Chapter Thirty

Jamie.

Cat awoke with his name hovering on her lips and filling her mind. She opened her eyes to near-perfect darkness, only a few lines of dim light outlining what must be a window on the opposite wall, and to complete disorientation. Panic arose and beat hard in her throat.

“Jamie,” she whispered.

Something moved beneath her hands, beneath her cheek, warm, supple, and reassuring. Arms tightened around her, and she heard his voice.

“Hush, now. It’s all right.”

She knew his voice; she knew his touch. He held her in the dark. But searching her mind swiftly, she discovered she knew very little else. Who was she? She couldn’t remember her own name.

Her chest hurt with a deep, burning ache just above her heart. She unclenched her fingers from Jamie’s torso and rubbed at the spot, encountering bandaging.

“Jamie.” It seemed to be all she could think, all she could say.

One of his big hands came up, cradled her head, and soothed her back down against him.

“Where are we?”

“Safe for now.”

His lips skittered over her forehead, and just like that she wanted him, the desire raw and bright, like raging fire. She moved, slid on top of him, her smaller body caressing his big one, and groped for his mouth in the dark. She needed him inside her, needed him filling her, the hunger rabid in her veins.

“Catherine,” he said.

Was that her name? If he said it, it must be so. At that moment he was her god, her star, her reason for drawing breath.

She pressed her mouth to his. Light, searing and brilliant, exploded in the darkness. She wanted her tongue, her body, her blood to fuse with his.

Both his hands came up and captured her face. He broke the kiss. “Catherine, no.”

“Please, please, please, Jamie. I need, I need, I need—” All at once she wept, sobbed over him hysterically, the tears flowing like rain.

“All right, all right.” Tenderly he kissed the tears from her cheeks, worked his way to her mouth, and swallowed her sobs. She closed her eyes and absorbed the feel, the scent of him. Her panic subsided even as her arousal grew.

She moved her lips from his, not far, and whispered, “Jamie, please love me.”

“Christ, Catherine! I can’t.”

She knew he could. She could feel him pressed hard against her, cradled beneath her thighs. “Why not?”

“I won’t have it this way. You’re not in a fit state of mind. No, love, don’t weep again. What do you recall about what happened?”

She went very still, struggling against the fog that filled her mind. Bits and pieces of memory, images like the remnants of dreams, floated though the murk.

“There was a crowd. Weapons. What happened, Jamie?”

“You were hit by the blast from a steam cannon.”

“I was? Is that why my chest hurts?”

“Yes.”

“But no one survives that.”

“No.”

“So how is it I’m here?”

“Officer Fagan—do you remember Brendan Fagan?”

“No.”

“He knew a woman, a remarkable woman. She was able to help you. We’re in her house now.”

“Help me, how?”

He hesitated. The breath gusted from his lungs. “This woman, Clara McMahon, has a miraculous talent. She was able to bring you back.”

“Bring me back?”

“From the dead.”

“What!”

“You died there, Catherine, in the street, when the steam blast hit you. I carried you here to Clara’s house in my arms. We’re safe for now, but Boyd got away from the police.”

“Wait, you’re going too fast. Who?”

“Sebastian Boyd. You don’t remember him.”

“No.”

“Or—or your family.”

“Little pieces of things. You say I was dead? Jamie, how can all this be? I’m frightened. Hold me, hold me. Tighter.”

She clung to him, and he wrapped his arms around her, drawing her still closer.

“You won’t leave me? Promise you won’t leave me,” she whimpered.

“I promise.”

“Because I need you.” Arousal flared still more brightly. “And I want you, Jamie. You can’t tell me differently.”

“Listen, listen to me.” His voice rumbled up through his chest and into her ear, grounding her, the one reassurance in the terrifying darkness. “Clara—she said there’s a byproduct of this resurrection. The person who is brought back forms an attachment. It should die down soon.”

“What are you saying? I don’t understand.”

“Those she brings back imprint on the first person they see. The first person you saw was me.”

Protest rose inside Cat like madness. “She’s wrong. That can’t be. What kind of terrible woman is she, anyway, that raises the dead? Why would you believe anything she says?”

“Not a terrible woman at all, but kind and, I think, very wise. She took a risk helping us and bringing you back to me. That’s why we can’t reveal to anyone what she’s done.”

Cat went suddenly still, somewhat mollified. “You wanted me returned?” Did that mean he cared? Did he need her even half so much as she needed him?

“Yes, oh yes, Catherine. And I’ll look after you as best I can. The police may well find Boyd soon. Meanwhile, he thinks you’re dead and will have no reason to keep looking for you. So if we hide and keep you out of sight, we might weather this and come out the other side.”

“And what then?” Cat tried to look ahead, but it seemed as murky as what lay behind her. She could imagine little while remembering so little. She’d never realized how much expectation of the future depended on knowledge of the past. Panic touched her again. “How can I go on, if I don’t remember anything?”

“You’ll remember, given time.”

She shuddered. “How long was I—dead?”

“Not long, maybe twenty minutes. The time it took me to bring you here.”

“But I was a corpse.” She struggled to assimilate it. “Is that why you won’t make love to me? Because I was a corpse?”

“No, Catherine. Christ, no.” His heartbeat sped up beneath her ear. “I just want you to be sure in your mind before you give me a gift like that. Because there’s no going back from it, is there? I think you just need someone right now. When you’re able to choose, I want you to choose me, but I can’t believe you could choose me…”

“Why not?” Who else in all the world could she choose? Every part of her craved him with a need so deep she could barely fathom it. She twined her arms and legs about him more closely.

He said, the words dragged from him, “You can’t see me here in the dark, but you do remember how I look—my face?”

“You think that matters? It doesn’t matter.” As she had in the parlor earlier, she raised her hand and began to caress his ruined cheek, exploring the thickened skin with her fingers, smoothing the mutilated lips and ear. If only she could make him feel what she felt, convince him of her admiration. If only she could make him believe what her heart knew.

He drew an unsteady breath and went rigid beneath her touch. Ignoring his reaction, she continued to stroke him, every inch of scarring, up onto the hairless side of his head, then back down his neck and shoulder to his broad chest.

“Jesus, Catherine,” he breathed.

“Jamie, I need you. Please.”

She followed the motions of her fingers with her mouth, skittered her lips across his lips, dipping into his mouth with her tongue for a sweet taste and then planting tender kisses all over his cheek, his jaw, his neck and shoulder—everywhere she knew his scars lay. She had to tell him she found him beautiful. She had to convince him the light that shone from his heart transfigured everything she saw in him.

A sound that might have been a sob issued from his throat. She covered his mouth with hers and swallowed it, slid her hand down the supple muscles of his chest, over his rippled belly, and caressed him through the front of his trews. He jerked against her hand like a man in agony.

She broke the kiss to whisper, “Touch me, Jamie. Make me yours.”

His hand, warm and gentle, slid down her back, cupped her buttocks, lifted her effortlessly, and settled her on top of him. Light flared in the darkness again, and her heart rose on a wave of victorious gladness. She wiggled and positioned herself against him, a willing receptacle for whatever he wanted to give.

His hand traveled back up and cupped her head. He kissed her deeply, luxuriously, his tongue exploring the inside of her mouth with strong, warm strokes until she saw stars. She felt his need then, great as her own, and she no longer doubted him. Nothing had ever been so right as this.

“Are you sure?” he asked when he stopped kissing her. His breath, when he spoke, gusted across her lips, further stoking her arousal.

“Very sure, Jamie, beautiful Jamie. I want you to touch me everywhere.”

“What did you call me?”

“You are the most beautiful man I’ve ever known. The only man I’ll ever want. Touch me.”

Slowly, with delicious tenderness, he drew off her clothing, and she helped remove the barrier of his trews. Big and warm, all strength, he laid her on her back and moved over her in the darkness.

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You can’t hurt me.”

“Your chest…”

“Touch me there.” She captured his hand and brought it to her breast. She felt on fire for him, burning up in flame. He fell upon her hungrily, his mouth a miracle of sensation, and she clung to him like a limpet, her legs, her thighs, and what lay between seeking that one strength so hard, positioning herself so he very nearly slid inside.

“Beautiful Jamie, give yourself to me.”

He abandoned her breast but only to find her mouth again. She met him, open above as below, and wooed him in. He invaded her with his tongue at the same instant he slid into her, and the pain was glorious—one tearing flash of light that seared her and bound her to him before he began to move ever deeper, claiming her body, her soul, her heart.

When they became one person, when the waves of pleasure seized them both and his essence filled her, only then did her deep need ease; only then did she feel complete.