Page 28 of Secrets in a Sandstorm

My hand finds his waist, and my fingers search out the skin in the gap between his pants and his T-shirt. The sweep of my fingers over his skin sends a jolt from my fingertips to my balls, and my dick hardens as if I have been waiting decades, centuries, for this moment.

With a groan, he pulls back. “We can’t make out in front of the dead.”

“They might be happy for us.” I draw in a shaky breath. I want to tell him everything I saw, but that would mean admitting it was all real. And if it was real, does it cheapen what I’m feeling because fate has been pulling us together?

Did the storm force us into this cave to repeat the past and make it right? It seems that way. I lived two other lives in a heartbeat. Though to be fair, there wasn’t much the priest could’ve done.

Or Cyril. I can’t imagine it would have gone down too well with the other soldiers if he’d started hooking up with Teddy.

I lick my lip and swallow. We kissed, but what comes next? I already know everything about him. He’s been my friend for years…how does that become more? How do I have a boyfriend?

I’m not worried about having a boyfriend…but I don’t know what I’m doing, and I’m worried about screwing up what we have.

“Why don’t we read the letter and find out who they were?” I offer Harrison the paper because the words are etched in my heart.

Cyril’s regret at not saying something until it was too late because he was afraid of what others might think and say is bitter in my gut. If I’d failed to take this chance and walked out of the cave having done nothing, I would’ve lived with the regret for the rest of my life.

Assuming I got to walk out of the cave.

And now that I’ve taken the chance, what does it mean?

What does Harrison mean to me?

He’s been a part of my life for so long that I can’t imagine not having him there. I didn’t want this trip to begoodbye because we no longer had Jay tying us together…yet also keeping us apart.

Maybe it wasn’t that I wanted to grow up and be just like Harrison, but more that I wanted to bewithhim. Something I was too afraid to acknowledge, like Cyril. What he wanted was so close, but fear was so much closer. After what happened to Djau, I don’t blame him for being afraid of losing his heart.

Harrison gives me a curious glance but carefully unfolds the paper.

I hold my breath; in my mind, the ink is fresh, and the handwriting so familiar, my heart aches and my eyes prickle. The paper has yellowed, and the ink has faded. The bloody fingerprints are now rusty instead of red.

“It’s a love letter.”

“Soldiers carry them, right?” Did Harrison? Did his lovers write? He never acted as though they were something serious.

“Not unless you want to give the enemy free intel or risk losing it.” He smiles, his eyes dark. “I keep them and the photos safe, but it’s been a while since I had either.”

Is that a hint that he wants me to write when he leaves?

He sits back on his heels, and I move closer as though to read along with him. He hands me the torch, and I shine it on the page. He uses his now free hand to pull me closer and keep me there as if now we’ve acknowledged the attraction, I’m not allowed to run away.

Not that I have any thoughts of fleeing.

Not that there’s anywhere to go.

We’re stuck in the cave that’s taken our lives twice already.

For some reason, I thought the storm might have stopped when we kissed as though a curse were broken.Cyril had thought about magic and curses on Bast because he’d slipped into the past and seen the world as Djau, the same as me.

Had Cyril and I both been with Djau? Were we one being for that moment in time? I wish I’d paid more attention. But even if we had all been there, there’s nothing I could have done to change that past. It happened, and I was along for the ride. To witness. To remember.

Harrison shakes his head. “And I thought my handwriting was bad.”

“It’s cursive, not messy.” Teddy guessed he was dying when he wrote this, bleeding internally from a wound that didn’t appear fatal. There was nothing Cyril could’ve done to save him.

“I know what it is. Naming it doesn’t make it any easier to read.”

I’m tempted to take the letter off him and read it, but I want him to realize what we’ve found.

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