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Sweat poured down her face, dripped from the side of her neck, and dampened the long, jet-black hair pulled into an intricate braid along the top of her head before twisting into the heavy rope that fell past her shoulders.
Her brief sports bra was soaked, her skin damp with moisture, while the black shorts she wore clung to her skin. Still, her heartbeat wasn’t up as it should have been, her pulse remained steadier than it had in past months, and her muscles weren’t burning yet.
She couldn’t stop, wouldn’t stop until her body was ready to collapse from weariness and exhaustion. She couldn’t. If she did, then she had to think, she had to remember the nightmares, and that she didn’t want to do.
She slammed her wrapped fist harder into the heavy bag, her teeth gritting, desperation lancing through her senses as she began pounding at the punching bag. She didn’t want to remember . . .
“It was a dream,” the dark voice commanded, barely loud enough to hear but pulsing with the demand.
The shadowy image stepped into her dreams, his warmth wrapping around her, sinking inside her. She could feel him, and it made her ache to feel him closer. To feel him without the barrier of clothes, hot and naked against him while his powerful hands touched her.
“You’re safe, Zoey. You’re safe. Harley’s safe. It was a terrible, terrible nightmare.”
A nightmare.
A terrible dream.
So why hadn’t anyone seen Harley since that night? He didn’t answer his phone or his texts, nor had he returned to the apartment he’d rented. Several witnesses saw him that night at an all-night convenience store, after an obvious fight, gassing his truck. He’d even told the young woman he was seeing that he was leaving town and didn’t know when he’d be back. But surely he would have answered calls to his cell phone, the texts or desperate emails she’d sent since that night.
It was just a dream, Zoey.
That shadowy image of the man who had taken her into his arms for such a brief time, danced with her, then left, haunted her. His voice, reassuring her and his arms holding her.
It was a nightmare. A terrible dream . . .
Damn, you were in trouble when your dream man lied to you in your dreams. There had to be some kind of psychosis that went with that. She had no doubt there was one. And it was just her luck to be afflicted by it. Because she knew he was lying to her, she could feel it. And she hated it.
“Zoey, do you hear me?” he urged her, that demand piercing her soul, pulling at her even now. It was just a dream, nothing more. And she believed it was all a dream. She really did.
“Don’t ever forget you killed me, Zoey . . .”
Her fist plowed into the bag as a harsh sob tore from her throat. Did she believe it? She didn’t know what to believe anymore. The nightmare of blood, death and pain, or the fantasy that stroked pleasure through her senses.
Holding on to the bag, her muscles trembling, Zoey closed her eyes, sinking into the memory of that nightmare, that fantasy, just as it had been before she awoke that morning.
“I’m scared . . .” She was terrified. Until his voice came.
Now it was a fear of being alone to face the demons once his voice was gone. The demons that raged and clashed inside her head and fought to convince her that she had indeed killed Harley.
“Don’t be scared anymore, Zoey.” Warm, callused fingertips eased from her temple to her jaw. “Listen to me, and everything will be okay.”
She imagined she could make out a hint of his face, his profile perhaps. Strong features, dark eyes. His smiles were sad and filled with a loss of hope.
“Zoey. You have to listen to me so the pain will go away.”
And that was all she had to do? Just listen to him? She didn’t believe that. She could sense there was more, something he did that made the fragments of her brain come back together again and the pain fade away.
What had he done? She could sense it, she could feel the answer, but it drifted away now, before she could capture it.
“See, I’m
going to make it better, no matter what you do, pretty girl,” he whispered so softly she had to strain to hear him. Hunger filled his voice. Male hunger. The hunger a man feels for a woman, a lover. With no fear of the Mackays, no apprehension of what her brother might do. Just pure, carnal intent.
That intent filled her with pleasure. It stroked through her senses as his hands began stroking her body. Caressing her, stoking her need that much higher, hotter than ever.
“Isn’t this part of the dream so much nicer?” His lips brushed over her neck as he laid her back, his naked body coming over her.
For a moment she tensed. Harley came over her to hurt her. But there was no pain here. The shadowy features of her lover didn’t morph to Harley’s features as Harley’s did into a monster’s.
