Dream Huntress (A Dreamseeker novel) (Entangled Ignite) (5 page)

He pushes her on the wooden plank swing tied to the giant old oak tree behind her house. She sails through the air as if it’s her favorite spot in the world, as though swinging under the stars makes her feel like an angel.

He kisses her gently, hands her a beer.

She winces at the taste.

He laughs and calls her a lightweight, so she drinks.

Minutes pass, and she can no longer balance on the swing. Her feet drag through the grass, and her head falls back.

Like a spider snaring a moth in its web, he catches her as she slumps toward the ground.

Struggling to wake up, she opens her eyes. She’s in a car. A back seat. With the boy from the party. Nothing but trees and woods surround them. So dark, even the moon has lost her.

Her arms and legs no longer move, but he shifts her around, tears at her clothes, and rams himself inside her innocent, young body.

“My daddy will kill you.” She tries to scream, but the words are hollow and weak. Regaining some muscle control, she claws at the hands clenched around her neck. His ear grazes her lips, and she bites him. Hard enough to draw blood.

Almost over before it began, the high is wearing thin, and he has to hit her to quiet her moans. Once, twice, the third time he succeeds. In the silence, he twists and turns to pull up his pants, but an unused condom falls to the floorboard.

“Oh, shit.” Blood from his ear drips on her chest. “Shit. Shit. Shit.” He uses his shirt to soak up the blood.

“It’s not going to matter now,” the girl whispers. “You’ll pay. I know who you are. I’ll always remember what you did.”

He’s the one crying as he pulls her out of the car and drags her behind the trees. “I’m so fucking sorry, but you left me no choice.” Then he chokes the last bit of breath out of her.

Chapter Three

Ty tried to walk away from Jordan and leave the whole damn mess behind. He even stood cursing in the hallway for a few seconds before walking back inside and slamming the door.

Lord knew he had his own objectives, and babysitting the puzzle in the next room wasn’t on his to-do list. He even tried telling himself he stayed because of the orders from the nurse. But the truth was, in spite of her being a pain in the ass, he liked her.

Actually,
like
was probably too tame a word to describe the live wire of attraction that buzzed between them. She certainly stirred something he hadn’t felt in a long time. Not this strongly anyway. He was still on the fence about whether it was blinding insanity or just bone-deep lust.

Probably lust. It had been months since he’d felt anything but a thirst for revenge. It figured that his body would pick now to spring to life.

Jordan certainly wasn’t the only eye-catching blonde who’d crossed his path. In fact—he looked around her weird, little apartment—he had no idea how she’d burrowed so deep under his skin in only a matter of hours. She had a maddening stubborn streak, a tongue she wielded like a well-aimed sword, and possibly the worst taste in decorating he’d ever seen.

So why the hell couldn’t he leave her alone?

Probably because he knew all too well what dangers lurked inside Buck’s.

Plopping down on her sofa, he slipped the small ring from his pocket and hooked it on the tip of his pinky. He twisted it around and around as light arced off the shiny metal. The ring never failed to remind him of what could be lost when a whole town chose to bury its head in the sand. Even he had ignored the danger lurking right under his nose.

Never again.

He couldn’t change the past, but he’d change Arlo Buck’s future if it killed him. First, though, he was getting Jordan out of the nightclub. Even if nothing transpired between them, he’d be damned if Buck was going to suck her into his seedy world.

He leaned back on the old, musty couch. It was surprisingly comfortable in spite of how ugly the damn thing was. Resting his eyes, he started to doze. It couldn’t have been longer than an hour before he was startled awake.

Jerking upright, he focused on the sounds in the building.

A door slammed. A car rumbled through the parking lot. Nothing unusual.

Then…moaning. Crying. Something crashing to the floor. Those sounds were coming from Jordan’s bedroom.

He sprinted to her door and opened it. In the shadows, he saw her huddled in a corner of the bed. He crossed to her nightstand and turned on the bedside lamp.

Her cheeks glowed bright red. A sheen of sweat covered her face and dampened her hair. He bent to feel her cheek for fever. As soon as he touched her, she began to thrash, tossing side to side, crying, tearing at the sheets, clawing at her throat as if she were choking.

He grabbed her hands to pull them from her neck.

A shrill scream tore from her throat. Jerking free, she swung a fist that connected with his cheek.

Startled, he pulled back but noticed her eyes were still closed. “Jordan. Jordan, wake up.” Was it the head injury? Maybe she needed an ambulance.

“Jordan,” he said louder, grabbing her wrists again. He pinned her arms against the bed to keep her from hurting herself. “Jordan, stop it. Wake up.”

Her eyes sprang open, but the blank, empty stare and motionless body disturbed him more than the fighting. She looked terrified, as if she had no idea where she was.

He said her name, soft enough to soothe but forceful enough to bring her back.

She took a couple of sharp breaths, then struggled against his grip. Twisting her head to look at her restrained hands, she screamed, “What are you doing? Don’t touch me, let go. Let me go!”

He released her, and she shot out of bed, but her legs folded underneath her. She dropped to the floor, gagged, then clamped a hand over her mouth.

“Jesus. Fuck. I’m calling an ambulance.” Ty hopped up, dashing into the next room searching for his phone. His hands shook. Sweat slid down his temple. “Damn it.” He couldn’t find his phone.

“Ty, no. Stop. No ambulance. I’m okay.”

The words came from her bedroom and were barely audible, but he heard them, and they stopped him dead. It was the first fully coherent thing she’d said. He sucked in some air and walked back into her room.

She was silent now, the only noise was his breath heaving in and out. “What the hell was that?”

She didn’t answer.

He crouched beside her. “Can you move? Can you stand?”

She nodded but then slumped back against the bed and closed her eyes. She looked like a broken doll. Tears streaked her cheeks, and blood oozed from the scratches on her neck. A good portion of her hair had been wrestled from its ponytail. Her teeth chattered, and what began as slight shivering quickly morphed into a full-body tremor.

He couldn’t stand to leave her on the floor any longer. He slipped one arm under her legs and the other behind her back. In one quick swoop, he lifted her and then set her gently on the bed.

Her eyes, glassy and unfocused, stared straight through him.

“Jordan, look at me.” He laid a hand against her cheek and eased her face toward him. “Look. At. Me.”

…

Jordan clenched her jaw, attempting to control the way her teeth were knocking together. She ordered herself to choke down the nausea and think through the dream. A few moments of clarity started to fuse into meaning.

It was a new dream. A new victim.

God, she hated when the dead invaded her dreams with their cryptic messages. Just once, couldn’t the vision be straightforward instead of hazy and incomplete?

The beautiful girl had been raped and murdered, that much was clear. But who was she? And who was the boy?

“Jordan, is it your head? Are you all right?”

Ty said something. She replied with an automatic nod, though she wasn’t entirely sure what he’d asked. The girl’s face, she would never forget—classically beautiful, long dark hair, soft eyes. But the boy appeared out of focus. Damn it, she couldn’t remember the boy. Not even his height or hair color.

“Jordan.” Ty pulled a blanket around her shoulders and squeezed. “Talk to me.” He reached for the cordless phone by her pillow and clicked it on.

The dial tone drew her back to the moment. Grabbing the phone from him, she clicked it off. “C-c-cold. I’m just so, so cold.” She pulled her arm into the cocoon of the blanket. “But I don’t need an ambulance. I told you that.”

It wasn’t unusual for the visions to hold on for several minutes after she woke, but tonight she wasn’t alone. She glared at Ty. “You were supposed to leave. Why didn’t you leave?”

He stood and paced the room. A humorless laugh surged from his throat. “Gee, I don’t know. I thought maybe you’d wake up feeling kind of rough. Just not
that
rough. Damn.”

He turned toward her, too many questions in his eyes. She’d never be able to field them all. The smug tough guy who’d pushed his way into her apartment and raked her over the coals for working at Buck’s looked like he’d just discovered the Grim Reaper in the room with them. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I had a bad dream. I ju—”

“Okay. It’s…okay.” He drew his hand across his face, pausing to rub his eyes. “I’ve had kind of a strange night myself. And I’ve had bad dreams, too. A lot of them lately. But that was no bad dream. I thought you were having a seizure.”

He continued to pace, probably freaked out by what he’d just witnessed.

She understood how scary the dreams could be, but tonight she’d managed a new low. She’d allowed someone else to be affected. He had bright red spots on his cheek and scratches on his chin. Scratches she knew were her fault.

“If you’re not going to let me call an ambulance,” he said, “I at least want to take you back to the hospital to be checked out. You need another brain scan. Maybe you’re injured more than they thought.”

She couldn’t control the slight grin. He thought she had brain damage. Maybe she did. But if so, it had started about twenty years ago, not last night with Lewis’s boot. And she sure wasn’t getting another “brain scan.”

“Can you come here and sit down for a minute? You’re making my headache worse, pacing like that.”

He let out a long sigh, walked to the bed, and eased down next to her. “Are you warming up? You were shaking like you were freezing to death.” He ran his hands up and down her arms.

Her breath hitched, and her gaze locked on his. He pulled his hands back, as if the impact of the connection startled him, too. She wasn’t sure if chemistry was the right word, but something foreign, and not altogether unpleasant, crackled in the air when they touched.

Oddly compelled to test the theory, Jordan reached out and ran a finger over the scratches on his chin. “I’m sorry, I hurt you.”

He continued to hold her in that dangerous gaze, and when she pulled her hand away, he swallowed. Hard.

Definite chemistry.

He offered a thin smile. “You almost gave me a heart attack; my blood pressure was probably high enough for me to stroke out. I thought you were dying. Probably took ten years off my life, and you’re sorry you scratched me?”

He was attempting to lighten the mood. But his humor only made her throat swell and her eyes burn. She’d put him through hell, and he was still being sweet.

“Well, then, I’m sorry for the stroke and heart attack, too,” she teased, managing to yank a knot in her unraveling emotions. “I thought you left, and I took something for the pain. The doctor at the hospital said it would help if my back started hurting again, but I should have known better. I have bad reactions to most drugs, even the mildest ones. They help with the aches but also give me weird nightmares. Usually, I don’t even take aspirin, but tonight I thought it might help. Guess it backfired.”

“You think?” He lifted his hand to her face and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Okay then, no more drugs for you. Trust me when I say you won’t even get a baby aspirin out of me.”

He let his knuckles fall against her cheek, and the zing of chemistry returned. Then the pad of his thumb smoothed across her bottom lip and stalled there. Along with his gaze.

There was no escaping the fact that he was contemplating kissing her. And she was seriously contemplating letting him. The invitation must have shown in her eyes, because he leaned close enough that his warm breath teased her lips. Then his mouth brushed hers in a whisper of a kiss.

Her chest tightened. Her stomach tumbled. She laid a hand on his chest and felt the gallop of his heart beneath her fingertips. His kiss was such a soft, soft touch, but it unleashed a flood of unbearably intense sensations.

One spiraling emotion ebbed into another. Her hand slid into his hair, tangled in the thick, dark waves, and pulled him closer.

God, she wanted to taste him.

Not just his lips, but the corded strength of his neck, the solid lines of his chest. He smelled good enough to eat. Did he taste that way, too? She eased her tongue into the heat of his mouth.

A hoarse growl erupted from him.

He tasted her, savored her as though she was a last meal. Long, demanding stokes of his tongue against hers left her boneless and nearly as off balance as the dream. His muscles tensed as the kiss spun further and further out of control. Finally, he wove his fingers into her hair and tore his lips away. “I think you need to sleep now, baby. You’re tired.”

That’s when she realized she’d crossed about ten lines too many. She’d connected with Ty. Not physically, but mentally. Not in the way of a lover’s touch, but in the way a voyeur would sneak into a mind and steal the most private thoughts. She felt the powerful forces raging through him. Lust. Desire. Need. All of it pushing against a crumbling wall of decency.

Thank God he had more restraint than she did. She was terrified to think she might have said yes to anything when he kissed her like that. Embarrassment flamed in her cheeks.

A few deep, calming breaths helped put the barriers back in place. Her guarded instincts not only surged back but shifted into overdrive.
Danger
flashed in her mind like a warning sign at a construction site. He could be working for Buck. Or more probable—and more frightening—he could be a good man with the innate ability to scale all her carefully placed walls. Neither option was good.

She still had questions, but that questioning clearly wasn’t going to happen tonight. “You’ve been amazingly kind, but I think it would be smart if you left now.”

He pulled her against his chest and leaned back against the pillows. “You can’t keep me up all night and then kick me out when I’m too tired to drive. Besides, my brother’s the smart one. I have to get by on my looks.”

It was a huge mistake, but she allowed herself to be pulled into the comfort of his arms. The danger sign flashed neon now. Despite the sleepy calm washing through her, her mind fought for the right words to make him leave.

“Stop thinking everything to death,” he said, as if reading her thoughts. He kissed the top of her head. “Go to sleep, babe. It’s been a bad night, but it’ll be better after you rest.”

No one but her father had ever held her after a dream. Since his death, nobody had ever put their arms around her just for the sake of soothing. Did Ty realize he was giving her the one thing she’d never had in her entire adult life? For that alone, he could have taken whatever he wanted from her.

The danger sign blazed once again. Only this time, Jordan didn’t think it had anything to do with the case.

…

When Ty woke, his arm was numb. Jordan’s head still rested on his shoulder, and she’d curled against him like a cat nestled into a warm blanket. Everything inside him wanted to melt closer to her, touch her, stroke her. He suppressed a groan when he checked the time. If he didn’t get up, he’d be late. Needing a shower and fresh clothes, he slipped out of the bed and away from her warm body.

It had taken every ounce of willpower he possessed not to let the night progress beyond a kiss, but he hadn’t wanted to take advantage of the state she was in—scared from the nightmare, hurting from her injury, confused from the pain medicine. There would be a first time between them; he’d known it the second their lips met, from the moment she’d vibrated under his kiss. Hell, from the moment he’d vibrated under hers.