“Raine! Jesus, wake up! It's only a dream, baby. Wake up!”
She struggled wildly against the strong arms that were holding her. Then it all slipped into focus. Seth. Sex, chocolate, candle flames guttering in a pool of blood-red wax. The island. Another dream.
She collapsed against his warm chest and dissolved into tears, but they didn't last as long as usual. His fierce embrace radiated heat through her body, relaxing her. The tears subsided, and she wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “I’m sorry I woke you,” she said.
“Don't be an idiot,” he said. 'That was a hell of a nightmare.”
She nodded, resting her hot forehead against his chest.
“You want to tell me about it?” he prompted.
“No, thank you.”
He hugged her tighter. “It might help. So I've heard”
She shook her head He kissed the side of her face that wasn't pressed against him. “Suit yourself,” he said. “If at some point you change your mind, I'll still be interested.”
“Thank you,” she whispered.
He pulled her back to him, fitting her into the crook of his shoulder. “Are you going to be able to sleep?”
“No,” she admitted. “Not for a while. Maybe not at all.”
“So this is a chronic thing.”
His matter-of-fact voice made the whole thing seem less dreadful. He flipped on the bedside lamp and studied her damp face, his eyes somber. “Can I help? Is there anybody whose ass I can kick for you?”
She snuggled deeper into his warmth, kissing the thick bulge of his bicep, and shook her head. “You can't save me from this problem, Seth,” she said quietly. “But I love you for wanting to.”
He stiffened beneath her, and she realized, with a twinge of alarm, that she had used the scary L-word. She'd heard that it made men panic, when used prematurely.
Stop clinging to an illusion of control, she reminded herself wryly. He wasn't running or screaming. That was promising.
“So,” he said, his voice elaborately casual. “What happens now?” She kissed his chest. “Now you sleep, and I stare at the ceiling.”
“No. I mean, with us.”
She propped herself up on her elbow and smiled at him, threading her fingers through the hair on his chest “You can start by promising to never leap out of the dark and scare me, ever again.”
“Give me a key,” he suggested. “When you come in, just say 'Honey, I'm home,' and if I'm there, I'll say 'How was your day, dear?'“
She was taken aback by the bold request. “It seems almost redundant to give you a key, Seth,” she hedged.
“Your neighbors might get nervous if they see me picking your locks all the time. Besides, official boyfriends get issued keys.”
“They do?”
He frowned. “Hell, yeah.” He looked annoyed at her hesitation.
Raine stared down at the pattern of hair on his muscular chest, contemplating the idea. It flew in the face of all the rules, but those rules didn't correspond to the crazy reality she inhabited. She was destined for chaos. She took a deep breath, and followed her heart, not her head. 'Til give you the keys that Victor gave me,” she offered.
He jerked up onto his elbow. “What?”
“He was waiting for me when I came home last night” she said.
He gestured impatiently. “What did he want?”
“He wanted me to spy on you” she said. “He's curious about you.”
“So? What did you tell him?”
“I told him no,” she said simply. “I told him to leave. What else could I do?”
“You could quit,” he said curtly. “You could tell him to fuck off. You could get the hell out of town, that's what you could do!”
She looked down and shook her head.
He cursed, and flopped down onto his back, staring up at the ceiling. “You're driving me nuts, Raine. Bad nuts, not good nuts.”
She studied his scowling face, puzzled. “Doesn't it bother you that Victor wants to spy on you?” she inquired.
He slanted her an impatient look. “Not particularly. I'd do the same if I were him. I knew the guy was a sleaze. It comes as no shock to me. Want me to dream up some stuff for you to tell him, just to keep him off your case?”
“No, thank you. I don't want to play his game at all.”
His face hardened. “Then what are you doing here?”
She shook her head again. “Seth—”
“I have to know. You don't want to play Lazar's dirty little games, and yet, you can't leave. You say you have your reasons. So what are they?”
His voice slashed across her nerves, already jagged from the nightmare, and her fragile calm began to crumble. She thought of her father’s sad, hollow eyes as he drifted away. Tears came, in a hot, uncontrollable rush, and she covered her face with her hands.
Seth made an impatient sound. “I'm not going to be put off by sniveling, Raine. What the hell is it with you and Lazar? Out with it.”
The words came out of their own volition. “He killed my father.”
He didn't react, or exclaim, or look shocked. He just studied her, his eyes thoughtful, for a long moment He reached out and brushed the tears off her cheeks with his knuckle. “You want to run that by me one more time, babe?” he asked gently.
She pressed her hand against her mouth as she tried to sort out what she dared to tell him. One wrong word and the whole thing would burst out of her, uncensored. “It was years ago,” she whispered “I was eleven. My father... worked for him. I don't know the details. I was too small. It was passed off as a boating accident. We ran away, never came back. My mother refuses to talk about it.” “So what makes you think that Victor—”
“This damned nightmare!” Her hands fell, and she let him see her tear-blotched face, her humiliating desperation. “I've been having it ever since my father died. He shows me his gravestone and the letters start to gush blood I look up, and there's Victor, laughing at me.”
“No proof? Nobody else accused him at the time?”
“No,” she whispered. “We just ran. My mother and I.”
He gently smoothed away her tears with his knuckles. “Sweetheart,” he said carefully. “Could this just be about grief?”
She flinched away from him. “Do you think I haven't asked myself that question for seventeen years? At this point, I no longer care. I have to do this, or I'll end up in a mental ward. It's that simple.”
He scowled. “Do what? What exactly do you have to do?”
She threw up her hands. “Find out what my father knew that got him killed. Look for clues, motives. I never said I was Wonder Woman.”
“I thought your parents lived in London.”
She shot him a startled glance, and he shrugged impatiently. “I hacked into your personnel file,” he explained.
“Oh,” she murmured. “Hugh Cameron is my stepfather. After my father was killed, we wandered all over Europe for five years. Then my mother finally calmed down enough to settle in London with Hugh.”
“What's your father's name?”
This was the one detail she wasn't ready to tell him, or anyone. Some instinct blocked the words at their source. She tried to hide the tremor that went through her. “His name was ... Peter Marat.”
It was true, as far as it went. Peter Marat Lazar.
“You studied literature and psych at Cornell, right?” he asked.
“You really studied that file, huh?”
“Of course I studied it. My point is, what does a secretary who studied lit in college think she's doing investigating a seventeen-year-old murder? Do you have the slightest idea how to go about it?”
She looked away from him. “I've done some reading,” she said.
“Reading. Huh.”
Exhaustion rolled over her, in a crushing wave. “I'm not doing this for fun, Seth,” she said. “I'm compelled. Maybe I'm mentally unsound after all those traumatic nightmares. I wouldn't be surprised, but it wouldn't change a
thing. I've still got to do what I've got to do.”
“What have you got to do?” he demanded. “What's the plan?”
She hesitated. “I'm sort of making it up as I go,” she admitted “It's a good thing that Victor has taken an interest in me—”
“Like hell it is,” he snarled.
“For my purposes, it's excellent,” she corrected. “I was lucky to get called to go to Stone Island yesterday. I'm looking for memories, for clues and signs. I'm present, I'm paying attention. I'm doing my best. The dream won't let me do anything else.”
“So what you're saying is that you've got no plan at all”
She let out a doleful sigh. “That's about the size of it”
His hand slammed onto the pillow, hard enough to send feathers wafting into the air. “That is the craziest, stupidest, most totally fucked thing that I've ever heard in my life.”
He was glaring at her, angry enough to spit nails, and she felt wonderful. Telling him had raised a crushing weight off of her. She was as light as air, about to float up off the bed “Oh, yes,” she agreed cheerfully. “It's really stupid Believe me, I know.”
“Lazar is a killer shark,” he said roughly. “How can anybody be so stupid and naive and still be walking around alive?”
She smothered a giggle, then tried to look thoughtful and serious. “That's a question I’ve asked myself more than once,” she said. 'The only answer I can come up with is pure, blind luck.”
“Luck doesn't last, babe,” he growled. “You need back-up.”
The brief rush of euphoria began to fade. “I'll think of something.”
“No, you won't. You'll be on the first plane out of SeaTac tomorrow morning. No way am I letting you—”
“Seth.” She cut him off, putting her hand against his hard chest. “You're forgetting something important. It's not up to you.”
Their eyes locked. She grappled with him, on a plane of awareness she had only discovered since they had become lovers, and realized something surprising about herself. Seth was extremely strong, but she could bear the weight of his disapproval, even his anger.
Seth's eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “No butterfly, huh?”
She shook her head. “Not anymore.”
“Forget about the bastard, Raine. Cut bait and run. Find someplace where you can live a normal life.”
She blinked for a moment, and let out a startled laugh. 'What's a normal life, Seth?” she demanded.
He looked blank. “Um, a house in the suburbs?” he offered. 'Two point four kids, PTA meetings, summers on the lake? Mini-malls, multiplexes, bake sales, Little League?
Credit card debt?”
Her lips curved in a rueful smile. She shook her head mutely.
He shrugged, defeated. “Whatever. I give up “ he muttered, pulling her close. “I wouldn't know normal if it bit me on the ass.”
“We're two of a kind,” she told him.
He buried his nose in her hair. “I like the sound of that.”
“I'm glad something pleases you, at least.” Her voice was muffled, with her nose squashed against his collarbone.
He pushed her down onto the bed and rolled on top of her. “Nothing I can say will make you get on that plane tomorrow?”
“I've already tried running away,” she said simply. “For seventeen years I've tried it. I promise you. It doesn't work.”
“OK, men. This is how it's going to be tomorrow.” His voice was hard and businesslike. “I'm taking you to work tomorrow, and I'm picking you up. You're not leaving the office without telling me. Call me, e-mail me, beep me, whatever. Do not set foot out of that place without letting me know, not even for a cup of coffee.”
“But I—“
“Lazar wanted you to spy on me, right? Go for it. Seduce me, sleep with me, spy on me. Study every inch of my body, count every hair on my head. You're just trying to make your boss happy, right? The perfect excuse. That's what I call a win-win scenario.”
She was dismayed. “Seth, I think you're overreacting.”
“My clueless girlfriend tells me she's trying to single-handedly take down a powerful, ruthless guy for murder. Then she tells me she has no proof, and no investigative experience. Then she tells me I'm overreacting: Tough shit, babe. This is the price you pay for confiding in me. Do as I say, or I will make your life so difficult, you'll end up giving in anyway, but you'll be exhausted and pissed off, too.”
A foolish smile spread helplessly across her face. She didn't mind one bit how protective and paranoid he was. She would work out the thorny details of coping with him as she went along. It was worth it, for that warm, soft feeling in her chest. “OK,” she said, rubbing her cheek against his scratchy jaw. “I'll keep you informed, if you want”
“I want,” he growled, sliding back under the duvet He arranged her so she was draped over him, her hand resting on his heart.
“Seth?” she murmured.
“Hmm?”
“I know you think Fm a lunatic, but I feel so much better now that I've told you all this.” “Oh yeah? Well, bully for you. I feel like shit.” She hid a smile against his chest and snuggled closer. Her thigh brushed against his penis. Hot and hard. She reached down and stroked him from the base to the tip. He was hugely erect. Again.
He groaned. “Don't get me started. Hands off. Sleep time.”
She took her hand away reluctantly. “Is this, urn, normal?”
“You know how I feel about normal, sweetheart.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Ah. You're referring to my perpetual boner, I take it.” He kissed the top of her head. “Well, I've never had any problems getting it up, but I have never had so much trouble keeping it down until I met you.”
“Oh. I'm, ah, flattered.”
“Don't mind him.” His lazy voice had a hint of laughter in it. “Ignore the savage beast, and eventually hell calm down.”
“You can sleep like that?”
His chest vibrated with silent laughter under her ear. “Let me worry about that,” he said, “Get some rest, for God's sake.”
To her surprise, she realized that she actually could. She was warm and relaxed, curled up on top of him, resting on his strength. For the first time, she wasn't all alone in the dark with her monsters.
What a crazy day. So much had happened, all at once. She had a boyfriend. She was giving him a key to her house. She had confided her darkest, most painful secrets to him. He warmed her, charged her with wild energy and euphoria, maybe even courage and luck.
They were hurtling forward at three hundred miles an hour with no brakes, and she didn't even want to slow down.
She'd never had a dream so delicious, so awash with sensation. Warmth and wetness, luscious heat and light and shifting colors. Touches, melting and swirling. Divine pleasure, as if a god were making love to her. Then the seamless slide into consciousness, the faint morning light that seeped into the room pressing on her eyes. She tried not to wake up, to make the beautiful dream linger and last, but the pleasure didn't fade. It got stronger. She opened her eyes cautiously.
The comforter was folded up from the bottom and flung up over her chest—and Seth was lying between her legs.
Licking her.
She jerked, startled, and he gripped her hips in his hands, murmuring something reassuring. She flung aside the comforter, and he lifted his head just long enough to give her a smug, satisfied grin. “Good morning,” he said, putting his mouth to her again.
She writhed at the delicious intimacy. “Seth, you're obsessed,” she whispered.
He laughed, and her sex vibrated with the resonance of his voice, the sweet, tickling heat of his breath. “Yeah,” he admitted. “I love giving you head The taste of you drives me out of my mind.” He lifted his head and stared into her eyes. “That a problem for you?”
“Dear God, no,” she gasped. His tongue slid up and down her labia, circling her clitoris. He drew it into his mouth, sucking on it with exquisite care. “I
just think that you— oh—”
“That I'm what?” he demanded.
“That you're the p-perfect boyfriend,” she stammered.
She couldn't speak, or think. She let him work his erotic magic, lapping and toying with her with sensual tenderness, his tongue flicking and dancing across her sweetest, hottest spot until he pushed her relentlessly over the crest Spasms of bright, hot rapture shuddered through her.
He rested his head against her thigh for a long moment before he sat up. He wiped his face and gazed at her with an odd combination of lust and wonder. “Good morning ,” he said again as he got up.
Raine sat up and stared at his body. His wiry muscles were so long and lean and elegantly proportioned. To say nothing of the thick, engorged penis that bobbed enticingly in front of him. “Good morning,” she replied, suddenly shy. Wild woman inside her was jumping up and down, pointing to his fierce erection, and saying, Mine. That's mine, and I want it. Give it to me. Now” She struggled to express the impulse in socially acceptable terms, but her brain wasn't functioning very well. She gestured towards his groin. “Seth. Do you want to, um—”
“Of course. But you're new to this, and we went at it like a couple of minks last night. I don't want to overdo it. I'm not a total maniac.”
“I am,” she said baldly.
His eyes lit up with hungry anticipation, “It won't be sweet or soft. That's not where I'm at right now.”
The words hung between them, a blunt warning, and a challenge.
“That's all right,” she said. “That's not where I'm at, either.”
Wild woman capered and howled with delight as he grabbed a condom from the shrinking stash on the bed stand, ripped it open and smoothed it over himself. He grabbed her ankles, dragging her until her bottom was at the edge of the bed, then pushed her onto her back. He spread her thighs up, folding her wide open like a full-blown flower.
His hands gripped her knees, opening her. His eyes bored into hers. “I don't want you to go back to that asshole's office today.”
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