He glanced back at her as hot water filled the sink. “I can see you as scarlet. You’re a beautiful woman so having a name like Amaryllis really suits you.”
She flashed him a small smile. “Are you a prophet or a book?”
No one had ever asked him that before. He read to people from the book of death and called it the bible occasionally. Okay. More than occasionally. But he felt more often he was the prophet, letting his enemy know he was doomed.
“If I had to choose, I’d choose to be identified as the prophet.”
She pulled a fresh towel from a drawer and stood next to him. The moment she was close, he found he took her in with every breath he drew. The more he breathed, the more he was aware of her. Every cell in his body seemed focused on her. He knew when she took a breath. When she let it out. He breathed with her. In. Out. Together. As if they were already exchanging breath.
Malichai had never felt so intimate with a woman, and he wasn’t touching her. He didn’t need to. He felt her on his skin. Her breath moved over him. Her scent surrounded him. When he handed her a plate, their fingers brushed and lightning struck him deep, forked through his body, spreading an electrical charge through his veins so that she struck at his heart and cock simultaneously.
He could barely think, his head pounding, but it was imperative for him to sort things out. Amaryllis was the name of a flower. Many women were named after flowers. Just because she had that name didn’t mean she was one of Dr. Whitney’s experiments. He’d taken infants from orphanages, female children he’d considered throwaways, and he’d experimented on them. He’d worked to enhance psychic abilities they may have had. He’d introduced animal DNA into their bodies. He’d given them cancer. He’d conducted all kinds of hideous experiments in order to be able to create the perfect soldier—him. Malichai.
Whitney had done all those things to the little girls just to perfect what he would do to those men he deemed worthy of his program. He kept the girls and trained them as soldiers, and then, wanting more babies to work with, introduced them into a breeding program. Several of the women had escaped. Some still went out on missions for him. It was impossible to tell one from the other. If Amaryllis was involved in any way with Whitney, she was a danger to him and to national security. If an enemy of their country ever found her and took her, they would take her apart to find out just how Whitney had created his GhostWalkers.
If Amaryllis really was part of Whitney’s program, how was it possible it would be a coincidence that she just happened to be at the bed-and-breakfast he’d chosen to visit? She’d said she’d been there a year. If he could confirm that with Marie, he’d feel much better.
“What do people do on vacations?”
She was keeping up with him, drying nearly as fast as he was washing. She paused though and looked at him like he was insane.
“They don’t volunteer to fix broken dishwashers, and they don’t do the dishes. You’re paying to relax and have fun. Read a book. You know, your favorite. Go to a movie. Sit in the sun and tan. There’s one of the most beautiful beaches you’ll find around here right out the door, and you can sit and stare at the waves.”
“Is that what you do?” He was curious about her daily life.
“I work.”
“You must get time off.”
“This is seasonal work for the most part. We’re at our heaviest time of year. I work when Marie needs me.”
“Honey, that seems like it’s pretty much all the time.”
She shrugged. “I don’t mind. And when it slows down, I take time for myself. I like it here. I have my own room and bathroom. The beach is right there if I ever get time to visit it, and I love to read.”
“What kinds of jobs do you do around here?”
“I’m usually the cook now. Marie always did it before, but more and more I’m doing it, at least for breakfast. We work together in the evening. Naturally, we tidy up rooms and clean them thoroughly after each guest leaves, although during the heavy season, we hire a crew to help with the rooms. It’s a good life.”
“And you meet all kinds of men.” Malichai didn’t like the fact that he felt jealous. He was happy he didn’t sound it, but he felt it, a dark, swirling, chaotic monster that reared its ugly head, shocking him at the intensity of that inappropriate emotion.
“I’m too busy to meet men, unless you count surfer boy.”
She gave that soft little laugh that pierced right through his skin and sent another lightning bolt zigzagging from his heart to his groin.
“And none of the others I met, including surfer boy, ever offered to do dishes with me, so I missed out.”
“I’m interested in knowing more about surfer boy. He makes you laugh.”
“He’s so stereotypical. The blond hair falling in his face. Never wearing anything but board shorts. A tan that is going to give him skin cancer in a few more years. The way he talks. Sometimes if he calls me ‘dude’ one more time, I consider tripping him as he runs up the beach with his surfboard tucked under his arm, looking like one of the television shows.”
“Does he actually surf?” Malichai took a deep breath and turned his head in order to look at her. Up close she was even more dazzling. More beautiful. And more potent.
She leaned one hip against the counter. “He does. And he’s good. I figure his parents must be very wealthy and they can’t take him calling them ‘dude,’ so they shipped him off to sunny California with the idea he’d drive us all crazy. Once we were all locked up, property prices would go down and they could come to California, buy all the real estate and send him to the next state with a beach and do the same thing.”
He laughed because she was so funny. “Your conspiracy theories need work.” This was fun. He was having fun. He was going to kiss Nonny for teaching him how to wash dishes.
“When you meet surfer boy, you’ll understand completely.”
“Does he have an actual name?”
“He’s taken a surfer name. He is called Dozer. And yes, if you’re silly enough to ask, as I was, even though Marie warned me not to, he will explain just why he has that name.”
“You’re setting me up to ask him, but I prefer that you just tell me. I’m not about to ask some pretty boy surfer who will call me ‘dude’ until I want to twist his head around so he’d face backward when he walks.”
She pressed the towel to her mouth, muffling her laughter. “I’ve wanted to do that very thing a million times. Okay, he dozes the waves. You know, like bulldoze. He’s the bulldozer and he’s destroying the waves.”
Malichai turned slowly toward her, although he knew it might be a mistake. He couldn’t seem to help himself, but he had to see all of her when she was in full-blown laughter. There was no mistaking the beauty of her delicate bone structure. Her form was all feminine, but he could see the muscle hidden beneath her soft skin. She moved with grace, her foot placement exact for balance and speed. He didn’t want to see those things.
He only wanted to see her. The woman. He wanted to be that man on vacation, who met the summer fling. The one woman who would seduce him into a long stay and he’d dream about the one who got away forevermore. That sort of hokey hogwash he’d heard about. Instead, he was very much afraid he was meeting Amaryllis, one of Whitney’s experiments.