Ten to nine. And she’d forgotten the wine. With the glass jewel in her hand, she rushed back to the kitchen, grabbed a tray and two glasses, then added a bottle of wine to it. She started for the bedroom again, then rushed back for the corkscrew.
She was out of breath by the time the clock said nine, ready to collapse on the bed, exhausted. Listening for the sound of Craig’s car, she opened the wine, poured a glass to set on his nightstand, then poured one for herself. Moments later, she lay back against the pillows, carefully arranged the emerald satin gown around her, stubbornly stuck the jewel back in her navel and reached for her wine.
After a first sip, she rearranged the straps on the gown. The satin plunged as it was, but every little bit helped.
By the third sip, she relaxed and stopped panting like a mad thing. One couldn’t race around like a whirlwind and then instantly feel seductive, navel jewel or no navel jewel.
She set down the glass and closed her eyes. Truthfully, it was just as well Craig wasn’t here at this specific moment, because she just didn’t feel all that seductive. She felt…confused.
George had been…funny. Charlie’s face when he was fibbing over that phone call had also been funny. But her sense of humor seemed to have temporarily deserted her. She felt oddly disturbed, not able to pinpoint any exact source of worry, but just feeling it, as she’d felt after Craig’s one-sided lovemaking the night before.
As far as George and the investigator went, she knew Craig was acting out of love for her. He wanted to care for her and protect her and ensure that nothing like the Chicago incident ever happened to her again.
For that, she loved him.
But for the moment, all of it was just bringing back to the forefront of her mind the incident she’d been trying so hard to forget. She couldn’t possibly live her life looking over her shoulder for someone to attack her; she didn’t want to and she wouldn’t. She’d worked it all through weeks ago. Crime was real; insane people who liked to hurt others were real…The attack had shaken her world. And for the first week, she had been looking over her shoulder…but no more. The door was locked at night now, but she wasn’t going to stop smiling at the gas-station attendant just because she didn’t really know him all that well; she wasn’t about to avoid going anywhere out of fear. She refused to live that way; she refused to be afraid any longer…
She opened her eyes and glanced at the clock again. Ten. A creak sounded from the living room, and she jumped. Darn it, it was just a night sound; she knew that.
Craig, would you kindly come home and make love to me? she thought irritably. You have no idea how fast that kind of nonsensical reaction would disappear if you, my overprotective husband, would put the whole thing out of your mind as well.
The clock edged toward ten-fifteen, and still there was only silence. Sonia took one last sip of wine and closed her eyes.
Chapter 9
Craig wandered through the dark hall and paused in the doorway to their bedroom. The dresser lamp radiated faint yellow circles that did not quite reach the bed. Sonia was sleeping, her cheek nestled against the pillow with her palm beneath it. His eyes darkened just at the look of her.
She was lying on her side, uncovered but for the green gown, one knee bent forward, her free arm thrown back, her lips slightly parted. His brows narrowed fractionally as he noticed an odd, hard, glistening object on her stomach, and he tiptoed forward.
His lips twitched as he removed the green glass jewel from her navel. What if it had cut her? Silently, he placed the stone on the bedside table, then straightened to tug off his tie, his eyes still on his wife, glancing once at the glass of wine by his side of the bed.
A blind man could have figured out what the lady had in mind. Sonia was a little blind herself if she thought she needed any tricks to make him want her.
Tugging off the rest of his clothes, he flicked off the dresser lamp and came to her in the darkness. She didn’t stir when he gently lifted her to curl back the covers and tuck her into them. He fitted her close against him, heard her groggy murmur of approval and whispered to her firmly to go back to sleep.
She did.
But he couldn’t. With her head in the cradle of his shoulder and his arm around her, he stared hard and unseeing into the darkness, and after a time he reached for the glass of wine.
Later, even after he’d forced his eyes closed, he was conscious of her warm body folded against him, of the cool satin teasing the length of his flesh. The smell of her hair and skin, the weight of her breast so heavy and supple against his chest, the softness of her cheek…
The hush of silence was all around him, dark and empty. Lonely. His whole body throbbed with wanting her. Wearily, his eyes blinked open again. Sleep-real sleep-had eluded him for weeks. Tonight was going to be no different.
Men were chasing her. Hundreds of them, one with pale, light eyes that shone out of the darkness like steady pinpricks. She tripped and got up again, tripped and stumbled to her feet again, sobbing. She was wearing green, something bright and soft; it was tearing, ripping from her. “Don’t you touch me!” she screamed. A hundred hands flashed in front of her eyes. Laughter. Their laughter.
She crashed into a tree; she turned around and tumbled over a bush. The laughter chased her through the fog, coming closer; the darkness was somehow green and she ached with terror, hating it, sick with it. Clawlike hands grabbed at her shoulder, twisting her, whirling her around. “No! Get away from me-”
“Honey. Wake up, love…”
She beat out with her fists, wild, smashing blows. She felt a palm on her stomach and exploded. “Leave him alone. You leave him alone…”
“Sonia.”
Green faded to darkness; her eyes blinked open, disoriented. Her whole body was violently trembling but she instantly recognized the firm arms around her as Craig’s.
“Easy, easy, love,” he whispered. “It was only a dream. You were dreaming, Sonia. You’re here and safe. Nothing will harm you. Nothing. I promise you…”
“I…” For an instant, she couldn’t seem to stop shaking; she couldn’t even talk. She buried her face in the warm flesh of his chest, wrapped her arms around his waist and just held on. So foolish. Already she knew how foolish it was to relive their attack in a dream; if she hadn’t had it on her mind before she went to sleep…
Craig’s hand stroked and soothed. His fingers brushed back her hair; his lips pressed on her forehead and cheeks, and then he just held her again. “Nothing’s going to hurt you,” he promised again, his voice so low it was almost a whisper. There was a discordant echo somewhere, something almost like anger emanating from him, but his touch could not have been more tender. “You’re right here,” he murmured. “Safe, little one. Completely safe.”
She raised her face to his. “So…stupid,” she whispered groggily. “So stupid. Craig, I haven’t been dreaming about it.” Her tongue was still thick with sleep, her mind still in that half-confusion of dreams, yet the words kept coming out in a helpless tumble. “I haven’t. It was only this once. I’ve forgotten, completely forgotten, about what happened.”
He shifted over her, his mouth pressing on hers, sealing the words back. He heard her and knew exactly what she wanted to tell him-and he believed her not at all. Sonia had forgotten nothing. Guilt lanced through him like a raging ache, the same ache that had haunted him for weeks…and his lips were rough on hers, smooth and hard and demanding. And then not. His guilt was not Sonia’s. Suddenly, the only thing in his head was the need to drive those memories from Sonia’s mind. Block them, erase them, obliterate them.