Page 93 of The Last Letter of Rachel Ellsworth

“Very,” she said.

He waited, letting her lead, and it gave her permission to take her time. Languor and heat ran just below her skin as she bent closer to kiss him, find again that shock of surprise at the ripeness of his mouth. They opened to each other, kissing like adults who knew exactly what they wanted. After a time, he pulled her into his lap, and she straddled him, unbuttoning his shirt so she could touch his skin, and he skimmed her sweater off over her head, then her T-shirt, and gave a slight audible sigh as the skin of his palm touched the bareness of her skin. He ran his palms down her sides, up her back, down her arms, finding her hands and tangling his fingers with hers, all the while kissing and kissing, their pelvises moving slowly against each other.

“Let’s go to my room,” she murmured.

“I thought you’d never ask. Wrap your legs around me.”

“You can’t carry me!” she protested quietly.

But she wrapped herself around him, legs and arms tight, their chests sweating ever so slightly, his hands clutching her rear end hard. It made her dizzy with heat, and when he tumbled her down in the red room, she shimmied out of her jeans, casting them off the side of the bed. He skimmed out of his clothes too, and when he was naked, she held up her hand, breathless. “Wait. Let me look at you.”

He touched his belly, lazily, his thigh, giving her full view of him, his leanness, his scars, the burn marks over one arm and his left side, his penis alert and ready. “Okay,” she whispered, and he fell down with her, wrapping her up, kissing her hard, and then they were all in, blending, blurring, his big mouth and his big hands and his long legs, and her arms and breasts and hands and mouth. So much, so much, so much. Veronica gave herself to it entirely, wanting never to forget this particular Christmas Eve in Marrakech.

Chapter Forty-Two

Mariah stirred at some point in the dark, dehydrated and exhausted, but the intense food poisoning had passed through her. Moving like a very old woman, she made her way into the splendiferous bathroom, turned on the tap to the bathtub. It was deep, shaped by a copper tub surrounded by tile work in shades of blue, dark to light. The fixtures were brass. On the sink was a bottle of rose water, and she added a generous amount, then stripped her sweaty clothes off and sunk into the luxuriousness with a bottle of water at her side.

Thank God.

She could imagine her mother sitting on the edge of the tub, pouring in more rose water.A good bath cures everything,she always said. A good bath, a solid walk, good food, always. The right spice, the right tea, a proper meal. Those were the cornerstones of Rachel’s life.

“I miss you so much,” she said aloud.

No one answered. A wave of hard grief slammed into her, unrelentingly present, as if it was a monster that could chew her up and swallow her whole. For a long moment, she contemplated sinking lower and lower and lower in the water until she disappeared. In a way, it would be so much easier.

But, oh my God, her mother would be pissed!

She sat up slightly and forced herself to drink a few more big gulps of water, waiting to see if they stayed down.

It’s just the food poisoning,a voice said in her mind. A voice that, yes, did sound like Rachel.It’s depressing to feel that sick, like you’re going to die, but you just want to die and don’t.

“But when am I going to start feeling better?” she asked the empty room. “How long can I live like this?”

Until it’s better.

She sunk to her nose and blew out bubbles of frustration. In the water, her body looked lean and unharmed, and she had a sudden memory of what it felt like to move around the world in a healthy body. She’d taken so much for granted!

And really, she was lucky. But lucky didn’t really help with what was next. How did a person fill a life when the main things she lived for were gone? It wasn’t like she had some plan B. It had always been skiing, her mom and Aunt Jill, and the things that would come out of her Olympic performances—sponsorships, pro skiing, maybe even her own product line of some sort. Her mom was always thinking up ideas.

What would her mom tell her now?

The question sent a breath of soft green peace through her angsty wanderings. Whatwouldher mother suggest?

Chapter Forty-Three

In Veronica’s room, much later, Henry spied the copy ofOne Thousand and One Nightsand picked it up. “Have you started reading this?”

“Not yet.”

He sat, leaning back against the headboard, and opened it. “Shall I read to you?”

She curled into his side. “Yes, please.”

The room was dark save for the pool of yellow lamplight on the night table. His body was warm, and when he opened the book and began to read, his voice rumbled from inside his chest to her cheek. Drowsy and sated, she listened to the story of Scheherazade cleverly spinning tales to a betrayed sheikh. “I didn’t know she was telling stories to save all the other women in the realm,” she said. “Heroic.”

“Mmm.” He finished the first story, and on the cliff-hanger of what would happen, he closed the book and set it aside.

“You’re stopping there?”