Mirror of My Soul (23 page)

companion’s comment. Carrying her gear in her arms, she came toward him, her

expression unreadable. Not welcoming or unwelcoming, just neutral.

“You know, certain royal personages used to cut the tongues out of their servants’

heads to ensure their secrets weren’t revealed,” she said when she was within earshot.

“As devoted to you as she is, I’m not sure Chloe would stand still while you got the butcher knife,” he commented. “Unless you presented papers proving you were related to Prince William and could arrange a date with him.”

She stopped a few feet away, studying him. He raised a brow. “What?”

“I’m wondering if I need to run. You have that look like you did the other night.”

“I was angry at first,” he admitted. “I thought this was more of the same. Your constant flirtation with death. But—”

“It was.” She stated it quietly, met his startled gaze. “At first.” She glanced around.

“Let me put my gear down and maybe we can walk down to the duck pond, there at the end of the runway.”

She dropped her equipment in her car, shoving it into the second seat to repack later, and pushed back the hood of the jumpsuit. Her hair was wound in a crown of braids tightly pinned against her skull. When she released the pins and let the braids drop, she tied them together with one of the braids, making the tail look like a flogger of multiple blonde strands. After a hesitation, she reached out. Bemused, he took her hand. She started down the runway linked to him in that fashion.

“I like holding hands,” she said, with a shy nod that he found charming.

“I like holding yours.” He cocked his head. “You’re different every day, you know that? I can’t keep up with you. A week ago, I’d have had to take you through an interrogation to understand something like this. And now you’re initiating the conversation, taking me somewhere we won’t be interrupted.”

“Or I could be taking you somewhere to take advantage of you,” she pointed out.

“The duck pond is rather private. Though if we have a plane come in to land, or the students go up, they’d get an eyeful.”

“Or you could be taking me there to drown me. I never know.”

“Well, you said like you liked my unpredictability.” She sobered. “You want me to explain this to you. I promised, last night…” She swallowed, met his gaze with an obvious effort. “To be open to you as Master. And as a lover. And I understand that answering your questions is part of that. It’s not easy for me. I’m just trying to do it right.”

“You’re doing fine.” He found it difficult to speak, too overcome by the urge to simply kiss her.

The duck pond was inhabited by cattails, lily pads with white blooms and a

wooden bench. A group of ducks that were gathered companionably on the banks

waddled away at sauntering speed, proving their wary acceptance of human

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companionship, though quacking their mild displeasure at being disturbed. When she sat down on the bench, he took a seat next to her, stretching out his arm behind. He felt her tension rise, so before she could start speaking he put two fingers under her chin and turned her face to him. Parting her lips with his, he tasted her, then groaned as she opened for him further, taking him in. Her arms came up around his neck, pressing her body against him in the formfitting suit, letting him feel her pleasure at seeing him, being with him. When he eased back, he didn’t know whose heart was beating faster.

“Thank you,” she said softly. “That made it easier.”

“Any sacrifice to help.” He tugged on her tail of braids, but she didn’t smile.

“When I first started jumping, it was to make me feel like I was back with David, in those last moments. You know how my brother died.”

Tyler nodded, ran a hand up her arm. “I won’t press, but one day, any day you’re ready, angel, I’d like to know more about him. I know he was important to you.”

She wasn’t ready to tell him. Marguerite couldn’t tell him that before she’d shared her bed, which meant before she’d met him, she’d had to tie her arm loosely to the bedpost. That way when she tried to sleepwalk, to fly, she’d wake half slumped on the floor, her arm pulled taut. During those quietly despondent hours of the night, she’d sit crumpled on the floor and blearily look up into the night sky, at the stars or various phases of the moon. She’d think how their light was like the promise of a heaven she could never reach, because for some inexplicable reason she wouldn’t free herself to go there. To go to David.

She closed her eyes. “Not today. Today’s too good.” She opened them, looked at him. “But something changed, as of this week. For the first time, it was about joy. True freedom. The first freedom I think I’ve ever felt. And I shouldn’t be telling you these things, because you’re arrogant enough as it is…”

“Tell me anyway.”

She reached out, trailed her fingers along his forearm, let her hand be captured and held on his thigh. “I felt like there’d be someone to care, to catch me if I fell.”

“Next time you might mention when you’re going out, so I’ll know to arrange for that.”

She gave him a tiny smile. “I know it’s not realistic. It’s just a feeling.” She bent, unlaced her shoes, removed them and pushed up the fabric of the bodysuit covering her calves. Rising, she moved to the water’s edge.

“So how long have you done this?” He looked up as a Piper Cub buzzed over for a landing.

“About ten years. I could take you up one day. I’m a trained instructor.”

“Not happening.”

Her attention flicked over to him. “It’s really wonderful. Falling at over a hundred miles an hour, just you. Sometimes it’s nice with others, too, because you don’t talk.

You’re just up there together, feeling the same thing, not having to explain or 117

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understand anything.” She sloshed her feet in the water and shivered, enjoying the coolness. He enjoyed watching her indulge in the almost childish whimsy and

wondered how often she’d had moments like this by herself, these many faces she revealed when no one was there to see.

“I’m afraid I’m just going to have to watch you fly, angel.”

Her brows lifted. “Surely you’re not one of those people who are afraid of flying?

You know they’re safer than cars.”

“So I’ve heard. And I think that argument is more effective for someone who’s

never crashed in a plane. I have. Twice. I totaled a car once. I’m here to tell you that the car crash, as scary as it was, was nothing next to the plane.”

“Twice?”

“Both in small surveillance planes, bad weather conditions. Both times we went down where we’d have been executed if we were caught. If we were lucky.”

“Well, it makes it hard to argue, putting it that way. But…” She slanted him a glance beneath those silky lashes. “Did you know there’s such a thing as nude

skydiving? A growing chapter.”

He chuckled. “You think the overwhelming male desire to see a woman naked can

overcome any fear?”

“Just about.”

He grinned. “As long as I can see you naked down here, angel, I’d prefer to enjoy the pleasure on the ground. But I’ll think about it.” He surveyed the planes lined up on the tarmac. “You know there’s very little I’d refuse you. You just have to ask me.”

“Always conditions…” He heard the humor in her voice and smiled.

When Marguerite came back to him, wet clay from the banks of the pond was between her toes, across her feet, even up her ankles. She shook her head over them.

“I’m afraid you’re seeing one of my private rituals. A balancing thing. Coming from the sky, I always like to do this grounding in the earth.”

When he didn’t reply, she raised her gaze. Marguerite found him staring at her feet, his expression distant, almost empty. “Tyler? Tyler.” She said it sharply when he didn’t respond at all. Reaching out, she touched him, seeking a response.

He started. His gaze jerked up to meet hers. “I’ll get some water.”

He dumped the water cup he’d brought with him from the classroom water cooler, rose and strode down to the water’s edge.

Her brow furrowed. “I keep a towel and some towelettes in the trunk of the car.

And there’s a hose back there. It’s okay.”

Again, he acted like he didn’t hear her. Genuinely concerned now, Marguerite

started after him, but he’d already turned. Drawing her by the hand to the bench, he pushed her firmly down to the seat. He knelt there before her, poured the water over her toes, rubbed his hand over them, trying to remove the sticky clay. He went back to the pond several times. There was something in his face, something about the

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determined way he scrubbed at her feet that kept her silent, watching him. There was nothing left on her feet that she could tell, but he poured a fourth cup of water over them, lifting her foot to check the soles, parting each toe to ensure each one was completely clean.

When he started to rise again, she’d had enough. She caught his hand, held on

firmly. “Tyler, quit it. They’re clean. Tell me what’s happening. And don’t tell me nothing.” She increased her grip, alarmed to see his face was growing paler by the minute, his eyes unfocused as they moved in the direction of her voice. “Sit. Now.”

She was familiar with the signs of an impending faint. Fortunately she had a bottle of drinking water she’d brought with her to replenish her own fluids. When she practically shoved him into a sitting position on the bench, she used the head cover of her jumpsuit as a towel, dampened and pressed it to his forehead. He pushed her away after a second, leaned forward to put his head between his knees, taking deep breaths.

When she tried to close in, he shook his head, lifted his hand, warding her off.

“Give me a moment.”

She couldn’t stop herself from easing onto the bench next to him, reaching out and touching his hair lightly, tentative, one stroke, then another. Sweat was beaded on the back of his neck, staining his shirt, the man she’d never seen truly out of control, the passion of sex notwithstanding.

“The watch. Don’t take it. Leave it all alone.”

“I will,” she assured him. “Tyler, it’s Marguerite. I need you to be here, with me.”

Pressing her knuckles against his temple, his jaw, she leaned down and put her lips over his.

He bolted up off the bench, startling her so that he knocked her backwards, made her land hard on her hip on the ground. Lifting his hand to his lips, he pressed where her mouth had been. He shook his head as if clearing the confusion, reminding her of a horse she’d seen run into a barn once, trying to get his bearings back. His attention moved to the planes, down the runway, then to the bench, to her on the ground.

“Oh, Jesus. Angel, are you okay?” He was by her side in two strides, his arms under her, lifting her, putting her on the bench, checking her arms and legs, cupping her face.

“I didn’t…please tell me I didn’t hit you.”

“Not recently.” At his look of horror, she caught his hands, held them. “Yesterday, the spanking. I was teasing. No, you didn’t hit me. You’re fine. You just made me lose my balance when you got up so abruptly. Ssshhh…it’s okay. I’m fine. I’m
fine
.”

He stared at her and Marguerite squeezed his hands. “Tyler, are you all right? Can I do something for you? What’s going on?”

“Your feet…”

“They’re all clean. You took care of them. They’re fine.” She guided his face away from the pond and back to her, not wanting to set him off again by letting him see the pond’s banks, the muddy footprints she’d left.

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Tyler pressed his forehead to hers, drew in a deep shuddering breath. Let it out after a long moment. “Jesus, that was embarrassing. I haven’t done that in a long time.”

“Yes. I’m disappointed to find you’re human. I was arranging to have a big ‘S’

tattooed on your chest for your birthday and now I’ll have to come up with another gift.”

His jaw flexed and he drew back. “I’m sorry. That was inexcusable. And you don’t have to make jokes to make it less awkward.” He rose. “I should go.”

“Pardon me?”

He shook his head. “I shouldn’t be subjecting you to this.”

“What?” She rose and slapped a palm on his chest as he began to stride away.

“Could you please stop for a moment?”

He laid his hand over hers, cupped her cheek. “It’s all right. I just need a few moments and I’ll be fine.”

“You’re sure? I mean, I need to know this for certain.”

He straightened at the temper in her voice. “Yes, I’ll be fine. It won’t happen again.

I just need to go.” He started to step around her and she moved with him, this time catching hold of his shirt with both hands, making it clear if he wanted to escape he was going to have to drag her. His eyes narrowed dangerously, his hands latching on to her wrists. “Marguerite—”

“Of course it won’t happen again. I mean, it was obviously planned this time. I’m sure you can control it in the future.”

“Marguerite—”

“Tyler, shut up. I mean it.” She dug her fingers into him. “We’ve been to this doorway before and you keep leaving me in the cold. I’ve beaten the hell out of you, tried to stab you, tried every conceivable way to shut you out and yet that’s okay. But you won’t even tell me what’s going on in this one moment, where you’re obviously a greater danger to yourself than me.”

“I’m fine,” he snapped. “I just have to get away from it.”

“No, you’re trying to get away from me.” She walked in to him, surprised him by putting her head down and bracing her arms, backing him like a tug pushing a freighter many times its size toward dockside, only she was pushing him back toward the bench.

“Marguerite, what are you—”

“Sit.” She sat down next to him, took his hand, put her shoulder against his. “Tyler, I need you to tell me what just happened.”

He started to rise. Seizing his shirt collar, she jerked so that he lost his balance and sat back down, not expecting the rough movement. She put her hands on either side of his neck, drew his gaze to her fiery one. “I’m not going to run because you’re not invincible every moment of every fucking day. And guess what? I’m a pretty smart woman. I know what post-traumatic stress syndrome is. So why don’t you tell me what triggered it.”