Lover Mine (Black Dagger Brotherhood #8)(100)

Jesus . . . she was smarter than he'd thought. "So why do you want to have anything to do with me?"

"Sometimes . . . I don't really know." Her eyes returned to the book, but they didn't go back and forth over the lines. They just locked onto the page. "I guess it's because I was really naive when I met you, and you gave me a shot when no one else would, and you taught me about a lot of things.

And that initial crush is hanging on."

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J. R.Ward

"You make it sound like a bad thing."

"It can be. I've been hoping to grow out of it . . . and then you do stuff like look after me and I get sucked in all over again."

He stared at her, measuring her perfect features and her smooth skin

and her amazing body.

Feeling tangled and strange, and like he owed her an apology, he went over to the camera on the tripod and turned it on to record. "You got your cell phone with you?"

She reached into her robe's pocket and took out a BlackBerry. "Right here."

"Call me if anything strange happens, 'kay?"

Holly frowned. "Are you all right?"

"Why do you ask?"

She shrugged. "Just never seen you quite this . . ."

"Anxious? Yeah, I guess there's something about this house."

"I was going to say . . . connected, actually. It's like you're truly looking at me for the first time."

"I've always looked at you."

"Not like this."

Gregg went over to the door and paused. "Can I ask you something weird? Do you . . . color your hair?"

Holly put her hand up to the blond waves. "No. I never have."

"It's really that blond?"

"You should know."

As she cocked her eyebrow, he flushed. "Well, women can get dye

jobs down . . . you know."

"Well, I don't."

Gregg frowned and wondered who the hell was running his brain: he

seemed to have all these odd thoughts playing over his airwaves, like maybe his station had been hijacked. Giving her a little wave, he ducked into the hall, and looked left then right while listening hard. No footsteps. No creaking. No one with a sheet pulled over his head, Casper-ing around.

Yanking his windbreaker on, he stalked over to the stairs and hated

the echo of his own footsteps. The sound made him feel pursued.

He glanced behind himself. Nothing but empty corridor.

Down on the first floor, he looked at the lights that had been left on.

One in the library. One in the front hall. One in the parlor.

Ducking around the corner, he paused to check out that Rathboone

portrait. For some reason, he didn't think the painting was so f*cking romantic and salable anymore.

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J. R.Ward

Some reason, his ass. He wished he'd never called Holly over to look

at the thing. Maybe it wouldn't have marked her subconscious such that she fantasized about the guy coming to her and having sex with her. Man . . .

that expression on her face when she'd been talking about her dream. Not the fear part, but the sex, the resonant sex. Had she ever looked like that after he'd been with her?

Had he ever stopped to see if he'd satisfied her like that?

Satisfied her at all?

Opening the front door, he stepped out like he was on a mission, when in reality, he had nowhere to go. Well, except for away from that computer and those images . . . and that quiet room with a woman who might just have more substance than he'd always thought.

Kind of like a ghost being real.

God . . . the air was clean out here.

He walked out away from the house, and when he was about a

hundred yards down the rolling grass, he paused and looked back. On the second floor, he saw the light on in his room and pictured Holly nestled against the pillows, that book in her long, thin hands.

He kept going, heading for the tree line and the brook.

Did ghosts have souls? he wondered. Or were they souls?

Did television execs have souls?

Now, that was an existential question and a half.

He took a leisurely loop around the property, stopping to tug at the

Spanish moss and feel the bark on the oaks and smell the earth and the mist.

He was on his way back to the house when the light on the third floor came on . . . and a tall, dark shadow passed by one of the windows.

Gregg started to walk fast. Then broke out into a run.

He was flying as he leaped onto the front porch and hit the door,

throwing it open and pounding up the stairs. He didn't give a shit about that whole don't-go-to-the-third-floor warning. And if he woke people, fine.

As he came to the second floor, he realized he didn't have a clue

which door could take him to the attic. Walking fast down the hall, he figured the numbers on the jambs were dead giveaways that he was ripping past guest rooms.

Then he got to Storage. Housekeeping.

Thank you, Jesus: EXIT.

He broke through, hit the back staircase and took the steps up two at a time. When he got to the top, he found a locked door with a light glowing under the bottom.

He knocked loudly. And got a whole lot of nothing.

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J. R.Ward

"Who's there?" he called out, yanking on the knob. "Hello?"