by Janzen, Tara
Scattered among the antiquities were signs of modern man: his razor and toothbrushes, a backpack-size butane stove, a sack of tea, and a typewriter.
She glanced at him, found his eyes closed again, and took the steps necessary to bring her to one of the trunks. The piece of paper in the typewriter was blank. She made a soft sound of relief; she didn’t really want to be a snoop. She took another light step, then another, easing deeper into the private sanctuary he’d made of her extra room. She sifted her fingers through the semi-precious stones. She touched his prayer wheel, then kept herself from doing the same to the worn jeans and black tunic thrown over one of the trunks. Her hand trailed over the gold mask, and the sense of familiarity returned stronger than before. The gilded bridge of a straight nose, the warm metallic of sculpted cheekbones and the curve of a mouth she knew better than she should. Her fingers paused and her lips parted softly on a gasp of recognition . . . Kautilya. His name echoed in her mind and found an answer in the air.
Kreestine.
She whirled around, her heart pounding, the mask clasped in her hands. She tried to run, but it was too late for running. Her feet froze to the floor, numbed by the weight of his ancient gaze. She’d been wrong to come, and given another chance, she would have let him go hungry for the night.
Kit wasn’t in the mood for second chances. Hours of meditation had done little to lessen his anger or increase his understanding of the other feelings she’d given him. A month from home hadn’t changed him as much as two days in her company. He wanted her, had planned from their first kiss to have her, but he hadn’t expected to lose himself in the bargain. He hadn’t expected changes wrought by desire. He’d never felt changes before.
What was it about her? She was beautiful, yes, but many women were beautiful, and she seemed unaware of the fact. She’d done none of the subtle flirting he’d encountered with other women who wanted him. Yet he’d felt the sensual curiosity in her hidden glances. Her clothes were plain, unsuitable in color and style to enhance her appeal. A deliberate choice on her part, he was sure, and that had only increased his fascination—until he’d listened to John Garraty and determined the cause.
She had a quick, bright mind, so unlike the steady deepness of the monks and Sang Phala, so much broader than the other women he’d met, except for Lois. But his relationship with Lois was business and hard, without the softness he’d felt from the first moment with Kristine. Her vulnerabilities, which she tried so valiantly to conceal, attracted him as much as her strengths. Maybe more so.
He’d discovered all of this in his time alone and still had no peace.
Why have you come to me?
Kristine heard the question clearly, more clearly than if he’d spoken aloud, and in a sudden flash of enlightenment she understood the true depth of his power, of his energy. She stumbled backward, coming up against the trunk. She’d read volumes of theory and hearsay, from Polo to Maraini, about the metaphysical mysteries of Tibetan Lamaism, and if he levitated she was going to run like hell, whether her feet refused to move or not.
“Impossible for one with my limited knowledge and commitment. Kreestine.” he assured her in his deep, soft voice. “You have no reason to fear.”
“D-don’t do that,” she stammered, giving them both enough credit to know something had happened, something very unusual.
“I can do nothing you do not allow. You are very . . . open.” He spoke the last word in an intimate, husky whisper, loading it with meaning beyond the obvious. “You called my name, and I answered, nothing more.”
She believed him. She always believed him, but her pulse didn’t slow down. In fact, when he rose from the floor with his particularly fluid grace and walked toward her, it picked up a good bit.
“Why have you come to me?” he asked again, moving ever closer, narrowing the space between them. He filled her vision with his smoothly muscled chest and arms. Gold bracelets glinted, picking up the last stray beams of sunlight, contrasting with the dark satin of his skin and the soft pelt of hair tracing a path to his shorts.
“Your dinner was getting cold,” she said, giving in to an undeniable need for rock-solid reality. Her mind, though, was still racing around the startling realization of his invasion into her thoughts. Just how many years had he spent in that monastery? she wondered.
“Too many.” He took another silent step, his gaze never leaving hers. “Why have you come to me?”
“Stop it!” she exclaimed more angry than afraid. She had enough problems keeping everything in her mind straight without him adding to the chaos. But he kept gliding closer, and the question in his eyes demanded an answer. “We need to work,” she said. “We’ve already lost most of the day.” Her voice grew ever softer, her words ever slower, and she felt the padlock of his trunk press against the back of her thigh.
“No more then, as you wish.” He touched her face with both hands and brushed her hair behind her ears. She hadn’t twisted the black mane into a tight knot. A pleased, yet half sly smile curved his mouth, and her heart sank along with her last ounce of anger, chased by the darkness of his eyes into oblivion.
The muscles in his arms flexed as he cupped her face in his palms. He was going to kiss her, and she hadn’t come for his kiss. Or had she?
The question proved moot. She didn’t run when he grazed her cheek with his mouth. Instead, her eyes drifted closed and her knees weakened. She didn’t run when his caress roamed down the side of her nose to her mouth. Her lips parted, waiting for his kiss, and she wondered at the magic of his touch.
His heat enveloped her in a cocoon of masculine scents, tantalizing her with a promise he didn’t fulfill. His mouth hovered above hers, and he touched her only with the softness of his breath and the palpable desire she sensed flowing off him and into her.
The wait was maddening. Her body pleaded with her to move, to close the spare inch separating them. She licked her lips and felt the barest touch of his mouth on the tip of her tongue, the almost imperceptible tightening of his hands on her face. He was that close, holding her but not taking her, and she was unraveling inside, her breath coming, harder and faster.
Her hands wrapped tighter around the mask, and all the while she knew it was him she longed to hold; to feel the breadth of his shoulders beneath her palms, to tangle her fingers in the soft luxury of his hair and feel the cord of auburn silk sliding down the back of his neck. He wasn’t an outlaw, he was an enchanter. No pious monk, but a shaman skilled in the arts of seduction. Without even a kiss he had her aroused, panting, melting inside.
His hands tunneled into her hair, drawing her closer until his mouth touched hers, and his words whispered against her lips. “Will you sleep in my bed tonight, Kreestine?”
With her eyes closed she couldn’t see his smile, but she felt it in all its barbaric arrogance. He was playing with her. He had no intention of kissing her. He only wanted to see how far she’d go.
Even after discerning the nature of his game, she found herself hard-pressed to move away. If she gave into her every raging impulse and kissed him, he’d have his answer, and she knew she couldn’t carry through to the end. He was so close, so mesmerizingly close. All she wanted was a kiss, one kiss like the one he’d given her on the deck, a kiss she couldn’t pay for in the currency he requested. Was one kiss too much to ask for?
“Not too much, bahini, too little.” he murmured, his mouth teasing hers.
Her eyes opened slowly and she angled her head back. “You said . . . you said you wouldn’t.”
“I didn’t.”
“Then how?”
His lips brushed hers lightly, barely, not nearly enough. “My heart is open, too, Kreestine, and it hears yours on every beat.”
Now was the time to run, she thought, before she fell completely under his sensual spell and made a total fool out of herself. No one did it better than she in these situations. She found strength in her memories of awkwardness and John’s neatly summed-up farewell speech. Kit’s ki
ss for her lovemaking? Not even a third world barbarian would find much pleasure in such a poor bargain.
Moving sideways, she slipped free of his hands. Easily, because he let her go, and with difficulty, because the backs of her fingers brushed against his taut abdomen. She lingered there for a fraction of a second, feeling the soft hair that swirled in a glorious path around his navel before plunging beneath the running shorts.
Kit let her go, but not easily. The longing and denial he sensed in her made emotional mud of her thoughts, and without his touch, her willingness, or the grace of his meditative state, he found it impossible to see further. He rarely wished he’d stayed longer under the tutelage of Sang Phala, but then he’d never felt jealousy before.
She paced across the room, halting in front of his bed. For a moment he was tempted to nudge her forward, to walk up behind her and caress the womanly curves of her hips and urge her, with his thoughts and his hands, onto his bed. But such a breach of faith was beyond his conscience. The arts of persuasion were not for such as this.
He reached for his jeans instead and tugged them on, ignoring their unaccustomed tightness. This too shall pass, he thought, grinning wryly at himself. But it was a pained smile at best.
The sound of his zipper, hushed and grating, sent a shiver down Kristine’s spine and a flood of warmth through her body. She unconsciously raised the gold mask and fanned herself, forcing her gaze to remain locked on his bed. Another bad choice, she immediately realized. She’d given him sheets, a couple of quilts, and some pillows, but it was his additions that bewitched her with forbidden fantasies.
An uneven spread of sewn-together sheepskins, the wool lush and buttery looking, lay across the bottom of the bed, primitive and sensual. She knew it would smell of him. Without any effort on her part she imagined him lying there, his dark skin contrasting with the pale wool, his muscles flexing as he arranged himself for comfort and love, his braid falling over his shoulder as he reached for one of his elaborately stitched tapestry pillows and laid it beneath her head, his mouth lowering to hers as he covered her body with his.
The fanning mask picked up in speed, and still she felt herself melting in places John had once told her were drier than the Sahara in summer. He spoke from experience, having been to North Africa in July, and she’d believed him all these years—until she looked at Kit Carson’s bed.
She heard him slip into his black tunic, and she swore she could hear every single button slide through his calloused fingers. She was on emotional overload, super sensitized, and he hadn’t even kissed her.
The jangling of his bracelets increased, and she knew he was rolling his sleeves, exposing those vein-tracked forearms. How had she gotten herself into such a mess? And how did she get back out? Just say good-bye and dart out the door?
No, that wouldn’t do. She needed to rectify the situation, get them back on a professional level. She turned, but any intelligent thought she might have pulled together faded away. He was wrapping his heavy leather belt around his hips, and her gaze was captured by the intimate movements of his hands.
Kit stopped in the act of buckling, surprised and strangely hurt by the stark yearning on her face. He felt the pain and confusion of her wanting, and his anger at Dr. John Garraty, Middle East specialist, increased. He contemplated dropping his belt to the floor and taking her for his own in a manner that would replace the pain with pleasure and completely wipe out any confusion she harbored about the making of love.
Or he could give her time. Few decisions in his life had been as difficult, and Sang Phala had taught him nothing about the taking of women. He’d learned it all on his own. His knowledge had stood him well over the years, but Kristine was quite different from the other women he’d known. Concubine . . . He couldn’t have been further off the mark.
The acceptance of his first mistake enabled him to back away emotionally. He finished slipping the belt through its loop. “I’m sorry I ruined our dinner. Let me take you out.”
She nodded. She’d do anything to get out of there.
“Good. We’ll start our work again in the morning. We still have two good days.”
Two days, then what? she wondered, stumbling ahead of him out the door. She didn’t need him to write up the historical research. She was in the process of duplicating his journals, and he had triple copies of his photographs and the negatives. Any conferencing they needed to do could be accomplished by phone, with her alone in her mountain house and him—where? Where in the whole wide world would he go when he left her?
* * *
She had only herself to blame, Kristine thought. She stood in the darkened doorway of the bar and wished she’d chosen more wisely. The neon promise of hamburgers and beer had lured Kit in there, and she’d followed, foolishly. A redneck bar on the backside of the reservoir, full of drugstore cowboys and a few of the real thing, wasn’t the best place to bring a man with a braid and bracelets. The blatant, aggressive stares following them around the room proved her point.
Every farm-equipment manufacturer and feed supplier in the States was well represented on baseball caps pulled low over a dozen foreheads. The Stetsons and Baileys were pulled even lower, especially the black ones. She felt distinctly uncomfortable, though she’d been in the bar before. She’d come with a couple of girlfriends one night, and had been handily welcomed and two-stepped around the dance floor. She and Grant had stopped off after their last date and been ignored. But Kit created animosity with his exotic looks and foreign attire. If she could feel it, his instincts must be racing.
“Interesting place,” he said, his voice the epitome of calm as he pulled out her chair.
She sat down and grabbed a menu. “The hamburgers are good. The Mexican food will probably kill you.” Didn’t he know he was the focal point of all those beady-eyed glares?
He laughed. “Then we’ll have hamburgers. We’re too young to die tonight, Kreestine.”
Apparently not, she thought, burying her face in the menu.
The waitress took her sweet time about coming for their order of hamburgers and beer, but once she showed up, she seemed disinclined to leave. Kristine didn’t have any trouble figuring out why.
“You’re not from around here, are you, sugar?” she asked Kit.
“No. I come from Nepal,” “Sugar” told her, smiling one of his friendlier smiles. He had a thousand of them, and Kristine figured he’d used a good half-dozen on the nymphet blond already. She was poured into a black and lime-green Lycra top that was more appropriate for the gym than a public restaurant. At least most of her was poured into it. A fair portion of cleavage just wouldn’t fit. Slim-hipped in a pair of painted-on jeans and busty—some women had all the luck, Kristine thought, feeling gauche in her mustard-yellow blouse. The blouse hadn’t been cheap, but it felt like a big rag when she compared it to the sexy lines of Lycra.
“I had a boyfriend once, a climber,” the waitress said. “He went to Nepal. Didn’t come back, though.” The girl rested one booted foot on top of the other and leaned against the table, effectively blocking Kristine from the conversation and blowing any chance she had of a good tip. That was a small consolation to Kristine. Very small.
“Many men do not return from the mountains,” Kit said. “I’m sorry.”
“Oh, he didn’t die, sugar. He just didn’t come back. But hey, as long as Nepal keeps sending us men like you, what’s to miss?”
“There are no others in Nepal like me.”
A low, throaty chuckle preceded the waitress’s reply as she used one of those slim hips to push off the table. “Honey, there aren’t many like you anywhere.”
To his everlasting credit, Kit didn’t follow the cute sway of the girls bottom down the length of the barroom, but when he spoke, Kristine almost wished he had.
“Who is John Garraty?”
“John Garraty?” she repeated, her voice leaden.
“Did I mispronounce the name?” he asked with a lift of his eyebrows.
; “No,” she busied herself with a random search of her purse, looking for an excuse. For the first time she understood why so many women carried compacts and lipstick. They were handy things to hide behind.
“Who is he?”
“A professor at the university in Boulder, just like he said.”
Their beers arrived, giving her a moment of reprieve, but only a moment. After a couple of sugar this’s and sugar that’s, the waitress sashayed back to the bar.
“He’s a friend of yours?”
“Not exactly.” She bet the waitress had two compacts and three lipsticks in her purse. Kristine had to make do with an old tube of Chapstick.
“Then why did you plan a long journey with him?”
She glanced up. “It was a mistake.”
“Good.” A very satisfied smile followed his pronouncement, and he lifted his beer to his mouth.
Kristine dropped the lip balm back in her purse, unused, and sighed. She’d been crazy to tangle herself up with him, Kāh-gyur, Chatren-Ma, kisses, non-kisses, and all. One more “sugar” and she’d probably belt that waitress. She’d lost her appetite, and she couldn’t wait to get home and burn her blouse. He’d done nothing but add upheaval to a life she usually managed to keep in a state of constant disorientation all by herself.
And to top it all off, he could read her mind. If things were going to get any worse, she didn’t want to be around when they did.
Six
The hamburgers arrived hot, greasy, and dripping with cheese, just the way she liked them. Too bad she couldn’t eat, Kristine thought. She pushed her french fries around the plate, working herself up for a question.
