Cold Fusion (23 page)

I couldn’t accept that. I’d stopped throwing my toys out of the pram and storming off, but I still had a huge wasteland to cross inside my head before I could take it in that I was going to lose him, that someone so vital and real could simply be snuffed out. There was no point in further protests, though. I had no right to try and snatch away whatever peace he’d managed to make with his situation. All I could do was give him what he wanted.

I went in search of the lubricant. I found it under the sofa, sent skittering there in the throes of our last tussle. There was barely any left. I’d have liked about a gallon for a first time with Viv, but I could make this do.

He reached to help me up, eyes fixed on me with a sweet carnality I could have endured forever. “Are you really going to do it to me?”

“Yes. Any lesser mortal would’ve been shagged out by now, but I, your lordship, am gonna lay you down and do you so hard and good that your toes might never uncurl. Get undressed.”

He stood up and obeyed, his gaze never leaving me. Then I ordered him to undress me. It was best to keep him busy, and I was playing for time. Words were cheap, but I was a long way off any kind of convincing erection. Every time my memory flickered back over the things I’d learned tonight, a wave of cold weakness went through me, chilling my extremities, slowing the blood flow to my cock. I stood, breathing deeply while he clumsily took off my coat and sweater. I let him unzip my trousers, then grabbed his wrists. “That’s enough. Lie down on the sofa now.”

“On my front, or…”

“Yes, your front. I want that beautiful arse of yours. We’ll save the fancy stuff for next time, when you’re an expert.” He accorded me a little nod, for my faith or my ongoing fight against reality, and stretched out on his stomach. “That’s it. Are you warm enough?”

“I’m fine, only…what the devil is this made of? It itches.”

“You won’t have time to think about it in a minute.” I hoped I was right. I stripped out of my trousers and eased onto the sofa behind him, letting the sight of his flawless ivory-skinned backside work its magic. He spread his legs to make room for me, and that helped a lot. The runnel down his spine was delicious, and I could almost see target, there in his light dusting of fine black hair. I caught my lip between my teeth and began to jerk off, feeding the fire enough that when I lay down with him he’d feel me and know how much I wanted him.

And something inside me just broke. All he felt was the splash of the big stupid tear I hadn’t caught in time. It hit his shoulder blade, and he glanced back at me and released a soft moan. “Ah, Mallory. Come here.”

I tucked myself around him, my belly to his back. He wriggled his hips against mine so I was halfway home. He caressed my thigh to draw me closer in, rubbing his face against the arm I’d tucked beneath his neck. “Listen,” he choked out. “I feel the same. All I want is to curl up and cry in your arms. But there’s so much living to do. I found that out too late.”

“Most people find out too late.” I took hold of his cock, squeezing encouragement from root to tip. For all he wanted this, he too was having a hard time raising the flag. “At least we found out. You’ll be amazed what we can pack into a short space of time.” He gave a grunt of pleasure, and I let my voice become rough and crude, a viable alternative to sobbing on his neck. “Amazed what I can pack into a nice wee virgin arse, for that matter.”

Chapter Fourteen

I’d shocked him a bit. He liked it. Probably always would enjoy it when the peasantry got down and dirty with him. I took advantage of his disgusted laughter to squeeze out the last of the lube and spread it as far as it would go—all over my shaft, responding to my own vulgarity and rising to the occasion at last, all around his tight entrance. Anybody else, any other night, I’d have put him on his hands and knees and explored him, shown him what was what with my fingers, warmed him up for the main act with my tongue. He didn’t want any of that. He was even impatient of me applying the KY, his butthole twitching at my touch.

He grabbed my wrist and pulled my hand back to his cock. “Please. Do it now, Mallory.”

Thank God I could. My blood was hot with grief and love, great surges that stiffened me to full erection. He cried out and buried his face in the crook of my elbow as I pushed inside of him. I remembered from my own first time how it all felt—the sense of wrong-way traffic in a one-way street, the conflicting impulses, at once to open up and to heave against the invasion. He was convulsing around me. He struggled onto his front, grinding his cock into my hand.

“God,” he rasped. “Stop for a second. I don’t know if I like it.”

I froze, poised over him. “Not liking it’s okay.”

“You could stop?”

“Jesus, you idiot—of
course
I could!” There was no point in giving the poor bastard life lessons now, but I said it anyway, the uselessness of it stinging my eyes wet again. “You never go with any guy who says he can’t. Okay?”

“Okay. I promise I never will.”

“Do you need me to pull out?”

He lay panting for a few seconds. “What’s the saying? At this point it’s really…go big or go home, isn’t it?”

He would make me laugh in the jaws of death. I gave up all my restraints, hauled him into my arms and pushed my shaft deep inside him. He had another moment or two of not being sure if he liked it—grabbed at the edge of the sofa and fought underneath me like a tiger—and then I hit a sweet spot, wringing a sound from him that would have made a stone weep. I no longer cared that I was crying too. There was cause for it. An ocean of tears wouldn’t begin to pay tribute for the loss of this man.

His eyes were closed, firelight gleaming on his wet eyelashes. His rosiest flush had come up from the core of him. His mouth was forming silent prayers against my arm. I found a rhythm for him, profound and soft. Buried my face in his hair. Lost myself in the essential scent of him, the vibrant life that ran through every dark curl. He lifted his head—started to yell at each in-thrust, and he was there and beyond there, intimate muscle crushing tight around my shaft, moving like a deep-sea diver rising up for air. His seed exploded into my hand. I hung on for a heartbeat, for five, ten, twenty, unable to abandon him before he was done—terrified, too, of what lay beyond this moment for us, the darkness and the bitter truths. Then I let go. Climax roared up from the pit of my gut, from my soul, a great prolonged rush that dissolved the world.

I eased out of him. In patches of dazed flame, I saw him turn over and hold his arms out for me. His eyes were wide and full of wondering light. He made a cradle of his thighs for me, a well-crafted boat of his body. His strength and exhaustion’s great ocean wrapped me round. There’d been nothing to fear after all, not yet. There was only deep water and sleep.

* * * * *

Just after dawn, I got up and dressed as quietly as I could. I covered Viv with a sleeping bag, crouching by the sofa for a minute to listen to his breathing. It was regular and deep, but there was a faint rasp in his chest like the one I’d heard in my own before a bout of pneumonia. He let me rearrange him, only murmuring once in sleepy protest, so that he was lying on his side.

I found my phone in my coat pocket. The battery was down to twelve percent. I knew from experience that I could squeeze one last call from it at five, and I had to hang on to that at all costs. The rest I could play with. I left the house, locking the door behind me, and I set off through the snow.

There was the faintest patch of mobile reception on the northwest boundary of the property. It grew stronger the closer I got to Lil’s resting place, as if she were boosting the signal. It was odd to perch on the dry-stone wall looking down at a corpse, but I couldn’t be afraid of her. She looked more peaceful than ever beneath her new veil of frosted snow. I opened an Internet browser, typed in my best-guess spelling of Viv’s illness, and held my phone up at arm’s length.

I needed to know. He might not be gifted with tact, but he was brave and stoical and protective, and I soon learned that there were plenty more reasons for him not to want palliative care than the ones he’d given me. His paralysis would extend to the loss of bladder and bowel control. Unless intubated, he would live with a slowly increasing sense of drowning in his own lungs. I flicked from one site to the next, cross-checking, making sure my information was correct and up to date. I had to know so that the next time a symptom hit him, I wouldn’t be freaked out. Towards the end, his brain would shut down and he wouldn’t recognise faces. He would forget everything, right down to his own name.

In the top line of the last site listed on my mobile’s tiny screen, I saw the words
recent research
, and
cure
. The fucking signal died. I scrambled onto my knees on the top of the wall, knocking a coping stone flying.

“Help me, Aunt Lil,” I muttered without thinking. I got to my feet and balanced. One reception bar lit up, the tiny last-gasp dot at the point of the triangle. An academic article from a medical journal loaded onto my screen. There was only about one word in five that I could understand but I homed in on stem cell donation, tissue-typing, close family members.

I also checked the date. If the article had been paper in my hands, the ink would still have been wet. Losing my balance, I jumped before I could fall and landed more or less upright in the snow. When summer came, I vowed, I’d pile the old lady’s grave high with roses.

I ran back down to the house. Viv sat up sleepily when I pushed open the kitchen door. I had to stay calm. The only thing crueller than his illness would be a ray of false hope. I just had a question for him, and less than no idea of how to ask it.

He was smiling, pushing back his fringe. He looked desperately young. “What’s the matter? Have you been out?”

“Yes. Nothing’s wrong.” I sat on the edge of the sofa, careful to keep my chilly hands off his sleep-warmed skin. “I needed a walk, that’s all. And I was thinking…”

The pause extended itself. He raised an eyebrow. “Come on, Mallory. We both know I can’t wait forever.”

Great. Now I was in the know, I was going to have to endure his straight-faced jokes. I couldn’t very well clap my hand over his mouth every time. “Sorry. I was thinking about Lilian, and how pleased I was that she wanted to leave me this house. I mean, whether I get it or not, she thought enough of me to give me her…” I spread my hands, struggling, “…her place in the world, I guess. And I was wondering, since your dad couldn’t leave Calder Castle to you—was there anybody
he
felt that way about?” I was doing quite well. Now I just had to keep my voice steady for the last bit. “Do you have any other family?”

He yawned, unconcerned as a kitten, only raising a token hand at the last second to cover his mouth. “Nn-nn. My father was the last of us—second-last, anyway. With me dies the lairdship of Calder.”

“No close relatives at all?”

“Not a soul. Why have you woken me up to ask me stuff I’m sure I’ve told you already?”

I swallowed the razor blade in my throat. “You might have cause for complaint, if you were actually awake.”

“Well, whose fault is that?” He gave me a languorous kiss. “Either come back here and sedate me again, or be a lovely gentleman and let me sleep the first one off.”

I’d have to take the second option. I couldn’t have got it up for him now if both our lives had depended on it. He subsided onto the couch, and I tucked him up, feeling him fall away from me too fast and too far, that telltale squeak in his lungs piercing the silence when he breathed. I went to stare out of the window. In my pocket, my mobile gave a familiar, dispiriting buzz and turned itself off.

Shit. I’d used up all the battery. I was absolutely bloody useless. Now I couldn’t even make that last-ditch call. Sick rage coiled up in me, looking for a target. At that moment, far across the valley, a shape passed in front of the gleam in the ruined croft’s window, and the light went out.

Someone was there. The only imaginable reason for a human presence in this place at this season was that some evil bastard intended harm to Viv. Had followed us here, set up camp, and was awaiting the opportunity to snatch from him—from me—the last scraps of whatever time he had left. The second I reached this conclusion, the idea became intolerable. I’d left Aunt Lil’s rifle out in the snow by the larch trees. I had enough grace to feel a pang of shame—she’d have hated such carelessness—but that was my last sane thought.

* * * * *

Crossing the valley was tough. I had to stay out of the deep drifts, and once I’d calmed down a bit, I started picking out routes that would keep Lilian’s cottage in sight at all times. My business was there, not buggering about here in the snow, but I couldn’t go back. Nobody could approach the house unseen, at any rate, not once I’d forded the shallow, rocky stream and started my climb up the southern slope. I followed the lee side of a dry-stone wall as far as I could, slipping and stumbling on the frozen grass. I’d never make a huntsman, that was for sure. I’d seen the shooting parties come down into Kerra after a day out persecuting birds on the moors, rifles slung carelessly over one arm. For me it was like carrying a caber. I didn’t even know if the damn thing had a safety catch. Every time I had to climb a wall or squeeze through a gateway, I was in danger of shooting off my foot.

The gun was all I had. With it I would defend my lover and my small patch of earth. Maybe I’d encounter his disease in human form up at the croft, some hungry black spectre poking about in the ruins. I drew a deep breath of the dawn air, imagining blowing the vampire thing to rags. First light was breaking as I approached the tumbled walls. Yes, somebody was encamped here. Two of the four outer walls remained, a sheltering corner. Someone had dragged a sheet of corrugated iron over them to form a roof, and tamped it into place with rocks. An ancient green backpack was propped against a stone. A primus stove and a handful of tins were set up beside it. In the single remaining window, an oil lamp sat on the sill. I could have found the lair of a Victorian shepherd, if not for the sophisticated pair of night-vision binoculars hanging from a nail in the wall.

The grass crunched behind me. It was one sound only, less warning than a rabbit or a deer would give of its approach. I didn’t get the chance to turn. A cold metal snout poked into my back, right between the shoulders.

“Break that gun down, take the ammo out and put it on the ground. Slowly.”

I tried. My brain raced through its store of remembered voices, because I knew this one. No stranger had come to assassinate Viv up here in the mountains. Deep, rough, a lifelong Highlander’s burr. I took it very seriously, but somehow I couldn’t be afraid. My only problem was the gun. I’d known enough to load it, but there my expertise stopped.

“Sorry,” I said, staring off into the broad sweep of the valley, wondering if this would be my last sight of dawn. “I don’t know how.”

“Och, Kier Mallory. It
is
you. I thought so when I saw you tramping up the hill, but I wasn’ae sure.” A big hand seized my shoulder and spun me round. “I’m certain my young laird has told you never to point a weapon you don’t know how to shoot.”

Alfred Macready stood before me, fresh as if he’d just stepped out of the gun room at Calder Castle. His thick white crew cut caught the sun, and the light of battle hadn’t yet quite faded from his eyes.

I nodded. I couldn’t put my hands up, so I held out the rifle to him. “Yes. He told me exactly that. Here, take it—I hate the bloody things.”

“Yet you prowl about the moors with one…” He snatched the gun from me, laid aside his own and cracked the barrel open. “Intending what, exactly?”

“To look after Viv. Vivian,” I amended, when the sarcastic old grey eyebrows went up. “To stop anybody from hurting him.”

“Aye. And it’ll be for that reason too that you set Spindrift afire, and left the whole village to think you both dead, and your mother wailing for you like a banshee in the streets.”

“No.” I took a helpless step backwards. My legs were trembling, adrenaline ebbing like the tide now I’d found a friend up here and not a would-be assassin. “It wasn’t like that. Viv finished his work, and I called someone out to see it, someone I thought could help him. But the bastard tried to kill him. He blew the labs up, not me.” Alfred gestured sharply, and I sat down on the stone he’d been using for a chair. I rubbed my eyes. “My ma… Is my mother upset?”

“What else should she be? She may not be much of a hen, but you’re still her one chick.”

“Aye, but—”

“But nothing. Leaving your mother aside, what do you think ran through the heads of every man and woman up in Calder Castle, who’ve loved my young laird since he was a child?”

“I’m sorry. He… I didn’t think.”

“It’s all right for
him
not to think. I remember telling you before, he’s not like other men. People care for him and never stop to think if he cares for them in return. It was the same with his father.”

He checked the cartridges in the rifle, snapped the safety on and to my surprise returned the gun to me, laying it across my lap. I could see in his pale blue gaze all his years of caring for his Calders, his lairds old and young. I didn’t buy his indifference to returns. “I think he does care. He’d be sorry to have frightened you.”

“Frightened me? Aye, perhaps, if I was stupid. For the five minutes it took me to find out that the car was missing.”