Seduced by Shadows Read Free Page B

had put Dad. And then she’d have lunch with Betsy and eat everything on her plate.
    The fog returned, but she was done. She stepped into the shower and bowed her head under the hot water. She’d stop shivering in just a second.
    Sera walked into her bedroom, still naked. Damp heat followed her out of the shower in a slowly uncoiling mist. Only the slant of streetlights through the blinds lit the room, casting deep purple shadows. And he was there, a lean, dark outline with his black trench coat buttoned tight. Spicy musk teased her senses.
    She blinked. “I’m dreaming. That’s why I’m wandering around my apartment naked. I never wander around naked.”

    “Not wandering. You were coming. For me.” He stood unmoving, but the trailing edge of his long coat shifted in a draft she didn’t feel. “I will make it a sweet dream.”
    She touched her forehead, in lieu of pinching herself and drawing his attention to her naked parts. Dripping strands of her hair tangled around her wrist. “I don’t need a wet dream tonight. Go away.”
    He moved closer. “You called. You’ve called forever.”
    “I don’t even know you . . . ,” she said, trailing off when he raised a hand to brush back her hair. He had the square, blunt hands of a working man, but his thumb feathered across her temple, almost too lightly to feel. The touch sent ripples of shivery sensation through her body like a pebble in still water.
    She’d been close to screaming when he faced her on the bridge. She couldn’t muster the will now. It was just a dream, she reminded herself.
    “So lonely,” he murmured. “So lost.”
    “I’m sorry for you, really. But I can’t help you.”
    “You’re the only one who can. But I meant you, my love.” He stroked the back of his knuckles along her cheek. “You’ve been alone so long, so long afraid, close to giving in, calling all the while.”
    “I’m not . . . I am not your love.” She pulled away.
    “I’ve breathed your soul. Whom else can I love?”
    “You haven’t breathed on anything of mine.” Her skin prickled at the thought—a pleasure she hadn’t indulged in in a long time.
    From behind, his hands slid over her shoulders, down her arms, then skipped to her bare hips.
    That made her shy away as nothing else had. “Don’t touch me.” Not there. The unspoken words echoed in her head.
    He framed the scars with his hands. The long shadows of his fingers hid the red and white puckers of stitched
flesh. “I will make you whole again, as if you’d never been broken, nothing left behind.”
    Speaking of dreams, everyone said she was dreaming when she’d promised herself the same after her accident. “What, you’re a physical therapist?”
    “Quite the opposite.”
    While she pondered what that might be—as if the riddles in dreams even mattered—he eased her back against him. The leather of his coat was cool on her backside and shoulders. Her thoughts scattered.
    “I will take away your loneliness, your fear,” he whispered into her hair.
    “I’m not afraid.” And, stupidly enough, that was true.
    “You will be.”
    His warm breath over her ear made her sigh. It had been a very long time. There’d been the accident, before that taking care of her father and his work at the church, before that raising her brothers. Why shouldn’t she share the burden and the solace, if only in a dream?
    “I have the answer to all your questions.” His lips, brushing the curve of her ear, sent a shiver down her spine, through bones shattered and cobbled together again.
    She tipped her head, whether drawing away from his lips or exposing her neck to draw his kiss, she wasn’t sure. “My questions? Like why in the hell am I still talking to a dream?”
    “Hell doesn’t have answers.” He spun her slowly in his arms. When had he undone the long row of buttons on his coat? The leather parted around his chest. “Hell doesn’t have this. Oh, to feel . . .”
    She braced her hands between