Into the Shadow (5 page)

Her lover roared in defiance.

The bike landed hard in a pile of rubble. The back wheel skidded. He corrected. Accelerated. And they drove away from the mountain, leaving it behind to mutter and rumble in murderous frustration.

The rough path took them away from Mount Anaya. They descended in fits and starts, dodging through crooked passes and splashing through tiny streams. Although the altitude was still high and the air thin, the terrain changed. First tiny flowers and tufts of grass softened the stony austerity. Then the occasional tree grew, digging its roots into the thin soil. The hope so conspicuously missing from Mount Anaya existed and intensified with every mile they drove. Finally Karen’s lover turned the bike straight up a hill, slammed down on the accelerator, and drove like a demon to the top, around a curve . . . and stopped in a narrow, hidden meadow bounded by mountains.

He turned off the motor.

The sudden silence was shocking.

Karen’s ears still rang from the din that accompanied the landslide, from the roar of the bike, and now she could hear a stream babbling, a bird singing . . . sounds so normal and sweet, she wanted to weep with joy.

The mountain hadn’t killed them. It had done its best, but she was alive.
They
were alive.

She slid off the seat. Her butt still vibrated from their wild ride. Her knees wobbled alarmingly.

She’d almost died.

She sank to the ground. The scent of crushed grass filled her head, and for a brief moment she leaned over and kissed the ground. Smiling, she glanced up at him. ‘‘Thank you,’’ she said. ‘‘Thank you.’’

He didn’t look at her. He sat absolutely still, almost as if they had never met.

And in truth, they hadn’t. The nights of desperate, needy sex could hardly count as an introduction.

Yet not even the sight of his stiff figure could stop the slow rise of her exuberance. One thought possessed her.

She was alive.

She got to her feet, took three steps away, and spun in a circle like a demented Julie Andrews. If she could carry a tune—which she couldn’t—she would have burst into a rousing chorus of ‘‘The Sound of Music.’’

She felt as if she’d found Shangri-la. Here in the meadow, the sunlight was clear and pure. She ran toward the tiny stream. It cascaded off a ledge into a pool lined with smooth pebbles, then spilled down the creek bed. The water sparkled as it crossed the stones, and she knelt beside it. When she splashed water over her face, it was so cold it made her teeth clench. She was making a fool of herself, but she didn’t care.

They were alive.

She laughed as she realized the dust sifting down from the sky really came from her hair— the dirt from the rockfall had coated her with grit. She stripped off her coat, shook it, and tossed it aside. With both hands she scrubbed at her head, and winced at a stab of pain. Carefully she explored; something, one of the rock chips, had sliced a small cut into her scalp behind her ear. The place felt sticky, and when she pulled her hand away her fingers were carmine with drying blood.

Yet such a small price to pay for being alive.

She closed her eyes, bowed her head, and thanked God, then stood, prepared to deal with what would happen next.

When she turned, he was there.

She shouldn’t have been surprised. He always moved with deliberate stealth.

But this time she jumped in horror.

He was six-foot, broad at the shoulder and narrow at the hip. The same dust that coated her had settled on him, on his dark, sleek, long hair, on his wild black beard and mustache. Beneath the dirt that streaked his face his skin was toasted by the sun. Although his bone structure was vaguely exotic, maybe Eastern European, this man was Caucasian.

And his eyes . . . his eyes were black. Not midnight blue, not sable brown, not charcoal gray.
Black
. So black it looked as if the pupil had swallowed the iris. Black, opaque, and shiny, like obsidian, the black glass formed in the fires of a volcano.

She tried to stumble backward.

He caught the front of her T-shirt in his fists and yanked her close.

Drugs? Yes. Only drugs could cause his eyes to look like . . . that.

Drugs . . . or she’d really died in the rockfall, and this was hell, and he was the devil.

Yet everything here seemed so real.
He
seemed real. They were close, almost touching. He leaned toward her, his breath touching her face. And as she stared into those eyes, she fell into a soul so dark and tormented nothing could ease his pain. Except maybe . . . her.

‘‘What did you think you were doing?’’ The voice of her midnight lover, yes, but low, furious, intent. ‘‘Standing down there while the mountain got ready to kill? Don’t you know Anaya’s reputation? Didn’t Mingma tell you the mountain would destroy you for trying to conquer it? No person has ever climbed it, built on it, or studied it and returned whole and unchanged. Don’t you know the scent of evil when it fills your lungs?’’

I smell it now.
But she was too terrified—too smart—to say that. ‘‘You should have left me.’’

‘‘Yes, I should have. But I couldn’t watch you die.’’ He breathed hard, his chest rising and falling like that of a man in agony. ‘‘Not you. Never you.’’

He might look like the devil, but he sounded as if he
cared
. And he kissed her with all the desperation of a caged animal, loosing his passion like an avalanche on her.

Yes. This was her lover. She recognized his taste.

But they’d never kissed like this. He dragged her into his embrace, held her fiercely. What had previously passed between them might have been a passionate game compared to his current need. He consumed her, swallowing her breath, her will. He burned her with his fever, and behind her closed eyes she saw eruptions of crimson and gold, flares of exploding heartbreak. Off balance, she clutched at him, the babbling stream behind her, his madness beckoning her on . . . and she kissed him back.

Because they were alive. She’d never
been
so alive. This man, who had shown her delight above all else, had saved her from death, brought her here to this perfect place, and now he wanted her. Wanted her.

Welcome to hell.

He grasped her bottom, whirled around, and, without moving a step, placed her in the grass. His hands went to her fly, lowering the zipper, pulling her pants and panties down to her knees. He growled in frustration when her boots brought him to an abrupt halt. He removed one easily, but on the second the laces were knotted, and in the depths of his black eyes she saw a flash of red. Red like fire. Red like the flames of hell.

With a jolt, reality returned.

She tried to sit up.

‘‘No!’’ In one efficient movement, he stripped her pants off her bare foot.

The ground, lush with grass, was shockingly cool.

He spread her legs—and stopped. And stared. Stared as if he’d never seen a woman before.

Certainly she had never so boldly revealed herself. She tried to use her hands as protection, but he caught her. ‘‘No,’’ he said again. He transferred both her wrists to one hand and used the other to open her to the light and the air. His fingers trailed down the center of her, a swift, light caress that brought every female nerve to high alert.

‘‘I’ve never seen anything so beautiful,’’ he whispered. He swirled the tip of one finger inside her. ‘‘Pale and pink, swelling as I touch you . . .’’

Involuntarily she tightened, holding him there.

He closed his eyes, his face a study in the agony of desire.

Then he came alive with urgency. He unzipped and stripped his jeans down to his knees.

Briefly she saw his erection, sturdy, wide, demanding.

He opened her, lay on her, thrust inside.

‘‘No!’’ She tried to sit up.

Why, she didn’t know—she needed him as badly as he needed her—but this . . . this was too much, too sudden, not glorious lovemaking, but a frenzied affirmation of life.

She wanted to stop.

She needed to come.

He scooped up her thighs, used the crooks of his arms to spread them wider, higher, and thrust again.

‘‘Damn you!’’ She was helpless against his strength, helpless to stop the blaze that entered her bloodstream and slid through her veins. She grabbed at his arms, digging her nails into his leather jacket, and used that leverage to lift herself over and over, small movements that collided with his need and fed her own.

As if she had spoken, he said, ‘‘All right!’’ and rolled over, bringing her to the top.

His black hair spread out on the green grass. His face beneath the beard was harsh, and his eyes were narrow slits of demand.

He loosened his grip. ‘‘Ride, then!’’

He was a big-boned man. She couldn’t straddle him and have her knees touch the ground. So, with her hands on his bare belly, she pushed herself up, put her feet under her, and rode.

It was decadent.

It was luscious.

She serviced him.

She serviced herself.

She listened for his groans and made him suffer. She probed for her own pleasures and repeated the movements that worked for her.

The sun beat down on her shoulders. The breeze caressed her nipples.

Beneath her he writhed. Inside he stretched her to the limit.

He was a beautiful animal, with long, wiry muscles and strength in his big hands.

And something about him slipped under her skin, into her blood, while at the same time he breathed deep, as if her essence fed his heart, his soul.

Her thighs burned with exertion as she rose and fell, rose and fell. She panted harshly, fighting to draw in enough of the thin, cool air to sustain this race to the finish. She moved faster and faster, dragging them toward completion.

Orgasm took control of her, a brief, glorious, pulse-pounding climax that expanded her senses to include the whole world, and shrank her focus to him—and her. She thought he was beautiful as he bucked beneath her, fierce, undisciplined, wild with passion.

They finished too soon. Throwing her arms out in an excess of jubilation, she laughed out loud. She’d never been so alive, so happy. She had escaped Mount Anaya. They had escaped death.

She wilted down on him, panting, exultant.

He wrapped his arms around her back and rolled once more.

She was under him, the heat of his body between her legs, the cool earth below her, and around her head tiny white flowers blossomed.

He stared at her as if she bewildered him.

She stared back, smiling, recovering from her folly. Slowly his dark gaze recalled her to normalcy, then to wariness.

She had had sex with this man, held him in her arms while he slept beside her, trusted him to save her life. Yet she knew nothing about him, and his eyes . . . his eyes chilled her with the same sense of impending disaster she’d experienced on the slopes of Mount Anaya.

With the fingers of one hand he pushed her hair away from her face. ‘‘You shouldn’t have done that.’’

‘‘What? What do you mean? I shouldn’t have had sex with you?’’ In a tart tone she said, ‘‘I didn’t know I had a choice.’’

‘‘You shouldn’t have done me. You shouldn’t have loved it. Most of all you shouldn’t have laughed.’’

She stared at him.

He looked so stern, like a revivalist minister preaching the Old Testament.

She struggled to divine his meaning. ‘‘I wasn’t laughing at you, if that’s what you mean. I was laughing—’’

‘‘—for joy. I understand.’’

He observed her so closely, she felt as if his gaze scoured her face, revealing more than she wanted him to know, and he made her aware of his weight pressing her into the grass, her widespread legs, her risky vulnerability. She shifted uncomfortably.

He stroked her hair again. ‘‘Someday I would like to hear you laugh again.’’

‘‘I don’t laugh like that very often.’’ She didn’t do any of this very often.

‘‘Nevertheless.’’ With every sign of reluctance he pulled away from her. He stood and stripped, a swift, efficient elimination of clothing and boots.

He tossed everything on the ground, then stood over her, looking down at her, his fists clenching and unclenching.

To suspect him of lifting weights was absurd; he led a life on the edge of civilization, doing God knew what for a living, yet he was long and lean, a sleek predator with coiled strength in the bunching muscles of his arms, in the bulk of his shoulders, the ripped power of his belly. His cock and balls hung between his legs, and although he was limp, she knew only too well the size and power he wielded there.

Charcoal black smudges etched jagged lines down his chest and arm. The marks seemed to form thunderbolts, but they were shrunken, pulling at the edges of his skin, eating into his flesh. She couldn’t ignore them, and compassion made her ask, ‘‘What happened?’’

Leaning down, he grasped her wrists and brought her to her feet. ‘‘It’s nothing.’’

‘‘Nothing?’’ She touched one lightly. ‘‘It looks like a burn, but there’s a form . . . isn’t there?’’

‘‘It’s a birthmark.’’

‘‘Is it painful?’’

‘‘No.’’ He pulled away from her.

Whatever those marks were, he was sensitive about them. And the way he looked at her, like a man who had reached a decision, made her
think
.

She didn’t want to think.

But she was, above all, a woman of good sense, a woman made tough by necessity, a workaholic who spent her life completing one job and going to another. Until this man had visited her tent, she hadn’t bothered to take a lover for years. A lover was too much trouble. A lover always required attention, and she didn’t have the time to waste.

Now she felt as if she’d been reborn to this world; too open, too raw, too new. She was like a child experiencing a swarm of new emotions—or were they old emotions set free? She didn’t know.

But she did know her lack of discipline would have consequences.

Her pants hung around one leg. Her T-shirt was twisted around her waist. She stood lop-sided in one boot. She’d just had unprotected sex—oh, God, what had she been thinking?— and his come wet her thighs.

She had never done anything so outrageous in her life.

The sunshine streamed down on them now. She could see him all too clearly, and questions hummed through her mind.

What now?

What if I’m pregnant?

Who is he?

And,
This man is savage.

She knew it in her bones. That had been, after all, why she welcomed him to her bed at night.

Clutching the waistband of her pants, she tugged it up over her thighs in what she hoped looked like a casual attempt to dress. ‘‘I know you’ve already done so much, but can you take me down to the nearest phone? I’ve got to call my father, tell him what happened. Have him notify Phil’s next of kin. Make arrangements to pay for the rental equipment we lost.’’ Worries and responsibilities returned to crowd her mind. ‘‘Do you think Mingma escaped? My cook and interpreter? She said she was going to run. She did escape, didn’t she?’’

‘‘Mingma is fine,’’ he said without expression in his face or voice.

‘‘Really?’’ She winced at her own chipper tone. ‘‘How do you know?’’

‘‘Mingma is smart enough to recognize danger when she sees it. Which is apparently more than you can do.’’ He knelt before Karen, untied her boot, and tugged at it and her pants.

Karen didn’t know whether he was referring to the danger of Mount Anaya or the danger he represented.

She tugged back. ‘‘Look, I don’t know what you think you’re doing. . . .’’ Actually, she was pretty sure what he thought he was doing, but caution had reared its ugly head.

‘‘We’re going to take a shower.’’ He jerked his head toward the clear, cold waterfall.

‘‘No. Way. I washed my face in that water. Not to mention I was raised in Montana in the Rockies up by Glacier National Park. When I was a kid I stood knee-deep in a creek just like that, building a dam out of rocks. So I know what I’m talking about when I say I am not using that stream for a bath.’’ She backed away.

He used her momentum to strip away her pants.

‘‘How else do you propose to get clean?’’ He sounded prosaic, not dangerous, like some guy she’d met in college. ‘‘If the water’s that cold, you can hardly accuse me of dire intentions.’’

Mount Anaya had destroyed her last three months’ work. She’d lost a man on the site. She’d finally glimpsed her lover and realized she wasn’t mad—but perhaps
he
was. She didn’t think she had an ounce of humor left. But now she found her mouth crooking. ‘‘Well. That’s true.’’ She looked around. They were on the edge of a lawless borderland, with the most meager glimmer of civilization at least a day’s drive away. There was no one to see them and, more important, no easy way to get cleaned up.

She looked down at herself. Her T-shirt was grubby. Her legs were bare. Now that he mentioned it, she felt sort of grainy.

One more hour would make no difference to the outside world.

A crisp breeze eased through the pristine mountain valley.

With a yell that echoed up the walls of the valley, she grasped the hem of her T-shirt, stripped it off over her head, and ran toward the waterfall.

Behind her she heard a similar shout. He ran past her, his bare feet lifted high, and he hit the stream seconds ahead of her. Icy droplets sprayed in the air. He skidded to a stop, and she plowed into him. He wrapped her in his arms and thrust her under the icy cascade.

She screamed in subzero agony, and laughed and splashed as he used his hands to scrub her entire body. She rubbed him back, feeling silly, horny, free for one more foolish second.

They didn’t linger; it was too cold.

But they got clean, and she knew why he always smelled so fresh and wild when he came to her bed.

First he came here to the waterfall.

He pulled her from the water and spanned her waist with his hands.

She looked up at him and laughed.

His face changed subtly, from shared amusement to a starkness, a bleakness that broke her heart.

Then he said them, the words that moved her from sorrow to rage. ‘‘I will never let you go.’’