Chains of Fire Read online

  She sprang out of the way, turned, and ran for the far side of the basement.

  He was hot on her heels.

  They got under the table they had wedged in the corner, covered with blankets, cushioned in every way possible. They donned their ear protection. He flipped off the LED lantern and, ignoring her protests, flung himself on top of her. Unerringly, he found her mouth and kissed her.

  It tasted like a just-in-case farewell.

  And the explosion rocked the floor.

  Chapter 26

  Through her ear protection, Isabelle heard the building—parts of the building—slam to the floor. Stuff—floor trusses, metal, stone, large pieces, small pieces—rained down on the table until she feared they would be buried. Yet burial from wreckage wasn’t what she really feared.

  What held her stiff and still was the imminent collapse of the ceiling and all the snow piled atop it.

  She didn’t want be buried alive.

  She didn’t want to die at all.

  Her heart thundered. Her hands trembled. She held on to Samuel as if he were her only hope of heaven.

  Gradually the hailstorm of debris ended.

  They were still alive, uncrushed . . . and the explosion was done and they needed to get out and survey the results.

  Except she was crushed. By him. He stretched out on her, covering every inch of her so that her nose was pressed into his chest and his arms protected her head.

  Chivalrous?

  Yes.

  Stifling?

  Also yes.

  Nerves jangling, she removed her ear protection. “What good is you lying on top of me going to do if the ceiling collapses?” She shoved at him.

  “Hey, at least I’ll get a farewell feel.” He ran his hands up and down her sides, bold and insulting.

  Typical Samuel.

  Funny, but he made her feel better, as if knowing Samuel was still in this world, his same old obnoxious self, made her life complete.

  Her heartbeat calmed. She took a long breath.

  “It’s over.” He lifted himself off her and flipped the switch on the lamp. “Shall we go out and see what we’ve done?” He looked different to her. Austere, intense, not at all the sarcastic, flippant Samuel she knew so well.

  “Let’s go,” she said.

  They dug their way out of the padding over the table and out into the open air.

  The basement had been changed by the shock wave—yet it was the same. Dust swirled in the air. All the lockers had been flattened, tilted away from the explosion like a forest of trees blasted by a volcano. In the far corner, the heating runs were crumpled piles of metal crushed beneath massive chunks of the ceiling.

  Yet . . . yet . . . no sunlight shone into the basement locker room. No fresh wind blew in their faces. Even from a distance, even in this dim light, it appeared the snow, although blackened and jagged, remained essentially intact.

  No. Oh, no.

  They picked their way through the wreckage, staring incredulously as they approached the site of the explosion. Heads craned up, they circled beneath the shattered ceiling and the igloolike dome of ice.

  “How is this possible?” she whispered.

  “I had to work hard to get the dynamite into the snow. As I said, I think on the first night, a shell of ice formed over what remains of the ski lodge.” The explosion had tossed the ladder into the wall and slightly crumpled the aluminum, but Samuel set it up under the hole in the ceiling. “Would you steady this?”

  She leaned on it as he climbed, and she speculated, “Since then the weight of the snow above has crushed the snow below, packing it into an even more impermeable layer. So the ice didn’t yield, which forced the blast of the dynamite downward. We’re at the bottom of a glacier.”

  He stood at the top and slammed his fist into the ice. “With no way out.”

  As he descended, his simmering frustration scalded her.

  She looked around at the debris. “I guess we’d better set up the tent again.”

  “Why? If we’re right, and the explosion used all our oxygen, we’re going to suffocate.”

  “Not yet.” Although she already felt light-headed. But maybe that was disappointment.

  “But soon.” He headed toward the far corner where they’d stashed all their “just in case this doesn’t work” stuff.

  Most of the time, Samuel was such a cocky jerk, she couldn’t stand him. Or she told herself she couldn’t stand him. But right now, he looked so guilty.

  She picked her way through the mess, thought briefly about making an attempt to clean it up.

  Then she re-sorted her priorities and crawled under the table that had protected them from the explosion. She found the stash she’d so carefully collected. She gathered a half dozen bottles, and came out with them held between her fingers.

  She found Samuel on his knees stoically, deliberately rebuilding their tent. “What do you want?” she asked. “Scotch? Aquavit? Ouzo? Schnapps?”

  He surveyed her, standing there smiling like a waitress in a German beer hall. “You came prepared.”

  “For celebration—or forgetfulness.”

  “Of course. You are always prepared.”

  “You were the one who had the condom.”

  “Old habits die hard.” He reached up and with one finger tapped the thin, tall, clear bottle. “Since this is a ski lodge, schnapps is called for.”

  “The perfect choice.” The schnapps was from one of the hundreds of small German families who distilled their own brand, and as she pulled the cork, the scent of peppermint did not so much rise to fill her nostrils as assault her. She sipped. Peppermint exploded on her taste buds. “Ah. A good vintage.”

  He snapped the tent poles together, then took the bottle from her, staring at her as if he didn’t know who she was.

  “What?” She knew what, but she wanted to distract him. Make him notice her and not the mess they were in.

  He sipped cautiously, then handed the schnapps back. “I’ve never seen you drink from the bottle before.”

  “Probably because I’ve never drunk from the bottle before. But I want to try everything once before I die, so I guess I’d better hurry.” She took a swig and coughed. “You know, I have to say something here, and I want you to listen very carefully.”

  “Go ahead.” He slipped the sleeping bags into the tent, laid them out, side by side.

  She enunciated clearly. “This is. Not. Your. Fault.”

  He spread a blanket over the top of the bags and made everything look as it had before.

  He wasn’t listening.

  She would make him. Kneeling beside him, she handed him the bottle. “Look. I’ll blame you for everything you deserve. You know that. But you’re not responsible for the avalanche. You had no way of knowing what the Others intended. You gave us a few more days with your quick thinking getting us here. I know what I said, but I was mad and I also know that once we were trapped, you did everything you could to get us out. We waited until there was no other choice before we set off that dynamite, and I’m the one who said it was time, and I told you how to set the blast. It didn’t work. We’re stuck and our oxygen is seriously depleted.” She leaned in until he had to look her in the eyes. “There’s no one I’d rather face death with.”

  He clutched the bottle as if his icy fingers didn’t comprehend what they held. “Do you mean that?”

  “Why would I say it if I didn’t mean it?”

  “You’re incredibly polite.”

  “Not to you.”

  He laughed. A brief, harsh chortle, but it was a laugh. “That’s true.”

  “Too right.”

  “Here’s to honesty.” Lifting the bottle, he drank. “I love you.”

  “What?” She sat back on her heels.

  “I love you. You know that. I’ve always loved you. I’d rather live with you. But if we have to die together . . . yeah, that’s good, too.”

  Her eyes filled with tears.

  This kno
wing they were going to die—it brought so many emotions to the surface. Raw emotions. True emotions. The old hurts seemed less important. She remembered the golden moments.

  He contemplated her, his eyes serious. “About that last time we were together and what I did—”

  “No!” She held up her hand. She was feeling good. She was feeling mellow. She couldn’t remember that. His betrayal had been so unexpected, so cruel. . . . “Let’s just remember the good times.”

  Chapter 27

  “We have no future. I don’t want to talk about the past. So what should we do on our last night on earth?” Isabelle leaned against Samuel, grinning foolishly.

  He regarded her affectionately. She wasn’t drunk. But she was uninhibited. The woman had no head for liquor. “I don’t know. What do you want to do?”

  “I was thinking we should do something stupid!” She leered, actually leered at him. “But for longer this time!”

  “That sounds like a good idea.” He wrapped his arms around her, kissed her on her chilly nose, her cheeks, her eyelashes. When she was straining toward him in frustration, eyes closed, lips slightly open, her expression an open invitation, he asked, “Could I get you to do something for me?”

  “Sure!”

  Her enthusiasm made him grin. “Listen before you say yes. In this cold, it’s a big favor.”

  She opened her eyes. “What is it?”

  “When I saw you at the party the other night . . . you looked wonderful, like the princess you are.”

  “Am not,” she said truculently.

  “I wanted to kneel before you, kiss you through that gown. I wanted to have you push me over and straddle my face. I wanted to pleasure you so thoroughly you would always feel my lips on yours, my tongue in your mouth, my dick in your pussy. . . .”

  “Samuel, you shouldn’t say things like that. . . .” But she stared up at him, rapt.

  He finished, “I want you to put on the dress.”

  “Okay.”

  “I want to feel you through it, know there’s only thin silk between us.”

  “Okay.”

  “Push it up over your hips and—”

  “I said okay. Okay.” She backed away, smiling. “Oh. Kay.”

  He watched her vanish into the depths of the ladies’ room.

  They were going to die, and no matter what she said, he was responsible. He had failed to realize the Others would figure out his mission to release the Gypsy Travel Agency’s fortune. He had failed to realize that they would stalk him, entrap him, murder him to stop him from succeeding.

  At least they had failed in that. He could go to his death satisfied that he had done his best for his friends, the Chosen.

  But he hated that he had brought her into this. Because whether Isabelle liked it or not, he was her man. He was responsible for her safety. He had dragged her with him on the mission to rescue little Mathis Moreau from his kidnappers. He hadn’t recognized the danger, and when he did, he hadn’t reacted fast enough to save them. Worse, every attempt they made to escape had been thwarted.

  So he could make her last night on earth a night she would carry as a treasure into the next world.

  Like a courting bird, he hustled around, making their nest inviting. He lit the heater and placed it just outside the tent—it might burn oxygen and batteries, but what did it matter now?

  What mattered was having the first warmth they would enjoy in days.

  He spread out the sleeping bags so they could sleep together, fixed the pillows . . . shook out the fur coat and placed it over the top.

  The fur . . . Remembering how he had stolen it from the closet, then found out he’d inconvenienced some pompous rich bitch who paid a hundred thousand for it . . . that made him smile.

  Then his smile faded. He and Isabelle would go to sleep in each other’s arms, and they wouldn’t wake up. . . .

  Damn! He didn’t want this to be the end. He didn’t want the Others to win this battle. He wanted to live with Isabelle at his side. He wanted them both to get their full marks, their powers. He wanted them to be forever mated, forever as one.

  And now that would never happen.

  “Samuel.” Isabelle’s warm, intimate voice brought him back from the edge of despair.

  He turned. He gawked.

  After so many days of seeing Isabelle in bulky coats, sweaters, and ski pants, this was his first glimpse of heaven.

  Yes, the dress was smudged. Yes, it had a tear. But the designer gown flowed over her body like a wash of gold, shimmering as it lovingly outlined her breasts, her waist, her thighs. She wore the foolish heels, making the line from her hips to her toes even longer, and like a model she turned, encouraging him in his gawkery. The silk trembled with every movement, and every moving shadow hinted blatantly of that which was just beneath.

  He trembled. “My God,” he said hoarsely. “It doesn’t look like you’re wearing anything under that gown.”

  She stopped, and like a thirties pinup girl she looked over her shoulder at him, one finger to her pursed lips, eyes widened in falsely innocent dismay. “Oh. I didn’t know you wanted me to wear underwear. I’ll have to go find my panties.” She took a step.

  “Wait!”

  She turned to him, a spin that made her gown swirl around her calves.

  “If you do that,” he said, “I’ll be done by the time you get back.”

  She laughed warmly, low and soft; then, as he held the tent flap open, she slid in in one graceful motion.

  He followed, ridiculously pleased at her willingness to enter his domain.

  “At last, a use for this coat.” She sat on the fur and petted it with her hand, then rolled back and stretched like a cat, one arm, then the other, her right leg, then . . .

  As she stuck out her left, clad in the foolish Jimmy Choo gold spike heel, he caught her ankle and ran his hand up her calf, pushing the silk aside as he went.

  Her hand went to her heart as if to contain the tumult.

  Good. He wasn’t the only one blasted by need, by sentiment, by the rush to seize satisfaction before they died . . . and yet, he intended to make this last as long as possible.

  He bent her knee so that the silk fell in a sleek rush onto her hip, half baring her to his gaze. He halted to admire the soft lips lightly covered with fine curling hair, her blushing clit, the shadowy, mysterious entrance to her body.

  “Samuel, I can feel you looking.” Her voice was slightly slurred, and as he watched he saw the pale pink of her inner flesh heat to a rose.

  With one hand, he traced the inner length of her other leg from her ankle to her thigh, a long run of skin colored by loving nature with burnished warmth.

  The fullness of her skirt now rested on her belly, and he lifted her ankle to rest on his shoulder. He slid his finger along her slit . . . and in an arrested voice, he said, “You’re icy.”

  “Oh.” She stirred in embarrassment. “I wanted to freshen up, so I washed. . . .”

  “With snow?” He was horrified at her feminine insistence on cleanliness—and intrigued.

  “Don’t be silly. With water.”

  “You used slushy water to freshen up?” More horrified. More intrigued.

  She paused, then purred, “Am I fresh?”

  Never in his life had he heard an invitation more artfully delivered. He slid down to rest between her thighs, stretched out with his mouth inches above her, and slowly dipped his head to inhale her scent. “Yes.”

  “Then I guess it was worth it.”

  He laughed helplessly. “There is not another woman like you in the world.”

  She watched him, eyes half closed and smiling. “That is quite true.”

  Now was the time to say all the things he’d always meant to tell her. Now . . . because there was no tomorrow. “All these years, I have dreamed of your taste, of the way you move when I take your clit into my mouth and suck it, the way you grow damp and needy, and best of all—the way you clamp down on my tongue when you come.�
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  “You make me hot from the inside out.”

  “I always enjoy the taste of you, and it is a flavor I have long craved.”

  She moaned softly.

  His breath brushed her skin, and he said, “As long as I’ve got a face, you’ve got a place to sit.”

  Tilting her head back, she laughed helplessly. “How can you be so romantic one minute and so crude the next?”

  He kissed her between the legs. “Because with you, I want to be everything I am—romantic and crude, serious and funny, loving and in love. I want to buy you gifts when I’ve had a good day, gripe at you when I’ve had a bad day, be a jerk and know you’ll slap me, know that no matter what I do, you’ll love me anyway.”

  “You want everything,” she whispered.

  “Yes. I want everything.” He kissed her belly. “But I want everything for you, too. I want you to come to me when your friends are a pain. I want to hear you laugh too loud at silly jokes and hold you while you cry over a chick flick. I want you to feel free to be bitchy when you’ve got PMS. I want to hear you scream when you’re angry at me and know you’re not going to walk out because we’re meant to be together forever. I want everything for us . . . and all we’ve got is tonight, so let’s make this”—he kissed her again—“a good night.”

  Chapter 28

  At Samuel’s declaration, at his vision of a whole life of love, sentimental tears welled in Isabelle’s eyes.

  Then he opened her with his fingers and used his mouth and lips and teeth to make her crazy. She twisted on the fur, insane with need, as he probed and sucked. Passion built in her veins, making her heart race, her hands clench. Bringing orgasm too fast, yet not fast enough. She hovered on the edge as he built her frenzy bit by bit, teasing her with a retreat, blasting her more intensely, using his tongue in ways she had never imagined.

  He had always been like this, wanting to know she’d found her bliss, over and over, before he found his. But today he used skills she didn’t know he possessed until she begged, “Samuel, please. Please.”

  “Please what? Please . . . this?” Lifting his head, he thrust one finger in her.