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She sighed, trying not to let her fear take hold once again.
For the moment at least, the incessant prickling across her skin had ceased.
Alternating heat and cold welled within her body every few minutes, something she’d never experienced before.
There were so many candles in her bathroom that if it were outside, she was certain the brilliant shine of their flames could have been seen from space.
And yet, it wasn’t too hot. It wasn’t too bright.
If anything, even in the confines of her bathroom, with all those candles, all those flames, it still failed to lift the gloom weighing heavily upon her.
Something was very,verywrong. More wrong than she even knew how to anatomize.
Plucking up the stemware glass, she sipped from it. The delicious taste upon her tongue made her sigh once more, and yet part of her was unsatisfied, the piquancy of the wine only barely scratching the itch that threatened to crowd out all else from her consciousness.
It was as if even her senses of taste and smell were amplified and yet inadequate all at once.
It made no sense.
Closing her eyes, she slipped under the steaming water until only her head was above the surface.
Not for the first time, in her mind’s eye the scene played out once more.
The auction.
But every time it was the same man at center stage.
His rangy, muscled body, his imposing stature, his face that seemed carved from a granite promontory. His was a presence that loomed large, otherworldly.
And yet, seeing Dimitri set something off within her.
Something ancient, primitive.
What could that mean?
It was a need, an urge, and maybe even a fear that she simply couldn’t explain. She didn’t know what to do with it.
What if you’re going crazy?
Perhaps it was just a revealing of something that that had always been there?
Whatever was happening to her, it was growing stronger by the day.
Maybe by the hour.
And she had no idea how to control it.
So she hid. She faked it.
She did whatever she could to keep those she saw every day from having even an inkling of what she was going through.
Even her boss. Even her partner.
And that wasn’t going to change. Not if she had anything to say about it.
Then his face was in her mind once more. Only this time, she couldn’t banish it, she couldn’t wish it away, its presence an almost palpable thing.
The planes of his face, so stark and strong. The frost at the tips of his stubble beard like the early morning dew upon blades of grass, just a hint of his age.
