The Blood Gospel

Of course he was a Boy Scout.

“I was pronounced dead for three minutes.”

“You were?”

He nodded. “Uh-huh.”

“What was it like being dead?”

“I didn’t have that whole dark-tunnel, bright-light thing, but I came back different.”

“Different how?” He seemed pretty grounded, but was he going to tell her that he’d seen God or been touched by an angel?

“It’s like my number was up.” He flattened his palm over his heart. “And everything after that moment was a bonus.”

She stared at the design on his chest. That’s how close he’d gotten to death. He went through and came out the other side, like the Sanguinists.

He grinned and traced down one of the lines. “These patterns are sometimes called lightning flowers. They’re caused by the rupture of small capillaries under the skin due to the passage of electric current following the discharge of a lightning strike. I got hit here.” He touched the center of the branching on his chest. “The pattern spread outward. It was bright red for a while, but it faded and left a little scar.”

“But then?”

“I had the original pattern tattooed to remind me that this life is a bonus.” He laughed. “Drove my parents crazy.”

She lifted a finger, wanting to examine the design, to touch it—like she did all things she found incredible, then realized what she was about to do and stopped, leaving her finger hovering over the black mark on his chest.

He reached up and drew her hand closer. “It’s raised up a bit where the original scar was.”

She wanted to resist but couldn’t. As her fingertip touched his skin, a jolt shook her, as if some of the lightning’s energy were still trapped in his scar—but she knew it was something more than electrical discharge.

He must have felt it, too. His skin tightened where she made contact, the thick muscle hardening underneath her finger. His breath drew in deeper.

He still held her hand. She looked up into those blue eyes, those lips—the upper lip with a divot at the top like a bow.

His eyes darkened, and he leaned down toward her, as if wanting to assert that he was alive now.

She held her breath and let him, wanting the same after the long day of horrors.

His kiss started gentle and featherlight, lips barely brushing hers.

Heat flashed through her, as electric as it was warm.

She rose up on her toes and deepened the kiss, needing to explore it further, to explore him further. She wrapped her hands around his bare shoulders and pulled him closer, wanting more of him, more connection, more warmth. She dissolved into the kiss, letting it fill her and blot out the horrible events in the tomb.

Then she flashed on the pale ring of skin around his tanned finger.

It was a kind of tattoo that marked him as readily as the lightning scar.

He was a married man.

She leaned back, bumping into the washstand. “I’m sorry.”

His voice was hoarse. “I’m not.”

She turned her head away, angry at herself, at him. She needed to catch her breath and get her head on straight. “I think we need to step back from this.”

Jordan took a careful step backward. “Far enough?”

That wasn’t exactly what she meant, but it would do. “Maybe another step.”

Jordan gave her a quick, embarrassed smile, then retreated another step and sat down on the bed.

She sat on the other end, her arms crossed over her chest, needing to change the subject. Her voice came out too high. “How’s your other shoulder?”

He had hurt it while being yanked through the hole as they escaped the collapsing tomb.

Jordan swiveled his arm around and winced. “Hurts, but I don’t think it’s serious. Less serious than being pancaked in the mountain.”

“Being pancaked in the mountain might have been easier.”

“Who says the easy path is the right one?”

She blushed, still feeling the heat, the pressure, of his kiss. She looked down at her hands. She spoke after the silence stretched for too long, glancing toward the door. “What do you think they want with us?”

He followed her gaze. “Don’t know. Maybe to debrief us. Swear us to secrecy. Maybe give us a million dollars.”

“Why a million dollars?”

He shrugged. “Why not? I’m just saying … let’s be optimistic.”

She looked at the dirty toes of her sneakers. That was hard to do, to be optimistic, especially with Jordan sitting half naked next to her. The heat of his bare skin reached across the distance between them. How long had it been since she’d been in a room with a naked man? Let alone one who looked as good as Jordan, or who could kiss half as well?

Silence again stretched out between them. Jordan’s gaze went far away; likely he was thinking of his wife, of the brief betrayal of this moment.

She searched for another topic of conversation. “Do you still have your first-aid kit?” she blurted out too loudly, startling him out of his reverie, causing him to flinch.

“Sorry,” he mumbled. “Guess I’m still a bit on edge.”

“I don’t bite.”

“Everybody else does here,” he said with a grin.

She smiled back, feeling the tension break between them.