Page 64 of Kiss Across the Universe
“We’ve climbed high enough to make that sort of difference?” She was amazed.
“We’ll be in snow by tonight.”
She shivered again. Two days ago, the idea of braving a night outdoors on snow, wearing the thin layers she was wearing would have horrified her. But not now. After last night, she knew that Kit would contrive to keep them both warm and dry.
She watched him carefully pour water into the cup, his head down, which only seemed to emphasize the strong jaw and chin. And the thick dark brows that were drawn together.
Alannah let herself simply look. And absorb. She’d never reallynoticedKit before. He was her parents’ friend, and a reticent one, at that. Now she was seeing him in a completely different way.
He stirred the coffee in the mug, then took great pains to scoop out a tiny twig that had dropped into it. Simple movements, his big hands and long fingers moving delicately.
While high overhead, the wind whistled with a keening note that made Alannah aware of just how alone they were.
Kit held the cup out to her. His gaze was steady, his eyes dark with more than the coal black irises.
Alannah’s arm felt heavy as she reached out to take the cup. Her belly seemed to contract, to throb. Heavy, heated longing coursed through her. She fumbled to take the cup by the handle, her fingers thick and uncooperative.
Kit made no move to shift his gaze away from her. His eyes seemed to bore into her, speaking everything he wouldn’t say, not here, in his place. And that seemed…wrong.
Alannah couldn’t bear the tension anymore. She looked down at the coffee cup, her heart hurling itself against the wall of her chest, unaddressed wanting making her tremble.
When they got back to normal, she repeated to herself firmly. This aching need would be resolved when they got back home.
But…what if she didn’t want him when they got back? What if it was only here, in the wilderness, under strained circumstances, that this compulsive lust could exist?
Alannah made herself sip the coffee as quickly as she could, as she had promised, while dismay replaced need in her veins, and chilled her in a way the cold air could never have managed.
Chapter Twenty-Five
When Marit spotted David throughthe big living room window, walking up the path to her front door, she sighed and put the homemade lemonade aside and went to the front door, which was open to allow the cooling afternoon sea breeze to wash through the house. It was the first hot day of early summer and still eighty degrees outside.
She pushed open the flywire door to let him in. “You just can’t leave this alone, can you?”
David stepped into the room, which instantly made it seem smaller. He was a tall man, although not as tall as either of her fathers. Neither was he as broad across the shoulders, although he had probably spent more centuries wielding a sword than either of them.
“I cannot leave it alone, no,” he said in his deep, well-modulated voice.
“You could have phoned.” She glanced through the closed screen door. “Where did you jump to?” There were not too many completely private locations in her little suburb. “And why didn’t you jump straight here?”
“That would be…rude. You didn’t know I was coming.”
“That’s never stopped you before,” she said tartly.
He held up a hand. “I wanted to talk. Annoying you the moment I arrived wouldn’t have helped me do that.”
She returned to her cane rocking chair, but didn’t tell him to sit down. He never waited for invitations. “Nothing has changed since I told you about it. I’m still getting headaches. I’m still missing other versions of me on the timescape.”
But the meditation technique he’d taught herdidhelp. Which was just as well, for her employers wouldn’t tolerate her taking any more time off. Bludging, in Australia, was a heinous social crime that would quickly alienate everyone she knew. As Marit liked the life she had found here in Perth, she had no intention of ruining it.
David sat on the front edge of the sofa, as Marit had guessed he would. He folded his hands together between his knees. He was wearing a long-sleeved business shirt with the cuffs rolled up just above his wrists, and elegant trousers that were probably silk and would be incredibly uncomfortable on a day like today. He didn’t seem to be bothered by the heat at all, though.
Then she recalled where he had grown up; in and around the Greek islands, where super-hot and arid summers were the norm.
“You’re still not able to see your other selves?” he pressed.
“Some of them,” she qualified.
“They’re not in other timelines, or back in the past?”
