would I be healed.”

They were big on purification around here—no tea, no spices, no water, no food.

“That’s bullshit if I ever heard it,” I muttered.

“I didn’t care for it much myself. But every time I tried to stand, I ended up on my ass. So I decided to sleep as much as I could and maybe I’d get stronger.”

“Without food or water?”

He shrugged. “I didn’t have much choice.”

Something wasn’t right. I could understand isolating Murphy, but dehydrating and starving him? That sounded like they were trying to kill him. Why not just kill him? I guess there was only one way to find out.

“Let’s go back to the village.”