Riveted (40 page)

“She described you as more colorful,” Paolo said.

“I usually am, but I lost all of my clothes.”

“Oh? What are you wearing, then? It must be the most wonderful illusion ever created.”

She had to smile. “I lost all of my colorful ones.”

“A whale ate them,” David said dryly.

Annika covered her laugh, didn’t dare look at Lorenzo. Said like that, it sounded almost as absurd as…flying to the moon.

“Ah.” A deep, wistful smile softened Paolo’s face. “I used to dream that I would be a whale. It seemed a wonderful thing, floating
through the ocean, warm with my own blubber—and very far away from people, except for the whalers.” Humor replaced the softness of memory. “Of course, if I were a whale, I would shoot a harpoon back at them, and laugh at their surprise. I once considered making such a creature—a submersible, of course, not a true whale. But I thought it would be too silly, in the end.”

Annika couldn’t stop herself. “So you didn’t finish it?”

“Oh, no. Only the schematics. I’m not allowed to buy engines anywhere in the New World. That stipulation was included in my parole.” He looked to Lorenzo. “My son has been wonderful, procuring them for me at his own expense. I’m afraid I take terrible advantage of him.”

Warmth filled Lorenzo’s expression. “Nothing is too much for you, Father.”

“Not even the moon,” David said. “What made you dream of that?”

The wistful smile came again, but tinged by the memory of sadness, pain. “In the insanitarium, I could see my window from my bed. I would not be feeling well, very often. And they didn’t always let me move. But I could see the moon as it passed my window—and it always seemed so very cold. So empty and lonely. I thought it would be an amazing thing to look up and see a man there. And eventually, many men building cities instead of war machines. We could labor together to create the perfect world, where everything would be clean. So clean. It could be a new start.”

Paolo’s voice was unbearably hopeful. Unbearably sad. Her throat tight, Annika found David’s hand beneath the table.

“It
would
be an amazing thing,” she said.

Looking charmingly pleased, the older man flushed a little. “Yes, well. Until then, we do what we can here. Every bit helps.”

To keep everything clean? “Such as using the pipes for heating instead of many stoves.”

“Yes! I would rid our chambers of oil lamps, if I could.”

“He truly would,” Källa said, laughing. “Please don’t encourage him, Annika.”

“I won’t,” she said, then looked to Paolo again with a grin. “Have you seen the electric lights? I visited a fair in Nova Lagos once, and they had one on display. A man pedaled a velocipede, and it illuminated the entire tent.”

“I refuse to pedal all night,” Källa said.

“That is why the hot springs are—” Paolo stopped, his face lighting. “Have you seen the bath chamber? I just remembered that Källa once said that you enjoyed the springs very much. This is not the same, but quite a lovely feature of this camp.”

She had seen the room not very far from her own chamber, filled with steam, pipes, and a tin tub. Annika had never used a tub in her life, and she couldn’t help but imagine that it was like sitting in a giant’s cooking pot. “I was in the chamber earlier. But I can make do with a pitcher.”

“Oh, no, I must insist. It is quite lovely, I promise. Like our own little spring.”

“Annika’s very modest,” Källa said on her behalf.

Beside her, David seemed to choke.

“No one can see you there,” Paolo assured her. “It is private.”

“I—”

“Would love to, I’m sure,” Lorenzo said quietly, and Annika’s protests died away. “It must be difficult and sweaty work, driving the walker.”

Feeling as if she’d suddenly been caught in a snare, Annika nodded. “Yes.”

“But I couldn’t help noticing that you do it very well.”

“She’s better than I am,” Källa said.

“In that case, I wonder if you would drive the men to the ice tunnel tomorrow while Mr. Kentewess is with my father. Since you
also believe that his goal is an amazing one, I’m certain that you would like to contribute to his project as well.”

Annika didn’t want to. But she couldn’t waste the opportunity to see more of the glacier, and perhaps the means of escape. “What is the ice tunnel?”

“The ice cap is almost a half mile thick in places. We can’t drill that far to place the charges, so we’ve dug a tunnel that allows us to start at a more reasonable depth. We have to carry the workers to thes current location.”

“Beneath the ice?” David shook his head. “No.”

“Yes.”

“There were tremors today. We heard the ice crack,” he said.

“So there have been on many days. But there’s never been a cave-in or tunnel collapse.” Lorenzo offered a strange smile, as if the sides of his lips had been jerked back. “Isn’t that right, Father?”

“Yes.”

Annika looked to Källa, who nodded.

“I insist,” Lorenzo said.

Instead of ice blocks, wooden planks formed the bath
chamber’s walls. Copper pipes crossed the ceiling, dripping hot water to the boards below. David’s eyepiece fogged the moment he entered. Switching to thermal offered him a view of a fuzzy yellow mess. He reached for one of the towels rolled up on the shelf instead.

Annika looked doubtfully at the tin tub sitting beneath a gooseneck faucet. She tested the stream of water with the back of her hand, nodded. “It
is
nice.” She glanced back at him. “Do you want to join me? It’s big enough for two.”

Though David would have liked to, he shook his head. He wasn’t prepared to show her that much of himself yet. “You don’t have to
drive to the tunnel tomorrow. Lorenzo can insist all he likes; I won’t have you forced into it.”

“I know. But if nothing else, I’ll have access to a troll, and permission given by Lorenzo to drive it. If I ever have to use the troll to smash him flat, the guards won’t be so quick to shoot at me when I start her up.”

If she chose to go, then David would try to push away his worry. “I’m beginning to realize that you’re a bit bloodthirsty.”

“No.” She pulled her tunic over her head, revealing the beautiful curve of her spine. Familiar heat pooled in his groin. “I just like to see people get what they deserve.”

“Which includes smashing them flat.”

“All right. A bit bloodthirsty, then.”

David supposed that he was, too. But he didn’t want to think of Lorenzo now. He dragged a chair up to the tub as she peeled away the rest of her clothes.

She kicked away her drawers, glanced over her shoulder. “You plan to watch?”

“I’m hoping that you’ll teach me how to be modest.”

Her grin matched his, then changed to a quiet
hiss
when she stepped in. David lived and died a thousand happy deaths in the brief second when she bent over to brace herself, rump high and her sleek thigh lifting over the edge. A soft groan filled the chamber as she eased down, and he could only imagine her making the same noise if she eased down over him, hot and wet. God. His cock swelled as he pictured it, and David welcomed the throbbing ache, loved the wholehearted response of his body. Annika didn’t deserve anything less.

And by God, when he looked at her, even the painful constriction of his trousers felt good.

She dunked her head, came up dripping and pushing the hair out of her face. Her eyes opened and met his. With a playful smile,
she moved toward him and folded her forearms on top of the tub’s rolled edge. She crooked her finger, gesturing him closer.

He was happy to oblige. Bracing his hands on the edge of the tub, he leaned forward. “Close your eyes.”

She did, her wet eyelashes forming spiky fans against her cheeks. He sipped a warm drop from her jaw before coaxing her lips open, his heart pounding and his eyepiece fogging again as he savored her taste.

When he drew back, she followed him for a few inches, her moist lips parted, her cheeks flushed from the heat and the kiss. Slowly, as if her eyelids were heavy, she looked up at him. He didn’t want to wipe his eyepiece clear again when she did. He didn’t want to ask her to look away.

Damn it all. He hated having half of his vision obscured.

He rubbed the lens shield clear. She watched—not his eyepiece, but his face. God knew what she saw.

But of course, being Annika, she told him.

“David, I want to tell you…I don’t know if any of this hesitation is to spare my feelings, but I wanted you to know, the scars, the steel—they don’t matter to me.” She stopped. Frowning, she pushed the wet flop of curls back from her forehead, tried again. “No, that’s not what I mean. They
do
matter, because they are a part of you. But I don’t see them in the same way that I think many others do.”

From that first night on
Phatéon
, when they’d spoken so easily after Mary Chandler had called him horrid, he’d known that Annika didn’t see them in the same way. But he still did, sometimes. “I was almost never this self-conscious with stumps. That was just…what happened. And when people reacted or stared, it was easier to push away.” He lifted his hand. “But this, I did to myself—and sometimes it’s grotesque, even to me. Not always, because I don’t think of them much unless I’m aware that someone is looking. And they’re damn useful. But I have moments.”

“And I’ve been looking at you a lot.”

“Yes.” And he didn’t want to disappoint her. Sometimes it was easy not to give a damn what people thought. He cared what Annika did.

“I’ll confess, I would look. I think they’re adroit and amazing, not grotesque. But I wouldn’t want you to be uncomfortable. Have you ever thought of going to England? Perhaps no one would stare.”

“I
have
gone. But I still have the scars. And since I’m native, as soon as I’m away from the ports people look anyway.”

She laughed, nodded. “At me, too. I suppose there is always something to make us different. I wonder if anyone at all ever feels at home.”

“I do. With you.”

“But not completely comfortable.”

“Not even with myself.” He dipped his fingers into the water, felt the heat soaking in. “You are home in your skin. I am still trying to get there.”

“I’ll try not to make it more difficult. There are other equally nice things to stare at.” With a small splash, she glided back from the edge, stretched her arms over her head. “And I will think about how your hands make me feel, wondering what magic there is in them.”

“I think the magic is in your breasts.”

Her head fell back on a laugh. Then, affecting a sultry smile, she cupped them in her palms, her thumbs sweeping over her puckered brown nipples. “They are nice. But this doesn’t feel half as good as when you touch me. Do you see the soap?”

His mind had fogged over. Several seconds passed before he realized what she’d asked. Swallowing hard, he glanced down, saw it on the floor. He scooped up the small cake and she took it from him without touching his steel fingers.

Not repulsed. Just careful.

And he felt wonderfully cared for. “You wouldn’t mind if I touched you?”

“I’d love it.” Without hesitation.

Perhaps she should hesitate, and think about it.

“It’s not at all like my skin,” he warned her.

“Colder, harder.” She nodded. “But it is
you
touching me. I don’t care how you do it.”

And David wanted to take this risk. “Close your eyes, then. Turn around.”

She did, smiling. He stripped off his shirt, scooted the chair as close to the tub as possible. Taking the soap from her hand, he dropped a kiss to her wet shoulder. With a sigh, she leaned forward, wrapping her arms around her bent knees. David soaped her back, loving the ridge of her spine, the tight span of her waist. Her arms were so incredible, strong with sleek muscles. He rinsed the soap from her skin, and she sat back against the side of the tub, her eyes still closed. With agonizing hope tightening his throat, he reached around with both hands. A metal palm wasn’t good for lathering, so he only gently cupped her breast. Soft weight, smooth skin, her warmth almost indistinguishable from the heat of the water. The sensations weren’t as sharp as in his right hand, but as he flicked his steel thumb across the hardness of her nipple, it didn’t matter. She gasped in the same way, let her head fall back against his shoulder with a moan.

His hand didn’t feel as much. She did.

And his heart felt full to bursting.

“All right?” His voice was hoarse.

Hers was a breathy whisper. “Yes.”

He couldn’t reach down any farther, not without overbalancing the chair. He wouldn’t get into the tub with her. Perhaps one day.

She touched his fingers. “Are
you
all right?”

“Yes.” Perfect. “Slip your hands down now, Annika. Between your legs. And we’ll see what we can do together.”

What they managed to do left her limp against him, her
head pillowed on his thigh as he sat up in bed, writing his journal. Though she lay quietly, David found himself distracted by the softness of her cheek and the curve of her mouth—and by the fresh drawers she’d pulled from her pack, the blue satin ribbons that gathered the hem at her knees, the bow at her waist that begged to be untied.