Eden Burning (31 page)

Potential islands of life were forming as he watched. Some of the kipukas were too small to protect their plants. Everything alive burned up in streamers of smoke. Other kipukas were big enough for some of the plants to survive between the molten pincers of lava.

There was so much smoke it looked like everything was on fire, even the air itself.

“How the hell did you find the kids in this mess?” Chase asked.

“Observatory plane spotted them first. The woman had them parked in the middle of a big patch of pahoehoe. No trees to burn or to hide them. Good thing, too. Never would have found them otherwise.”

The pilot checked the GPS reading, veered to the right, and skated down on a long descent, coming closer to the rivers of burning stone with each passing second. Heat rising from the lava buffeted the helicopter, but the pilot held his course.

Chase throttled the impatience hammering at him, the raw fear that he was too late.

He should have been down there with her.

I was going to have it all my own way. I was going to heal her and set her free and then wait for her to fly back to me.

But she can’t fly. She’s trapped down there, and I’m trapped up here in this goddamned tin can.

“How much farther?” he asked, his voice harsh.

“Under that smoke somewhere. We’re right on the coordinates.”

Chase stared down into the rolling billows of smoke. “I can’t see shit from here.”

“Going lower will be dangerous.”

“Like being down there alone on the ground isn’t dangerous?” Chase asked savagely.

“Just so you know.”

“I know.”

“Good enough. Keep your eyes peeled. I’m gonna have my hands full.”

The engine noise changed as the helicopter dropped down through the smoke. The pilot kept one eye on the GPS readout and the other on the altimeter.

Chase stared out into the murk. A blur of smoke-mantled green forest unreeled dizzyingly beneath the helicopter. The chopper’s skids were barely above the tallest trees.

After a few minutes the pilot switched directions and flew another leg of an imaginary grid. The forest raced by, green on green. Smoke swirled up wildly. Eden burning.

The thought of Nicole alone down there made sweat gather along Chase’s ribs and slide coldly down his spine. The helicopter was dangerously close to the treetops, and still it was all he could do to make out shapes on the ground. The air was thick with ash and sometimes reeked of sulfur.

His hands clenched into hard fists. The sulfur smell told him that there was a fissure nearby pouring gases into the air. Some of them would be poisonous.

Hurry,
he yelled silently to the pilot.
Hurry!

The forest vanished.

At first Chase thought it had been blacked out by the smoke. Then he realized that they were skimming over a cooled lava flow.

Pahoehoe, where nothing could grow.

Long minutes went by while he stared at the ground through shifting veils of smoke and saw nothing but shades of black, slate, gray, everything but the colors of life. Suddenly he caught a shimmer of red-gold in the midst of black and gray, old lava and new smoke. At first he thought it was fire. Then he knew.

“There!” he said, pointing. “Two o’clock!”

The pilot switched directions and swooped down like a hawk. The closer they got, the greater Chase’s fear, until it was a hand wrapped around his neck, choking him.

Nicole lay facedown on the lava, motionless but for her hair rippling like a banner over the dark rock.

Chase leaped from the helicopter before it fully settled to the ground. Calling her name, he ran to her. Finally, painfully, she turned toward his voice. He lifted her into his arms and buried his face in her hair. She coughed terribly, unable to speak, clinging to him as he carried her into the helicopter.

They were barely strapped in before the helicopter shot upward, tunneling through smoke toward the clearer air of Hilo.

Fountains of lava danced against the night sky, sending dazzling rivers of stone burning down Kilauea’s seamed flank. When the outside of the lava flows congealed into dark rock, it formed a shifting, temporary lid on the seething rivers. As the volcano continued to pump out more molten stone, the dark lid of each flow broke many times. The burning rock inside made patterns that were like captive lightning. The sight was both savage and beautiful, a view back through time to the birth of the land.

In awed silence Nicole watched from a safe vantage point. It wasn’t merely the distance from the incredible upwelling of molten stone that made her feel safe, it was Chase’s arms around her and his voice murmuring in her ear, telling her what was happening to the mountain beneath them.

“There’s a new Great Crack pouring out lava for half the length of the mountain. Already one of the lava tongues has gone all the way to the sea.” He brushed his lips over Nicole’s hair and smelled her ginger shampoo. He still went cold at the memory of seeing her laid out like a sacrifice on the black lava. “The island will be a little bigger come morning.”

The fountains gushed higher for an instant, pulsing with rhythms alien to man, incandescent with the violence of creation.

Nicole trembled.

He nestled her closer against his chest. “Don’t be frightened. Every last person who was trapped on Kilauea has been rescued. No one was even hurt. You saw Lisa tonight. She’s running around like a little gazelle.” He laughed softly. “So is everyone else on the island, trying to find the best place to watch the mountain dance.”

“It’s so powerful. So beautiful. Unearthly.”

“It’s the beginning of everything.” Softly he kissed her hair and let the scent of her reassure him at the most primitive level. She was alive. Unhurt. In his arms. “Without the volcano there would be no land, no trees, no ferns, no flowers, nothing but the sea. Eden was born in fire, and only fire keeps it alive.”

She shivered again and leaned back against him. She enjoyed sitting cradled between his long legs, her back against his chest, his arms around her, his breath stirring warmly on her neck.

It was as though the last three weeks had never happened, as though he had never gone to the mainland, as though she had never huddled in the middle of black stone and prayed that she would live to see him again.

So much had happened.

And nothing had changed.

In the hours since he had lifted her into the helicopter, he hadn’t said anything about his trip to the mainland. She had been afraid to ask him when he was going again, if he was glad to see her, if he wanted her to stay with him tonight.

He hadn’t asked her anything at all. He had simply held her, watched her reunion with the worried children, and then asked everyone to come up the mountain with him again after dinner. He wanted them to see how beautiful the volcano could be. When the children had finally tired of the spectacle, Dane and Jan had taken them back down the mountain, leaving Nicole and Chase alone on a mound of picnic cushions.

“Chase?” Nicole asked, her voice suddenly uncertain.

His arms tightened around her. He didn’t want to hear her next words, her hesitant thanks for rescuing her and then a plea to be set free again.

He couldn’t let her go. Not now. Not ever. He would take whatever she could give and try not to ask for more.

“It’s all right,” he said. “You’re safe.”

As he spoke, he lifted the silky mass of Nicole’s unbound hair and let it fall over his shoulder and down his back like a fiery cape. The red-gold lights of Kilauea gleamed within her hair, reflections of the dancing fountains of creation.

His mouth found the soft skin at the nape of her neck. He tasted her delicately, testing the smooth flesh with his teeth and tongue. He heard her breath catch, felt the tiny tremors of her response. When his palms found the full curves of her breasts, she sighed and let her head fall back on his shoulder.

“Yes, butterfly,” he breathed into her ear, “come to me. Drink the sweetness.”

Beneath the long black muumuu she wore, her skin tingled as though brushed by fire. His hands moved lovingly from her shoulders to her thighs, pressing against her, urging her even closer to his heat, caging her gently between his legs.

Restlessly, hungrily, her palms moved over the masculine textures surrounding her, enjoying the hair-roughened, flexed power of his legs. She tilted her head up and turned toward him, wanting to taste his lips.

His eyes were closed against the moonlight and the dancing fires. His expression was harsh, intensely male. He was absorbing every instant of touching, every tiny movement of her hands, everything about the woman half reclining against him.

Heat washed through her, a need that was as complex and unknowable as the mountain itself. As she lifted toward his mouth, his hands slid beneath her muumuu, gliding up her legs until he captured the softness waiting between. Her breath came out in a startled moan as fire burst through her, consuming her. Her hips moved slowly, slowly, telling him how much she enjoyed the intimate caress.

A thick sound wedged in Chase’s throat when he felt Nicole’s silky movements beneath his hands. He stroked her for a moment longer before sliding his hands higher, seeking the tempting peaks of her breasts, finding them, tugging sweetly at them until she cried out and arched into his hands.

A shudder of pure need racked him. He wanted her with a force that was both pain and pleasure. His hands swept up her body, peeling away the soft black folds of cloth, leaving her wearing nothing but a dark lace triangle that couldn’t conceal the fiery hair beneath.

An instant later Nicole was completely naked and Chase’s hands were teasing her breasts again. She wanted to turn and capture the hot, hungry mouth that was buried in the curve of her neck, but the sensation of his hands caressing her nipples was too exquisite. He held her in sweet captivity.

His fingers looked dark against her pale flesh, hard, exciting. When his hands drifted down her body and nestled between her legs, she gave up any thought of trying to turn over in his arms. Her breath came out in a broken cry of pleasure that was his name.

Hearing it, he smiled against her neck. He bit her nape even as his fingers found and caressed the slick, taut focus of her desire.

Nicole’s whole body burned with the response only Chase had ever called from her. Her nails swept up the length of his bare legs, but his hiking shorts kept her at bay. She wanted to touch him, to know the hard leap of his flesh when she satisfied him. She could feel him pressing against her back. She twisted against him just as the first, shivering waves of pleasure took her, melting her.

He felt the fire washing through her softness, fire overflowing at his touch, and he made a husky, triumphant sound. “I’ve spent three weeks trying to figure out how to get you to fly back to me.”

“All you had to do was—” Her words ended on a gasp of shocked pleasure.

He raked his teeth not quite lightly over her nape and stroked deeply into her, glorying in her untamed response. She strained into his imprisoning, caressing embrace in a sultry dance that made him want to eat every inch of her and then sink into her until sweet annihilation consumed them.

“I thought of using Lisa,” he said, “of telling you how much she loves you, needs you. But Lisa will be grown up in the blink of an eye, and I’ll just be beginning to know how much I want you, need you.”

“Chase, I—” Her voice broke as his hands moved skillfully, taking her to the edge of fiery release.

Holding her there.

“I’ll take whatever you want to give me,” he said, pressing her tightly against his hungry body, stroking her, feeling the sultry rush of her response. “Just don’t fly away from me. Stay and drink from me. Let me drink from you. Don’t ask me to let you go. I can’t.”

She cried out and fought to hold back the waves of pleasure melting her. Trembling, her hands closed over his, stilling his caressing fingers.

“Nicole,” he whispered hoarsely, “don’t you want this?”

Slowly she turned in his arms, stroking his rigid erection with every languid movement of her body. Her hair spilled over both of them, veiling them in fire.

“Nicole?”

She unbuttoned his shirt, pushed it aside, and sighed as she tasted his hot, salty skin.

He couldn’t stop a shudder of pleasure and relief. Her teeth scraped lightly over his nipples, her tongue stabbed, and her hands finished undressing him. When he was naked, she stroked him hungrily, holding him between her palms, enjoying every bit of his arousal as he smiled darkly and moved with her touch.

“I love your taste,” she said, bending down to him, “your textures, the heat of your body. I love your words when you talk about the land and your smile when Lisa falls asleep in your arms. I love
you.”
Her voice trembled with the emotions that were sweeping through her, melting her body into his. “Be part of me. Now. Always.”

As he took the gift of her body, he gave her the words that burned within him even more fiercely than his passion for her.

“I love you, Nicole. I’ll die loving you.” He caught her mouth in a consuming kiss and sank deeply into her, becoming part of her.

Completing both.

Around them fountains of molten stone danced and pulsed. The fires of Eden burned, washing everything with the incandescent light of creation.