At least she had someone to leave a message for.
‘We’re going to make it,’ he said with more conviction than he actually felt. Who knew what daylight would reveal? They might still have to climb their way out and they were weaker now and he’d be operating pretty much one-handed. He wouldn’t be able to catch her a second time. ‘You’ll be seeing them all before you know it, but sending a message will make you feel better.’
‘You think? And what about you, Nick?’
‘What about me?’
‘Is there anyone you want to leave a last message for? What will make you feel better?’
He knew what she was asking him. Telling him. To leave a message for his parents. He could see how she must find it difficult to understand how he could have walked away, how destroyed he’d felt. But they had been his world. They’d brought him up to believe in the cardinal virtues. Integrity, truth. He’d believed in
‘I’ll take another of those kisses, if you’ve got one to spare,’ he said in an attempt to stop her from pursuing that thought.
Manda heard what she was supposed to hear-a careless, throwaway remark, pitched perfectly to provoke her into giving him another poke in the ribs, to distract her.
But she heard more.
Somewhere, hidden beneath the banter, she caught an edge of something she recognised.
Nick Jago, with no other way to push back the darkness, to distract her from her fear, her hunger, had shared his story. To help her feel a little less alone, he’d exposed a hurt that went so deep he’d cut himself off from his world, even to the point of changing his name.
She understood that kind of pain. How it was tied up with everything you were. Knew how, in order to keep it hidden, you had to wear a mask every day of your life until it became so much a part of you that even those closest to you believed that was who you were.
Until, eventually, you believed it yourself and, unless someone took a risk to save you, took a step into their own darkest place to release a lifetime of unwanted, unused love and give all they had, you would shrivel up until something vital inside you died.
Nick Jago had saved her from certain death. What would it take to save him from the living death to which he’d condemned himself?
He’d answered her question, but could it really be that simple?
‘A kiss?’ she repeated.
The air was still and, above them, in the small patch of sky that was visible, Venus shone like a beacon of hope.
‘Would that be a kissing-it-better kiss?’ she asked, softly, lightly, matching his careless tone. ‘Or are we talking about a make-the-world-go-away kiss?’
Jago had been deliberately provoking. He’d counted on that to divert her, keep her from the saying the words he did not want to hear, to force him to face a situation that he had blanked from his mind.
He’d anticipated a swift response too. The seemingly endless pause between presumption and response was unexpected, a touch unnerving.
But then her teasing tone as, finally, she’d repeated, ‘A kiss?’ had reassured him and, braced for whatever she chose to visit upon him, the butterfly touch of her fingers on his cheek, the caress of her thumb over his lips as she took him at his word, asked him what he truly wanted, warned him that this was anything but a reprieve.
He’d barely drawn breath, determined to apologise, reassure her that he’d been joking-put a stop to something that had, in the time it had taken to say it, spun out of control-before her lips touched his with a pressure so soft that he could almost have imagined it.
And then breathing seemed an irrelevance as the slow, penetrating warmth of it heated his lips, seeped into his veins, spread through his body like liquid silk until he was feeling no pain.
It was a kiss of almost unbearable sweetness that gave and gave, growing in intensity while the tips of her fingers slid down his neck, seeking out the pulse point beneath his jaw. And her touch, when she found it, sent a current of pure energy through him, as if she was somehow concentrating her entire being into that one spot.
It was as if, for years, his entire body had been somehow lying dormant, barely ticking over, waiting for this. Waiting for Miranda Grenville to come down into the dark to kiss him into life. Wake him with a touch.
Only her feather-light fingertips, her breath, her lips, touched him, seeking out the hollows, the sensitive places beneath his chin, his throat, stirring not just his body, but something deeper.
She took endless time, her lips, her tongue, lingering as she made her way down the hard line of his breastbone, slipping shirt buttons as she moved lower, her silky hair brushing against his chest as she laid it bare to the chill night air.
For a moment she lay her hand over his heart and it, too, leapt to her touch. Then it was not her hand, but her mouth against his breast, breathing her warmth, her life into the cold, angry core that had for so long masqueraded as his heart. It was an almost unbearably sweet agony, like that of a numb limb coming painfully to life.
‘Miranda…’
He gasped her name out but whether he wanted her to revive him or leave him in the safety of the cold and dark place where there was no feeling he could not have said.
‘Nick?’ Jago was aware that Manda was speaking to him, that there was an edge of concern to her voice. ‘Are you okay?’
Was he? He was feeling a touch light-headed. Not particularly surprising under the circumstances. That hadn’t been a mere kissing-it-better kiss…
‘Nick!’ she repeated more urgently.
‘Fine,’ He murmured. ‘More than fine.’ He hooked his arm around her. ‘Lie down,’ he said, pulling her up to lie against him, her hair against his cheek. ‘Try and get some sleep.’
Manda lay with her cheek against Nick Jago’s chest, his arm pinning her down so that she couldn’t move without disturbing him. And he seemed to have drifted off almost as soon as he’d said the word.
If it was sleep.
For a minute back there she’d thought he’d drifted out of consciousness. But his heartbeat was steady beneath her ear and his breathing seemed okay…
She closed her eyes. Tried not to think of the aches and pains that she’d temporarily managed to block out, but now she’d stopped concentrating on Nick had returned with a vengeance.
The fact that she was hungry. Thirsty. She hadn’t had anything to drink other than a few sips of water since lunch. A lunch she’d done little more than toy with. Sleep, if she could manage it, would be a great idea.
She closed her eyes, concentrating on the slow, steady beat of Nick’s heartbeat until, gradually, it began to lull her.
It was the light that woke her. Searingly bright against her lids, she moved instinctively to escape it, for a moment completely disorientated. Hurting everywhere. Her neck stiff.
She lifted her head to ease the ache and realised that she was lying against the supine figure of a man.
Nick Jago…
She sat up with a gasp as it all came back with a rush. Tried to speak, but her mouth was dry, her lips cracked and it took a couple of goes before she could manage his name.
‘Nick? Wake up! It’s morning!’
Manda disentangled herself, scrambling quickly to her feet, forgetting all aches and pains in her eagerness to explore this promise of a way out.
Then, when he didn’t respond, she looked back.
‘Jago?’ He was drowsy, slow to stir. Slow to stifle a groan. ‘Are you okay?’ she asked, remembering his hurt shoulder. That he’d had a bang on the head.
‘Barely,’ he muttered. ‘There are alarm clocks that use fewer decibels than you. Your wake-up technique could do with a little polishing, Miranda.’
‘I just haven’t been putting in the practise,’ she said, glancing back.
The sun, barely over the horizon, had found a chink in the shattered walls and for a moment it was concentrated on their corner of the dark interior and she caught her first real glimpse of the man with whom she’d spent the long night. Whose hand had brought her from the depths. Whose arm had held her safe.
