Had she gone to the woods afterwards? She must have…
…deep among the trees, she’d run, screaming for help, for Gran, for anyone. Because something had raced up behind her, something wild and terrible, a hunter, a beast…
A shudder ran through her. The memory was visceral, almost real. Far too vivid. She had to push it firmly away. That was a nightmare, not a memory. It had to be. None of that had happened.
Alex had found her father’s body in the woods, not the house. A heart attack, they said.
How could she remember two things at once? What was she missing?
She dropped her hand away from Nick and he caught it in his. His touch was warm and solid, his fingers closing around hers, stroking her skin. He’d held her hand like that when she fell, while they waited for Patricia. He’d been there with her. Even though it must have been a waking nightmare for him.
‘What are we like?’ she murmured. ‘Standing here, haunted by the dead.’
She ought to ask him about the portrait outside her room, that handsome man with the devilish eyes. Maybe she could get the two swapped around. Much better to see her father like that, smiling, bathed in sunlight, every morning. She reached for her phone in her pocket, intending to show him the photo of Blaise’s portrait, and…and…
The laughter, dark and taunting, swept through the edges of her memory.
The air chilled around her, just for a moment, and then she was breathless as heat washed through her.
She was suddenly seized by a wild urge to just grab Nick’s shirt and pull him towards her. To kiss him, press her body up against his, to feel that strength and that warmth. She remembered the thought that had swept over her when she first saw him, that she’d have to climb him like a tree and suddenly she wanted to try. To push him back against the polished wood panelling and…
Alex sucked in a breath, half desire and half terror. Nick was gazing down at her, his eyes huge and dark, his mouth parted. As if fighting to stop himself from doing the same.
God, how she wanted him to give in. How she wanted to give in. Her heartbeat was so loud she was sure he could hear it and that ache in the depths of her stomach made her breath catch in her throat.
Desire. Need. Lust.
She felt dizzy with it.
He was right there for the taking, something seemed to tell her. A whisper in her ear. A thrumming in her blood. Something twisting inside her, trying to make her abandon all caution to the winds.
‘Take what you want. It’s your right, after all, de Wilde.’
They had been talking about his dead wife, and dead children, and her dead father…but all she could think aboutright now was demanding that he show her what it meant to be alive in the most primal way possible.
Alex swallowed hard, the very action painful, as if something was lodged in her throat. She forced herself to step back. Nick released her hand, but stood there like one of those stones in the woods, still watching her. Like an oak, rooted to the spot, his face expressionless.
Nick didn’t move for a moment, but then he bowed his head and shrugged his shoulders as if shaking off whatever ailed him. ‘We should see where Maeve’s got to,’ he said, as if nothing had happened at all. ‘She gets up to mischief here. I try to keep her out of the Hall as much as I can. You can understand why.’
She did. Grief did strange and terrible things. Especially with a small girl’s overactive imagination. Especially in a house with such a dark history.
‘You should have lunch, and maybe a lie-down afterwards. Come on, before you get dizzy again. You’ve been overdoing it. Patricia’s picking Maeve up soon. I’ll get her to take another look at you. She’ll kill me if you have a relapse.’
It was an excuse but it was better than anything she had to hand right now. Whatever was happening between them, she couldn’t let it happen again.
CHAPTER 22
ALEX
That night, there was an addition to her dreams. Nick Walker.
His scent, the scent of the wild wood, the feeling of his strong arms closing on her, holding her, the murmur of his lips against her skin.
Alex woke several times in the night, flushed and breathless. He came to her in the darkness, worshipped her and their bodies wound together endlessly until all was pleasure and desire. His fingertips stroked her molten skin, his voice praising her in that now familiar low rumble. He knelt before her and his mouth devoured her, or pinned her against the damask wallpaper and wrapped her legs around his hips as he entered her with a swift and decisive movement. He spread her out on the bed, like an all too willing sacrifice to lust. His body moved against hers, hot and silken, but she could never quite see his face. His hand closed around her throat, never too hard, just enough to hold her wherever he wanted her, as he kissed her, as he filled her with desire and drove her to a delirious ecstasy. The warmth of him, that addictive musk, wound itself around her, like twisting sheets.
Each time she woke, she was sure she heard laughter. Cruel, heartless laughter. Like someone or something had planted those dreams in her head to torment her.
Dreams, she told herself as her own fingers moved to finish what her dream had started. They were only dreams.
