Liquid Lies (25 page)

She shook her head and returned her eyes to the water, but she was also biting her lip to keep from smiling. Good. The tension eased some. Her shoulders came down from around her ears.

“That’s okay.” He grinned. “Neither do I.”

That time, she did smile. It died quickly, though, terrified eyes darting around.

“Camera is on top of the guard hut,” he said. “Looking at our backs.”

“Did you take some sort of class on this? ‘Keeping Your Hostages Calm 101’ or something like that?”

He took in the blue-gray of the mountains beyond and the relaxing sound of the waves, and imagined himself and Gwen in another time. Maybe lounging in deck chairs with a couple of beers, the same stunning scene stretching at their feet. He’d touch her hand, her hair, and she wouldn’t have to hide her smile. Neither would he.

“No,” he replied. “It’s just for you.”

A different kind of tension stiffened her body. “I want to go back inside.”

She skirted around him and started back down the dock. As always, he was left to trot at her heels.

In daylight, everything about her was brighter. He liked the sway of her hair. A burgundy leaf swirled on the wind and got snagged in the layers that draped down her back. He wanted to reach over and comb it out.

As he trailed behind, the scent of her enveloped him. After she’d showered that morning—and out of her eyesight—he’d buried his face in her towel. They used the same soap, but something about that damp terry cloth smelled distinctly of her.

Space. They needed space. So he fell back a few steps, putting a good twenty feet between them.

In front of the guard hut she stopped, turned. Waited for him. Damn it, why’d she do that? Didn’t she know what he was fighting here? If he could, he’d push her against the wall, slide his thigh between hers, and kiss her until every muscle in her body loosened. He’d pull that leaf from her hair and trail his mouth along her throat.

As though sensing what hot thoughts scored his mind, her lips parted. In the sunlight, the irises of her wicked bedroom eyes glowed the deepest amber. Being smarter than him, she was the first to snap out of their mutual haze.

She wheeled away and hurried into the house.

Midafternoon the faucet ran in the bathroom. Reed must have
dozed off. His weird watch declared it 4 p.m. Gwen must have slept, too. He rolled off the bed and went to the bathroom door.

“Gwen?” He rapped softly with a knuckle. “You okay?”

No response. A hypersensitive mix of worry and Retriever instincts set in. Maybe she’d turned on the faucet to distract him while she tried to jimmy open the window or something. He flung open the door.

Gwen jumped back from the sink. “I told you to stop doing that!”

“Sorry. I knocked. Thought you’d heard.”

Jesus, she was wearing his T-shirt again. Bare legs ending in toes with chipped red polish. She’d wrapped her long hair in a messy knot on top of her head, damp strands dangling around her face. Tousled and natural and touchable and hot beyond words.

“Ah-ah.” She backed into her doorway, pointing to the tiled floor. “DMZ. Remember?”

He blinked, looked down, and realized he’d taken a half step into the bathroom.

How did they wind up back here so soon? Was this all they had? Cryptic, circular, sexually tense conversations over a bargain toilet and cheap towels?

Like last night, they watched each other across the small bathroom. No food between them this time. Instead there was something else, intangible but real, and it tingled every one of his nerves. Every inch of his skin.

He didn’t want her to disappear. “I thought of something else to ask you.”

She made a fist, ready to check with a knock. “Okay.”

“Um. Can I ask what language you guys were speaking?” Good one, genius.

She eyed him. “You can. But I won’t say.”

“Fair enough. But you speak Japanese, too, right?”

She nodded without hesitation; she couldn’t exactly deny that one.

“I’m guessing, for your job, you’re an interpreter.” He thought it was a safe topic; her real-life paycheck couldn’t have anything to do with why Nora wanted her. Could it? Something odd and dangerous and fearful flashed in her eyes. “Do you speak a lot of languages?”

Her arms folded across her chest, drawing up the hem of the T-shirt. He lasered his eyes on hers to avoid the slopes of her inner thighs. She leaned casually against the door frame, one ankle crossed over the other. “Answer a question of mine first.”

Oh boy. “I’ll try. This could end in a draw, though.”

He curled his fingers, ready to check.

“Why vines?”

He sucked in a breath. Held it. Unfurled his fingers. Where to begin?

“You know how some people have a bunch of different tats?” he began slowly, not really understanding where his mouth was going. “Lots of random stuff crowded all together? Like whenever they think of something new they want, they just slap it up there?”

Her eyes positively shined. She nodded, the knot on top of her head bobbing.

“Well, I didn’t want that. I knew a bunch of little stuff that I wanted on me, but I didn’t want it to look like a big mess. I didn’t want to just be painted. It had to come together, to have a bigger purpose. When I was in the Brazilian rain forest, I got this idea of connecting it all. It’s easy to add to, too, when I want.”

She pulled away from the door frame. “So…it’s not just vines?”

He looked at her for a long time—just looked at her—before slowly shaking his head. “There’s other stuff in there.”

How long did she stare at him? Could have been forever and he’d be willing to commit to another day or two.

“Will you take your shirt off?” she whispered.

Bad idea. Such a bad idea.

He grabbed the T-shirt behind his neck and pulled it forward over his head. He considered the plain gray fabric and all that it hid from the world and from her, then tossed it to the side.

Gwen gasped, much like she had when she’d first seen his chest. One of her red-painted feet inched across the floor. Her legs shook, as did the air in her throat.

“Careful.” He barely recognized his own voice. “Guns are trained on you. Dangerous crossing.”

Her mouth teased a smile. Three steps away—safe, just out of his reach, thank God—she stopped. Still, her eyes swept over every inch of his tattoo. Shoulder, biceps, chest, obliques, ribs…Her virtual touch slowly killed him. He just stood there and took it, dying the very best kind of death.

Keeping her arms clasped tightly around her back, she leaned forward. “Oh, I see now. There are words in the vines. And pictures in the leaves.”

He focused on the knot in her hair. On how he wanted to slide out that rubber band.

One hand snaked out from behind her back, fingers splayed wide. He inhaled, waiting—
Come on
.
Touch me.
End this. Start this. Whatever
—but she snatched her arm back.

“It’s beautiful, Reed. Like it’s part of you. Like you were born with it.”

He had to close his eyes for a second, to stamp down the memories of him, shirtless, hovering over her half-naked body. Here they were again, in the exact same state of undress.

“Pick one,” she said, “and tell me about it.”

He hadn’t even told his tattoo artist, just handed over the idea or told him the word or whatnot, and let him go at it. But for Gwen…he was going to do it. He was actually going to do it.

Raising a hand, he touched his left pec. By memory he knew everything he’d put on his skin and exactly where. His fingers trailed across his marathon time from a decade ago; the name of his Marines unit; the image of Pikes Peak, near where he’d extracted that kid from the cult. His hand came to rest on three names.

“These,” he declared.

“Edward and Elise and Page,” she read, squinting.

It shouldn’t be this difficult to talk. Not with Gwen. “Page is my sister. Edward and Elise are my parents.”

The hand that had resisted touching him now rested on her lips. “I’m sorry. Are they dead?”

“No.” He gave her a slow, reassuring smile. “They’re in Virginia.”

It felt good to tell her that. No, better than good. And he loved her reaction—the relief that came from knowing his family was still intact—followed by genuine, warm surprise.

“Virginia?” She scrunched up her nose. Don’t know why he’d never noticed the faint freckles there before. “You’re from Virginia?”

“Yeah. You find that hard to believe?”

“I guess. You don’t have an accent.”

He shrugged. “It sort of fell away after I left. Saw the world. I haven’t lived there since I was eighteen and that was, what, twenty years ago now?”

“But your parents are still there? And your sister?”

“Yep. Go back and see them when I can. Which isn’t a lot, unfortunately.”

Bittersweetness tinged her smile and he remembered the photos on display in her apartment. The mom he guessed who was dead, the sister who apparently was no longer around, and her father.

“I send my parents money,” he said. “They’re getting up there in age and it’s hard to maintain the farm. One day they’ll sell, but I want to make sure they don’t wear themselves out before their time. And Page has some learning disabilities, so she still lives with them even though she’s only three years younger than me.”

“Oh. I’m sorry to hear that.”

He waved her off. No need to feel sorry for Page; that woman was endlessly happy. Now that he thought about it, Gwen would probably really like his sister.

“Naw, it’s all good,” he said. “I like to be a part of them, help them out, even if I can’t be there.”

“So you’re a good son, huh?”

A veil of pure lust draped around her, pulling him into its confines. But then she checked herself, shook her head, and backed away.

Don’t go
, he silently begged.

“So how many?” he asked out loud.

She blinked, her hand absentmindedly smoothing her wispy hair. “What?”

He smiled. “How many languages do you speak?”

Her lips tightened. She wasn’t going to tell him. Goddamn it, she’d played him.

“Twenty-two,” she replied on an exhale. “Wait. Twenty-three.” Then she turned and made a beeline for her room.

Reed’s mind reeled. Twenty-three languages? No one spoke that many.
What the hell was going on in this house?

“Gwen.”

She halted, her back to him, the T-shirt draping delectably over the curve of her ass. As she slowly turned around, she toyed with the hem. More thigh, more skin. A pained look pulled her expression taut. He recognized it because he felt it, too.

His heavy head dropped, and he studied his own bare feet. A deep breath, in and out. Another. A slow lift of the chin. A heated meeting of their eyes.

He touched his chest again, where her presence had lodged itself. “Oh, who are we kidding?”

Who lunged first, he’d never know. The space between them shattered into a million pieces. They collided, a tangle of limbs and tongues. Her warm body at last against his. His hands slid all over her, ending at that soft, smooth place where her ass met her thighs. He lifted her with ease, adrenaline and desire making him feel like a giant. The slow wrap of her legs around his waist found some deep, hidden chord inside him and plucked it, the vibrations shuddering through him, centered in his dick. The taste of her mouth exploded in his brain. He groaned, deep and low.

She pulled away enough to whisper with a smile against his lips, “Shh,” and then she took his mouth again.

He wouldn’t fight it this time. There was no hope but for surrender.

The DMZ went up in flames.

TWENTY-FOUR

Her body soared within Reed’s eager, urgent clutch. He held
her like she might dissolve at any moment, and maybe she would. His mouth moved over hers, slow and wet. She clung to his hard body, the strength in his arms intensified by the way he supported her. Cradled her, almost, since she felt light as mist.

She slid her tongue against his, willfully defying their previous vow to stay away from each other, thumbing her nose at that idiot back in the Range Rover who actually thought she could keep such a promise. And damn, if it wasn’t delicious defiance.

A stripe of dull pain slanted across her back and she pulled away in a daze, realizing he’d slammed her into the bathroom wall. One thick thigh pressed between hers, and his vines and cryptic words and history enveloped her. A dark, animal look clouded his eyes. Leaning in for more, his soft lips, surrounded by perpetual stubble, nipped at hers, teasing but not taking.

“I’ve been wanting to kiss you like this…” he began but didn’t finish, the tip of his tongue instead tracing the corner of her mouth.

“You already have.”

He shook his head. “Doesn’t count. Your head wasn’t in the right place. There was something huge between us. There isn’t now.” He sank his hands into the hair at the nape of her neck, tilting back her head, exposing her throat. She went after his mouth again but he held her skull firm against the wall. “Is there, Gwen?”

“No.” And, stars’ blessing, she spoke the truth.

The Allure caused temporary insanity. That was how the Ofarians had always billed it: mindless desire that dissipated after orgasm. Uncontrollable, fleeting, forgettable. Whatever this was between them, it had crushed the Allure under its boot heel and left it in the dust. And she hadn’t even come. Yet.

“It’s just us,” she said.

He smiled, that dimple winking in and out. “Oh, thank God.”

He sank against her, and even though she couldn’t breathe, all she could think was that this would be the best way to go, with him stealing her breath and crushing her body. His erection felt harder than what was humanly possible, with her in only her underwear and him clad only in jeans. The rough ridge of the denim rode against her as he circled his hips, echoing the motion she longed to feel without anything between them.

His whole body started to shake, an earthquake consuming them both. Suddenly he went still, pulled away. Pressing his forehead to hers, his breath sawed raggedly.