A Boat Made of Bone (The Chthonic Saga) (6 page)

His hand fumbled beneath her shirt.

The man’s touch on her stomach seared her flesh. “I remember,” she whispered, pulling away, looking into his sapphire eyes. Their color lit up her brain, firing off neurons that normally slumbered. “How could I forget? Will, Will, Will,” she murmured, studying his beautiful, familiar face. He smiled, she wanted to indulge in him, to wake up inside his heart and never leave.

***

“I was never into monogamy,” Will confessed out of nowhere, running a lazy finger along her bare arm. They were lying in a bed. Kate didn’t know how they got there. She thought they had been on a couch, but maybe not. Some thoughts seemed hard to hold onto in the dream.

“Oh. Well, that’s just great. Uh, thanks for telling me. I wasn’t exactly asking for your hand in marriage, was I?” she pointed out, puzzled.

“No, but if you were, would I have a choice?” he responded, laughing, spreading his fingers out to indicate that he didn’t.

“You mean, you don’t?” Kate propped herself up on an elbow. She studied Will’s face.

“No,” he shrugged. His eyes were like blue candles in the half-light.

“So what are you saying? Someone, or something is forcing you to be here?” Fear twisted Kate’s stomach into a knot, though why, she couldn’t explain. What was there to fear here in this fantastic dream?

“I thought it was you. I thought it was your . . . I don’t know . . . your dreams, pulling me here.”

She shook her head. “No, it’s not me.” Even as she confessed it, she wondered if it was true. Was she pulling him somehow? “And so what, you’re a man-whore?”

“Man-whore? What is—uh—I guess?” He laughed. “I’m sorry, I’ve never heard that before. Man-whore. It sounds so, so dirty.”

“Well, I didn’t mean to wound your delicate sensibilities, but when you tell me you’re not into monogamy, what am I supposed to think? You can’t be sensitive about the truth, that’s not very fair. I mean, how can you kiss me so passionately, almost devour me, and then say you prefer to sleep around?” Thinking of it, she got a bit mad. Well, really mad. Her nostrils flared as fear was replaced by irritation and she pushed away from him, rising. She climbed off the bed and then began stamping around the room in a huff, her arms crossed over her chest. She
had been
naked, but now she seemed to be wearing a huge, white puffy coat.

Will pushed himself into a sitting position on the bed. His navy pajama pants accentuated his eyes. Despite the concern she saw in them, he had a tiny grin on his lips. He smiled when he was nervous she had noticed. “Kate, look, I didn’t mean anything by that. It’s stuff that happened when I was alive. I was selfish and took anything I could, anywhere I could. What we have is altogether different, anyway.” He held a hand out to her, pleading. His fingers were long and slender, the nails well-manicured and pink with a pale half-moon rising from the cuticle of his thumb.

She moved away from him and continued pacing. “What am I doing with you? That’s what I want to know! First once a week. Now three times a week. And you know me. We
know
each other.” She gestured wildly between them. “This isn’t just a dream. We remember each other, don’t we? From the last time we were together? And the first time? Do you remember that?”

He blinked, hesitating, then he dropped his chin in a slow nod. “We were at some kind of party. There was a couch in the middle of the room, and we got it on, in the middle of the party.”

“And Marvin Gaye was playing in the background—’Let’s Get It On.’” Kate snapped her fingers as the memory come rushing back.

“Hence me saying we ‘got it on’ because I never talked like that when I was alive,” Will said with a laugh.

“Didn’t
talk
like that, rather acted like that,” Kate said with a bratty smirk. She was still annoyed about the monogamy comment.

“Ouch,” Will said, scowling. “Really, you don’t have to do that.”

She jumped onto the bed and knelt before him. “What’s happening, Will? How’s this working? When I wake up, I remember stuff, except who you are.”

Confusion furrowed his brow. “Look, I don’t know, Kate. I—” he closed his eyes and pressed his fingers into them, massaging slowly as though he could shove what he saw down into his brain and commit it to memory. “I don’t know what’s happening. I wish I did.”

“Do you wake up? What happens when you’re not with me?” She leaned close to him. So close she could smell his skin. It was laced with sweat and musk that made her salivate. Desire formed in her navel and spread out like the tentacles of a beast from the nether world. Her thoughts crossed, her mind swirled, and before she could stop it, she was wrapped up in Will, their bodies entwined and mouths open wide and pressed together. He tasted like oranges and rose water. The flavor of his spit filled her until it was in her blood. Would it be there when she woke, or did things from the dream stay in the dream?

He tore her puffy coat off, and kissed her from her lips to her navel. He sat up and lifted her onto him. She stared into his eyes—they were on fire, there was a primal hunger in them. She felt it too. A part of her mind asked why he had picked her.

Will knew her. He knew how to move with her, circle around her, join with her body, and roll through her like a boat through waves.

Was it just the function of her dreams? Was she controlling him?

How would she ever know for sure?

They’d been like that before, that crazed, that lustful, and that passionate. It never frightened her, not as it would in real life, with a guy she hardly knew. But she’d known Tom and it was never like that with him. Could it be like that with Ty if they ever got that far? How did she think she knew Will? Because she was controlling him?

That must have been it.

There was no room for fear when he was just a figment of her imagination.

Her mind crumbled into that animal incoherency which waited within the throes of sex and passion and desire that she experienced with Will. When it was over, she inhaled until a new breath brought sense back into her mind.

“A sigh of contentment,” Will said, a lazy slur in his voice. He kissed her forehead and rolled onto his back.

“Was it?”

“Oh yes, believe me. I know that sound very, very well.”

She heard the smile in his voice as she stared up at the dark velvet ceiling. The room was like night. There were stars woven into the velvet. The four posters of the bed rose high above it, sashes of red silk draped between them.

“From all your lovers? Did you hear it from all of them too?” Kate asked, only regretting the jab slightly once the words had left her mouth. 

It was Will’s turn to be hurt. He didn’t move. But she could hear it in his next words. “I told you that about me, because I trust you. More than I trust anyone. And Kate, you never let me finish earlier. What you and I have is something different. I feel like . . . like you live in my heart. Or my imagination. I don’t know how to say it. Instead, I show you. The things we do together, that’s me showing you.”

“Oh,” she said, her voice sounding small.

“Let’s never talk of it again. It doesn’t even matter. I’m dead, anyway,” Will said with a dark sigh. They were quiet for a moment, and then Will rolled onto his side, and pushed himself up onto his hands and knees. He crawled across the bed to her.

As she watched him, a pang of regret tore through her heart into her stomach. “Will,” she said, her voice sounding breathless and desperate. “This feels real. It’s not simply a dream. You’re real. I want you to be real.”

He took her hand and held onto it, not saying anything.

“Let’s go somewhere else,” she said, finally. 

“Where?”

“Anywhere. If this is a dream, we can do whatever we want.”

***

“I remember now that you were an actor. We’ve discussed it before, haven’t we?” Rather than answer, Will just nodded as though he hated to discuss the past. Or . . . his life, anyway. “What shows were you in?” Kate asked.

They were on an island in Greece. She didn’t know how that was possible, except that they walked out the door in the room with the bed and there they were.

An open air market surrounded them. Men and women hawked goods, loudly. It felt real, but for all she knew it was some concoction of her mind. Were the shopkeepers behaving the way she thought they should in a Mediterranean village halfway around the world? Was that it? Whatever it was, she knew she’d never been to this place before in real life.

They strolled along, drifting apart and then together again. Whenever they got too far away from each other, their gazes collided from across the busy streets and they moved back into orbit around each other. It was like they belonged together. Like the moon and the Earth. Was Kate the moon or was she the greater celestial body—pulling Will to her?

She watched, as Will stopped and perused a display of handcrafted jewelry, his clear, intent eyes moving across the black velvet cloth. His profile was so familiar to Kate by now. How many months had she been dreaming of him? She lingered beside him, enjoying the feel of the sides of their bodies bumping into each other intermittently like rowboats at a crowded dock. Kate smiled politely at the dark, curly haired artisan sitting on the other side of the tables. The man returned her grin with a short nod. His hands were busy with a wire-bending jewelry tool. He seemed to be fashioning an earring.

“My biggest hit was a cop show on TV. Remember?” Will said it absently, as though it didn’t matter. Their silence had been so long, Kate almost didn’t realize what he was talking about. He cleared his throat and his eyes narrowed, searching the tables of jewelry almost as though he was looking for something specific.

“Really? What one?” Her interest was piqued. Perhaps it was the offhand way Will discussed his past that made her more curious than she’d normally be.

He glanced at her, sunlight glinting in his sapphire eyes before he turned back to the jewelry. “It was called
L.A. Bluefire
.” He pretended like it didn’t matter. But it did, somehow, to Kate. 

“I never watched it, but I’ve heard of it,” she said. It was on during the early eighties, she seemed to remember. Back in her waking life, someone had brought a DVD box set into the store a few days prior to trade in. On the street behind them, a man walked by carrying a giant wine cask over one shoulder. Kate watched him, lifting an eyebrow, then turned back to Will. “Were you the big hero in it?”

He shrugged. “I don’t like to think about it anymore.” A frown creased his cheeks and his eyes continued to scour the jewelry. Kate was getting bored with this table. “I’m sure you can understand that, right? Kate? I didn’t exactly live a stellar life. Not one a guy would love to share with his mother over a reunion dinner, anyway.”

“I’m sure you’re exaggerating. I always do, when I try to assess myself. Anyway, let’s go. There’s nothing interesting here.” She wrapped her fingers around his bicep, ready to pull him away. His arm was sinewy and strong beneath her hand.

“Here it is! Kate, come here, look at this one. Isn’t that something?” He held up a ring fashioned like a life-sized dragonfly.

“No one would wear that,” she said, taking it from Will. “Well, maybe Audra would. She likes gaudy jewelry.” The wings were like silver lace with some type of delicate gauze stretched over them, purple gems for eyes, and green iridescent scales molded around the body. The wings of the dragonfly stretched across all her fingers when she put it on her middle finger. Too big to be practical, but otherwise it fit her finger perfectly.

Will let out a low whistle and grinned at her. “Amazing, isn’t it?” His eyes glittered as she modeled it.

“I suppose. Yeah. But I like understated jewelry. Less cumbersome and irritating.” It looked good, she could admit that. And when she’d put it on, a shiver swept over her. It skittered across the back of her neck and down her spine. A warm feeling settled in the well of her stomach and stayed there.

The problem was that the ring was way too big.

“This one, though, Kate. You can wear it here because this place isn’t real. None of this is real.” He gestured dramatically around them. “We don’t even have to pay for the ring. You made it with your mind. You have a beautiful mind, I might add. Artistic. Crafty.”

She laughed. “Thanks.”

“You created me, and I’m rather fantastic, aren’t I?” He pressed his hand to his chest and one corner of his mouth rose in a teasing grin.

“Right, exactly. But come on, Will. No more talk of what’s real and what’s not, please.” The constant references to himself not being real were starting to bother her. And the fact that they were aware of potentially being within a dream was confusing. Kate was beginning to sincerely doubt that it was a dream, after all. There was something too real and permanent about the place and Will. Who was this jeweler for one? Kate watched him work. He did things that Kate knew nothing about—it was impossible for her to do the things he did. Thus he was real. Or something.
Wasn’t he?

And why did Will know her so well? How could that be? And how could she include a man in her dreams that she knew so little of in real life. 

Will cocked his head to one side. “Anything for you, baby,” he said, responding to her request to stop talking about him being just a dream. He took her hand and they strolled away without paying for the ring. They were out on the street, lost in the flow of pedestrians, when a sudden commotion behind them startled Kate. She turned.