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Chapter Twelve

  In the end, Dylan and I convinced the boys we didn’t need to visit the emergency room. I was recovering from whatever the hell it was Julia had done to me, and Dylan swore up and down she was okay, despite having a knot the size of a golf ball on the back of her head where Vanessa had hit her with a ceramic Mickey Mouse.

  “I could really use a fucking cigarette, though,” she said.

  “I thought you quit,” Brian replied.

  Dylan turned to look at him, and even though I couldn’t see her expression in the near-darkness, I knew she was giving him her death glare. Or what passes for a death glare in a cute, petite blonde.

  I laughed. With a little help from London, I sat up and got buckled in. My muscle response still felt sluggish, but at least I could see and hear okay again.

  “Fine,” Dylan said. “I could really use some caffeine, though. And food. And some clean clothes. And a shower. And a bed. And—”

  “And we get it,” I said.

  After very little discussion, we drove back to the well-populated tourist area, near Disney but outside of the resort itself. We stumbled into one of the few all-night restaurants around, where everyone probably thought we had just come from one of the clubs, still drunk. We looked like we’d been through a bar brawl: Brian’s shirt slashed from the window glass; Dylan in three-day-old clothes with unwashed, unbrushed hair; me, barely able to walk upright; and London, his eyes sunken and his face pale. If I was them, I’m not sure I’d have let us in.

  The whole time we were there, Brian and Dylan touched. One of them always had a hand free to lay on the other’s leg or arm. On our side of the table, London kept his distance. I wasn’t sure if it was an after-effect of all the magic or of seeing Julia again. I almost didn’t care.

  Almost.

  We avoided the big pink elephant in the middle of the room. Instead, we talked about mundane stuff: the menu, the decor, the other diners. Dylan bitched about having lost all of her luggage and demanded to be taken to Wal-Mart—the only thing open this late at night—for a change of clothes and a toothbrush. Brian suggested that she borrow my clothes for the night and get a toothbrush from the front desk at the hotel. The suggestion was met with another of her ineffectual death glares. Or maybe not so ineffectual, since Brian caved in and agreed to take her shopping. He offered to drop London and me off at the hotel first, and we didn’t argue.

  I stumbled getting out of the car, and London steadied me, pulling away as soon as I regained my balance. We walked through the hotel side-by-side in silence, London watching me out of the corner of his eye in case I needed help. I didn’t.

  We rode the elevator up to our floor, still in silence, and made our way down the hall to our room. London pulled out the spare key card and slid it into the reader on the door. The light flashed red, and he tried it again. Still red.

  “Damn it,” he breathed.

  “Let me,” I said, reaching for the card. My fingers brushed his, and a frisson of desire ran through me.

  We’d touched a hundred times in the past few days, and this shouldn’t have been any different, but it was. It wasn’t hard to figure out why. On top of the feelings that had been building between London and me, I’d had a brush with death—or as close as I wanted to get, anyway. Something about being faced with our own mortality makes us humans want to have sex. Some primitive need to prove that we’re still alive, I guess. Or maybe a need to thumb our noses at Death.

  I slid the key card into the reader, and this time the little light turned green. I opened the door and stepped inside. London followed me in, shutting the door behind him. Once we heard the latch click, London turned away from the door. I was standing so near we almost touched. I hesitated, scared to make the first move.

  London didn’t hesitate but played the opening gambit, though it wasn’t at all what I expected. He pulled me against him, cradling my head against his chest, and just held me for a minute or two. I could hear his heart racing, feel it hammering against his ribs under my cheek. My own was in a similar state.

  When I couldn’t resist anymore, I rubbed my face against his chest. My lips grazed his nipple through the thin fabric of his t-shirt, and I grinned when his breath hitched. He moved back, putting distance between us, but only so he could lean down to kiss me. The angle was awkward. I tried to go up on my toes to make it a little easier on London, but my muscles still weren’t working quite right. I ended up falling forward, sending us both staggering a few steps until London’s back hit the door.

  “Maybe this is a bad idea,” London said, running a hand up under my hair to stroke the back of my neck.

  “Or maybe you’re just too damned tall,” I countered. I pulled away, took a couple of steps farther into the room, then turned and crooked a finger at London. He grinned and followed.

  Kissing London worked much better sprawled out on the bed.

  The first kiss was tentative, testing the waters. The second was bolder, mapping out new territory. With the third kiss, London staked his claim on me. It was the kind of kiss that cheesy romance novels describe as “punishing”: primitive and almost brutal, built on raw need and blind lust.

  If I had fantasized about sex with London—and all the king’s horses couldn’t make me own up to it—I would have pictured it as tender and romantic, two people learning the nuances of one another’s bodies by candlelight. I would never have imagined the frantic race to get undressed, the bruising kisses, the clawing and pinching and biting. I also wouldn’t have imagined the utterly unsexy scramble to find a condom. And I definitely wouldn’t have imagined earthshattering sex ending in an abrupt eruption of tears.

  One second I was riding wave after wave of pleasure, racing for the precipice. The next, I was shaking with sobs, my face turned away so that London wouldn’t see. Of course, you can’t hide what you’re feeling from an empath, but I kind of forgot about that in the moment.

  London rolled off of me, and I turned my back to him, curling up in a tiny, shaking ball. A moment later, a warm body wrapped itself around me. I turned over, tucking my head against London’s chest. He held me and murmured comforting nonsense. After a while, I felt a trickle of calm, a pale echo of the projection he’d done earlier. Whether because my own emotions were so much stronger and more tangled, or because London was exhausted, the calming trick just didn’t work as well this time around, though it did help a little.

  My sobs quieted after a little while, and I muttered an apology.

  “Uh-uh,” London replied. “Don’t say you’re sorry. You don’t have anything to be sorry for.”

  For some stupid reason, that made me cry even harder. London sighed and kissed my forehead before climbing out of bed. I wanted to beg him not to go, but I couldn’t really blame him for wanting to get away from me. Dealing with a meltdown like this is bad enough for a guy when he doesn’t have to actually feel it.

  London surprised me by crawling back into the bed and pulling me close. He handed me a couple of tissues, and as stupid as it is, my heart melted a little. I dried my eyes and wiped my nose, trying to get myself under control. I owed London that much. I turned over again, my back to him, and he snuggled closer, his arm tightening around me. He pressed his lips to my shoulder then buried his face in my hair.

  Cocooned in warmth—both physical and emotional—I reigned in my emotions, bit by bit. The tears subsided, and the tangle of fear, exhaustion, relief, and a million other emotions drained away to be replaced with a comforting numbness. My breathing evened out, and I drifted, not asleep, not awake, but hovering in the netherworld between the two.