Delaney's Shadow (39 page)

Read Delaney's Shadow Online

Authors: Ingrid Weaver

Tags: #mobi, #Romantic Suspense, #Paranormal Romance, #Fiction, #Shadow, #epub

BOOK: Delaney's Shadow
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A weight settled on the bed behind her.
Even through her panic, she knew who it was. Max had come. He would keep her safe.
The fireball glowed in the distance. Mud spread beneath it, curling its tentacles toward the bed.
“It’s okay, Deedee.”
“Help me. Make it stop!”
He slid his arm around her waist and touched her hand. “Hang on to me. We’ll go together.”
She laced her fingers with his and tried to pull him back from the inferno. The fire was clawing toward him as well as her. She didn’t want him to be hurt again. This was her fault. “It’s coming. Can’t you smell it?”
“We’ll take a detour.”
“How?”
“This time, we’re going past the pond, okay?”
The path became a black ribbon, reflecting the flames as they writhed overhead. It held her feet fast. Her legs wouldn’t move. “Max!”
“We’re going past the car wreck, too,” he said. His breath warmed her cheek. “He can’t keep you anymore. You left him behind.”
“The mud—”
“I already saved you from it, remember?”
“I can’t breathe!”
The mattress shifted, as if he had pushed himself up. He leaned over her and took her chin in his hand. “Then I’d better help you again.”
The kiss was like sunrise. It sent air to her lungs and streams of light through the darkness, just as it had the first time his mouth had touched hers. The water receded. The mud shrank away. Next to the brightness of her link with Max, the flames paled to nothingness.
No metal crashed. No bones broke like celery. No screams clawed at her heart. Her toes sank into cool moss. A blue jay squawked overhead. They had gone past the car wreck and the pond and were standing beneath the drooping boughs of a willow.
The scope of the change stunned her. Max hadn’t merely pulled her out of the nightmare; he’d managed to avert it.
He kissed her cheek. “Better?”
She nodded, turning her head to follow his mouth.
A laugh tickled her lips. “I take it that’s a yes.”
“Thank you, Max.”
He swept her up in his arms and carried her deeper into the woods. The trees opened up to a familiar field of wildflowers. “Don’t be too grateful. You did most of it yourself.”
“How?”
“You left him. You broke his hold over you.”
He meant Stanford. God, she hoped it was true. “Is he really gone?”
Max laid her on a patch of sun-warmed grass and curled behind her once more. He fit his chest to her back and his thighs beneath hers. “We’re the only two around, aren’t we?”
She relaxed within the shelter of his presence, content for the moment to let her mind drift with his. She’d lost track of the number of times he had appeared to her in her dreams. This was the first time he’d done it since she’d known he was real. “I’m glad you’re here, Max.”
He kissed the nape of her neck. “Good. Hold that thought.”
Their mental bond was strengthening now that she was consciously exercising it as well. That must be why his embrace felt so vivid.
That was her last thought before sleep blanketed her once more. It was approaching dawn when she surfaced again. She was back in her bedroom, warm and safe in her bed. She yawned and arched her back in a sleepy stretch.
Max’s presence hadn’t dimmed. It still surrounded her. It suffused her with a sensation of well-being and rightness. She closed her eyes to enjoy the feelings as long as she could.
Was the nightmare truly over? It seemed too easy. She’d lived with it for more than half a year.
Yet as Max had told her, she was breaking Stanford’s hold, wasn’t she? Settling with Elizabeth would go a long way toward that, as would facing the truth about her own mistakes. Like her fear of the water, knowledge was the key to overcoming it.
So was Max. He wasn’t her subconscious, but in some ways, he knew her better than she knew herself. She was finally beginning to know him, too. Yes, there were issues between them that they hadn’t even begun to deal with. In spite of that, he’d come to her when she’d needed him. His heart couldn’t be as hardened as he wanted her to believe.
Even now that she was awake, she could sense the firmness of his body behind hers. The illusion was so strong, she felt the rise and fall of his chest against her back and the tickle of his breath across her ear. His weight was compressing the mattress, forming a dip beside the place where she lay. His fingers were toying with the hem of her nightgown.
She blinked and looked down.
The light that filtered through the bedroom window was too weak to define colors. It was too dim to dispel the shadows in the corners of the room, but enough spilled across the bed to reveal Max’s hand on her thigh. His wrist rested along her hip. His arm flexed as he crumpled her nightgown in his fingers.
He had physically moved the satin.
“Good morning, Deedee.”
And his whisper hadn’t been in her head.
She broke free of his grasp and turned over.
Max was stretched out on his side, his head propped on his bent arm. His hair was even messier than usual, falling over his forehead as well as sticking up around his head in sleep-tangled tufts. A night’s worth of beard stubble darkened his jaw and cheeks. His pale shirt was partially unbuttoned. The sides hung loosely against his chest. Faded, washed-soft jeans hugged his hips and molded his legs.
He smiled. “It’s about time you woke up.”
He was no fantasy. She doubted whether she would have been able to create one to match what she was seeing now. “Max!”
He placed his finger against her lips. “Shh. The walls in this old place are thick, but not that thick. Getting interrupted by a curious grandmother would kill the mood.”
“What are you doing here?” she whispered furiously.
“Funny how you’re always asking me that.”
“It’s not funny. How did you get in?” She glanced past him to the door. It was closed. Had he
materialized
?
He laughed softly. “I don’t need to be in your head to see what you’re thinking. No, Deedee, if I was able to get here through the power of my mind, I wouldn’t have bothered putting on clothes.”
“Then how . . .”
“I walked here.”
“You walked here? In the middle of the night?”
“I had insomnia.”
“And you just happened to wander inside and up to my room?”
He slid his hand across her cheek. “I know this house as well as you do. You took me over every square foot when we were kids. I know the quickest way to your room. I remember which boards creak. I also remembered how your grandmother used to leave the window at the back of the kitchen open all summer.” He stroked the curve of her ear. “I locked it after me, just in case Toffelmire was right about your stepdaughter.”
“Don’t tell me this is your idea of protecting me.”
“Hell no. Nothing noble like that.”
“Then what?”
“You were due for the nightmare. I decided I would wait for it here.”
“I still don’t understand.”
“I thought that meeting up with Elizabeth yesterday would trigger it. Seems to me that she often does.”
“You guessed right.”
“Uh-huh. I got here in the nick of time, too.” He trailed his knuckles along the side of her neck and down to the slope of her breast. He slipped one finger beneath the satin. “I figured if I was going to get yanked out of a sound sleep to help you, I might as well get something more out of it than a painting.”
She shuddered. Their thoughts weren’t joined, yet she could feel his touch throughout her body. “You just said you had insomnia.”
“That’s because I was thinking about the other times you brought me naked to your bed.” He pulled back his hand and unfastened another button on his shirt. “Which reminds me . . .”
“Max!” she hissed.
He continued working his way down the shirt. “What’s wrong? You’ve seen everything before.”
“I know, but this is different.”
“Damn right.” He pushed the ends of his shirt aside so he could unsnap the stud at the waistband of his jeans. “There’s a big difference between thinking about it and doing it.”
It was true, she had seen him naked, but that couldn’t compare to the impact of so much virile male, clothed or not, mere inches away. As the rest of the house still slept, her dream lover had come to life. Her sexual fantasy was here in the flesh.
She pressed her fingers to her lips, torn between a laugh and a groan. “You’re outrageous.”
“Just doing what comes naturally.” He sat up and pulled her to her knees in front of him. Before she realized what he intended, he grasped the bottom of her nightgown and skimmed it over her head.
Her laughter froze. She grabbed for the sheet.
“Come on, Deedee.” He dropped her nightgown on the floor. “I’ve seen you before, too.”
She held the sheet over her breasts. “I know, but—”
“You weren’t shy the last time I was here.”
“I didn’t realize you were real.” She pulled the sheet to her neck and tucked it over the edge of the largest scar.
“Don’t hide them. You’re beautiful.”
“I’m not, Max.”
“
You’re
beautiful,” he repeated. “Not just the packaging. I’ve seen what’s inside you.”
“That’s because we were in a fantasy.”
“For you, yeah, but I’ve always known you were real.” He cupped her right breast through the sheet. His nostrils flared. “All those nights you brought me here, do you have any idea how hard it was for me to touch you and yet not touch? To hold you in my arms, but know you weren’t there?” He leaned over. His breath warmed her skin as his beard stubble rasped against the cotton that covered the largest scar. The sound alone made her breasts tingle.
She slid her free hand into his hair. “You told me you enjoyed it.”
“Sure. It was better than nothing, but not as good as this.” He rubbed his thumb across her nipple, then turned his head and drew it, sheet and all, into his mouth.
She bit her lip to keep from crying out. The walls of the house were indeed thick. Only one of the guest rooms was occupied tonight, and her grandmother’s bedroom was downstairs, but the night was still, and a scream was bound to carry. She didn’t want to risk an interruption. Not now. She arched her back, channeling her passion to her mind.
Max!
He lifted his head. “No tricks this time, Deedee.”
Damp cotton clung to her breast. Fresh pleasure zinged through the already sensitized skin as it cooled. “Mmm?”
“No head games, no pretending, just you and me on a four-poster bed.” He slipped his hand into his pocket, pulled out a handful of condom packets, and leaned over to set them on the bedside table.
Her gaze went to the condoms. More than anything he’d said, they brought home the fact that this was no dream. Max was a real man, and he wanted intercourse, not an imaginary orgasm. She pictured him entering her, physically joining her, going deep, hard . . .
Her body responded with painful swiftness. She swallowed a moan. “I still can’t believe this.”
He peeled off his shirt and tossed it behind him. Though dark bruises marred his skin, his movements were fluid. The swelling around his shoulder was gone. He didn’t appear to feel any discomfort. “Don’t let the speed of those make-believe orgasms fool you. I plan to take my time.”
She skimmed her fingers across his chest. She was already familiar with the swirls of dark hair and the contours of his muscles. Or so she’d thought. Yet the mind-picture she held of him was a mere shadow. This man was solid. Her touch connected outside and in. He was actually in her bed this time. Here. With her. Close enough for her to feel the heat from his body and smell the musk from his skin. “I meant I can’t believe you really came to my room.”
“I’ve thought about that a lot, too. It’s been hell, knowing where you lived. I’ve seen your light through the trees and imagined coming to you here.”
“Then why didn’t you?”
He slid his hand beneath the sheet to her leg. “It would have been complicated.”
“And this isn’t? We haven’t settled anything. We need to talk. You can’t just show up out of the blue and expect to make love with me.”
“We’re going to have sex, that’s all. Genuine sex. Skin to skin. My body inside yours.”
“Max . . .”
He traced the crease at the top of her thigh. “I’ll make it good for you.”
Oh, she had no doubts about that. His thoughts alone had made it good. Making love with the entire man would be . . . “Love. It would be love, Max.”
He covered her mons with his palm as he fitted his lips to hers.

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