:o Uh-oh. Time to face the wrath of the pokey-stick :( It's been a little
while since my last update *coughthreemonthscough* but I didn't abandon my
fic, I've just had a busy busy time and never seemed to have the chance to
write and update. So. really sorry. Anyhoo, here at last is chapter 15, I
hope it doesn't disappoint.
* * *
Chapter 15: R&R
Some hours later, I was facing Kurtis at a table on the terrace of a beautiful little restaurant in Derinkuyu. The sky was turning slowly golden behind me, casting fading sunlight onto Kurtis' face as he perused the menu. Our stomachs were both rumbling.
It had been an oddly idle day for me. That morning, Ozan had told us that we basically had the rest of the day to ourselves, so we had headed back into the centre of Nevsehir after our peculiar encounter at the museum.
I told Kurtis that I wanted to pick up my things from the hotel in Nevsehir that I'd checked into the day before, and while I was at it, get showered and changed. He managed to convince me to lend him the jeep for a couple of hours, as he wanted to explore the scenery around the town. After promising to pick me up at four, he had screeched away from the hotel car park at a far from leisurely speed, leaving me alone with my thoughts.
Up in my room, alone again, I felt weighed down by confusion. This business with Ozan had been so unexpected and so bizarre. How could we be sure we could really trust him? I wanted to; I liked him very much and he seemed truly genuine. But we had already seen that he had strong telepathic powers, and for all we knew he could have us under some kind of mental control. What if he was working with Karel, and was trying to divert us from the rituals going on deep underground? I lay back on the bed, frustrated that I still had doubts and that I now had to wait around before anything else could happen. I hated waiting, and wished I had something useful to do to take my mind off things.
I hadn't eaten yet, so I ordered a chicken salad and a pot of coffee from room service, and watched the television in the corner while I ate. The hotel only received one English-language channel, and it was showing an American football match, but I watched it anyway as a distraction. Afterwards I took a long cool shower and washed my hair, then wrapped myself in a fluffy white bathrobe and went out onto the balcony. The warm breeze felt lovely as it stirred my damp hair. I wondered where Kurtis was, and pictured him roaming around the rich Cappadocian landscape in my jeep. Hopefully it would help him shake off his own doubts and worries and, both refreshed, we could talk things through properly later. I had felt some of my own tension easing away as I showered, draining away with the dirt of the last two days, and I felt a lot better for it. But one frustration remained, one that refused to shift. Despite the many crazy, life- threatening things I had to worry about, I still couldn't stop thinking about Kurtis. I closed my eyes, listening to the now-familiar voices bickering away in my head. One was cold and aloof, assuring me that I had been right to keep my distance, that I had had nothing but trouble with men before, and this would all work out much better if I could keep my emotions in check. The other wasn't as easy to listen to, and kept cursing me for every time I had passed up a chance to get closer to Kurtis. It reminded me bluntly how Kurtis had confronted me about the very same thing back in England, and then left because of my reluctance to admit my feelings. You could have made it up to him last night if you'd had the guts, it said. You were sharing a bedroom, for Christ's sake. And if not then, you could have invited him up here now, given him some weak excuse if you'd needed to, and just seen what happened when the door closed behind you.
I sat there on the balcony until my hair was almost dry, lost in thought. My eyes wandered over the town below me and the hills beyond, but my mind was somewhere else entirely. Finally I shook myself back to reality and went into the bedroom to pack.
At four, Kurtis met me in the bar downstairs as promised, looking dusty, windswept and more sexy than he had any right to be. We headed back to Derinkuyu, following Ozan's directions to his hideaway. The house stood amongst a grove of cypress trees at the end of a narrow track, a mile or so outside the town. Inside it was small and cosy, with stone floors, narrow windows, and brightly patterned hangings on the walls. Kurtis headed for the shower, leaving me to look around. There were only two bedrooms, and I wondered what sleeping arrangements Ozan had had in mind. I decided that when our host arrived I would have to insist on taking the living room floor. I didn't want Kurtis to have to rough it for the second night in a row, and I couldn't make our generous new friend sleep on stone.
Kurtis emerged from the bathroom a short while later, clean but still irresistibly scruffy. We had no idea when to expect Ozan, and after waiting around for half an hour with nothing to do, we were both fed up and getting on each other's nerves. I suggested that we go into town and have some dinner. He agreed, and stopped on the way out to leave a note for Ozan should he turn up in our absence.
"Although he probably knows what we're doing before we've even decided," he said with a smile. I peered over his shoulder at the scrawled message, and grinned.
"Yes. And it's probably just as well he's psychic, with handwriting like that."
Kurtis scowled at me unconvincingly, and we went out to the car.
* * *
We found a gorgeous restaurant at the edge of town and ordered plenty of food, and a bottle of wine. I wasn't sure we should have a drink, aware that we would probably be having a long and serious discussion with Ozan later, back at the house. But Kurtis twisted my arm, pointing out that this may be our last chance to relax and enjoy ourselves.
When we had finished eating, Kurtis smoked a cigarette and leaned back in his chair, gazing out at the view from the terrace. I watched his face in the golden light. Something that had been nagging at me for a few days resurfaced.
"Can I ask you something?"
He looked at me with interest. "Sure."
"Why were you so awful to me that evening after the banquet? When you accused me of flirting with everyone."
He winced. "I was pretty shitty, wasn't I? Yeah. I was jetlagged, I was tired. I know that's no excuse. But when I saw you." He paused for a few long moments, then stubbed out his cigarette in the glass ashtray before continuing. "The times I'd seen you before, you were like you are now. Guns, boots, dirt, ready for action." I smiled. "I could relate to that much easier. Then at the banquet, there's this beautiful, elegant creature who knows exactly how to talk to people, how to walk, how to laugh, and I guess it just threw me." He was looking at me almost wistfully. "You were charming everyone, and I felt like some hobo who'd just walked into a palace."
I blushed at the way he described me. "I seem to recall the waitress was quite charmed by you," I said.
He grinned. "You remembered that, huh?" I shrugged, affecting disinterest. "Well anyway, I know it's a little late, but I'm sorry I was such an ass," he went on. "And I admit that I probably did scare Nikolajev away. I guess I was feeling resentful that he had so much of your attention."
I prayed that I wasn't blushing again. Kurtis had just admitted that he'd been jealous. I only had eyes for one man in that room, I wanted to say, but the words froze in my throat. I think he understood the sentiment, though, as we looked at each other through the fading sunlight. He reached for another cigarette and put it to his lips.
"Anything else you want to apologise for while you're feeling so courteous?" I asked.
He peered at me shrewdly over the top of the hand that held his lighter. He sparked it to life, and took a deep drag of smoke. "Do you have anything particular in mind?"
"Polluting the air with those repulsive things, for a start. Or you could begin with the rather undignified soaking you gave me in my own swimming pool."
He leaned back in his chair, and folded one arm across his chest. He poked his cigarette at me with his other hand. "You deserved that," he replied.
I widened my eyes in surprise. "How exactly did you figure that out?" I frowned. "No, don't tell me. Because I dented your overgrown ego, no doubt."
Kurtis breathed a stream of smoke slowly and purposefully across the table and into my face. "You know, Lara, you have a few ego issues yourself. So I dented yours a little, too. You'll live."
I looked back at him, not flinching despite the vile cloud. I was pondering my next comment as carefully as a chess grand master. I recalled the shame I had felt after reading his letter and realising that my pride had driven him away. We both had egos, that much was true. If I responded with another attack, he would know it was just my pride talking. But I still wasn't ready to lay my thoughts bare for him to scrutinise.
Before I could make up my mind how to reply, he spoke again.
"So, was it true?" he asked mischievously.
"Was what true?"
"That you wouldn't sleep with me if I was the last man alive."
"My God, to think that you had the nerve to call me a flirt," I scolded.
"Hey, I'm not a flirt," he replied. "I was talking purely hypothetically."
"And I stand by my former statement," I said, diplomatically.
"Hmm. And why's that, exactly?"
I shrugged nonchalantly. "I don't like smokers." He grinned at this comment, and I couldn't help but smile too.
"Well, if I was the last man alive, then there'd be no one left to sell me cigarettes."
"Fair point. But if I had to choose between extinction, and rebuilding the human race from little Kurtis Trents, I think I'd pick extinction." I was playing it cool, trying to cover up how flustered the conversation was making me.
"You are a cold, cold woman, Croft," he said in amusement. "What if it was purely for pleasure, and not for procreation?"
I tried to hold his gaze but it was difficult with the images he was conjuring up in my mind. Eventually I held up a hand. "Okay, stop it," I said, trying to hold back a smile. "I'm not sure I like where this is going."
"No problem," he replied casually, grinding out his cigarette in the ashtray. "Purely hypothetical."
"Have you always been so shameless?"
"I don't know what you mean."
"Maybe it's the overdose of testosterone you were subjected to in the Foreign Legion."
"So you think I'm a womaniser?"
"When given half a chance, yes." I rolled my eyes at his offended expression. "Oh, so I suppose that frisking in the Louvre was entirely necessary?"
"Who knew where you may have had concealed weapons," he teased. "And I seem to recall," he went on slowly, "that you got your own back for that in the Strahov."
I swallowed, remembering how I had let my hands stray over his body when I was disarming him in that crampt little airlock.
He leaned forwards again in his seat, and lowered his eyes. "Lara," he began, and I felt my body tense, warmth rushing to my face, anxious to hear what he would say next. But at that moment we were interrupted by the waiter.
"Excuse me, Mr. Trent?" he said earnestly. Kurtis looked up at him with a flash of annoyance.
"What is it?" he asked sharply.
"A telephone call for you, sir. Downstairs," the waiter replied nervously, and walked briskly away.
Puzzled, Kurtis got to his feet and followed him. Who knew we were here? And more to the point, who the hell had such bad timing?
After a minute or two Kurtis returned. "That was Ozan," he said. I smiled, understanding how our new friend had known where we were, and feeling amused that he was still polite enough to use the less intrusive method of communication. "He's still at the museum, translating the engravings from the two medallions. He thinks he'll be busy for a while longer, so he won't be meeting us at the house until tomorrow morning. He'll be staying in Nevsehir tonight."
I nodded. "Okay. Did he say anything else? Has he found anything out yet?"
"I don't know, I think he wants to wait till he sees us before he tells us anything." He frowned. "He wants to take a look at my tattoo at some point, see if that adds anything to the puzzle. But until then he says we should just get some rest."
I didn't say anything, feeling more concerned by the prospect of being alone with Kurtis again than by the lack of new information. As he followed me out to the car in the fading daylight, I wondered if I would be able to keep my feelings under control for another long night.
* * *
:o Can they keep those feelings in check? I'll tell you in the next chapter :P I hope this was okay and not a total anti-climax after such a long wait. Please let me know your thoughts. Thankyou for all the reviews so far! I'll try to get back to people individually next time.
* * *
Chapter 15: R&R
Some hours later, I was facing Kurtis at a table on the terrace of a beautiful little restaurant in Derinkuyu. The sky was turning slowly golden behind me, casting fading sunlight onto Kurtis' face as he perused the menu. Our stomachs were both rumbling.
It had been an oddly idle day for me. That morning, Ozan had told us that we basically had the rest of the day to ourselves, so we had headed back into the centre of Nevsehir after our peculiar encounter at the museum.
I told Kurtis that I wanted to pick up my things from the hotel in Nevsehir that I'd checked into the day before, and while I was at it, get showered and changed. He managed to convince me to lend him the jeep for a couple of hours, as he wanted to explore the scenery around the town. After promising to pick me up at four, he had screeched away from the hotel car park at a far from leisurely speed, leaving me alone with my thoughts.
Up in my room, alone again, I felt weighed down by confusion. This business with Ozan had been so unexpected and so bizarre. How could we be sure we could really trust him? I wanted to; I liked him very much and he seemed truly genuine. But we had already seen that he had strong telepathic powers, and for all we knew he could have us under some kind of mental control. What if he was working with Karel, and was trying to divert us from the rituals going on deep underground? I lay back on the bed, frustrated that I still had doubts and that I now had to wait around before anything else could happen. I hated waiting, and wished I had something useful to do to take my mind off things.
I hadn't eaten yet, so I ordered a chicken salad and a pot of coffee from room service, and watched the television in the corner while I ate. The hotel only received one English-language channel, and it was showing an American football match, but I watched it anyway as a distraction. Afterwards I took a long cool shower and washed my hair, then wrapped myself in a fluffy white bathrobe and went out onto the balcony. The warm breeze felt lovely as it stirred my damp hair. I wondered where Kurtis was, and pictured him roaming around the rich Cappadocian landscape in my jeep. Hopefully it would help him shake off his own doubts and worries and, both refreshed, we could talk things through properly later. I had felt some of my own tension easing away as I showered, draining away with the dirt of the last two days, and I felt a lot better for it. But one frustration remained, one that refused to shift. Despite the many crazy, life- threatening things I had to worry about, I still couldn't stop thinking about Kurtis. I closed my eyes, listening to the now-familiar voices bickering away in my head. One was cold and aloof, assuring me that I had been right to keep my distance, that I had had nothing but trouble with men before, and this would all work out much better if I could keep my emotions in check. The other wasn't as easy to listen to, and kept cursing me for every time I had passed up a chance to get closer to Kurtis. It reminded me bluntly how Kurtis had confronted me about the very same thing back in England, and then left because of my reluctance to admit my feelings. You could have made it up to him last night if you'd had the guts, it said. You were sharing a bedroom, for Christ's sake. And if not then, you could have invited him up here now, given him some weak excuse if you'd needed to, and just seen what happened when the door closed behind you.
I sat there on the balcony until my hair was almost dry, lost in thought. My eyes wandered over the town below me and the hills beyond, but my mind was somewhere else entirely. Finally I shook myself back to reality and went into the bedroom to pack.
At four, Kurtis met me in the bar downstairs as promised, looking dusty, windswept and more sexy than he had any right to be. We headed back to Derinkuyu, following Ozan's directions to his hideaway. The house stood amongst a grove of cypress trees at the end of a narrow track, a mile or so outside the town. Inside it was small and cosy, with stone floors, narrow windows, and brightly patterned hangings on the walls. Kurtis headed for the shower, leaving me to look around. There were only two bedrooms, and I wondered what sleeping arrangements Ozan had had in mind. I decided that when our host arrived I would have to insist on taking the living room floor. I didn't want Kurtis to have to rough it for the second night in a row, and I couldn't make our generous new friend sleep on stone.
Kurtis emerged from the bathroom a short while later, clean but still irresistibly scruffy. We had no idea when to expect Ozan, and after waiting around for half an hour with nothing to do, we were both fed up and getting on each other's nerves. I suggested that we go into town and have some dinner. He agreed, and stopped on the way out to leave a note for Ozan should he turn up in our absence.
"Although he probably knows what we're doing before we've even decided," he said with a smile. I peered over his shoulder at the scrawled message, and grinned.
"Yes. And it's probably just as well he's psychic, with handwriting like that."
Kurtis scowled at me unconvincingly, and we went out to the car.
* * *
We found a gorgeous restaurant at the edge of town and ordered plenty of food, and a bottle of wine. I wasn't sure we should have a drink, aware that we would probably be having a long and serious discussion with Ozan later, back at the house. But Kurtis twisted my arm, pointing out that this may be our last chance to relax and enjoy ourselves.
When we had finished eating, Kurtis smoked a cigarette and leaned back in his chair, gazing out at the view from the terrace. I watched his face in the golden light. Something that had been nagging at me for a few days resurfaced.
"Can I ask you something?"
He looked at me with interest. "Sure."
"Why were you so awful to me that evening after the banquet? When you accused me of flirting with everyone."
He winced. "I was pretty shitty, wasn't I? Yeah. I was jetlagged, I was tired. I know that's no excuse. But when I saw you." He paused for a few long moments, then stubbed out his cigarette in the glass ashtray before continuing. "The times I'd seen you before, you were like you are now. Guns, boots, dirt, ready for action." I smiled. "I could relate to that much easier. Then at the banquet, there's this beautiful, elegant creature who knows exactly how to talk to people, how to walk, how to laugh, and I guess it just threw me." He was looking at me almost wistfully. "You were charming everyone, and I felt like some hobo who'd just walked into a palace."
I blushed at the way he described me. "I seem to recall the waitress was quite charmed by you," I said.
He grinned. "You remembered that, huh?" I shrugged, affecting disinterest. "Well anyway, I know it's a little late, but I'm sorry I was such an ass," he went on. "And I admit that I probably did scare Nikolajev away. I guess I was feeling resentful that he had so much of your attention."
I prayed that I wasn't blushing again. Kurtis had just admitted that he'd been jealous. I only had eyes for one man in that room, I wanted to say, but the words froze in my throat. I think he understood the sentiment, though, as we looked at each other through the fading sunlight. He reached for another cigarette and put it to his lips.
"Anything else you want to apologise for while you're feeling so courteous?" I asked.
He peered at me shrewdly over the top of the hand that held his lighter. He sparked it to life, and took a deep drag of smoke. "Do you have anything particular in mind?"
"Polluting the air with those repulsive things, for a start. Or you could begin with the rather undignified soaking you gave me in my own swimming pool."
He leaned back in his chair, and folded one arm across his chest. He poked his cigarette at me with his other hand. "You deserved that," he replied.
I widened my eyes in surprise. "How exactly did you figure that out?" I frowned. "No, don't tell me. Because I dented your overgrown ego, no doubt."
Kurtis breathed a stream of smoke slowly and purposefully across the table and into my face. "You know, Lara, you have a few ego issues yourself. So I dented yours a little, too. You'll live."
I looked back at him, not flinching despite the vile cloud. I was pondering my next comment as carefully as a chess grand master. I recalled the shame I had felt after reading his letter and realising that my pride had driven him away. We both had egos, that much was true. If I responded with another attack, he would know it was just my pride talking. But I still wasn't ready to lay my thoughts bare for him to scrutinise.
Before I could make up my mind how to reply, he spoke again.
"So, was it true?" he asked mischievously.
"Was what true?"
"That you wouldn't sleep with me if I was the last man alive."
"My God, to think that you had the nerve to call me a flirt," I scolded.
"Hey, I'm not a flirt," he replied. "I was talking purely hypothetically."
"And I stand by my former statement," I said, diplomatically.
"Hmm. And why's that, exactly?"
I shrugged nonchalantly. "I don't like smokers." He grinned at this comment, and I couldn't help but smile too.
"Well, if I was the last man alive, then there'd be no one left to sell me cigarettes."
"Fair point. But if I had to choose between extinction, and rebuilding the human race from little Kurtis Trents, I think I'd pick extinction." I was playing it cool, trying to cover up how flustered the conversation was making me.
"You are a cold, cold woman, Croft," he said in amusement. "What if it was purely for pleasure, and not for procreation?"
I tried to hold his gaze but it was difficult with the images he was conjuring up in my mind. Eventually I held up a hand. "Okay, stop it," I said, trying to hold back a smile. "I'm not sure I like where this is going."
"No problem," he replied casually, grinding out his cigarette in the ashtray. "Purely hypothetical."
"Have you always been so shameless?"
"I don't know what you mean."
"Maybe it's the overdose of testosterone you were subjected to in the Foreign Legion."
"So you think I'm a womaniser?"
"When given half a chance, yes." I rolled my eyes at his offended expression. "Oh, so I suppose that frisking in the Louvre was entirely necessary?"
"Who knew where you may have had concealed weapons," he teased. "And I seem to recall," he went on slowly, "that you got your own back for that in the Strahov."
I swallowed, remembering how I had let my hands stray over his body when I was disarming him in that crampt little airlock.
He leaned forwards again in his seat, and lowered his eyes. "Lara," he began, and I felt my body tense, warmth rushing to my face, anxious to hear what he would say next. But at that moment we were interrupted by the waiter.
"Excuse me, Mr. Trent?" he said earnestly. Kurtis looked up at him with a flash of annoyance.
"What is it?" he asked sharply.
"A telephone call for you, sir. Downstairs," the waiter replied nervously, and walked briskly away.
Puzzled, Kurtis got to his feet and followed him. Who knew we were here? And more to the point, who the hell had such bad timing?
After a minute or two Kurtis returned. "That was Ozan," he said. I smiled, understanding how our new friend had known where we were, and feeling amused that he was still polite enough to use the less intrusive method of communication. "He's still at the museum, translating the engravings from the two medallions. He thinks he'll be busy for a while longer, so he won't be meeting us at the house until tomorrow morning. He'll be staying in Nevsehir tonight."
I nodded. "Okay. Did he say anything else? Has he found anything out yet?"
"I don't know, I think he wants to wait till he sees us before he tells us anything." He frowned. "He wants to take a look at my tattoo at some point, see if that adds anything to the puzzle. But until then he says we should just get some rest."
I didn't say anything, feeling more concerned by the prospect of being alone with Kurtis again than by the lack of new information. As he followed me out to the car in the fading daylight, I wondered if I would be able to keep my feelings under control for another long night.
* * *
:o Can they keep those feelings in check? I'll tell you in the next chapter :P I hope this was okay and not a total anti-climax after such a long wait. Please let me know your thoughts. Thankyou for all the reviews so far! I'll try to get back to people individually next time.