Edridge Castle
Montana
Wednesday 0600

     

“I don’t give a damn if it’s a matter of National Security or not,” Gabriel Edge told the man he was holding at sword point. “I am not having sex with that woman.”

The two men could have been sword fighting in medieval Scotland instead of twenty-first century Montana. But both the castle and the heavy Claymores the two T-FLAC operatives so expertly wielded were the real deal.

For several minutes the only sounds in the Great Hall were their breathing, the clash of ancient steel and the soft sibilant shush of their feet on stone. Sword play was a well choreographed dance. They knew how to keep it interesting.

Slightly better conditioned for a sport that required both strength and dexterity, Gabriel intentionally moved off balance to fool his opponent. Then, keeping his swift curse mental instead of verbal, side-stepped Sebastian Tremayne’s  lightning-fast return thrust.

Pleased with himself, Sebastian shot him a triumphant glance. “Your country nee-”

“Same tune.” From a high guard Gabriel made a strong downward cut, the blade of his broadsword flashed silver in the early morning sunlight streaming through the high arched windows. Sebastian had to back up. Fast.

The first time Gabriel had set eyes on Dr. Eden Cahill he’d felt this same cold clench in his gut. It was getting worse.

“I’ll find another way,” he assured his friend grimly. And he would. As soon as he damn well came up with something that would work just as quickly, and just as well, as having sex with her.

Sebastian almost took off Gabriel’s hand because he was so distracted. He’d taught his friend well. “Good one.” He brought his attention back to the task at hand. Cutting back on the inhale, he halted his own strike an inch from his friend’s heart. Again. “You’re dead,” he said with satisfaction.

They straightened and parted, each pausing to wipe the sweat from their eyes with their forearms. They were in hour two of practicing cuts and strikes. They’d stop soon. But not yet.

“Ready?” Gabriel asked after a few moments rest, replacing both hands on the leather hilt of his sword.

“Yeah.” Tremayne stepped back, sword raised.

Agile and fast on his feet, Gabriel circled. The longer they practiced, the heavier the Claymore seemed to become. That ten pounds felt more like fifty after wielding it for an hour. A good workout. Both for his body and his mind. “Been at it longer than you,” he pointed out, reading the familiar I’m-going-to-beat-the-shit-out-of-you-this-time glimmer in his friend’s eyes. They watched each other like hawks as they moved slowly circled. Waiting for an opportunity. Waiting for an opening.

“Faster on my feet than you.” From a hanging guard Sebastian brought down a strong downward diagonal thrust.

Knuckles white, Gabriel blocked. “You’ll have to be.”

Tremayne was a little out of breath, Gabriel noticed with satisfaction. They were evenly matched, he was just better at hiding his uneven breathing than his friend was.

Buttery light streamed through the arched leaded glass windows imbedded in the thirteen-foot-deep walls. The Great Hall was constructed of rough hewn stone the color of a good wine cork, and hung with enormous, priceless, centuries old tapestries, coats of armor, ancient weaponry and other objets d‘art.

Gabriel’s many greats grandfather had built the castle in the Scottish Highlands for his young bride, Janet, in the first part of the fourteenth century. Hadn’t worked out too well for him, but Gabriel wanted to live in the castle that had housed seven hundred years of the Edridge family. They might no longer use the old Scottish name, but the castle would always be home.

A man with his abilities could always get what he wanted.

As a boy he’d wanted the castle, and he’d gotten it. Using his wizard skills, he’d teleported his ancestral home stone by bloody stone until it stood, stark and proud, hundreds of miles from anywhere. Somewhere inside that foolish boy had lived the naive hope that, with the ancestral home in Montana, his father would venture from his native Scotland to be with his family more often.

Magnus, unable to resist the lure of his Lifemate, had wanted Cait badly enough to ignore the Curse. Thinking he could change it, he married her. The first year had, apparently been idyllic. Then things had turn to shit.

Terrified that she would die due to his close proximity, Magnus had spent the next twenty years in exile from his beloved wife and their three sons. Once a year he’d visit, but a series of near fatal accidents, or Cait’s failing health would always compel him to leave.

Their mother had been in ill health all their lives. She’d wasted away, pining for the husband who had married her and then lived to regret it. Their parents frustration and unhappiness, had been a stark lesson for Magnus’s three sons.

Gabriel and his brothers were certain their parents had died of broken hearts. In five hundred years no Edge had ever broken Nairne’s Curse. None ever would.

Okay. He got it.

     He could marry someone he didn’t love, but could never love the woman he married. Hell, he could never love. Period.

No Lifemate.

No three sons on three sons.

No such fucking thing as happily ever after.

Screw it. He had his work with T-FLAC. That was enough.

Between missions he relished the isolation of its ancient history and drafty halls of Edridge Castle. In a world filled with death and betrayal the connection to his past kept him centered.

In his daily life as a T-FLAC/psi operative, he used the most sophisticated high tech military hardware. When he was home he used the weapons hanging on the walls of his ancestral home. Weapons his family had collected and used for centuries.

His weapon of choice for today’s practice was the Claymore.

Weighing close to ten pounds, and with an overall length of more than four and a half feet, the Claymore was a formidable weapon. Despite its antiquity, the lethal sword could deliver great sweeping slashes or powerful thrusts. Just what he was in the mood for this morning. He’d slept like shit last night, thinking about the good doctor. Or rather- trying not to think about her.

Narrow-eyed, Gabriel choked up on the leather covered hilt with both hands as he anticipated his opponent’s next move.

 “If I could read minds,” Sebastian said, clearly flagging, “I’d sleep with her.”

 “I’m sure you would.” He used Sebastian’s distracted focus to springboard his riposte off his blade. And the game was back on. “But you can’t,” he told his friend who was T-FLAC but not part of the special “psychic phenomena” branch. The psi division was considered, by some, to be the elitist group of the counterterrorist organization. By others it was the whoo hoo group that they didn’t understand. None were permitted to acknowledge the group outside the organization.

While there were still a few dozen known wizards in the world, the general population-normal people- were totally unaware that they even existed. And Gabriel and his brother’s wouldn’t even be wizards if not for that long ago Curse.

Jesus. Talk about a woman scorned. The witch Nairne had laid one on his cheating great, great, how ever many greats- grandfather, Magnus Edridge, several hundred years ago.

Edge’s had changed their name, and paid for it ever since.

Thank God he and his brothers had decided that the Curse, like the proverbial buck, stopped with them.

Not that any of them believed there was such a thing as a “Lifemate”. But they weren’t taking any changes. It wasn’t difficult to keep women at arms length, not in their business. The hours were long, their whereabouts frequently top secret.

The three of them had long ago agreed that they’d keep their relationships with the opposite sex casual. And if one of them should veer off the straight and narrow, the other two would pull him back from the abyss.

In thirty-four years Gabriel had never met a woman who tempted him to change the “casual” rule, not even a little.

Until he’d laid eyes on the gorgeous doctor Eden Cahill.

      He’d been near her that once. It had been enough. He’d taken one look. One. And been consumed by an unspeakable lust. It had been instantaneous, overwhelming and dangerous as hell.

      For the last three days he’d been able to think of little else. 

He blocked Sebastian’s parry, edge on edge, with the incrosada, the crossing of the blades, bringing both weapons to a bone-jarring, shuddering stop. The vibration shimmied up his arm. The very air reverberated with the sharp scraping sound of steel on steel echoing off the ancient stone walls.

Their eyes met. Held. Not sleeping with her he telegraphed as he gave a sharp twist of his wrist to indicate his opponent step back. Bloodlust raced through Gabriel’s body.

Don’t think about her, he told himself, feeling feral and slightly out of control at the memory of Dr. Cahill’s glossy dark curls and her big brown eyes-

Jesus. He had to put a stop to his thoughts. He’d give anything right now to have a tango opposite him rather than a trusted friend and fellow operative. He’d trained Tremayne well enough to know that his friend could most certainly block a full force blow from him if he lost control enough to deliver it. But this was supposed to be merely an exercise, not a fight to the death.

“Why not-”

“I’m not discussing my sex life with you, Tremayne,” he said coolly when inside he was anything but. He felt- annoyed. Hot. Twisted. And if he didn’t know better- scared as hell.

His friend raised a brow at his vehemence. “But it doesn’t have to be sex per se. Does it?”

“At the risk of repeating myself; I will categorically not have sex with that woman. I made that crystal clear at the onset. When will Stone be back from Prague?” This wasn’t the first time that Gabriel wished to hell he belonged in the fifteenth century when lobbing off a man’s head with the sharp blade of his broadsword wouldn’t have the local cops inconveniently pounding on his door.

“After the Terrorism Summit.” Sebastian parried another blow, grinning as he made a lunge of his own. “Another three weeks. I don’t believe his presence would make this situation any less onerous for you, Edge.”

Gabriel swept the Claymore in a wide arc that had Sebastian dancing back a step or two. “Perhaps not. But having you breathing down my neck isn’t improving my disposition any.”

“Easily resolved. Extract the necessary data from Dr. Cahill’s memory banks, and you may paint me gone.” He advanced again, clearly determined to impress Gabriel with his prowess with the blade. “Until such time as you’ve accomplished your mission, I shall remain a guest in your. . . home.”

“Guest my ass. You needed another lesson. You’ve gotten lazy.”

“You could always do what other operatives do- use the damned telephone.” Sebastian ignored the sweat running into his eyes, his concentration just as fierce as Gabriel’s. “A castle, appropriated from the highlands of Scotland and incongruously placed in the middle of Montana isn’t my idea of a vacation hot spot. The halls are drafty, it’s two miles to my room and the electricity is iffy.” 

“Edridge Castle isn’t a hotel, Tremayne.” Gabriel circled him, holding his gaze as intently as a rattler did a mongoose. Right now it was a toss up as to which of them was which. “You’re at liberty to fuck off any time you like. Now would be a good time.”

“It’s big enough to be a hotel.” Sebastian’s incoming attack was lethally fast. Gabriel moved faster. “Let’s expedite this situation as rapidly as possible,” he said, breathing heavily. They both were. Unfortunately they were each ferociously competitive. Neither would back down until Gabriel’s majordomo, MacBain, stepped in and had their half dead bodies hauled upstairs.

“Get over your aversion,” Sebastian rasped. “Have sex with the doctor. Close your eyes and think of Scotland if it’ll help you stomach it. Just get it done.”

If only it were an aversion, Gabriel thought furiously, slicing down his opposition’s diagonal sweep with a descending cut, knocking his friend’s sword away. “I’m going to say this for the last time.” To control the other man’s weapon Gabriel needed a lever. He stepped in closer. Tighter. Met his friend’s predatory eyes.

“I. Will. Not. Have. Sex. With. Dr. Cahill.  I’ll get what we need from her in my own way. Is that clear?”

“Abundantly.” The point of contact between the two shiny blades was halfway. There were no knucklebows on their longswords and there was a very real possibility of cutting off a finger or two.

Steel clashed against steel, and the whisper of the men’s feet moving across the stone floor echoed in the vast room.

They parted and Sebastian recovered quickly as Gabriel forced him to side step inside the cut, meeting his blade with a bone-jarring blow. “Good one.” His friend paused to draw in a ragged breath.

“I’m just saying. We need that intel. It’s the means to an end. Could save the lives of millions of people.”

Gabriel knew that, God help him. The Edridge family curse hung over his head like the sword of Damocles and he felt the swish of that heavy blade nearly parting his hair.

“It hasn’t come to that.” He aimed his cut at the midpoint of the incoming blade. “Yet. If and when it does, I’ll take action.”

“See that you do. When will you attempt it again? She doesn’t need to be asleep for you to bring her to orgasm, does she?”

Gabriel allowed Sebastian’s blade to travel to his crossguard, then struck with the edge of his own blade so their faces were inches apart. “Listen to yourself, for Christ sake!”

Lightening fast, Gabriel attacked, swinging his sword into posta frontal as he sidestepped, meeting the other man’s blade in a clash of metal and flying sparks “Does anything about this conversation strike you as off limits?”

Sebastian, quick as always, met him with mezza spada.  Gabriel’s blade slid down to his friend’s cross blade again.

Hilts and eyes locked.

“I’ll tell you how it strikes me. It strikes me that Dr. Cahill has all the information about the robot in her fucking head. It strikes me that the only way to get said information is to read her mind, and that you can’t read this particular mind because of some ancient and ridiculous curse It bites, that’s how all of this strikes me.”  

“You don’t think I know that?”

“You are first and foremost a T-FLAC operative, Edge. A wizard in the psi division second. If you can’t extract the information we need from Dr. Cahill in the usual manner, then you’ll use whatever mumbo-jumbo re-”

Gabriel gave a savage thrust and disarmed his opponent.

“Ow! Shit! That stings like a son of a bitch!” Sebastian’s sword skittered across the stone floor as he nursed his hand.

“Want MacBain to kiss it better?” Gabriel knew everything Sebastian was saying was only the truth. But hell, it didn’t make it any easier to take, did it? “Jesus. I miss Stone.”

Sebastian dropped his hands to his knees, hanging his head as he tried to catch his breath. “Don’t we all.”

Gabriel had tried again to probe Dr. Cahill’s mind for the vital information he needed. He’d failed. God damn it. He hated to fail.

He’d cloaked himself, gone to her computer lab in Tempe Arizona three days ago. All he needed was a few seconds to retrieve the data he needed and then get the hell out. Easy. She’d never even know he’d trespassed.

She’d been alone. Perfect timing. But much to his surprise, he hadn’t been able to penetrate the hot, soft darkness of her mind. Something he could usually do with ease when he wanted to. And damn it to frigging hell. He wanted to.

He’d also wanted to shake her and demand how the hell this could happen. But he knew instinctively why he couldn’t extract the secrets he needed from her mind. Somehow, God only knew how, she had him blocked. He’d tried to get her to lower her defenses- even a few seconds would have done it – but he’d found his every attempt unsuccessful.

He had to get her to lower her guard. One of the quickest, easiest ways was if she had a climax. Her mind would be unprotected by her usual defenses. One quick climax and he’d be in and gone before she knew it. A few seconds with her emotional shields down, and he’d have everything he needed.

Now he was going to have to go back to damned Arizona, and try again. He knew if it didn’t work this time, he was going to have to bring her back here to a more controlled environment. As much as he didn’t want her anywhere near him, or the castle, he was running out of viable options.

He’d skip the preliminaries, and take her to a fast, unexpected climax. Surprise was going to be his weapon against Dr. Cahill’s strong will.

Sebastian straightened to look at his friend. “She’s not safe in Tempe.” He accepted a bottle of water and a fresh white towel from Gabriel’s butler MacBain, who gave every appearance of being a deaf mute. The wily bastard was anything but. The man had ears like a bat, and eyes like a hawk-despite his glasses, and the organizational skills of Attila The Hun.

Gabriel knew without it having been said that Sebastian was giving him an inch more wiggle room on this because of their long standing friendship. As his temporary control, Tremayne had every right to demand Gabriel extract the information from Dr. Cahill in the most expedient way possible.

“I know. Do you think I’d leave her there unprotected?” Gabriel had dispatched two T-FLAC operatives to watch her 24/7. They could not, however, get into the lab. And that was a problem that deeply concerned him. Concerned him enough that he’d placed a protective spell on her.

“You’d trust someone else to keep her safe?”

“I’d trust myself to keep her alive.”

“Really? And how do you propose doing that if you won’t even touch the woman?” Tremayne took a long pull from the bottle, then upended it over his head, sluicing water over his sweat soaked hair and face. “The good doctor scares the shit out of you. Doesn’t she?”

Towel up to his face, Gabriel stopped what he was doing to stare at his friend. “Are you insane?”

“You’ve seen her once. Yet just thinking about the woman makes you screw up your face like a monkey’s ass, Edge.  Admit it. And the reason you’re whining for Alex Stone is because he buys into this whole Edridge curse bullshit. What happens if you touch her? Your dick turns black and falls off?”

MacBain cleared his throat. “’When a Lifemate is chosen by the heart of a son, no protection can be given, again I have won. His pain will be deep, her death will be swift, Inside his heart a terrible rift.’ It’s Nairne’s curse, sir. The witch made no mention of anything turning black or falling off.”

As a close friend, Sebastian was aware of the content of the Curse, and  Gabriel knew the other man thought it was so much bullshit. Frankly, Gabriel wished like hell he was as certain. But it was damned hard to refute five hundred years of history to the contrary.

“Since Dr. Cahill isn’t my Lifemate, if such a thing existed, which I seriously doubt, I can protect her just fine, thank you very much,” Gabriel  shot a cool glance at MacBain. “Don’t you have butling duties to perform?”

Small and wiry, snow white hair immaculate, his butler drew himself up to his full five feet four and a quarter inches and peered at Gabriel through the thick, black rimmed glasses perched on his beak of a nose. As always he was immaculately dressed in a natty black suit, crisp white shirt, and a tie in the Edridge plaid. “It is my great fortune to attend ye at every opportunity, sir,” he said, the burr of Scotland in his voice. His expression as innocent as a babe.

“If only,” Gabriel muttered. MacBain pretty much did as he pleased.

“Why do you bother working for this Philistine?” Sebastian asked with a grin. “My offer is still open, MacBain.”

MacBain’s bushy white brows dipped in a frown behind his glasses. “Ye live in a condominium, sir.”

“Less dusting. Big screen television. No Curse.”

“Enormous incentives, but I’m afraid I must decline ye tempting offer. I made a promise to the lad’s father that I’d keep an eye on him. And here’s where I’m needed.”

“Why don’t you hie yourself off to keep an eye on Duncan or Caleb?” Gabriel demanded, making the decision he had to make. He’d try one more time with doctor Cahill. But much to his incipient fear, he suspected he’d have no chance of breaking through her barriers while she was in Arizona and in her own little safety zone.

“While I ponder that intriguing question,” MacBain told him facetiously. “Might one inquire as to what yer intentions might be regarding this doctor Cahill?”  

His intention was to do what he had to do as fast as humanly possible. And then keep the hell out of Arizona until Hell froze over. “I’ll give this one more shot,” Gabriel told Sebastian and MacBain, his tone downright grim. “If that doesn’t work, I’ll bring her here, and make it work.” Here on his turf. Where he was strongest.

Tremayne raised a brow. “You’ll kidnap her?” Not a question..

Still looking at Sebastian, Gabriel tossed his Claymore to MacBain who, braced for the weight, deftly caught it. He was damn strong for a wiry old guy. “If I have to.”

His friend gave him a mild look. “When are you going?”

“Now.” Gabriel said grimly.

The air swirled, his image blurred. And he was gone.

Sebastian glanced at MacBain. “I fucking hate when he does that.”

Gabriel’s majordomo cleared his throat. “Ach, aye. As do I, sir. As do I.” 

 

CHAPTER ONE

“Damn it to hell. She’s naked!” 

The man’s harsh, disgruntled whisper cut through the blackness of Dr. Eden Cahill’s bedroom. Despite yesterday’s heat still trapped in the room, the voice chilled her to the bone. Her eyes sprang open as her brain leapt from deep sleep to total awareness between one heartbeat and the next.

A myoclonic jerk? No. She was sure she’d fallen asleep hours ago. Was it the stifling heat that had woken her? More likely it was her subconscious reliving what was going on in her life. 

Feigning sleep, she held her breath, waiting. Had she actually heard the voice? Or dreamed it?  She strained to listen. She couldn’t hear anyth- No. . . There was definitely someone there. Barely breathing. Certainly not moving. But there. Close. She sensed the heat and power of the intruder as he loomed over her bed. The faint scent of his skin- soap- male- seemed to envelop her with a strange yearning she couldn’t begin to decipher. 

Sharp prickles of fear danced across Eden’s bare skin as her heart raced and her mind went into overdrive. There was unquestionably someone in the room. She could feel his presence. Were there two of them, or had he been talking to himself? Hard as she tried, now all she could hear was the soft hum of the struggling air-conditioner in the other room.

She realized with surprise that she was naked. Normally she did sleep this way. But for the last couple of weeks she’d worn pajamas because of the security people in the other room. She frowned. She was positive she’d put on her ladybug jammies before she’d crawled into bed last night. . .Hadn’t she?

Obviously not, since she was bare-butt naked under the sheet.

She didn’t waste time wondering how or why, or what he/they were doing in her apartment, or how he’d managed to get through the locks on her doors and windows, and then past several company security guys sitting in her livingroom just feet beyond the closed and locked bedroom door. She didn’t waste time anticipating what he might do to her, either. With any luck she’d have time to ponder those questions- later.

Barely breathing herself, she surreptitiously slid her hand beneath her pillow. There. Her fingers closed around the cool butt of a small LadySmith .

Why hadn’t her bodyguards stopped him? The chilling answer was; because they were dead. She clicked off the safety as she said coolly, “I have a gun and it’s pointed at whatever body part is at my eye level. Back off.” She was surprised her voice wasn’t a feeble croak. Not only was she naked, protected by nothing more substantial than a thin sheet, but she was on her back. The only way she’d feel more vulnerable was if he was holding the gun and the lights were on.

The image of Dr. Kirchner sprawled on the stark white floor of the lab- the horrifying memory of glistening red blood pooled beneath his head made Eden’s hand steady as a rock.

Terrified? Yes.

Determined to pull the trigger. Absolutely.

Her finger squeezed-

“You don’t want to shoot me, Dr. Cahill.” There was something unsettling, something hinting at a different kind of danger beneath the almost casual caution in the man’s voice. The iron fist in a velvet glove method of intimidation.

Eden readjusted the short barrel of the gun in his direction without letting up on the trigger. “Don’t bet on it pal.” Another little squeeze and he’d be dead. “You’re close enough that I can’t possibly miss.”

Where the freaking hell was he so she could make sure of that? She noticed vaguely that there wasn’t even the faint glow from the red LCD numbers on the bedside clock to help her see where exactly he was. The realization that he’d managed to unplug her clock before she was even aware of his presence creeped her out even more.

What else had he had time to do?

She wished the light was on- No. She didn’t. Whoever this guy was, he wasn’t going to see her naked before he died. Not if she could help it.

She was banking on helping it.

For the past couple of weeks, thanks to her boss, and sometimes date, Jason Verdine, she’d had four beefy bodyguards with her at all times. If they hadn’t stopped the man from entering, they were most likely incapable of stopping him from leaving. And the only logical explanation for the intruder to be in her apartment was that he’d killed the guards, just as he’d killed Theo.

Now he’s going to kill me.

“Step away from the bed. And keep walking. I’ll even give you a head start before I call 911.” Not. He couldn’t know the bedside phone had 911 on speed dial.

She who hesitates is lost. She didn’t wait to see if he started to retreat. Bracing for the loud retort, and the killers death scream, Eden pulled the trigger.

No big bang. No flash of light.

“What happened to my head start?” His voice was dry and very much alive.

“I lied.” Eden squeezed off another shot.

Not a freaking sound.

Oh shit! Eden’s heart beat skittered and jumped. Bad time for the gun to jam.

Refusing to panic, she ignored the buzz of terror dulling her hearing. Mentally she choreographed getting out of bed, picking up the bedside lamp- the only thing close to hand that could be used as a weapon, and hitting him. All before he killed her.

She didn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell of pulling that off. He was too close.

“This is a dream, Dr. Cahill,” he said gently into the thick darkness, his husky voice almost hypnotic.

“Oh, for Heaven sakes. How lame is that?!” she said indignantly, struggling up on one elbow while trying to hold the malfunctioning gun steady and anchor the edge of the sheet over her chest at the same time. Come closer, asshole. I’ll beat you bloody with this useless damn gun.

It wouldn’t kill him, but it might give her enough time to get away. “Look,” she told him reasonably. “I have nothing but a few bits of costume jewelry.” And if you’ve come for anything else, you won’t find it in a drawer.

As she talked she shifted the gun so she could use the barrel as a handle and hit him with the wooden grip. “Take what you want and get o-Oh.” A brush of air, barely felt, and the small gun vanished from her hand. Just like that.

Poof. Gone.

Cocking her head- damn it where was he? - she scowled. Smoke and mirrors. “Who are you? What do you want?”

It was unnerving having a stranger in her bedroom in the pitch dark. Hell, he’d probably scare the hell out of her in broad daylight too. “Are you alone?”

There was a thoughtful silence before he answered the last question. “Why?”

“I heard you talking to someone when I- woke up.” Nightmare or fact, Eden considered how to get out of the room and make it to the front door without being killed in the process. If the guy had come in that way, he’d probably left the door unlocked.  Her tattooed and pierced neighbor was a big guy with chronic insomnia. If she could just make it out into the hallway. . .

The head of her bed was closest to the door. Lie here and die, or die trying. She voted for trying. She slid her right leg carefully, inch by inch, across the cool, smooth sheet.

She felt odd. Breathless and tingly. Fear of course.

“I’m alone.”

Eden brought her left leg slowly across the mattress. Too damn slowly. . At this rate she’d still be slithering across the sheets come December for God’s sake.

She inched her bare bottom across the sheet that no longer felt cool. The fabric seemed to caress her naked skin, and she stopped moving, puzzled by the odd manifestation of sexual heat  her body was experiencing. Fear induced lust? Nonsense.

Fear frequently masquerades as another emotion, she told herself firmly. She wasn’t experiencing lust, she was experiencing justifiable fear.

She moved another inch. “Where are the security guys? Did you kill them?”

“Jesu- No, I didn’t. Lie back and relax.”

Relax?! As if. From the sound of his voice he was no longer standing beside the bed,  but she still wasn’t sure where he was in the room. His voice came from further away, although she hadn’t heard him walking across the hardwood floor. 

Her Grandma Rose’s old chair squeaked. “You’re dreaming,”  he murmured, settling into the cane back. His voice, a whisper of smoke, curled around her.

She remembered a poem her father used to quote. The other day upon the stair, I saw a man who wasn’t there. He wasn’t  there again today. I wish that man would go away.   

It didn’t feel anything like a dream. His voice was real. He was real. She might not be able to see him in the pitch darkness. But he was there. She knew he was there.

She moved another inch across the bed. Closer to the door. This was pretty freaking bizarre. “Are you my subconscious trying to make sense of why Theo was killed?” She demanded- an answer, caught between the hope that this was indeed a dream, and the fear that it wasn’t.

Dr. Kirchner’s murder had shaken her to the core. Clearly she was under considerable stress to be hallucinating this vividly. But could an hallucination take her gun from her?

The mind was a powerful thing.

“Leave the killer to the authorities.”

She would. Of course she would. But she had plenty of questions of her own. And Theo’s cryptic warning to process. Not to mention a major case of guilt for her inability to save him. 

“Who are you, and what do you want?” Eden demanded with more heat. She didn’t understand her body’s behavior. Her skin felt hot and tight, her lips swollen. Her heart was thudding arhythmically. She was conscious of the smooth fabric of the sheet rubbing maddeningly over her nipples as she shifted, and the unrelieved throbbing between her thighs.

She ached with a nameless longing- No, she thought appalled and half embarrassed. Not nameless.

She was turned on.

Sexually aroused by a man who wasn’t touching her. A man who was there.

“Who would you like me to be?”

Her heart was galloping uncomfortably, and it was hard to keep her tone even. “Not the invisible man, that’s for sure.”

“I told you this is a dream.”

“If this is a dream I get to ask you questions.” She realized she still felt antsy- not very scientific, but- antsy. Respiration up. Heart racing, skin tingling, body parts that had no business making themselves known, on high alert.

Sexually aware. And becoming more so by the minute.

Freaking bizarre all right. Telling herself not to be ridiculous didn’t help.

“What kind of questions?” he asked impatiently. The chair creaked as he shifted.

“That depends on who you are,” she pointed out licking her dry lips. “Since this is my dream I suppose I can make you anyone. How about Albert Einstein?” How about. . .Her mind went blank as she tried to come up with some fantasy man to ease the flutter of arousal she was feeling. Nobody came to mind. How sad was that?

“How about not?”

“Well, that’s unreasonable since it’s my-” she broke off as she suddenly noticed the drag of the sheet sliding down her body toward her feet. The cool silkiness of the fabric skimming her skin made her shiver, and her respiration and heart rate jumped alarmingly as her breath snagged in her throat. 

“Hey! Dream or no dream. No touching.” She made a useless grab for the rapidly retreating material. It, like her gun, disappeared.

Look Ma, no hands.

The chair hadn’t creaked. He hadn’t moved. Either the guy was a magician, or it really was a bona fide, stress-induced break with reality kind of dream. And if it was a dream, she had no reason to be scared.

Like hell she wasn’t scared.

She knew her own body like. . .the back of her hand, she thought wryly. And this was turned on. Big time turned on. Hot to trot turned on. Ready for hard fast sex turned on. Moisture pooled between her legs and her nipples ached to be touched turned on.

Dream or no dream, it felt real.

Moving made it worse, and she forced herself to lie still, hoping to God the sensation would pass so she could leap out of bed and make a run for it. She lay back against the pillows, forcing herself to breath slowly and deeply. In. Out. In. Out.

 “How about-” Intimate pulse points started to throb maddeningly joining all her other symptoms. “Ah. . . Dr. Betsy Ancker-Johnson?”

Lying still wasn’t helping. Not at all. There wasn’t a breath of air in the room, yet her nipples peaked, hard and painfully, and goosebumps roughened her skin. Goosebumps she always got when she was sexually aroused. “Yes. Ancker-Johnson,” her voice was thick, husky.

She cleared her throat. “I’d love to ask her about her observations of microwave emission without the presence of an external field. Or Stephen Spielberg? He’d be fascinating to talk to.”

 “I’m going to make love to you now, Eden,” he cut off her nervous ramblings.

That spiked her heart rate even more, and made the nerves under her skin jump. “Jason?!” The dream suddenly made some sort of crazy sense. There were many empirical findings about dreams that didn’t fit with any problem-solving theory that she knew of. Still-

“Ja-? Yes. Jason,” he didn’t sound particularly pleased. “Close your eyes.”

She closed them. It was a strain trying to peer through the darkness anyway. “That doesn’t sound very lover-like,” she told him crossly. Really, if she wasn’t ready to have sex with Jason Verdine in real time, she highly doubted she’d be ready in a dream.

“Listen to the music, Eden.”

“There isn’t any mus-Oh. That’s pretty.” Something with flutes that made her think of splashing water and soaring birds. Instead of relaxing, she found herself tensing, feeling a crazy, make that insane, urge to invite him into her bed. That, if nothing else, convinced her this was a dream.

Captivated by the way her body was behaving, Eden tried to look at this scientifically- But, oh, God. She was on fire. Her skin felt sensitized. Fascinating. But how could this be? It took more than a suggestion of intimacy to make her hot. She was a girl who needed foreplay. Clearly her brain was her largest erogenous zone.

She relaxed into the overwhelming sensation. The anticipation of his touch, the breathless, knife edge of  expectation had her lifting her hips.

“I know this is just my subconscious trying to help me sort out the violence, or what to do about Jason, or. . . some-Oh, God what are you doing to m-me. . . But I don’t think it’s w-working.”

It wasn’t working because she was suddenly consumed with the need for sex. Hard and fast and now. Her skin burned. Hell, she felt hot all over, and it had nothing to do with the warm Arizona night. She shifted restively on the sheet, her breasts, her thighs her belly, every-throbbing, needy part of her- demanding physical contact.

Relief was in the bedside drawer. But dream or no dream she wasn’t masturbating with some strange, disembodied invisible guy in the room watching her. No matter how much her body begged for release, or how sexy he sounded. She moistened suddenly dry lips with the tip of her tongue. Wanting- Needing-

“I am not touching you.” He said it, not as though he was assuring her, but as though he refused to do so.

“You can’t, Sparky. You’re a dream. An illusion.”  The smooth bluesy music filled the room, but did nothing to slow the thud of her heart as adrenaline raced through her veins in a white hot tide of desire.

Eden’s body felt like a gathering storm, drawing tighter and tighter. Her knees moved apart without her conscious thought.

He might be sitting ten feet away from her in her granny’s boudoir chair, but Eden’s nipples suddenly responded as if they were being stroked. The sensation was nothing short of electrifying, and her stomach seemed to drop as though she were freefalling. She gritted her teeth, trying to shut off the sensations spiraling through her.

She waved a hand over her breasts, sure that someone was physically touching her. Her hand passed through air before dropping back to clutch at the sheet beneath her hips.

Holy cow! When I have a break with reality, I do a really, really good job.

This is one hell of an adept apparition.

She swore she felt the heat of his skin. But he wasn’t anywhere near her. Good Lord. The scientist in her didn’t believe in ghosts. On the other hand she didn’t believe in telekinesis either and he’d made both gun and sheet vanish into thin air.

 “Don’t fight it,” he said, clearly exasperated. “Just feel.”

“I’m feeling plenty,” she muttered, still not sure why she was feeling anything. She shivered as the hair on her neck was brushed aside. The tightness in her stomach grew stronger as she imagined cool lips moving over the hot, damp skin of her nape. A shiver went through her, and she couldn’t help the little moan that escaped her parted lips as warm air fanned her skin.

“Ah. You like that.” Her hair seemed to fall, sifting to tickle her neck. Eden squeezed her eyes tightly closed, knowing only pure sensation. She wanted to crawl completely into the dark, sweet fantasy that was wiping everything out of her mind but what he was doing to her. The heat and scent of the man’s skin- a man who wasn’t there- became etched on her memory.

Not satisfied with this ethereal phantom lover, Eden craved the physical touch of his body like a drug. The pulse in her throat beat wildly as a trail of moist heat seemed to move from the base of her neck to her right breast.

Her pulse went into overdrive as an inextricable pressure around her nipple drew it into a tight, almost painful nub. Her nipple was manipulated into an aching peak, but she had no idea how. She didn’t care. Ultra sensitive, her skin burned, and a deep pulse of expectation made her hips arch up off the mattress.

She moaned. Instinctively she reached out her arms to hold him. There was nothing there. She dug her fingers into the sheet on either side of her hips to anchor herself again.

“Let yourself go,” he whispered, that voice as deep and arousing as the whisper of sensation on her skin. “Just. . .let. . .yourself. . .go.”

The cunning stroke of an invisible hand trailed a fiery path from her breasts across her tummy. Eden bit her lip as need ratcheted up and up unbearably. She couldn’t quite catch her breath. She wanted- she needed-

She opened herself, yielding to the craving, desperate for sweet relief, her body as tightly coiled as a spring.

But there was something- something on the periphery of consciousness that kept that final release at bay.

“Come for me, Doctor,” he said urgently.

“No,” she told him with spurious calm, breath coming in short choppy bursts as she tried to regulate it. By crossing her legs tightly she could send herself into orbit in about three seconds if she wanted to.

“No?” he asked, sounding annoyed. “Why the hell not?”

“Because, even in a freaking bizarre dream like this I want more than a quickie orgasm, that’s why.” Her jaw ached from gritting her teeth to try to counteract the insistent pulse of her body readying itself to climax.

“God, I’m arguing with an imaginary man.” Eden pushed herself up against the pillows very carefully. At this point her body had a hair trigger. “When-if I eventually do make love with Jason, we’ll do it together. Not in my imagination. Until then I have Richard for that.”

She used iron control of mind over matter. Her body started to cool, very much like water having boiled in her kettle. A twinge here, a ping there.

The chair creaked. “Who,” he asked disinterestedly, “is Richard?”

“None of your business. Look, this is my dream. And I’m ending it. So get lost. I can have sex- good sex I might add- by myself any time I like. I don’t need some figment of my imagination manipulating me.”

“You’re wet. On the brink-”

“Yes. And yes. Most uncomfortable. But not fatal. Don’t you have some other dreamer to annoy?”

She sensed rather than heard him sigh, then jumped at the unexpected brush of his hand across her eyes when he’d been safely across the room. “Close your eyes, Eden,” he said softly.

She flinched at the brilliant flash of light beyond her closed lids. Well, shit, she thought indignantly, the son of a bitch killed me after all.

 

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