and hoping not. “I wish we could debark and find a cozy spot on the island for our…nap,” she said softly. “I’m craving solid ground beneath my body.”
“I’m craving you beneath mine,” he said. He pulled her into his arms then, holding her close to him and smiling down into her eyes. “I haven’t stopped thinking about it since we—”
“Neither have I, James,” she whispered.
He bent his head and kissed her mouth. He took his time, his tongue moving deep, tasting her thoroughly.
“All the cabins…” she said between kisses, “are…occupied.”
“You taste like wine. Better.” His hands moved over her body, sliding down to cup her backside, squeezing her closer. “We don’t need a cabin.”
“You’re right, we don’t,” she whispered. “The sitting room. We can shut the door.”
“What’s wrong with right here?” he asked, but he didn’t make her answer. He scooped her up in his arms and carried her, kissing her all the way, down the stairs, past all four closed cabin doors and into the sitting room. Then he kicked that door closed behind him and lowered her onto the pristine white carpet.
20
“J.W.! Get your ass up. King Louie’s gone.”
“What?” James came awake slowly, having been carried into sleep on a wave of utter bliss. He was lying on the soft, luxuriously plush carpet, Lucy’s head resting on his chest, his arms wrapped tightly around her naked shoulders. The throw they’d borrowed from the sofa was the only covering either of them wore. Somewhere along the way night had fallen.
He flashed alert as he focused on his sister’s voice, coming from beyond the closed door. “Brigit?”
“Will you get up? We have a problem.”
Lucy was coming awake, too, by then, and as she sat up and began pulling on her clothes, James got to his feet. He yanked on his jeans, sent a quick glance Lucy’s way and then, as soon as she was decent, he opened the door.
“What’s wrong?”
“Utanapishtim’s gone,” Brigit said. “See for yourself.”
She waved a hand toward the open door of the cabin where the old one had retired. James surged past Brigit, noting the mussed bedcovers, and then a bag, dumped out in the center of the mattress. Lucy’s bag.
“Oh, no,” Lucy whispered. “It wasn’t even in this cabin. I’d tucked it into a closet in another room. No, no, no, he couldn’t have…”
“What the hell?” James sorted through the pile of her possessions, picking up the object she seemed intent on as she drew near. Her phone, still turned on. Frowning, he picked it up and looked at the screen. It was filled with text, and as he scrolled upward, he found headers and realized what he was looking at. An electronic version of that damned book.
Lifting his gaze, he met Lucy’s stricken eyes.
“You had this? This whole time?”
“I was going to tell you but—”
“When? Dammit, Lucy, I told you how I felt about this. How could you keep this from me? Much less keep it around, running the risk Utanapishtim might get his hands on it and take it as gospel before we’ve had the chance to—”
The roar of an explosion split the air, cutting him off midsentence. All three of them went silent, staring upward.
James pushed the two women aside and raced up the steps to the deck above, only to discover that the boat had been docked. “Who the hell piloted us to shore?”
“I don’t know,” Brigit said. “The vamps we brought with us were gone, too, when I woke up. Probably rose at sunset and were eager to get to the island. They could have done it.”
“Either them or Utanapishtim. If he touched the damned boat, he’d instantly know how to operate it.” He was at the gangplank now, which linked the yacht to an outcropping of rock on an unfamiliar part of the shore.
He raced down it, searching the horizon for the source of the explosion, and was just in time to see the flash of another, followed by screams and sensations of the pain and anguish of his people. His family.
“What the hell is he doing?” James raged.
“It’s my power!” Brigit shouted, racing to join him.
Lucy was right behind, struggling to catch up as another explosion rocked the ground they stood on, and then another and another.
Brigit’s eyes were wet, her face twisted in fear. “He has the same power as I do. I can feel it. God…” Her eyes fell closed, body arching forward, hugging in on itself as if involuntarily. “Stop it!”