“You don’t really have to scrub my back, you know,” she said, sighing with pleasure as she nestled against him. “We could just soak for a couple days.”
“We could.” He picked up a bar of scented soap and worked it between his wet hands until they were white and slick with lather. “But the water would grow cold, and the innkeeper suspicious.” He placed his hands on her shoulders, smoothing them down her arms and back up to cup her throat. He had never taken a moment to appreciate how lovely and soft her skin was, delicately smooth but firm and resilient.
Her bottom wriggled against him as he lifted one of her arms from the water and soaped it down to her hand, covering her palm with his and then bringing her hand to her breast. He pushed his fingers through the backs of hers, and used them together to encircle the fullness, brushing her nipple with the inner pads until the plump peak contracted into a tight, pebbly bead.
Lilah made a low sound, but when she tried to turn, he held her in place. “Not yet.”
He attended to her other breast, and then took up the soap again. He shifted her up so he could rub the sweet curve of her belly, and slide his hand over the twin bows of her hip bones. Her head fell back against his shoulder as he massaged her thighs beneath the water, and stroked the sensitive creases behind her knees.
“I see what you’re doing,” she said, her words rushing with her breath. “This isn’t a bath. It’s revenge.”
He lifted her so that his erection slid between her buttocks, but he left it to rest there while he stroked the inside of her thigh. “This is for you, my heart. Not for me.”
She took in a sharp breath as his fingers drifted up and toyed with the curls over her mound. “Can I make a request?”
He brushed his lips over her ear. “Anything.”
“I want to feel you inside me.” She went still as he pressed two fingers between her folds, finding her and slowly filling her. “Could you … ?” She broke off, her breasts arching as her hips rolled. “Walker, please.”
As hard as he wanted to thrust his cock inside her, he held back. He had done little more than ravage her; now he would show her that he could also give her the tenderness and care she deserved.
Water slopped over the side of the tub as he turned her to face him, pulling her legs around his waist and perching her against his hips. He looked down to see the head of his penis protruding from her curls, and worked it in slow strokes against her.
Her eyelids drooped and her lips parted as she rubbed back. “Oh, that’s … just … oh.” She shivered as his ridge rode her clit, and clamped her hands on his shoulders. “You feel so good.”
He’d never held himself back like this, intent only on pleasing his lover, and now he understood how much he had denied himself. For him the act had never been much more than ridding his body of an uncomfortable need and finding a few hours of oblivion.
Watching Lilah finding her pleasure sank through the fortress around his cold heart, soothing the old wounds that had never healed, fading the shadows of despair and loneliness that had dwelled there for so long. It was an exquisite pain, this melting of the ice of his soul, but it could no longer withstand the force of her fire.
She bent her head to put her lips to his, and he brought her up, sliding against her until he felt the ellipse of tight, soft heat that melted over him like warm honey. Sliding into her body with tongue and cock made him groan, his body bunching under hers as he fought for his control.
Lilah’s breath painted his mouth as she writhed, working him deeper. The ribbon he’d tied in her hair slipped down and her hair spilled over her wet shoulders and curtained their faces.
He cupped the back of her head and put his mouth to her ear, grazing the rim with his teeth before he kissed it. He had never been a man trained for anything but war and death, but he wished he was more for her. He wanted to adorn her with poetry and gray pearls, drape her in love songs and lilac satin. More than that, he wanted to hear her say them again, those words no woman had ever spoken to him.
“Tell me,” he said before he could stop himself. “Tell me again what you feel for me.”
“You know it.” She looked down at his face and smiled, her eyes clear, her expression pure joy. “You’re all over me, inside me, in my bones and my blood and my heart. You’re part of my skin and my breath and my secrets. You’re my love, my lover, my beloved, the sun in my dreams, and the stars in my soul.” She closed her eyes as she reached the brink, and then opened them wide as he pushed deep and brought her over. “I love you.”
She fell against him, boneless and trembling, and he released the chains, falling into the tide of her passion as he poured himself into her, until they were lost together in that nameless place where two were made one.
As the door to the small suburban house opened, and the short, silver-haired woman behind it stared up at him, Samuel Taske put on his most benign smile.
“Mrs. Kimball? I’m Samuel Taske.” When she didn’t move, he gently added, “We spoke last night on the phone.”
“Yes, of course. I wasn’t expecting … ” She trailed off and stepped back. “I’m sorry. I’m not quite awake yet. Please, come in.”
He followed her through the hall to a family room, where she asked him to sit and offered him coffee. “I’m fine, thank you.” He braced himself with his cane as he lowered himself carefully onto what appeared to be the sturdiest piece of furniture, the end corner of a brown suede sectional sofa. She hovered, her hands twisting together. “I apologize for dropping in so unexpectedly, but as I told you last night, you may know something that can help me find my brother.”
Martha Kimball had readily accepted his lie about a younger brother who had served in the same region of Afghanistan as her son, and who like Walker Kimball had gone missing. “I don’t know that I can do that, Mr. Taske. They never told us what Walker was doing over there; it was all classified. You’d probably get more information from the Marine Corps.”
He’d already acquired Walker Kimball’s service records from a civilian data clerk who would now be retiring from her civilian job much sooner than she had anticipated. “Did Walker send a letter to you before he went on that last mission?”
“His unit wasn’t allowed to write home. No letters, no e-mail, not even a video at Christmas.” She drifted around the room, shifting things slightly here and there when she could find nothing to tidy. “I thought that was wrong. Walker would never say or do anything to compromise the mission. We only wanted to know that he was all right. You must have felt the same about your brother.”
“Yes.” Taske’s self-disgust rose another notch. “How did he keep in touch?”
“He would call us when he could, always at strange times. Every time the phone rings, I still run for it.” Martha Kimball stopped in front of him. “The counselor from the base, he said I should begin preparing myself, but I can’t.”
She bent down, picking up a wooden box inlaid with slivers of brass. “His commander sent this to me after my son was declared missing. Until they find his … him, it’s all I have.” She held it out to him.
Taske took it and carefully opened the lid. Inside lay an envelope filled with photos of what he assumed was the Kimball family, a compass, and a water-resistant watch with a broken nylon black band. No, not broken, he saw as he examined it, but sliced through, as if someone had been too impatient to unfasten the clasp and had instead cut it off.
Taske palmed the watch before he closed the lid and placed it back on the table. He was able to place the watch in his suit jacket pocket when he reached for his wallet, from which he took one of his business cards.
“If you do hear any news, or there is anything I can do for you, please call me,” he said as he stood and handed her the card. She smiled. “You’re very kind, Mr. Taske. I hope you find your brother soon.”
Taske couldn’t get out of the Kimball house fast enough. To Findley, who was waiting by the car, he said, “James, I am a complete and utter bastard.”
“I can’t agree, sir.” Findley helped him into the car before going around to slide in behind the wheel. “Shall I take you on to the hotel?”
“Yes, please.” He took out the watch he had stolen from Walker Kimball’s grieving mother, holding it between his gloves as he tried to clear his mind. He had stolen one of the few, pitiful artifacts Martha possessed to remind her of her only child’s noble sacrifice. It was one of the most unforgivable things he had ever done.
But as miserable as the guilt that gnawed inside him was, it was nothing compared with the barbed snake coiled around his spine. His doctors had been very clear about the rapid deterioration of his condition. In six months he would be in a wheelchair; in twelve he would be bedridden. The thought of spending the rest of his life staring at a ceiling gave him the strength to strip off his gloves.
Taske closed his eyes, and opened his mind, flinching as the barrage of psychic imagery began, starting on the other side of the world in the Kyoto factory where the watch had been manufactured. Flashes of the same type of wholly impersonal handling and transport followed, until the watch was shelved at a department store in Denver by a middle-aged woman, who showed it to five different customers before selling it to Martha Kimball.
It’s a birthday gift for my son, she told the clerk. He’s going overseas and he needs a good watch.
Watching Walker Kimball unwrap his gift and kiss his mother was too much for Taske to bear, and he rushed past them, catching only brief glimpses of the marine on a plane as he changed the time on the watch. Through the face of the watch he saw Walker being deployed, crossing the desert, showering in a tent, smearing his face with black camouflage paint, crawling through brush, firing a weapon into the night.
He slowed his pace, carefully examining each image that came now. Walker crouching down to fill a canteen from a stream and add a white pill before capping it and shaking it. Walker dropping an armful of dead, broken branches onto a small campfire. Other men, dressed in desert camouflage, passing around a pack of field rations. Walker talking to a man dressed in black fitted garments; from the hood covering his face, Taske guessed him to be a local informer.
