Page 81 of What Doesn't Kill Her

They were alone.

Awkward.Kellen tilted her head and watched Zone disappear into the canyon. “I get the feeling he doesn’t like us in his space.”

“He doesn’t like anyone in his space. His instructions to me were to not get ourselves killed while he was gone.” Max pressed his index finger into the middle of Kellen’s back, urging her toward the lookout. “Standing out in the open makes me uneasy. Shall we go up?”

More awkward.“Of course.” She was limping, damn it, undernourished and unready to make a hike of twenty-five miles over rough terrain, even if it was mostly downhill.

But she was also unprepared to be alone with Max, her former lover and the father of her child. Zone had not only told them to work out their relationship, he had shone a spotlight on their relationship so neither of them could ignore it. Now they were going to be alone for three days. Alone. Isolated from mankind and civilization alone.We can’t avoid discussing and deciding our relationshipalone.

She wasn’t prepared. She would never be prepared.

Kellen hadn’t seen the lookout from the outside before, what with being unconscious and flung over Max’s shoulder when she arrived. Now she examined the twelve-foot-tall foundation of concrete block topped with a white-painted hut surrounded on all sides by a three-foot wide deck. She saw solar panels on the roof and a few crooked wires sticking up like Dr. Seuss reindeer antlers. “Interesting. How is he generating enough power to run the place?” Casual conversation with Max. Very good.

“I believe he’s an inventor.”

“As well as a doctor, and verifier and restorer of antiquities? And a master of disguise? Because I swear without the beard and the glasses, he would be a different person.” She got to the top of the stairs and turned like a bobcat on the defensive. “Max, if you want, you can start down the mountain. You probably want to get back. I’ll rest for a couple of days and—”

“Really? After what’s happened?” He stood on the step below her, exactly her height, too close, breathing her oxygen, looking in her eyes. “You think that I would leave you to walk down alone? That’s what you think of me?”

“No, I just... I don’t know what we’re going to...” Frustrated, she burst out, “I wish I could remember more about us. I wish I could remember if we worked.”

“If we worked?”

“If we could have made it together.”

He smiled, a slow, wicked curl of amusement. “I can help with one aspect of whether we worked.” Without touching her with his hands, he tilted his head, leaned in and kissed her.

31

Some men considered kissing nothing but a preliminary to the main event.

Some men considered kissing a coin to be repaid at the time and place of their choosing.

This man kissed for the bliss of sharing breath, sharing touch, sharing pleasure. Max tasted Kellen as if she was a glorious feast to be savored, one flavor at a time. The kiss intensified until she cupped her hands around his neck, held him in place and took control.

Then he climbed that last stair, crowded her against the lookout’s wooden wall and kissed her in the sunlight, body to body. Heat built so fast she could hardly breathe. She tore her mouth away and thumped her head against the white-painted boards. “Look. Here’s the thing. The same problems that stop me from walking down the hill make this, um...”

“Lovemaking?”

“That. Make it difficult for me to fully, sort of, participate—”

“In thelovemaking?”

“Yes. In that.”

He moved back to the stairway, pulled it up and hooked it.

Kellen and Max were isolated and safe from the world.

“Eight years is a long time, and I promise I can take my time, work around your injuries, make thelovemakinggood for you.”

He irritated her with his emphasis and repetition of that word. “How will you do that?”

His brown eyes glinted with humor and promise. “I’ve practiced a lot when I was alone.”

She gave a spurt of laughter and surprise, and grappled with the information he had so tactfully presented. “You didn’t... You haven’t...”

“No.”

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