“And then, one day, Jakob walked out of his condo, sold all his businesses, boarded a plane bound for Prague, and never returned. No one ever saw Jakob again.”
Chapter
Two
You seem to think that’s the end of it. You stand up, cross the room with quick, angry strides, pour a measure of scotch from the decanter. Down it in a single swallow. Pour; swallow. You repeat this twice more, until you must lean on the table, glass under your palm, breathing hard. A third of the contents of the decanter are now in your belly.
“And that’s the story of Jakob Kasparek.” The storyteller’s cadence is gone. The distant, vacant expression is gone. The mask is back in place. “Anything else you wish to know?”
“Where is Logan?”
You do not even bother to glance at me. “The morgue, I would presume.”
“I don’t believe you.”
You shrug. “No matter to me whether you believe it or not. He’s dead and you’re mine.”
“I am not yours.”
You gesture at the door. “Then leave.”
I am at the door in three strides. The knob is in my hand, twisted. The door opens. But I cannot leave. Not because I am yours, but because there are still so many questions.
“If Jakob Kasparek vanished, then how is it he signed me out of the hospital, rather than Caleb Indigo?”
A silence greets that question.
Something else you said has been percolating.
“You said I have been yours since I was sixteen, Caleb. What did that mean?”
More silence.
“How old am I? Why did you tell me I was mugged, when I was really in a car accident? Why did you tell me I was eighteen when I went into the coma? How long was I in the coma?” I’m stalking closer to you with each question. My voice rises with each question. “What is the truth? What is the truth about me, Caleb? Or Jakob, should I say?”
You fly across the intervening space in the blink of an eye. Your huge powerful hand grips my chin, my throat. Tips my head backward. Your other hand curls around the base of my spine and jerks me flush against your body.
“Jakob Kasparek is no more. He is no one. He does not exist. Myname... isCaleb.” Your voice is ice, sharp as razors and deadly as a viper’s venom.
Your fingers crush my jaw, pinch my windpipe. I am pinioned against you. Helpless. And then your lips crash against mine. Roughly, at first. Angrily. Violently. With shocking, lip-bruising force...
Youkissme.
With mesmerizing, hypnotic passion, you kiss me. Rough becomes gentle. This, perhaps more than the kiss itself, stuns me. The tenderness, it is exquisite. You kiss me delicately. Skillfully. You kiss me, and you kiss me, and I am breathless. Your tongue whispers against my lips, slips graceful between my teeth and tangles with my tongue. Your palms play against my back. Fingertips dimple my flesh, and slide lower.
What is happening?
Your sorcery, it is not this affection. This is some new magic. Some new witchcraft.
The kiss, your kiss, Caleb, it is like nothing I have ever felt in my life. You kiss me as if you’ve been waiting for all of eternity to kiss me thus, as if you are starved for my lips, thirsting for my mouth. You clutch my back and hold me to you as if you are terrified to lose me. And your hand, clutching and crushing my jaw, loosens. Gentles. Glides up, over my cheek, past my ear, and into my hair. You lean into me, until I am bent backward over your palm, and I am held up by your strength alone.
There is no breath, with this kiss. No thought. Nothing. Just this kiss.
“God, Isabel. Isabel.” You whisper this against my lower lip. It is a breath only, so low I might have imagined it.
It is a plea, that whisper. A broken, pain-barbed plea.
What does it mean? I cannot begin to understand.
