by Hanna Peach
Could she stand to be with him knowing that there were others? A slice of pain lashed across her as if she had been whipped. Just the thought of it…she couldn’t…
Soon a fire was roaring. He let out a grunt of satisfaction and she heard the brush of material as he wiped his sooty hands on his pants. Alyx looked up just as he turned and their eyes met. Memories of their passionate encounter at the hotel flashed across her mind. Her body heated in response and she was sure that he could see it. She felt raw and vulnerable and exposed.
“Even now. I can see your mind showing across your face. Yes, Alyx, as much as you don’t believe it is so, as much as you don’t like to let people see you... I can see you.”
She couldn’t hide from him. He had already stripped her of her mask once in that hotel corridor. What she was feeling…she couldn’t hide anymore. Alyx could barely breathe as Jordan pulled off his shirt, revealing a thick and muscled body. She was trying not to stare, but when she caught the first glimpse of his torso, golden in the glow of the fire, she couldn’t tear her eyes away from him.
He unsheathed his weapons one by one, slowly wiping down each one and laying them out carefully. She had never seen anything so sexy and couldn’t help but imagine he was handling her the way he was handling those blades. She could feel herself getting too hot under this blanket, but she was too terrified to unwrap it from around her. She already felt too naked. Thank God he decided to leave his pants on.
He sat down next to her on the floor. “Talk to me, Alyx. I can see you have something to say.”
She cleared her throat. “So…”
“So.”
“What happened back there at the hotel…”
“Yes?”
“You kissed me…”
This caused one of the corners of his lips to pull up. “Yes, I did.”
“And I kissed you back…”
“Yes, you did.” Now the smile crept all the way up to his eyes.
Alyx took a deep breath. “That can’t happen again.”
“What?”
“I’m not like you.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“You can switch your emotions on and off with women. You’ve been with half the girls on this planet and you seem fine with that. I’m not.”
“That’s not true.” Alyx raised her eyebrow at his protest. “It hasn’t even been half the girls on this planet. Maybe, more like a quarter.”
Alyx shoved him so hard he fell sideways. He sat back up and raised his hands up. “Hey, I’m only joking. Only joking.”
Alyx threw her hands in the air and looked away trying to hide the prick of tears in her eyes. “God, you’re not even taking this conversation seriously. I’m just an amusement to you.”
“An amusement? Alyx, I was just—”
“The girl from the weapons store, the pastor’s daughter, Rosa…how many more others? I’m not like you. I’m not a…”
His face hardened. “Go on, say it.”
Oh God, she was doing this all wrong. She tried again. “I’m not experienced like you. I don’t do…understandings.” Alyx took a deep breath.
Her heart was thundering in her chest, but it urged her on. Tell him, tell him.
“I’m falling for you, Jordan. If I can’t be your everything, then…I want nothing.”
And it was like…freefalling. Terrifying and liberating and free.
He froze. And that’s when she noticed the look on his face. He looked…terrified.
That’s when the ground came up all too quickly. This is where he pulls away. This is where he tells me that he can’t have relationships. This is where he breaks my heart.
The seconds that passed after her heart left her lips were excruciating and empty, filled only with the crashing of her heart against her chest.
Finally he spoke, “What if…what if I said I wanted the same things as you? What if I said I had already fallen for you?”
Alyx stared at him, blinking. “I’d say that I thought you were lying to me.”
“Lying to you?”
“Or lying to yourself. One of the two. Jordan, I just told you I’m falling for you and you looked terrified. You don’t do relationships, you do understandings.”
He stared at her, complete disbelief marring his forehead. “You’re calling me a liar now? I just told you what you wanted to hear and you’re suddenly pushing me away?”
He leaned forward so quickly that Alyx started. He grabbed her arms so that she couldn’t back away. Their faces were so close that she was breathing into his mouth. His green eyes glistened, and she found she couldn’t tear her gaze away from them.
“Yes, I have been with a number of women. I’m not denying that. But I’ll be damned if I’m going to let you use my past against me to fuel your insecurities and to keep me at arm’s length. If you and I are to ever work you need to get the hell over it ’cause I won’t pander to it after today. I never lied to any of them about how I did or didn’t feel, and I’m not lying to you when I tell you I’m fucking in love with you.”
Her mind floundered as it tried to grasp onto what he just said. “Then…then why did you look so terrified after I told you?”
Jordan took a deep breath and let it out as a sigh. His hands loosened from her and he used them to run through his hair, his elbows resting on his knees.
“At first I didn’t believe that I heard you right. I didn’t think that…that you might one day love me back...” He looked over to her. “Then I realized that I’ve never been in love before and I’ve never had to try and keep a woman happy apart from in bed and that I have no experience in relationships or forever, and it terrifies me that I’m going to screw up with you. I’m afraid I already have screwed up with you. That’s why I looked so terrified.”
“I don’t have experience with that stuff either. All that ‘keeping you happy’ or relationships or forever stuff.” Alyx chewed her lip. “But what if…what if I’m not enough for you, Jordan? I mean, none of them have ever been enough for you, have they?”
Jordan held her face between his palms. “None of them have ever been you.”
Her lips crushed against his. Alyx felt her body ignite and any walls left around her heart burned away like a paper house in a roaring flame. The warmth, the love that he offered her in his kiss and in his touch expanded to fill up the rest of this void in her soul. And she felt…whole.
His hands pulled her out of the blanket and onto his lap as if she weighed nothing, their lips never breaking apart. His fingers traced down her cheek and her neck. Using just his thumbs he drew two parallel lines down the swell of her breasts.
There was sound in the back of her throat like a sob, like a pressure release that had built up, untouched, not allowed to exist or be acknowledged since she had met him. Jordan. Her Jordan. Why had she not allowed herself to feel this before? It was like…flying again after she had lost her flight.
Her hands slid across the expanse of his bare chest, enjoying the feeling of her fingers pushing through the patch of hair there. Her fingers felt along his smooth, rippled stomach, searching for...searching for…scars. She flinched. Something flashed across the tip of her memory like a ghost, then it was gone. Jordan must have sensed her pausing because he pulled back from her.
“Too much. Too fast. I’m sorry.” It came tumbling out of his mouth in an unsteady rush.
Alyx shook her head. “No. I’m okay. I just…” She trailed off. She what? She wasn’t sure what just happened. She was being silly. Or was she? She traced Jordan’s stomach again. “It was so weird…like déjà vu but…not. I felt like I was looking for something…”
Jordan’s face hardened and he picked her up and set her down on the blanket next to him.
Alyx didn’t like this. “Jordan, what’s wrong?”
* * *
Jordan stared at Alyx. Her eyes had been so full with love and desire and everything that he ever wanted to see in them. But would it last when he told her
about Israel? Would she ever look at him the same way? His heart throbbed in pain at the thought.
He should tell her now before things went any further. He opened his mouth, but a stab of loss caused him to pause. Once she knew…things wouldn’t be like this between them, would they?
He squeezed his eyes shut. Was he a bad person for wanting to wait to tell her? Would it be okay if he could have this one night with her? Would it be enough?
“What is it?” her voice cut through his prayers. When he opened his eyes she was kneeling in front of him, between his knees. He was rendered speechless. The fire behind her made her skin glow like warm embers, like an angel’s halo. His Angelfire.
Please, God, don’t let her hate me for wanting this.
Maybe if he explained it to her… He ran his fingers through her soft hair. “From our very first conversation I knew you were different. You didn’t act like a helpless female. You were angry, passionate, proud, fearless. You refused to be swayed by my looks or my charm.”
Alyx snorted. “You were acting like a damn stalker. I can’t imagine anyone in that position being swayed by your looks or charm.”
Jordan smile wearily. “You’d be surprised.”
Alyx raised an eyebrow.
Now was not the time to go into that. He continued, “I felt…such a curiosity about you that has only grown over time. The curiosity was more than how you would react to my touch or how your body tasted. I wanted to know what you dreamed about, I wanted to know what you feared, I wanted to know what made you laugh.”
Her face melted and she reached for him. He grabbed her hands before she could touch him.
“Alyx, you make me feel more alive than I have ever been. You came into my life and slowly there was light again, there was color…and you made me feel…oh God, do you make me feel. Feel everything. You, just being you, have coaxed the feeling back into my heart. For this, I will always love you. Just promise me that whatever happens tomorrow, you’ll remember that I love you.”
Alyx frowned. “Why, what’s going to happen tomorrow?”
“Anything could happen.”
“But you’re talking about something specific, aren’t you? What is it?”
“If we could only have one day, just you and me, would you still take it?”
Alyx pulled her hands away. “Jordan, you’re scaring me.”
“I don’t mean to scare you. Please, just answer. It’s important to me.”
He watched the confusion and worry crease her brows. Then he saw her eyes lose momentary focus, as it had just before she stopped kissing him, and he knew that this was a part of her that was struggling to remember Israel.
You’re an idiot. It’ll never just be you and her. He pushed this crushing thought away.
A kind of acceptance eased her features. Then a shy smile pulled at her lips. “If tonight is all we have, then we best not waste it.”
He was humbled that she trusted him not to ask any more questions.
“Come.” He picked her up and placed her gently on the bed. She pushed back at his chest, her eyes widening at him. He shook his head and retrieved the blanket so he could cover her with it. “I mean for us to get some rest. Not for us to…not that I don’t want to but we…shouldn’t …it’s too soon, too much…”
He couldn’t. He couldn’t sleep with her while he was keeping a secret this big from her. Although, sweet Heavens he wanted to. Just watching her lying there in bed half-naked looking up at him, he didn’t think he had ever wanted anything more in his damn life.
She laughed and the awkwardness was shattered. “I never thought I would see the day when you would be uncomfortable talking about sex.”
He pouted, pretending to sulk. “See what happens when you give a woman your heart? She gets all insolent and thinks she can talk back to you.”
Alyx rolled her eyes. “Please, I talk back to you anyway.”
He slipped under the covers next to her. Suddenly he was desperately unsure of what to do and where to put his hands and his body. What the hell do you do with a woman in bed if you’re not getting her naked? Somehow she made him feel awkward and new. He almost laughed at himself. He positioned himself next to her, laid out straight like a soldier, his arms barely touching alongside hers. She seemed disappointed.
“Can I ask you a question?” she said.
“Sure.”
“What are your rules?”
“Rules?”
“You said once that I made you break all your rules.”
He laughed. “Oh, yes, those rules. They’re irrelevant now.”
“So it won’t matter if you tell me.”
He grinned. Then he shook his head. “It doesn’t matter enough for me to tell you.”
Alyx nudged his side, making him flinch.
“Cut it out.”
She did it again, pulling herself partly over him to tickle both sides of him at once. “Not until you tell me.”
“Fine, you win. Just settle down.” He pulled her hands away. But it wasn’t because he was ticklish. He was too worried about how his body was reacting with her all over him.
But instead of moving back to her side of the bed she settled in the crook of his shoulder and along his side. It felt so amazing just to have her there that he couldn’t bear to move her away.
“My rules were: never get involved with someone in your community, never get involved with someone who could love you, and…”
“And?”
“…never fall in love.”
“Oh.”
She melted further against his body. Her bare leg sliding over his made him uncomfortably aware of how much sleep was not on his mind. Two little pieces of fabric and she’d be so ridiculously naked… No, he wouldn’t ask that of her. He couldn’t – not until she knew everything. He would be honorable, at least in this way.
“Sleep,” he forced himself to say.
“No. I don’t want to sleep.” Her finger tracing infinity signs on his chest made him want to sigh for all sorts of reasons. He squeezed his eyes shut. Being honorable was severely overrated.
“I don’t want to waste our time sleeping, assuming this is our last night left on Earth,” she teased. Then her face grew serious. “I’m afraid I’ll miss something…”
He understood. He was afraid, too. Afraid that everything would change tomorrow. That he would lose her once she saw Israel. The thought dug into his heart like a set of talons, sharp and hungry. No. Today. They still had today. He couldn’t taint today with tomorrow.
“You know,” he said, “we don’t have to miss each other, even if we sleep.”
He lifted up one of his hands and let a few blue sparks off his fingertips. A smile spread across her face as she realized what he was implying.
“Where do you want to go, beauty?” he whispered into her ear. “I can take you anywhere.”
“I don’t care. As long as you’re there.”
Jordan smiled down at the angel in his arms and shifted so that she would be more comfortable. “You ready?”
She nodded.
He let the DreamWalker sleep roll over both of them. Together they fell, wrapped around each other, into the DreamPlain.
Chapter 33
By daybreak the black clouds were beginning to scatter and a soft, moist morning light filtered through the air in the cottage. Jordan had been awake for a while. The scent of her hair had drifted into his dreams so that he woke before the sun. He pulled her tighter along him. Now that I’ve held you, how do I ever let you go?
Alyx stirred in his arms.
“Morning,” he whispered into her hair, taking in a deep breath of the sweet freshness.
Her eyelashes fluttered like two dark butterflies. “No. Is it really morning already?” she said as she placed little kisses in the nook of his neck. “I think the moon and the stars are tricking you with their light.”
He laughed. “I wish that were true.”
She opened one eye fully and grimaced at
the pale light streaming in through the window. “No. I know my nightlight from daylight, and that is definitely not daylight.”
“We have responsibilities, Alyx.”
She sighed and it seemed that she shrank even more when she exhaled all that air out. “I know.”
They pulled themselves out of the bed and soon were on their way.
* * *
Back at Saint Joseph, Alyx handed over the vial of Darkened blood and the ghost orchid to Tobias to add to the demon potion. They would be the last two ingredients as Tobias had prepared the base ingredients while she and Jordan had been away. She noticed Mason sidling up to Jordan as Tobias hurried away to finish off the cure.
“Have you told her?” Mason said, loud enough for Alyx to hear.
She turned to face the two men. “Told me what?”
She watched the display of guilt lash across Jordan’s face.
There was a little part inside her that knew, just knew, that this was something to do with all these odd things she had been experiencing and Jordan’s strange statement yesterday, “Just promise me that whatever happens tomorrow, you’ll remember that I love you.”
Jordan and Mason, both men almost equal in stature and size, were now glaring furiously at each other. The air crackled with tension as their fists balled at their sides.
She pushed them apart with her hands, demanding their attention. “Told me what?”
Jordan’s face fell as his eyes met Alyx’s. The aggression slipped from his stance. “I was going to tell you… I just wanted to keep you focused until we got the potion fixed.”
“Liar,” growled Mason. Jordan turned back to glare at Mason.
Hey,” she said, snapping Jordan’s attention back to her. “We have all the ingredients for the cure, so tell me now.”
Jordan’s eyes glanced sideways at Mason. “You mind giving us some privacy?” he said through gritted teeth.
“Not a bloody chance.” Mason folded his arms. “I want to make sure you tell her the whole truth.”
