dumb to know better, two-thirds of a lifetime ago. How amazing it would be to bathe his naked cock in her scalding heat, to explode inside her. To fill her with himself, his seed.

Seth refused to let himself examine that thought, electing instead to slide into real, deep sleep. For the first time in what felt like forever.

At first, it was the classic contradiction; the horror of surprise side by side with a terrible sense of inevitability. Her father, pointing. Herself, leaning to look. Blood oozing out of the marble, like the credits in old B-grade horror movies. She looked up, and it was not her father, it was Victor, smiling. He grabbed her braids and yanked on them hard, making tears spring into her eyes. “Toughen up, Katya. The world is not kind to crybabies” His voice boomed in her head, loud and metallic.

She was at the Stone Island dock, dressed in the green frog bathing suit. Her hair was braided tight for swimming, and her mother was wearing a yellow sundress, laughing. The big dark man with the mustache plucked her green frog glasses off her nose, and was holding them too high for her to reach. Taunting her, dangling and yanking. Dangling and yanking. The sunglasses were prescription, and without them everything was blurry. The mustached man was laughing like it was all so funny, but it wasn't at all. Tears of frustration gathered in her blurred eyes, no matter how she tried to blink them back, and Victor was sure to scold her again if he saw them.

Her father's sailboat was floating away from the dock. He was waving good-bye, and even with her blurred eyes she could see the bleak sadness in his eyes. It crushed her to see him so defeated. He gestured at the three laughing adults, getting smaller and smaller.

“Remember.” He was too far for her to have heard him, but the word reverberated in her head as if he had spoken it directly in her ear.

This was it, she knew it. She would never see him again. He was getting smaller, only his shadowy eyes could be seen, like the eyeholes of an aged skull. Panic exploded, and she was screaming after him, begging him to turn back, come back, she would save him, she would think of something, she would do anything if only he would please, please come back and not leave her all alone

“Raine! Jesus, wake up! It's only a dream, baby. Wake up!”

She struggled wildly against the strong arms that were holding her. Then it all slipped into focus. Seth. Sex, chocolate, candle flames guttering in a pool of blood-red wax. The island. Another dream.

She collapsed against his warm chest and dissolved into tears, but they didn't last as long as usual. His fierce embrace radiated heat through her body, relaxing her. The tears subsided, and she wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “I’m sorry I woke you,” she said.

“Don't be an idiot,” he said. 'That was a hell of a nightmare.”

She nodded, resting her hot forehead against his chest.

“You want to tell me about it?” he prompted.

“No, thank you.”

He hugged her tighter. “It might help. So I've heard”

She shook her head He kissed the side of her face that wasn't pressed against him. “Suit yourself,” he said. “If at some point you change your mind, I'll still be interested.”

“Thank you,” she whispered.

He pulled her back to him, fitting her into the crook of his shoulder. “Are you going to be able to sleep?”

“No,” she admitted. “Not for a while. Maybe not at all.”

“So this is a chronic thing.”

His matter-of-fact voice made the whole thing seem less dreadful. He flipped on the bedside lamp and studied her damp face, his eyes somber. “Can I help? Is there anybody whose ass I can kick for you?”

She snuggled deeper into his warmth, kissing the thick bulge of his bicep, and shook her head. “You can't save me from this problem, Seth,” she said quietly. “But I love you for wanting to.”

He stiffened beneath her, and she realized, with a twinge of alarm, that she had used the scary L-word. She'd heard that it made men panic, when used prematurely.

Stop clinging to an illusion of control, she reminded herself wryly. He wasn't running or screaming. That was promising.

“So,” he said, his voice elaborately casual. “What happens now?” She kissed his chest. “Now you sleep, and I stare at the ceiling.”

“No. I mean, with us.”

She propped herself up on her elbow and smiled at him, threading her fingers through the hair on his chest “You can start by promising to never leap out of the dark and scare me, ever again.”

“Give me a key,” he suggested. “When you come in, just say 'Honey, I'm home,' and if I'm there, I'll say 'How was your day, dear?'“

She was taken aback by the bold request. “It seems almost redundant to give you a key, Seth,” she hedged.

“Your neighbors might get nervous if they see me picking your locks all the time. Besides, official boyfriends get issued keys.”

“They do?”

He frowned. “Hell, yeah.” He looked annoyed at her hesitation.

Raine stared down at the pattern of hair on his muscular chest, contemplating the idea. It flew in the face of all the rules, but those rules didn't correspond to the crazy reality she inhabited. She was destined for chaos. She took a deep breath, and followed her heart, not her head. 'Til give you the keys that Victor gave me,” she offered.

He jerked up onto his elbow. “What?”

“He was waiting for me when I came home last night” she said.

He gestured impatiently. “What did he want?”

“He wanted me to spy on you” she said. “He's curious about you.”

“So? What did you tell him?”

“I told him no,” she said simply. “I told him to leave. What else could I do?”

“You could quit,” he said curtly. “You could tell him to fuck off. You could get the hell out of town, that's what you could do!”

She looked down and shook her head.

He cursed, and flopped down onto his back, staring up at the ceiling. “You're driving me nuts, Raine. Bad nuts, not good nuts.”

She studied his scowling face, puzzled. “Doesn't it bother you that Victor wants to spy on you?” she inquired.

He slanted her an impatient look. “Not particularly. I'd do the same if I were him. I knew the guy was a sleaze. It comes as no shock to me. Want me to dream up some stuff for you to tell him, just to keep him off your case?”

“No, thank you. I don't want to play his game at all.”

His face hardened. “Then what are you doing here?”

She shook her head again. “Seth—”

“I have to know. You don't want to play Lazar's dirty little games, and yet, you can't leave. You say you have your reasons. So what are they?”

His voice slashed across her nerves, already jagged from the nightmare, and her fragile calm began to crumble. She thought of her father’s sad, hollow eyes as he drifted away. Tears came, in a hot, uncontrollable rush, and she covered her face with her hands.

Seth made an impatient sound. “I'm not going to be put off by sniveling, Raine. What the hell is it with you and Lazar? Out with it.”

The words came out of their own volition. “He killed my father.”

He didn't react, or exclaim, or look shocked. He just studied her, his eyes thoughtful, for a long moment He reached out and brushed the tears off her cheeks with his knuckle. “You want to run that by me one more time, babe?” he asked gently.

She pressed her hand against her mouth as she tried to sort out what she dared to tell him. One wrong word

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