Chapter 26: Derailed

Jamie stepped into the shower and let the cold water run down his back. So much for all his resolutions to speak to Cora immediately. Surely, he had sufficient willpower for a quick rinse without getting derailed.

He'd been enjoying his cuddle with Cora in the hammock a bit too much. Something in the way she clung to him, as if holding on for dear life, had stirred him up. He needed a moment alone to clear his head and collect his thoughts.

Only a moment, he promised, as he tilted back his head and allowed the streaming water to needle his face. Then he would face Cora and the coming inquisition. He shivered, imagining the change that would come over her when she found out what he truly was—and more to the point, what he most certainly was not.

Nothing for it but to get it over with. Jamie set his jaw and twisted the shower handle.

He toweled off, but he shunned the white terry cloth robe hanging on the hook. Instead, he slipped back into the same trousers and linen shirt he'd had on before the shower.

Jamie eyed himself in the bathroom mirror. Maybe it wouldn't be as bad as he feared. As long as he set the record straight immediately, and didn't let the lie fester one moment longer than necessary, he had no reason to feel guilty.

He never made the false claims printed on the cards. He found himself in his current predicament through no fault of his own. If he bore any share of the blame, it was only through his own passivity—a lifelong habit of choosing the path of least resistance.

He had lied to Cora about that too, just now. "My greatest talent: Dead weight." No, he was more of a dead leaf if anything, carried wherever the wind may blow it. He'd somehow missed the stage where people developed any sort of heft or substance to their being. Not his fault there either, of course. He'd spent his formative years in front of a camera, and it had stolen away his soul one picture at a time, until the only thing left was a surface, paper thin.

Jamie cast the man in the mirror a mocking salute, then picked up his shoes and socks and padded barefoot from the room. He let one shoe fall with a thud onto the bedroom floor, and he wondered how long he had until the other shoe dropped. No doubt, Cora would follow him in here with her questions any moment now.

He mustn't let himself get distracted. That was key. No matter how tempting it might be to bask awhile in the glow of her misconceptions, it would only dig him a deeper grave. No, he must be strong. Firm boundaries and all that. He wouldn't lay a finger on her until he'd gotten the unpleasantness out of the way.

Jamie tucked in his shirt and buckled his belt. "Stay," he told it pointedly. This buckle would not come undone under any circumstances. Not until he'd unburdened himself.

Before he had a chance to gird his loins with any further layers of defense, a knock sounded, and the door swung open.

"Hello," was all she said, but Cora's outfit did the talking for her. She stood in the threshold in an ensemble that asked no questions, only made demands.

"Good God."

No clean white terry cloth for Cora tonight either. She'd cloaked herself in a sheer black negligee, concealing nothing of the form beneath, emphasizing every wayward curve in lace and shadow.

She crossed the room and stood before him. "Why are you wearing so many clothes?"

The words he had prepared abandoned him. Even if he could recall how he'd intended to begin, his mouth had gone too dry.

He cleared his throat. "Why are you wearing so few?"

The worst thing he could have said.

Before he could do a thing to stop her, she let her robe fall open. "Oops." She shrugged, and the fabric whispered as it slid off her shoulders and down her arms.

Jamie caught it at her hips before it could flutter to the floor.

He opened his mouth to say something—anything to get himself back on track—but she pressed a finger to his lips. "No talking," she whispered.

"But—"

"Shhh. I refuse to get derailed this time."

Jamie closed his eyes. Too late. The train had left the station. He'd laid the tracks himself. No one's fault but his own if she barreled down them at full speed.

In the back of his mind, a warning whistle blared. She intended this display for someone else. For the man he currently impersonated. Not for him.

But he was weak. No heft or substance whatsoever. He couldn't resist the urge to touch the silky fabric. He ran one hand around her waist and pulled her close against him.

She trembled slightly, awaiting his next move. And the faint quiver of her chin proved to be his ultimate undoing.

What choice did he have?

Jamie couldn't have applied the brakes just then, even if he had the fortitude to stick to his resolve. Not without hurting her. Her boldness was only a thin veneer over the uncertainty beneath. Any response from him other than enthusiasm, she would interpret as rejection.

Jamie dipped his head. He could only watch helplessly as her fingers worked to loosen the buttons of his shirt.

She didn't speak or look up from her handiwork. One by one, the buttons gave in and let her have her way, until the entire shirt fell open and she pulled the shirt tails loose.

Then she took him by one wrist, undoing the button at his cuff. She glanced up at him through a veil of lashes, and Jamie parted his lips. But he didn't have the strength to make a sound. He could only whimper at the soft touch of her fingers against his inner wrist.

Her robe fell off completely when she removed his other hand from her hip. It floated to a puddle on the floor. She stood before him in nothing but her knickers, black and lacy, curving high up on her hips to accentuate their roundness and the shapely thighs beneath.

She moved on to his other cuff now. One more button before she would have him thoroughly undone. Jamie watched her progress with a vague sense of resignation. No sense pulling back. The runaway train sped on, chugging ever faster down the tracks, in time with his own breathing.

Still, he had promised himself he wouldn't do this. He had to try. "Wait," he managed weakly as the last button gave way. "I have something I want to say to you first."

Had he uttered the words out loud? She didn't acknowledge them if he had. "Take your shirt off," was all she whispered in response.

He complied, leaving it in a heap beside her negligee. His eyes followed the billowing fabric to the floor, past those two little upturned teardrops, rosy-peaked, the size of his own palms. She held them proudly with her shoulders back, but they trembled like her chin.

Jamie ached to touch them, but he couldn't lift a finger. He stood transfixed as she moved on to his belt.

A buzzing in his brain had slowed the whirlwind of his thoughts. He was having trouble focusing on anything but the furnace she stoked with every movement, and the smoky heat that filled him with every breath he took.

He'd put his belt on for a reason. His abandoned plans came back to him as he watch the leather sliding free. This buckle would not come undone under any circumstances. Not until...

"Cora," he began again in a choked voice. "I—"

But Cora went up on her tiptoes and stopped his words with her lips.

A kiss?

A snog meant little to Jamie Bowen under normal circumstances. One pair of lips resembled all the others after you've tasted as many as he had.

Only this kiss...

Soft at first, then more insistent as his own lips responded...

Perhaps it held him captive because it took him by surprise. It stole away his breath and replaced it with a pulsing flame. His hands cupped her face, and the last vestiges of his willpower burnt away. Jamie could do nothing but give in to the sensation. His palms slid down her arms, and he pulled her hard against him as her lips parted against his.

Still, he knew somewhere in his depths that this kiss was not for him. She had made it plain the night before, the likes of him would never touch those lips or taste her creamy skin. No lips. No mouth. No kisses. Her boundaries had been clear.

No, this kiss was for the man described on the stack of cards. The man whom she respected. The man she wanted to be real.

Jamie wanted it too, he realized. Perhaps more keenly than he had ever wanted anything in his 27 years on Earth, he wanted for that fiction to be fact. For that kiss not to be stolen.

The longing filled his chest and burnt the back of his throat. He gave in to it with a stifled groan. His mouth slanted against hers as his hips pressed her backward toward the bed.

By some witchcraft, the bed had been made up since the night before. Someone on the crew must have replaced the covers and left a fresh new foil packet, like a chocolate on the pillow in a nice hotel.

Never mind fact or fake, he thought, as he kicked himself free from his trousers. The crew certainly didn't care. Since when did he have such scruples? He'd kissed a thousand lips before and never let anyone get close enough to see the real him, naked, without a bit of fictional embellishment. Take his Chelsea accent, for example. He'd taught himself to fake the speech pattern of the rich and educated, so convincingly he almost believed that it was the accent he'd been born to.

The fiction was what she wanted. He would play the part tonight and let her have the fantasy she craved. Damn the consequences. Full speed ahead.

Cora lay atop the covers on her back. Jamie broke the kiss and hovered above, searching her face for guidance.

She didn't meet his eyes. She kept hers closed, but her chest rose and fell in ragged breaths.

He dipped his head and murmured in her ear. "Tell me what you want."

"I—" she stammered, and her eyes squeezed closed even harder. "I don't know."

Jamie rolled onto his side. He eased one knee between her thighs. He kissed her earlobe and trailed kisses down her neck. She strained against him, and a high sound escaped her throat as his hands and lips explored.

"Tell me what you like," he whispered. "Tell me how you want it."

"I just want..." she answered faintly, her voice lost among his kisses. "I just want to do it... like the beautiful people do."

The beautiful people? Who were they? The ones who went to boarding school in Switzerland and learn to ski at Biarritz?

Jamie knew that request of hers would haunt him. But only later, looking back. In the moment, the train charged onward with no regard for the fact that this railway was unfinished. He barreled headlong toward nothing but a looming cliff and open space.

He could see the crisis coming. He could sense that it was near. And yet she wouldn't look at him. Not his eyes, at any rate. Even as he found his way inside her and her hips rolled in the rhythm he set, she kept her gaze firmly from his shoulders down. She studied his torso like a map or a sculpture in a museum.

An objet d'art. Without a mind. Without a face. Without a beating heart.

Jamie couldn't bear it any longer. He took her face between his hands. He angled it as if to kiss her one more time.

"Look at me," he said instead, his voice coarse with a sudden desperate need.

Her lids drifted slowly upward. Their gazes locked for one fleeting instant, but she couldn't stay with him for long.

Her eyes went wide as if with mortal terror—or with something just as strong.

Then she shattered in his arms. And the rolling rhythm of her pleasure overwhelmed him. And she dragged him with her, over the edge, to the oblivion beyond.

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