Chasing Silver Read online

“Okay if I take a shower?” She plucked at the sweaty shirt sticking to her skin. “Between the dust at the warehouse and the sand at the beach, I’m almost ready to give up on ever being clean again.”

  “Do you want…?” Nathan paused, smiling a little self-consciously. “That’s fine. I’ll call Isaac. See if he’s managed to track down Kirsten yet.”

  Before he could reach into his pocket for his phone, her hand was on his arm. “Maybe you could take a look at my back first.” She swallowed against the dryness that had appeared in her throat. “We haven’t checked it since that first night.”

  “You’re right. I should change your bandage, at least.”

  She had her hands on the hem of her shirt, pulling it up and over her head, before she was halfway across the room. Nathan followed, and his hand found the light switch on the wall, drowning the small alcove in bright fluorescent as she stepped in front of the sink. The reflection staring back at her took Remy by surprise. Toned skin gleamed with light perspiration. Her long dark hair was curling slightly in the heat, faint wisps clinging to her forehead while the rest pooled around her shoulders. Even her eyes, nearly black, shone from the raised temperatures.

  “It doesn’t hurt,” she said, resting her palms on the vanity and leaning forward. “I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.”

  “Probably a good thing,” Nathan murmured, peeling the tape from her skin. She watched him in the mirror as he bent to study it, his face only inches from her back. After a few seconds he straightened, but he didn’t step away from her. “Make sure you clean it in the shower, but it looks fine.”

  The cool porcelain against her hands was warming swiftly, though Remy suspected it was as much about Nathan’s proximity as it was the heat of her body. Her eyes flew to his in their reflections, searching, wondering what was going on behind their bright depths.

  “Kind of an awkward place to get to.” Her head tilted toward the closed door of the bathroom, the offer tumbling from her lips before she asked herself where her earlier fears had disappeared to. “Maybe I should have some help.”

  “Maybe you should,” Nathan agreed, his hands sliding over her bare stomach to the top button of her jeans. He paused, studying her reflection before freeing the button and dragging the zipper down. She leaned back as he began to work the stiff material over her hips, not protesting as the jeans fell down her legs.

  It was easy to step out of the denim. It wasn’t as simple to ignore the hard press of Nathan’s erection into her barely covered ass.

  Remy whimpered when his hand skimmed back across her abdomen, long fingers splaying against the taut muscles as he held her against him. “How are you supposed to shower with so many clothes on?”

  “Good point.” He stepped back, pulling his shirt over his head, then pressed his body against hers again. She reached behind her, her hands sliding over his hard cock before finding his zipper. He covered her fingers with his, guiding the zipper down before pushing his pants away. “Better?”

  “Definitely.”

  Her gaze drifted to the broad outline of his shoulders. Though her head and body blocked most of Nathan’s chest, she could still see the thin scar at the base of his throat, the tight cording of muscles as his arms came back around her. His hands rose to deftly undo the front clasp of her bra, the dark lace springing lax to expose her already hard nipples to the air.

  Nathan’s palms moved over her breasts, his skin rough against her. She shivered as he began caressing, his fingers kneading the heavy flesh. His hips moved forward, his cock sliding between her thighs, the stiff heat taunting her through her underwear. Remy raised her eyes to the mirror, but his gaze was intent on her breasts, his eyes darkening as he brushed his fingertips over her taut nipples, bringing forth a light moan from her throat.

  As she rocked back against his hips, she lifted her hands to cover his, molding fingers over fingers as he massaged her breasts. The promise made her clit tingle, and the muscles in her legs tightened in response. But it was the sudden pinch of her nipples that made Remy gasp, eyes flying wide as she stared at their reflections.

  Nathan rolled her nipple between two fingers, steadily increasing the pressure until she writhed against him. She was so distracted by the sharp pleasure radiating from her tight skin she didn’t notice his other hand sneaking between their bodies, positioning the head of his cock at her slick passage.

  “Remy,” he whispered, gripping her hip.

  She didn’t know why he was asking. Hadn’t their time together proven to him yet that she was his for the taking? She had never known another man who could so thoroughly render her helpless, whether by the simple call of his voice or the gentle touch of his hand.

  Still, her tongue darted out to moisten her dry lips, her arm arching back to tangle her fingers in his hair. “Please,” she replied, her voice as hoarse as his. You know I’m yours. “Don’t stop.”

  “I won’t.” Nathan thrust forward. He filled her completely, holding her tightly as he paused inside of her. She caught her breath, studying his face, straining to read his thoughts. His eyes were dilated, and he seemed a little awed, a little dazed. Remy restrained herself, waiting for him to move, even as her thighs began to tremble.

  Her blood pounded in her ears by the time he began to pull out. Carefully, she exhaled, quivering with every jagged second, but it did little to quell her runaway thoughts. If she thought Nathan’s were inscrutable, hers were a maelstrom of confusion, at once offering answers while in the next moment, posing further questions. The Silver Maiden, her confessions at the beach, and his subsequent chase, danced to distraction inside her.

  It shouldn’t be possible. There was no such thing as fate. The only one to control your destiny was you.

  And yet, here she was. Doing the impossible. Finding both exhilaration and peace in a near-stranger’s arms.

  Not a stranger. Nathan. You know this man.

  She had known him from the beginning.

  Nathan continued to move, his long, slow strokes pushing her close to the edge. Her eyes fluttered shut, but his grip on her hip tightened. “Remy. Remy, don’t close your eyes.”

  She obeyed without pause, chin lifting as well as her gaze to find him watching her in the mirror. “Why?”

  “Because I…” Nathan kissed her shoulder, looking at her reflection through his lashes. “Because I want to see you. I want you to see us.”

  She did. She could. The words failed her, but the sight of his arms around her, his mouth pressed to her skin, his shoulders bowed to swallow hers, left her surging with the need to tell him. Somehow.

  Her fingers left Nathan’s nape to ghost along the side of his face. She traced his cheekbone, found the rough edge of the stubble that refused to ever go away, lingered at the corner of his mouth as he continued to rain kisses up to her neck. Still, it wasn’t enough. And she knew it.

  “Magic.”

  His mouth paused, but his hips continued the same maddening rhythm, his eyes clashing with hers. “What is?” His hot breath sent a shiver down her spine, and she felt the question more than heard it. “This? Us?”

  “All of it.” Her eyes threatened to close again at the electric onslaught of sensations, but Nathan’s tightened grip forced them open. Any barricade she might have managed around her emotions splintered at the naked need she saw reflected back at her. “I don’t know what else to call it. All I know is that I don’t want it to stop. It can’t. You’re the first man I’ve ever thought…”

  Remy stopped. That would be too much.

  Nathan froze, wrapping his arm around her stomach to hold her against him. Her chest rose and fell with his, and his skin seared where they touched. “What?” he asked, his voice faint. “What, Remy?”

  Everything roared inside her head, caught in the flame of his gaze as he waited for her to speak.

  “I’ve always been alone. Even when I had…family, I guess you’d call them. I would have died for any of them, but that didn’t
mean they were inside me.” Her fingertips caressed his cheek. “You’ve been there almost since the start. I don’t know how. I don’t even know what to call it. Magic doesn’t seem strong enough.”

  Nathan opened his mouth as though he was going to respond, but closed it again. He hesitated before he began moving, thrusting into her as slowly as before. The silence stretched between them, until Remy felt a flicker of panic. Had she gone too far? Had she said too much? He had asked and it wasn’t fair if…

  “I know.” His tone matched hers. “I know…me, too.”

  It wasn’t the words that released the torrent of emotion through her battered system. It was the unfaltering hold of his gaze with hers in the mirror, the surety reflected within it as he continued to stroke in and out of her body. Remy sagged against him, grateful for the hard wall of his chest. She almost hadn’t dared to hope, and yet here he was, professing to feel the same way. Why? It defied explanations, but maybe that was part of its power.

  “It scares the shit out of me,” she confessed.

  Nathan exhaled, in what almost sounded like a light laugh. “Me too. God, me too.” His fingers moved over her stomach, caressing her before sliding between her thighs. She took his wrist, guiding him to her throbbing clit. “But we’ll have time to figure it out.”

  Remy nodded, incapable of anything more coherent with his talented fingers and throbbing cock playing her to such a fevered pitch. Her breathing quickened, air coming in audible gasps, but always, Nathan maintained the same steady tempo, in and out and back and forth until every inch of her skin screamed for release from the fire he stoked. Her nails clawed into his nape, and her head pressed back against his chest. She would fall if not for his strength holding her up.

  She almost did when her knees buckled as she came.

  “I love watching you come,” Nathan said, his voice strained as he thrust into her a final time. His words forced her to focus on their reflections once again, and she watched the relief wash over his face. He gasped, his chest hitching against her back as he climaxed. His muscles immediately went lax, and he stumbled backward against the wall without releasing her.

  They regarded each other in the mirror for a long moment, only their ragged breath breaking the silence. She had so many words straining to come out, like a floodgate had been thrown open inside her heart, but she bit her tongue against them, waiting for Nathan’s next move.

  His lips grazed her temple. “I don’t think it’s magic,” he whispered. “I think you’re some sort of miracle.”

  Everything inside her blazed white hot. She hadn’t known what she’d expected, but it certainly wasn’t that. It wasn’t this exultant freedom his few words elicited, or the sense of coming home now flooding through her.

  She smiled. She didn’t need to worry about all the things she’d left unsaid. The only ones that mattered were, “Me, too.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Nathan watched Remy sleep, his chest tight. Something was wrong. Not very wrong, but enough to make him nervous, to make sleep impossible. He had woken with a pressing sense of dread, and now he couldn’t shake it. But looking at Remy’s full lips and long eyelashes, it was almost impossible to believe anything bad could happen.

  What is this? Did I leave the oven on? The car unlocked? What?

  In an attempt to comfort himself, he spooned around her. He buried his face in her hair, inhaling her sweet fragrance, and closed his eyes. She still felt so new, so unexpected. And everything she said still echoed into every corner of his thoughts—each word, each inflection, each breath imprinted on his mind.

  But the vague sense of unease continued to plague him.

  Nathan eased himself away, rising from the bed, too nervous to remain still. Was it something she had said to him? One of the many things he couldn’t forget? He looked down at Remy, studying her once again, noting the slight smile on her soft lips. She was too good to be true, and could she have been right? Had she been sent to him? To him, specifically?

  Nathan caught his breath. Something clicked home. Something Isaac had said. If the Silver Maiden sent her to him, what was to stop it from taking her away again?

  He hurried to the living room, reaching for the box at the top of the bookshelf with numb fingers. Nathan fished out the coin, holding it up by its worn edges to watch the light glint off its dull surface. It looked amazing, and yet, so ordinary. Was he crazy for believing Remy? Was he wrong for thinking such a small object could be responsible for something so…great?

  Nathan didn’t know how it worked, how it could have happened, or why. But he didn’t want to see it work firsthand. The Silver Maiden was far too precious, and dangerous, to leave lying around his apartment.

  “You got up.” Her sleepy voice came from the doorway, and he almost dropped the box as he whipped around to stare at her. Remy leaned against the jamb, legs bare beneath the hem of his shirt that she seemed to have permanently appropriated for sleeping. The full mouth that had been smiling only moments earlier in his bed now bowed into a pretend pout. “I thought we were going to have a lazy morning and sleep in.”

  “We are…well, we were.” The box felt heavy in his hand. “But I couldn’t sleep. I thought I’d bribe Isaac with some doughnuts and find out if he has any new information about Kirsten.”

  “I suppose that means you’re going to make me get dressed for when he gets here,” she teased.

  “I thought I’d go see him. At the station.” He did intend to stop and visit Isaac at the station on his way to the bank. He didn’t like lying to Remy, but he also didn’t want her to know where he intended to hide the coin. She couldn’t reveal what she didn’t know.

  “Oh. Okay.”

  Nathan’s relief was palpable when she began to turn away to go back into the bedroom. Then she stopped. His heart resumed its thudding.

  “That’s going to gyp me out of breakfast, isn’t it? Because you know and I know that you don’t have a thing in this place that’s edible.”

  Nathan smiled. “Fair point. There’s a grocery store around the corner. But…”

  “You could drop me off.”

  “No.”

  “It’s a grocery store, Nathan. It’s safe.”

  “How do you know it’s safe? Do I need to remind you of all the people currently searching for you?”

  “None of them are stupid enough to attack me in such a public place.”

  “I wouldn’t put it past any of them.”

  “What am I supposed to do? Just stay locked up here? Starve? I can take care of myself, Nate.”

  “I just…I worry about you when you’re not in my direct line of sight.”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “Okay. I’ll drop you off.”

  She smiled, and in that moment before she disappeared down the hall, any doubts he might have had about his decision fled. He couldn’t lose her, not so quickly and not because they were so foolish as to leave the coin lying about where almost anyone could pick it up. Better to lock it away until they understood its secrets once and for all.

  Her voice floated back to him, snapping him from his reverie. “Last one dressed is the last to come when we get back!”

  * * *

  Nathan located the small key on his key ring and slid it into the tiny lock. The safety deposit box wasn’t big, and it was far from full, but it held everything that was important to him. It was the only place safe enough to keep the coin. He didn’t think even Kirsten Henryk would have the means or the stupidity to break into a bank.

  He placed the small box holding Remy’s coins near the back, but he was unable to resist the temptation to look at the Silver Maiden one final time. He slipped the coin out and cradled it in the palm of his left hand, staring at the fine work and the mysterious woman etched into the silver. As he studied it, it began to warm as before, the heat spreading up his arm.

  A sudden image flashed in his mind, painful in its clarity. He saw Remy running, but he didn’t just see it. He felt it.
Felt her fear, felt her pain, the sharp flash of horror, and then, longing so strong it made his chest ache. For a moment, he could see her face. Her eyes were flashing, and she turned to look over her shoulder, just like the woman on the coin.

  The vision was interrupted by a searing pain shooting up his arm. Yelping, he dropped the coin in the box. Holding his injured hand against his chest, he stumbled back from the drawer, too stunned to quite understand the extent of the burn. Tears stung the back of his eyes, and his palm throbbed. A faint purple light pulsed from the box, and Nathan was afraid to look away, worried the coin would disappear, or worse, make him disappear.

  But as quickly as it all began, the light faded, as did the pain in his arm. Tentatively, he stepped forward, peering into the drawer. The Silver Maiden was resting on a tattered, wrinkled envelope, dull and harmless. Nathan watched it for a moment to make sure it didn’t burn through the paper. He paused, distracted from the coin by the envelope he barely remembered putting in the deposit box. The painful throbbing stopped him from grabbing the coin again. It was fine where it was. Taking a deep breath, he closed and locked the box with his unburned hand.

  Nathan’s heart still hammered against his ribs when he returned to his Mustang. The distracting image of Remy kept flashing in his mind. It took three attempts to find the correct key and start the engine, the simple act made even more difficult by the pain in his palm. The moment he touched the wheel, fresh agony flared through his arm. Sighing, he wrapped a rag around his fingers. Why didn’t Manuel’s information mention the bit about first-degree burns?

  Remy’s emotions had been imprinted on his mind, overlaying his own shock at the experience. He could recall them, as though he had experienced every single one himself, but at the same time, they were foreign and even disconcerting. As Nathan navigated into traffic, though, he couldn’t quite push them away and focus on the simple task of driving.

  Nathan checked the familiar landmarks, assuring himself he could give in to the temptation to analyze the experience later. When he was at home. The bank was only a few miles from the grocery store, which in turn, was only a few blocks from his flat. He just wanted to pick up Remy and go back to bed. He needed some time to think and—