Killing Me Softly (23 page)

Yup, he was awake.

It was too much. She lifted her head, turning her face to his, about to ask him if he were trying to kill her or just drive her mad.

But as soon as she turned, he lifted his head just enough to touch her lips with his. His hand in her hair tightened, pulling her closer, and she moaned as her lips parted and the kiss ignited everything in her. Their tongues met, and her hips arched instinctively against his hard thigh. She gripped the edges of his T-shirt almost angrily, tugging it up to bare his chest, and then she ran her hands over his skin, hungry for the feel of him. It was even better than she could have imagined.

She followed with her lips, kissing his chest, his nipples, his abs. Oh, they were incredible abs. She kept kissing as he rose up just enough to peel his shirt over his head, and then he tugged hers off the same way. Urgently. He gripped her waist and pulled her higher in the bed, stretching up to capture a breast in his mouth. She braced her hands on his shoulders and tipped her
head back, her mouth opening as she sucked in breath after breath, the sensations too good to bear.

He arched up, and she realized she was straddling him now, feeling that hardness pressing up into her. Reaching down, she shoved his shorts lower, as low as she could reach, and he bent one leg and then the other to kick free of them. He was still focused on her breasts, licking at her, biting just a little, tugging. Every touch of teeth and tongue sent shock waves of pleasure radiating outward through her body. Holding his head where it was with one hand, she lifted her lower body and awkwardly struggled free of her panties.

If he stopped now she would kill him. As fast as she could, she lowered herself to him again, his cock, naked and hard, rubbing against her. Soft sounds of pleasure whispered from her lips, no words—just sounds that said more than any words could have. She parted her legs, rising up just a little, then lowering herself again, over him this time, taking him inside her, bit by bit. Slowly, experimentally, she took him deeper, and then deeper still, and she felt her body stretching to accept all of him.

It was good. It was so,
so
good.

His hands closed on her buttocks as she lifted and lowered her body slowly, gently, at first, but then with her pace growing faster and more urgent with every thrust. He arched to meet her, to drive himself into her, every time, and pulled her head down to his, taking her mouth with an urgency she'd never felt in him. He kissed her as if he would devour her whole, and she
kissed him back with the same feverish need, as his body stroked the flames in her higher and higher.

And he seemed to know. He seemed to know as he clasped her more tightly, held her more firmly, thrust himself up into her more powerfully. In moments the climax broke inside her, and he swallowed her cries of pleasure and kept right on moving.

Then his movements slowed, his kisses gentled, his hands stroked slow, tender paths up and down her back, over her shoulders, her hips. Wrapping her more tightly in his arms, he rolled her over onto her back, body to body, flesh to flesh, never breaking that full-length contact. And then he was on top of her and she was parting her legs for him. Even as the shock waves of her orgasm began to fade, he resumed the frantic pace, pounding into her, holding her hips to make her take every thrust fully. She wouldn't have thought she was ready. And yet she was. Her body responded, and the fires raged all over again as he pushed her toward another orgasm. Again and again he drove into her, until she was crying out again, climaxing again, her entire body shivering and shuddering with the force of it.

As it rocked through her, every nerve ending seemed sensitized to the point that she couldn't possibly stand anymore.

And yet he gave her more. He wrapped his arms around her waist, anchoring her to him as he sat up, pulling her with him until her legs were wrapped around him and they sat face-to-face. He nuzzled and nibbled at
her breasts, and she pulled back, because the sensations were too much.

His hands flatted to the small of her back and tugged her to him again, and this time his mouth was merciless as he pinched her throbbing nibbles between his teeth. She clasped handfuls of his hair and tried not to scream in exquisite pleasure.

Slowly this time, he led her back up toward ecstasy, his mouth relentless, tormenting, as he nibbled, then released, then licked at her nipples over and over again.

His erection, still rock solid and huge, moved in and out of her, but slower this time. She clung to him, desperate, drowning in sensation, her body clenching around him. She couldn't possibly come again, she thought. And then she whispered it. “I can't…I can't…”

“I think you can.” He lifted her bodily off him, withdrawing completely as she whimpered in protest, and then he slid farther down in the bed, his mouth trailing kisses over her belly before he moved lower. Her thighs tried to close, because she was sure she couldn't take any more. But his hands pressed them wide, insistently, forcefully, and he bowed between her legs and worshipped her there with his mouth, with his tongue. He sucked at her, even bit her lightly, and she pulled a handful of blankets to her mouth to muffle her cries. Her pleas.

He laughed, then used his hands to spread her labia and captured her clitoris, sucking and nipping and tugging at it just as he had her breasts. There was nothing remaining of thought or sense or logic in her. She was
nothing but pure sensation, sensation that exploded and screamed through her.

And then he was sliding up her once again, driving into her now-quivering and almost-too-wet body. His hands slid down her thighs, then lifted them until her legs were anchored over his shoulders, and he drove and drove until finally his entire body tensed and held, and she felt him throbbing into her.

He moaned deep in his chest and collapsed on top of her, wrapping her up tight and rolling onto his side, holding her tenderly.

Panting, their bodies damp with sweat, they lay there, clinging to each other as if…as if…

“Damn, I didn't want that to happen,” he whispered.

“I could tell, the way you were covering yourself with your hands last night. I was pretty insulted, you know.”

“Uh, that was to hide my…reaction to seeing you in nothing but a tank top and panties.”

She giggled and nuzzled his chest. “Are you sorry?”

“Not yet.”

She lifted her head, frowning at him. “What's that supposed to mean?”

He stared into her eyes, his own probing, searching, but she didn't know what for. “Nothing,” he said at length. “I don't regret it. I'll remember it forever—no matter what happens.”

She let her smile return, and, sighing, she dropped
her head to his chest again and closed her eyes. “So will I,” she promised.

And she meant it.

But what she didn't say, what was clamoring to get out and only barely being restrained, was that she loved him.

It had been true when she'd said it so long ago. Truer than she had even known. She had never stopped loving him, not in five long years. She probably never would.

God, if only he could feel that way about her again. But no, not now. This was not the time to dump something that big and heavy on his powerful shoulders. He had more than too much to worry about already. But
she
would worry about it. She would worry about it until she knew whether there was any chance for them at all, and what the future held.

If they even had a future by the time the Nightcap Strangler finished with them.

 

She fell asleep in his arms, and it felt so good that she didn't think it mattered if she never woke again. But then she was sinking deeper into the black velvet blanket of slumber and emerging on the other side.

She was still lying in a bed, but alone this time. She opened her eyes and realized she wasn't in the cabin. It was dark, this bed was smaller and the room around her was completely different. She smelled stale alcohol, which made her wrinkle her nose, and then she realized that she tasted it, too. Her mouth was dry, her stomach
writhing, and her head, when she tried to move it to take in the room, pounded so hard she had to press her hands to it and close her eyes.

Where was Bryan?

Opening her eyes again, slowly, she noticed the room a bit more clearly as the mists cleared from her vision.

Wait a minute. This was Bryan's bedroom, in his little cracker-box house. What the hell?

Dawn moved her arm very slightly, lifting her hand and turning it.
Not my hand,
her mind whispered. And then she touched her own hair, patting it and feeling thick waves. Pulling a lock forward, she examined it.

Not my hair.

What is this?

She sat up slowly in the bed, and saw her own reflection in the mirror on the opposite side of the bedroom.

But it wasn't her reflection. It was Bettina Wright's face staring back at her; she'd seen her photo in the newspapers. And even as that realization made a home in her heart, she saw the dark form standing beside the bed, so close to the headboard that he was behind her. Mask, gloves, all dressed in black. He was a solid man with a bit of a paunch, and his eyes were glued to hers in that mirror. She opened her mouth to scream.

And then he moved, cutting off the sound before it was more than a breath. He twisted the black silk stocking around her neck and jerked it tight, cutting off her air. It hurt, and her head pounded with pressure. She
clawed at the stocking but only managed to scratch her own flesh. Gaping, she tried to breathe and felt her tongue swelling in her mouth. Dizziness washed through her, and her wild kicking became, instead, a series of twitches and trembles.

The pressure eased. Widemouthed, she sucked in a breath. It hurt, and she knew her larynx was bruised, maybe crushed. But before she could draw a second breath, something cold touched her lips.

A glass. A tiny one. And as it tipped higher, the liquid it held poured into her mouth, choking her, burning. She tried to swallow, and it hurt more than anything had ever hurt in her life. Like swallowing broken glass. The whiskey bubbled in her throat as she gurgled and choked.

And then the stocking went tight again.

Oh, God, this was brutal.

Something hit her leg as her hands clasped uselessly at his gloved ones. Her eyes were watering so badly, bulging now, that she couldn't see. She wished she could just die and end this suffering. Her body twisted. But in the vague hope of finding a weapon she lowered one hand to her side, where something had landed on her, and closed her fist around something small and hard. Metal.

He pushed her down, bending over her, squeezing her life away. She saw tears in his eyes, those tiny black stones that showed in the holes of the ski mask. Flashes of multicolored light exploded behind her own eyes.

She was dying.

Bryan was a cop, she thought, and this guy had dropped a clue. Bryan would get him. He would get him—and she would help.

Desperately, she used the last bit of her strength to cram the tiny metal thing underneath the mattress. Then she let it go and withdrew her hand, and lifted her head for one last glimpse in the mirror, but there was only blackness before her eyes.

And, she realized, there was no more pain. No more struggling to breathe. No more pressure. The blackness cleared, and she looked down and saw her own body lying there, staring blankly. Lifeless.

I'm dead, she thought. She turned, sensing something behind her, and saw a nearly blinding light that grew larger. Compelled to go to it, she started to release the desire that held her there in the room, and immediately the light began to draw her closer with a force some thing like gravity.

And yet, just before she reached it, women appeared, lots of them, all young and beautiful, with soulful eyes full of pain.
Not yet,
they told her without moving their lips.
Not until he pays for what he did to us.

He killed you, too?
Unspoken, the question emerged all the same.

Yes, and he'll kill others. Stop him.

Stop him.

Dawn felt as if she were a spectator now, separating from the ride she'd been taking inside Bette's body. Standing apart from them all. Bette joined the others,
turning to face her, and together they all repeated their plea, again and again.

Stop him. Stop him.
Stop him!

S
he slept in his arms.

Bryan wished she hadn't. But by the time they had finally been too exhausted to move anymore, they'd also been too exhausted to stay awake. Much less to have a long and serious talk.

And he wasn't sure what the hell he would have said, anyway, or what he was going to say in a little while, when she rolled over and opened those eyes of hers and shot him straight in the heart. What was he going to say to her then?

Maybe he could slip away before that happened. Yeah, he knew it was a shitty thing to do, but he needed time to think. To figure out just what it was she was expecting him to say—no, what she
wanted
him to say. Or didn't want him to.

And maybe he ought to be more interested in hearing what she had to say on the subject, but hell, it didn't matter. It couldn't be—this thing between them just couldn't be. He couldn't let himself fall in love with
her. Not again. Or maybe for the first time, because, really, could you fall in love at nineteen?

If you could, he had. God, she'd been everything to him then.

And she had known that. And still she had walked—no, run. She had run from him, from them, from the tender, innocent, wonderful thing they had. She hadn't even given it a chance.

He slid slowly out of her embrace and rolled onto one side, inching toward the edge of the bed, casting his eyes around the room to find something to put on. Anything. There. His jeans lay on the floor only a couple of feet from the bed. He stretched out an arm, grabbed them and started pulling them closer. He was too vulnerable to her naked. All she had to do was touch him and he would be a goner. After last night…

Suddenly Dawn sat up straight. Her eyes were wide-open but seemed unseeing, and she said, very clearly, “Stop him.”

Bryan dropped the jeans in surprise. “What?” As he turned to face her more fully, he realized she was still asleep. And then she looked right at him, and he went ice cold. There was something
not Dawn
in those eyes.

“You have to stop him.”

He frowned at her, lifted a hand to touch her cheek. “Are you okay?”

She blinked rapidly then, and when she looked at him again, he knew she was awake and aware. She held his eyes, and her brows drew together, and then she burst
into tears, her hands covering her face, her head falling forward. Her shoulders shook as she sobbed and muttered “Oh, God, oh, God,
oh, God
.”

“Hey…”

She flung herself against him, and he had to wrap his arms around her, because what the hell else was he going to do? She was a mess. “Okay, baby, okay. I've got you. It's all right.”

“Oh, God, Bry, I had the most awful dream!”

He came very near to sighing in relief. Very near. Because at first he'd thought all this emotion was her response to what had happened between them last night. And while he'd been dreading whatever her response would be, he hadn't expected anything quite
this
dramatic.

“But it was just a dream.” He ran his hands up and down her unclothed back and, in spite of himself, let his head lean down on hers. “And it's no wonder you're having nightmares. With everything going on, all this stress and—”

“It was about Bette.”

His hands stopped moving across her skin. “You dreamed about Bette?”

She nodded against his chest, then sniffled. “I dreamed about her murder. The whole thing. It was like I was right there.”

Clasping her shoulders, Bryan moved her slightly away from him so he could look her in the eyes. “Are you sure it was a dream? I mean, are you sure it wasn't Bette? You know, talking to you?”

She sniffled again, and her nose twisted a little bit to one side. It made him want to smile and kiss the tip of it. But the pain in her eyes chased that impulse away.

“No. It wasn't like that. I wasn't seeing her. Or talking to her. It was like…it like I
was
her. I woke up in your bed, and I was in her body. I even saw her reflection in your mirror when I looked up. And then he was there, strangling me.” As she spoke, her hands went to her neck, touching gingerly, and she flinched, as if it really did hurt. “It was so terrifying. And it hurt. It was brutal. He was cruel, Bryan. He was so cruel.”

He nodded and pulled her close again. “It never happened that way before? When they used to talk to you?”

She shook her head. “No, it was always just like talking to a person, only less substantial. Like I had to listen with all my senses, not just my ears. And see them with my entire being, instead of just with my eyes. And even then, they would speak in whispers and be as delicate as mist.” She took a breath. “But this was totally different.”

“Still…”

“It was just a dream, Bryan.”

“Okay. Okay.” She sniffled again, and he held her tighter. “You're shaking like a leaf.”

“It was horrible. He choked me—with a silk stocking. A black one. He choked me until I started to black out—and then he let up. Just when there was that tiny glimmer of relief from passing out and escaping the pain, he let up and poured that liquor down me. It
hurt!
I couldn't swallow. I think I was drowning in it, and then he tightened that damned stocking again and—”

“Hey, take it easy.” He frowned, genuinely startled by the way her voice had thickened, and become gruff and coarse, as if she had really lived that nightmare. As if she actually had been strangled and was feeling the physical repercussions.

And then it hit him how accurate her story was. It was precisely the way Nick had surmised the murders went down—the partial strangulation, then the nightcap, then the strangulation again.

“Dawn, do you remember what Bette was wearing?”

“Of course I do. She was naked.” She scowled up at him. “But it was just a dream, Bryan.”

“Are you sure?”

“Believe me, I know the difference.”

“Okay.”

“I wish it
had
been real. God, I wish it had.”

“Why's that?”

She thinned her lips. “He dropped something—it fell, maybe from a pocket or something. Onto the bed. And she managed to shove it under the mattress before she died.” She lifted her head.

He met her eyes. “And you're sure it was just a dream?”

It took her two heartbeats to respond. “Yes.” And then, “Pretty sure.”

“Then why is your throat sore?”

She swallowed hard and then pressed her fingertips
gently to her throat. “It
is
sore. But…it was a vivid dream. It's probably…just me believing it a little too much.” She blinked, frowned, cleared her throat. “Still, maybe we ought to go back there. I think we have to go back and check underneath the mattress.”

“I think
I
have to go back and check underneath the mattress,” he said. “And I'm going to go right now, while it's still dark enough to provide some cover. You're going stay right here, where you're safe. I'll wake Rico before I go. He'll make sure you're protected. Okay?”

“But who's gonna keep
you
safe?” she asked.

He smiled gently at her. “I'm pretty good at that. I'll take a gun, okay? Will that make you feel better?”

“Not as much as if you'd let me go with you. Why won't you, Bryan?”

He kissed the top of her head, then reached down for the jeans and started pulling them on. “Because I don't want to risk your life by dragging you back out into the open.”

“But you don't know I'm safe here.”

“Yeah, I do.”

She frowned as he zipped the jeans. “How? What if it's Olivia?”

“It's not.”

“How do you know?”

“Because in the dream, it was a man.”

She shook her head. “He wore a ski mask. I couldn't see—”

“You saw enough. You kept saying ‘he.'”

She shook her head. “Bryan, I told you, it was just a dream.”

“I don't think so.”

“And you think you'd know better than I would?
I'm
the one who used to be able to see them. And this wasn't that.”

“Then maybe it was something else. Maybe Bette— I don't know—sent you the dream. Or maybe it was just some kind of intuition. But it wasn't
just
a dream, Dawn.”

“How do you know that?”

He crossed the room, found his shirt, put it on. “Have you read Nick's book yet?”

“No, not yet.”

“Tell you what, you start reading it while I'm gone. It's amazing how closely his recreation of the old crimes, based on the evidence, matches the way it played out in your dream. It's eerie, Dawn. It had to be more than just a dream.”

“Bryan, I really want to go with you.”

“I know you do. I know. But…” He sighed, moved back to the bed and, reaching down, cupped the back of her head, pulling her close as he leaned down to kiss her hard on the mouth. “I need a little time. Can you…can you just give me a little time?”

Her face changed. She seemed to understand that they weren't talking about her dream anymore. Staring at him, a hundred questions swimming in her eyes, she nodded slowly.

“Yeah. I can give you a little time. Just…just be
careful, Bry. And if you get in trouble, call, okay? Just call, even if you only let it ring and hang up. Just let me know you need me, and I swear I'll get there.” She lowered her eyes. “I'm not going to let you down again.”

He glanced back at her and saw the sincerity in her eyes. “I'm not going to get into trouble. But yeah, if I do, I promise I'll call.”

She surged out of the bed, as naked as the earth in earliest springtime, ran to him and hugged him hard around the waist. “Please be careful.”

“I will. Be safe while I'm gone. I'll be back just as soon as I can.”

“How long should I wait?”

If he didn't pry her off him before long, he was going to end up back in bed with her. “Before what?”

“Before I do…whatever I have to do to find you. If something goes wrong—and you can't get back and you can't let me know—how long should I wait?”

“If I'm not back by noon—”

“It's 4:00 a.m. That's eight hours!” She released him and took a step back, which left him standing there with a full view of her gorgeous body. “That's too long. I'll wait till 8:00 a.m. If you're not back by then, then we're coming to find you.”

He nodded. “I'll be back by eight.” He dropped his gaze, then lifted it and shook his head. “Sooner, if can manage it. Hell, I'll probably break the land speed record getting back to you.”

The worry fled her face as a smile appeared like a sudden beam of light. “That was really sweet.”

“I don't think ‘sweet' is the word I'd use.” He pulled her to him again and kissed her, slow and deep this time. And he thought about how screwed he was, because he couldn't keep himself from falling in love with her again—if he'd ever stopped at all. And he thought about how now he was the one ready to have that long talk. Because when she said she would never let him down, he thought she was trying to say more, maybe trying to tell him what he'd been so desperately needing to hear from her.

But now was not the time. So he lifted his head, taking his hungry lips from hers, forcing his arms to let her go and, turning, left the room.

 

“So what kind of a wild-goose chase is he on this time?” Rico asked.

The three of them were sitting on the deck at the rear of the cabin, sipping coffee, watching the mists rise off the lake and admiring the powerful, shadowy waterfall in the distance. The cabin sat so close to the lake that you could listen to the thunder of the falls anytime you were outside, and most of the time when you were inside, too. You could look out at the falls, which in turn looked down on the town that was their namesake.

“He didn't tell you?” Dawn asked.

“No. He only said not to let you two out of my sight, and that he'd be back as soon as he could, and that if you got antsy around eight, I ought to make you give him an extra hour before you sent out the National Guard.” Rico
smiled his most charming smile, and it seemed almost too white in the tanned skin of his face. He beamed it at Olivia more than at her, and Dawn was fine with that.

“So?” Olivia asked. “Where did he go?”

Dawn licked her lips, nodded firmly. “I had a dream. I saw the murder of Bettina Wright, and in the dream the killer dropped something in the bedroom before he left.”

Rico frowned, glanced sideways at Olivia. She met his eyes, and then they both looked at Dawn. “So he's out chasing up a clue that you
dreamed?
” Rico asked.

“I know it sounds ridiculous. And I know it was just a dream, but he thought maybe…” She let her voice trail off and shrugged.

“He's more desperate than I thought,” Rico muttered, shaking his head and looking at the floor. “Maybe it's all this stress.”

“Or maybe he has good reason to think Dawn's dream might be more than just a dream.” Olivia held her with a steady gaze. “Isn't that right, Dawn?”

Dawn closed her eyes. “How much of my story do you know?”

“I checked up on you after we first met,” Olivia said. “And learned who your father was.”

“Oh, that,” Rico said, waving a hand dismissively. “Just 'cause her father was a self-proclaimed psychic, or whatever, that doesn't mean she is.”

Olivia sent him a look meant to convey irritation with his interruption, then went on. “When your
father was killed in Blackberry, five years ago, it was the biggest thing to hit Vermont since—well, since the Nightcap murders. Everyone was talking about it. Mordecai Young, charismatic cult leader turned self-help author. Some said he was insane. Others said he had an honest-to-God sixth sense, a connection that couldn't be explained.”