Deep Waters

leave you sitting out here. There's a fog bank moving in over the cove, in case you haven't noticed. The temperature is dropping."
    "I can take care of myself. I don't need your help. Leave me alone, Charity. You shouldn't have come here tonight."
    "We're neighbors, remember? Friends. I can't leave you alone."
    "You have no responsibility for me."
    "Listen up, Mr. Control Freak, you've got your code, and I've got mine. Mine says I can't leave you out here by yourself." She got to her feet and tugged on his arm. "Please, Elias. Let's go inside."
    He looked up at her with eyes as unreadable as the surface of the reflecting pool. For a moment she thought he would refuse. Then, without a word he rose to his feet in a single, fluid movement.
    She took advantage of the small victory to lead him up the steps. He did not resist, but the hard tension in him did not ease. She opened the door and urged him gently inside.
    She kicked off her shoes and groped along the wall. "Where's the light switch?"
    Without a word, Elias extended one hand and flipped a switch. A lamp glowed in the corner. Otis muttered a complaint from beneath the cover that encircled his cage.
    For the first time Charity got a clear look at Elias's face. What she saw there made her wish she hadn't asked him to turn on the light. Some things were best left concealed in the shadows.
    On the other hand, some things only got more scary if they were hidden in the dark.
    "I'll put the water on," she said.
    "I think you'd better leave, Charity. I'm not going to be good company tonight."
    The words were an unmistakable warning. A tiny frisson of fear went through her. She shook off the sense of impending danger. "I said I'd fix you a cup of tea."
    She brushed past him and crossed the barren room to the small kitchen. The kettle sat on a back burner. She discovered a pot in a cupboard. There was a cannister of Kemun beside it.
    "I doubt if my tea will be up to your standards, but at least it will be hot." She ran water into the kettle.
    "Charity."
    She paused, kettle in hand, and glanced at him over her shoulder. "Yes?"
    He said nothing. He simply stood there, watching her with a shattering intensity that paralyzed her. She was riveted by the bleakness in his gaze. In that moment she could see straight through the wall of pride and self-discipline he had so painstakingly built around himself. An ancient loneliness crouched like some great monstrous beast in the darkness beyond the wall.
    "Elias," she said very softly. Slowly she put down the kettle. "I know you think you can handle this by yourself, and you're probably right. But sometimes it's better not to try to go it alone. That stuff about the Way of Water may work just fine as a philosophical construct, but sometimes a person needs more."
    "Tal Kek Chara is all I have," he said with stark simplicity.
    "That's not true." She shook off the spell that had seized her and went to him.
    She put her arms around him and hugged him with fierce determination. He was hard and unyielding.
    Aware that she was engaged in a battle of unknown dimensions, she tightened her arms and pressed her face against his shoulder. With a sense of desperation, she willed her warmth and something more, something she was not certain she wanted to identify, into the center of his being.
    A shudder went through Elias. With a low, hoarse groan, he captured her head between his hands.
    "You should have gone home," he said.
    And then his mouth was on hers. The beast of loneliness howled.
    Charity swayed beneath the onslaught of a masculine hunger that threatened to drown her. For a moment, everything threatened to disappear.
    When the mist cleared slightly, she realized that she was in Elias's arms. He had picked her up and was carrying her toward the dark opening that marked the doorway of the bedroom.
    She felt herself being lowered onto a cushion of some sort. It had to be a futon, she thought. Nothing else would be this hard and uncomfortable. The man slept on a futon. That was taking self-discipline a little too far.
    But she had no time to complain. He came down on top of her and she promptly forgot about the overly firm bedding. Elias was far more rigid than his futon.
    His lean, powerful body was a sexy weight crushing her into the dense cushions. The kiss was endlessly deep, infinitely mysterious, not unlike Elias himself.
    Charity wrapped her arms around his neck. His fingers went to the buttons of her loose, chambray dress. She heard