by Jaime Loren
Fever set fire to my skin when he made a needy sound and clasped the back of my head, his mouth seeking mine. I kissed him hard, grinding against him, bringing myself surprisingly close to an explosive climax before he cupped my bottom to lift me, bringing my breast to his mouth. I cried aloud, and my hips thrust forward. I wanted to melt onto him, needed to have him sink into me and break my fever. I clutched his head against my chest and rocked back and forth as his tongue worked its magic from my breast to my mouth.
I unbuttoned his jeans, desperately yanking the zipper down. He leaned back as I reached inside, and his breath shuddered as I wrapped my hand around him, marveling once again at his smooth heat. He squeezed his eyes closed and clenched his jaw with a groan when I brushed my thumb across the tip. I had every intention of taking him in my mouth, but Scott had other ideas, collecting me and bringing himself down on top of me on the bed. With one quick movement, my underwear was off, and I collected a fistful of his hair as I kissed him hard and raised my knees to welcome him.
He took me with one thrust, a moment of pain broken by a flood of pleasure so intense, I cried aloud.
“Sorry, sorry!” He pulled back, his face a mixture of ecstasy and regret.
I shook my head quickly. “Keep going,” I gasped, hooking my calves over his thighs to pull him in again.
He hesitated, then sank deeper, both of us sighing. After a few careful strokes, I relaxed beneath him, drowning in his eyes as he cradled my head in his hands and moved slowly above me.
I bit my lip as I dragged my fingertips across his back, and he smiled. I smiled back.
“Hi there,” he said, his eyes beaming.
“Hi.”
“I’m Scott Parker.” His brow furrowed. “What did you say your name was again?”
I laughed and whacked his arm. “Stop it.”
His grin spread from ear to ear as he leaned down and kissed me. “God, I’ve missed you.”
I nipped gently at his lower lip. “Prove it.”
He kissed me again as he changed the pace with strong, even strokes that filled me completely and made me moan. The humor fell from his face, replaced now with equal parts lust and longing. I readjusted my grip on him, giving him all of me, and he took it, pinning me with a look as he increased his thrusts.
I whimpered, that familiar wave creeping closer with each stroke.
“Yeah?” he asked.
I nodded, breathless, my grip slipping as my legs trembled, the knowledge of what was coming almost too much to handle. I committed his face to memory, eyes burning, nostrils flared, teeth clenched as he groaned.
“Scott,” I gasped.
His thrusts fell out of sync with my hips, and he moaned, squeezing his eyes closed. I covered his mouth, worried Henry would hear, and he kissed my palm in gratitude, then doubled his efforts.
It was more than enough.
I cried his name, and Scott pressed his hand to my mouth, muffling my moans as I bucked beneath him.
“Fuuuuuuuck,” he groaned into my hand, slamming into me once, twice, three times before he tensed and filled me with a new kind of heat, my body in spasms around him. His hand slid from my mouth as he sank down on top of me, cradling my head once again while I struggled to catch my breath, my heart hammering against my ribs.
I couldn’t hear anything. Could barely see anything besides floating white dots. The intensity of the pleasure he’d just given me was too much to handle, and I had to press my palm to my face so he wouldn’t see my tears and mistake them for pain.
Aftershocks rocked through me, the tremors making my breath shudder. It took a good long while to regain control of my facial muscles, and when I did, I smiled at the realization that that was the first time I’d ever heard him swear, so I figured it must’ve been just as good for him.
Eventually my thighs relaxed, my knees flopping to the bed.
Neither of us spoke for a while. I was simply content to lie skin to skin and listen to the sound of him breathing, his breath warming my neck, interrupted only by the occasional kiss. It took me a while to remember what we were talking about before we pulled each other’s clothes off, but when I did, I decided it wasn’t something I felt like discussing further right at this moment. I was enjoying being normal, lying in the arms of my … fiancé? I had to enjoy this while I could.
Scott rolled onto his side, pulling me with him. As I snuggled into the crook of his shoulder, he traced his fingers across my skin, awakening areas I thought were too exhausted to respond to more pleasure.
“You smell so good,” I said, relishing the tangled, manly scent of aftershave, pine and sweat. Even now, I could smell the pine from the cabin. It was all him, that scent, stirring pleasurable memories from different lifetimes, present and past. “They should bottle your scent. They’d make millions.”
He raised one eyebrow, the afternoon light caressing his face. “And who is ‘they,’ exactly?”
“The fragrance fairies,” I replied, stretching lazily in his arms.
He propped himself up and pressed his palm to my forehead. “Did you bump your head recently?”
I grinned and swatted his hand away. “I’d spray my pillow with it. Breathe in your scent whenever you’re not there.”
He settled himself back down. “And what would they call this fragrance of mine?”
I bit my lip, holding my giggle off so that I could speak. “The Aphrodisiac.”
He groaned. “Jesus, anything but that!”
We both chuckled, Scott’s chest bouncing under my ear. I closed my eyes and positioned myself over his heart once we’d settled. The sound of it was steady and strong, but sped up slightly when I draped my thigh across his.
The short hair on his chest curled around my fingers as I slid my hand across his warm, damp skin. “You seemed to have worked up a sweat,” I said softly. “I didn’t think you’d be able to do that, considering your body doesn’t change.”
His fingers circled my shoulder. “I guess making love to you is a natural thing for me. You’re the only one who affects me physically.”
I moaned. “I love the look you get on your face when I affect you.”
A soft chuckle rumbled in his chest.
I took a deep breath and traced small circles around his nipple with my fingertip. “What would happen if you had the flu when I died? Would you get stuck with the flu until I told you those words in my next life?”
“No. My body seems to revert to a state of equilibrium. I have no idea how, but I’ve been injured before, trying to save you.” He brushed his fingertips across my back, leaving a pleasurable tingle in their wake. “I had burns to my face, chest and arms when I pulled you out of a fire in 1747.”
My stomach clenched at the thought of him risking his own life to save me. If he’d been vulnerable when that car had hit him in Millinocket, he wouldn’t be here right now.
He cleared his throat. “But I was too late. You’d been overcome with smoke inhalation.” He pulled me tighter against him. “When you died, the burns on my body just … disappeared. It was as if they’d never happened.”
“I’m so sorry.”
He placed his finger under my chin. “You’ve got nothing to be sorry for. Ever.”
I wrapped my fingers around his.
His eyes wandered my face. “Are you sure you’re going to be up to working with me on this? Some of the work … it won’t be savory.”
I chewed the inside of my lip, thinking, then pushed myself up onto my elbow. “The way I see it—I’ve already lived it. And you’re still living it. I want to take some of the weight off your shoulders.”
I could tell by the look on his face he was still struggling with the concept of me being on the forefront.
“You need me,” I reminded him. “I’m remembering more and more each day.”
His eyes brightened. “Yeah?”
“Yes. And … I don’t think it’s the first time,” I said, thinking back to my first suicide, and how I’d b
een so upset and confused about my dress not looking the same as the one I was supposed to get married in in 1729.
“You remember having memories before?” He sat up straight.
So did I. “I didn’t know they were memories. I mean, it seems crazy, right?”
Crazy enough to take Benzodiazepines to block them out.
“Right,” he said.
“We already have your side of events in the journals. Now we have mine.”
He gave me a melancholy smile.
I shuffled closer and kissed him. “So, let’s get to work. What’s next on the to-do list? Hong Kong?”
“Not yet.” He leaned back, took a deep breath, then blew it out, his face twisting with worry. “There’s something else. You won’t like it.”
My heart skidded. “Try me.”
“It’s the most unsavory of the unsavory things on the to-do list.”
“Scott.”
He pressed his lips tightly together and started to inch away from me. “How do you feel about walking through cemeteries at night?”
Then he explained, and I’m pretty sure my face was the most unsavory of the unsavory things he’d had to deal with.
Chapter 37
(Scott)
Pine Knoll Cemetery, Newcastle, Maine – July
I pulled the rental over and looked across at April, who’d been uncharacteristically quiet since we’d picked up her fake passport and driver’s license a few hours beforehand. I wasn’t expecting we’d have to cross the Canadian border, but if it came to the crunch, and we needed to flee, it was better to have all the necessities on hand.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
She nodded. “I’m investigating my own deaths. Of course I’m okay.”
“We don’t have to do this right now.”
Except we did have to do this right now.
She reached into her bag and pulled out a black beanie and a pair of gloves.
I raised my brow in question.
“What?” she asked.
“All you’re missing is the black-and-white striped top.”
She rolled her eyes. “Some of us leave DNA lying around, Captain Invulnerable. What happens if one of my hairs falls out? Or I cut myself? I don’t think ‘grave robber’ would look very good on my record going into Harvard.”
I cleared my throat. “Right. Of course.”
She paused, her hand on the door. “Wait. Is it really robbery, when the bones belong to me?”
I contemplated that for a moment before the reality of what we were about to do came crashing down. “Let’s just get it over with, shall we?”
She nodded, took a deep breath, and pushed her door open.
Being close to the highway, the sound of cars was never far away. April turned in circles, checking our surroundings as I pulled the shovels and bags from the trunk, then carefully closed it. The trees lining the dirt road gave us pretty good cover from passing cars, and the grave we were about to disrespect was, thankfully, almost completely surrounded by trees and shrubs. Torchlight would be almost impossible to see from the highway, but still, we were planning to keep it at a minimum.
I took April’s hand in mine and walked a footstep ahead to shield her from potential cobwebs, the way I used to do centuries ago. She’d almost given us away one night back then, shrieking so loud on our way to the barn that the dogs had burst into protest. When my father and John had come running out of the house in their nightclothes, I’d had to make up an excuse about forgetting to fill Shadow’s water while April hid up in the loft, waiting for me. John had stayed with me, chatting my ear off for another thirty minutes before heading back. By the time I’d climbed into the loft, apologizing profusely, April had fallen asleep.
I squeezed her hand now, and she squeezed back.
“This way,” I said, pulling her to the right along the tree line. “Hand me the torch?” She placed it in my hand. We walked another twenty yards before I turned it on, just the occasional flash to see where we were. “Here.”
We dropped our bags and moved closer to the headstone. April knelt as I brushed the face of the stone clean, then cast some light on it.
“April Anne Fletcher, 1826–1843. Daughter of Mary and Alexander, deceased.”
I watched her for a moment, her face filling with sadness, before I switched the torch off. “It’s not too late to turn back.”
She shook her head and reached for the shovel. “If I’m destined to be murdered, I want to know. At least then I won’t be second-guessing every choice I make, wondering if it’s going to result in a Final Destination death.”
Her comparison made me snort. I’d actually thought the same in the past. “People just don’t realize how dangerous kitchens and bathrooms can be.”
“Here?” she asked, tapping the shovel three feet in front of the headstone.
“Yeah.”
April sank the shovel into the ground with more force than I thought she was capable of, then put all her weight on the handle to lift the soil before carrying it a few feet to our left. After depositing it neatly, she turned and looked up at me before sinking the shovel down again. “Huh. Well, whadda ya know. I’m digging my own grave!”
I absolutely refused to smile. “That’s not even remotely funny.”
“Oh, come on.” She shoved her hand on her hip. “It can’t all be doom and gloom.”
I picked up my shovel and joined her.
We shoveled efficiently, stopping occasionally to listen for anything unusual. We didn’t speak most of the time, worried our voices would carry on the wind. When the hole was too deep for April to shovel the dirt out of without spilling it on herself, she climbed up and kept watch.
“Was this the only death that had no clear explanation?” she whispered.
“This was the only death where the doctors couldn’t figure out why you were so sick.”
“How long did it take me to die?”
I brushed some dirt from my face. “Five months.”
She swept her gaze around the cemetery. “That’s some determination my killer had, if he stayed around that long.”
The thought had been sitting in my gut like lead for the last few days.
“And you’re sure it wasn’t just some illness that hadn’t been discovered yet? Maybe it was a cancer that couldn’t be detected back then.”
I shook my head. “There were no growths found in your postmortem. Only multi-organ failure.”
My shovel hit something hard, the sound echoing in the trees around us. April leaned over, her face as pale as the moon above, her eyes like deep, black wells.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes. And stop asking me that,” she replied.
I flashed the light down to see what I was dealing with. From memory, the casket was wooden. Mahogany, stained in the shade of her hair, the interior lined with metal and silk.
“Are you okay?” she asked, softly, her hand warm on my shoulder.
I gripped the handle of my shovel harder, wanting to lean over and kiss her, but realizing how weird that would be whilst standing on her coffin. “Yeah. I’m okay.” I passed her the shovel. “Can you please get the crowbar?”
She provided the light while I cleared the top of the coffin, then jimmied the latch.
“Wait!”
I stood up straight, my heart jumping as I looked around. “What is it?”
“Is it going to smell?”
I exhaled with relief. “No.” I looked down again. “Well, I … I don’t know. It’s not like I go around opening 150-year-old coffins all the time, is it?” I chewed the inside of my lip, hoping like hell it wasn’t going to. “Maybe hold your nose, just in case.”
“’kay.”
I returned to work, and after a minute, the wood splintered under the force of my crowbar. I held my breath and readjusted my grip for one final wrench, freeing the top of the box as I stumbled back against the dirt wall behind me. I squeezed my eyes closed, not wanting to look, but knowi
ng I had to.
“What’s the verdict?” April asked, her voice muffled as she covered her nose and mouth.
“It isn’t overpowering, but it’s not fantastic, either.” Throwing a towel over my shoulder, I summoned the courage to get this over and done with. After a couple of short, violent breaths, I straddled the coffin.
Even under a quarter moon I could see the fine bones of her hands still sitting neatly across her body. Where once they were closed over my hand in dance, they were now clasped for an eternity of sleep. For a moment I could visualize her, gliding across the ballroom floor, her brilliant smile as she spoke to her friends, her porcelain skin, her tightly curled hair brushing her neck, complementing the stunning emerald necklace that now lay threaded through the scattered bones of her ribs. Her jaw had fallen away, reminding me of how frail she’d been during her last days. How, even then, her skin had decided to give up the fight, despite the fact her heart was still beating.
Her heart. The heart that’d been torn apart by the Minié ball of a rifled musket in 1862. The same heart that’d beat against my bare chest last night. The same legs that’d been wrapped around me as I sank inside of her, less than twenty-four hours ago. Flesh, smooth and warm, a jaw that hung open in pleasure, the same one lying in front of me now, a brilliant smile, paint under her nails and on her jeans, a speck of blue paint on her porcelain cheek—
“Scott?”
Tears stung my eyes. As hard as I tried to fight it, I retched—a redundant bodily reaction for an immortal being.
Pull yourself together, for her.
Soil tumbled down; April’s hands were on my shoulders a second later. “Let me do this part.”
I shook my head.
“Please, Scott. You shouldn’t have to see me like this.”
“And you should be holding your own bones? No.”
She lowered the torchlight to the casket. “I’m sorry, but you’re outnumbered, two to one.”
“April—” Before I could stop her, she was peeling away the clumps of hardened clothing from her femur. I almost expected some sort of cataclysmic event to happen. How fate could allow two identical bodies from different centuries to touch like this was beyond me.
