Mirror of My Soul (Nature of Desire 4)

“Tell me just once,” he said. “And after that, not heaven or hell or even you will take me from your side. Not ever. ” His voice was harsh with tears he wouldn’t, couldn’t apparently shed. She began to cry again for them both, reaching up to touch his face.

“I love you, Tyler. I love you. ”

He took a few minutes to clean up in the bathroom. When he came back to her, she was waiting for him on the bed, her blue eyes like soft jewels in the semi-darkness of a room where the curtains were drawn, her hair floating around her body. He made love to her then, tenderly, the both of them nested in her quilts. His body stretched out on hers, moving slow, easy strokes into her heat and wetness. Her body clasped his with arms and legs and she buried her face into his shoulder as they finished together, shuddering.

Tyler suspected it might be the first time in her life that she was unconcerned about anything outside her bedroom door. He could feel her worry, though. Knew she was afraid her darkness made her incapable of living up to the expectations of the words she’d spoken to him. So with every touch, every softly murmured word of love and admiration, he let her know she was already everything he wanted, everything he needed. He put away his own dark fears where they could not touch this moment. And when she slept, at last he felt her relax into a world where there might finally be no dreams at all.

He watched her doze and held her close, his breath on her temple. Inhaled that familiar scent of tea tree oil, lavender and woman until he too succumbed to slumber, his feet over and under hers beneath the covers, an intimacy he’d not allowed himself with any woman since his wife. The simple joy of it after the past hour of intensity made him reflect that Marguerite was right. She wasn’t the only one who’d kept herself closed off.

But now it didn’t matter if she ripped his chest from his heart every day. If she was the eagle come to disembowel Prometheus and he was chained to that rock, he’d raise his face in welcome the moment he felt the breeze off her moonlight-colored feathers touch his brow.

Chapter Eleven

Perhaps because of jet lag he fell asleep more deeply than he would normally.

When he opened one eye, he found it was nearly eleven. While Marguerite was no longer beside him, her scent was on the pillow and a tray with a small carafe and coffee cup was on the nightstand. A spray of daisies and wildflowers tied in one of her ribbons rested beneath the tented note.

I’ll be back this afternoon. Had a class at eleven. If you can’t stay, I’ll be at your house tonight as planned.

She’d drawn… He drew back, squinting. Not for the first time, he acknowledged that eventually he was going to have to give in and admit that standard middle-aged farsightedness was about to overcome forty-plus years of twenty-twenty vision. XXs and OOs. OOs with smiley faces in them. He smiled, picked it up. She was never going to stop surprising him. Of course, she might have dictated the note to Chloe and the hostess had added the little flourish. Since he was lying in the bed with one length of leg from sole to buttock stretched bare over the cover, he hoped it was Marguerite who’d left the note, regardless of who had written it.

He took a quick shower, enjoying the intimacy of being surrounded by her razor, shampoos and soaps, though possessing the usual manly distaste of the floral aromas on his own skin. Pulling on his jeans and T-shirt, he courteously decided to wait on a shave so he didn’t wear out her blade with his rough jaw. Those were things he didn’t know about her. If she’d be annoyed by a man borrowing her razor. If she preferred her shower in the morning or evening. He looked forward to finding out.

It was an astounding nine in the morning. He found himself grateful that he could follow the corridor at the base of the staircase past the café’s restrooms and take a detour into the kitchen that didn’t take him across the public floor. A quick glimpse showed him at least ten of the fifteen tables were occupied with morning tea drinkers.

“There you are. ” Chloe beamed as he came in. “Was the coffee to your liking?” At his alarmed look, she added hastily, “Marguerite took it up. ” His instant relief produced a snort of laughter. “Though from your expression, I’m sure I missed a morning perk by not offering to do it myself. ”

“You are incorrigible,” he said reprovingly. Her grin broadened.

“Hey, you got to enjoy it while you’re young enough to do more than just look. ”

“That’s what worries me. Particularly when I’m unconscious from jet lag. ” She giggled, gestured. “We’ve got scones and a really excellent coffee cake. In the boss’s absence, I won’t even charge you. ”

Tyler sat down on a stool in a corner of the kitchen and willingly filched a piece of the cake, gesturing with the full mug of coffee he’d brought down. “Marguerite said she had a class. What class is she attending?” There were so many things he didn’t know about her. He did make a mental note to pay Chloe for the cake. He didn’t want to give Marguerite an excuse to throw him out on her next mood swing. He suppressed a smile at the image. He wouldn’t put it past her to do it.

“Oh, she’s an instructor. ”

“So the note was true. I figured she was just avoiding me. ” Chloe chuckled, putting down a sampler next to the coffee mug, thinking no woman in her right mind would leave her bed with something that looked like Tyler in it. “Try this. It’s a new green tea. No, if M wanted you out, I suspect she’d just kick you out. ”

“My thoughts exactly. ”

And wouldn’t she like to be the fly on the wall for that one, Chloe mused. She had a tremendous amount of faith in her employer, but she thought this one might be more than a handful when crossed. She liked him, though. Not only liked the way he looked at M, but how he looked after her. And how M acted around him. So she figured she’d take the risk of getting fired, play dumb if M asked her why she spilled the scoop over something very few other than her staff knew about her Thursdays.

“Today’s her jump day. ”

“Excuse me?”

“M’s a serious skydiver. Has a standing appointment on Thursday of every other week. ”

Tyler put down the sampler, having stopped it two inches from his lips. “She jumps out of airplanes. ”

“Yes. Hey. ” Chloe was concerned at the look in his eye as he rose, tossed some bills on the table. “I told you that you don’t have to pay for that. Seriously. And she’s really good. There’s nothing to worry about. In fact, she does it every other Thursday because they use her video stream to help teach the classes they hold that day. ”

“Where?”

When she hesitated, Tyler’s expression changed and her mouth opened before she could stop herself, a reflex of self-preservation. “Oconee Airfield. ” As he nodded and left, she shook he

r head. “M’s going to kill me. Kill me, then fire me. ”