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Slipping deeper into sleep, into the fantasy she sometimes created for herself, Zoey watched as the shadowy figure moved to her. Strong and tall, pulling her against his warm body. His arms holding her, his voice at her ear.
A sigh slipped from her.
Okay, this was better. The fantasy she had created for herself, the lover who came to her in her dreams and whose touch awakened a sexuality inside her that she didn’t possess while she was awake, he would protect her from the pain.
He was there with her now. His gaze was dark, filled with secrets and with hunger. His expression implacable, aristocratic, and filled with arrogance. And her fascination with him never waned.
“You came back . . . I kept watching for you . . . you’re only in my dreams now . . .” She fought to speak to him, to hold him in this place where everything was so out of control and filled with pain. “Hold me. Just hold me . . .”
If he would just hold her, take it all away . . .
“I have you, Zoey. I won’t let you go. Isn’t this part of the dream so much nicer?” There was a hint of sadness in his voice, in his dark eyes. “I always like this part of the dream better than I do the part that rips open my skull and leaves me wanting to scream, but I can’t find my voice to do so.”
They hurt him too?
No. He was warmth, protection without being smothered. How did she know that? Why did the nightmares come to him too? She fought to tighten her fingers around the hand holding hers. Struggled to find the strength but only succeeded for a moment.
“I hate that part of the nightmare,” he agreed, as though that faint pressure was all he needed. “See how much better this part is? See, that’s how you know it’s just a nightmare. I’ll be here with you and if I’m here, then the pain will go away. And if I’m here with you, nothing and no one can hurt you.”
Of course. It had to be a nightmare. A horrible, horrifying nightmare. Otherwise, she wouldn’t be dreaming of the shadowy lover who usually filled her dreams and kept her waiting for him.
“Just a nightmare . . . When you feel the pain, when it tries to come back, I’ll be here with you. The pain can’t touch you, Zoey. I’ll keep the pain away . . .”
“Don’t leave me.” She struggled to force the words past her lips, to convince him to stay this time. “Hold me.”
“Just for a little while.” His lips eased over her fingers. “But I’ll be back. If you promise me you’ll know it was just a nightmare.”
She would promise him anything. “Just a nightmare.”
But she knew something wasn’t right about that either. Something bad had happened. Something so terrible it was terrifying too, but she didn’t know how. She didn’t know what it was, or how it happened.
If it wasn’t real, then Harley was alive, she reminded herself as the voice stroked the pain from her head, kept her warm and tried to convince her that grass was blue and the sky was green . . . That it was all a nightmare.
“Sleep for me now, Zoey,” he whispered. “Sleep. And know when you wake up that everything’s going to be fine. It was just a nightmare.”
It was much more than a nightmare, she knew. She just didn’t know which part was real, and which wasn’t. She didn’t know and she was terrified to learn . . .
—
Chatham Bromleah Doogan the Third eased back from the bed and rested his elbows on his knees, watching Zoey painfully as Detective Sam Bryce stood still and silent at the bedroom door, her back to him.
How many times had he stood and watched this little imp over the past few years? She was intriguing, beyond beautiful, and she had mesmerized him from the first moment he’d seen her.
Whoever had done this to her would pay. He’d make damned sure they paid with their lives.
She was lucky Doogan was in town to meet with one of his agents, Graham Brock. Otherwise, Homeland Security as well as the Mackays might have found themselves involved in one hell of a mess.
But what would it have accomplished?
The young man in question didn’t work for Homeland Security, officially. Unofficially, Doogan had provided whatever help the younger man needed.
Harley and Zoey were friends, though. They’d had a little spat a few days ago, Harley had laughingly told him. Zoey had come to his apartment and caught him with a young woman he shouldn’t have been with. She’d been outraged. But they hadn’t really fought, and she’d hugged him before leaving the apartment’s parking lot afterward. Harley had indicated it was no more than a friendly disagreement.
Someone was determined to destroy Zoey with it, though.
On the bedside table were the vials of blood he’d drawn as soon as he’d arrived and the syringe that held the drug he’d used to ease the pain while he worked with the hallucinogenic he was positive had been used to convince her she’d killed her friend. And as he worked to reverse the nightmarish images planted in her head, his chest had ached while a dark, burning fury grew inside him.
What was it about those pale, pale green eyes and Zoey’s pleas not to leave her, to keep her warm, that caused the break in his control and in the wall he maintained around his emotions?
