Midnight Hour (Shadow Falls: After Dark #4)(28)

Did he even regret leaving her?

She drew in a sobering breath that still tasted sweet, Perry sweet. She cleared her throat.

Guilt flashed in his eyes and reminded her of the complete inappropriateness of this situation.

“What are … How…?” Careful not to expose herself any more than she already had, she slipped her cast in the arm hole and finally managed to

push a full sentence from her lips. “What are you doing here?”

“I came in while you were … in the bathroom. And then you came out and … you didn’t see me.”

“And you just sat there, didn’t say anything, and let me take my clothes off!”

“I … was going to say something, but then you … I saw … and I couldn’t talk.” His eyes brightened, the corners tightened, and she waited,

almost certain he was about to …

His lips quivered and then finally gave way to a smile, part nervous, part shameless bad boy.

That’s all it took to set the butterflies chasing rainbows in her stomach.

He tried to pull the smile back, but didn’t succeed. Then he gave up. A noise, a pulled back chuckle, escaped his mouth. “It’s not like I

haven’t seen it all before.”

She pressed her palm against her fluttering abdomen. His words were like brushstrokes that painted memories in her head.

Memories of them skinny-dipping. She remembered that night—and not just now but a thousand times—always late, right before she gave in to the

sleep, right when her guard was down, her heart vulnerable.

He’d dared her to do it. Come on. I’m going to. And he did it. Under the silver shadows of the moon he took his clothes off … slowly. Not a

touch of embarrassment filled his eyes, and she’d been just as comfortable removing hers. They had stood there in front of each other and just

stared. What should have been awkward and uncomfortable was sweet, special, and so right.

The water had been just cold enough. His skin just warm enough. She remembered in painful detail how close they’d come to going all the way.

Less than three weeks later, he broke up with her and left for Paris. Left her to pick up the pieces of her heart. Left her to try to figure

out how something could feel so right and have been so wrong.

“That was a long time ago.” The words left her mouth dry, her chest open, her heart cracked.

“Nine months, two weeks, and three days. I could tell you the exact hours if you told me the time.” Honesty gave his words a deeper tone, and

something almost sad flashed in his eyes. The mirror image of what she had seen in his baby blues echoed inside her chest.

How many times had she regretted that night? Not because of how far they went, but because they hadn’t gone any further. Kylie and Della kept

talking about the first time and how it needed to be special. She’d never experienced special like that since.

Crazy as it seemed, while they hadn’t had sex, it felt as if they’d somehow made love.

“I’ll never forget it,” he said.

Neither will I? Pride, that ugly emotion she wished she didn’t have, kept her from saying it. But how could she not be a little smug? He’d

been her everything. Her reason she got up every day. Her reason to laugh. Then he’d become her reason to cry.

He shuffled his feet amidst the obvious tension. “Are you hurting?” He motioned to her arm.

Yeah. And you caused it. “I’m fine.” She paused. “What are you doing here?”

“I thought you called me.”

She glanced at her phone. “No, I … I didn’t.”

He lifted one shoulder in a half shrug. “Not on the phone, but … in your head.”

“What?” she asked.

“You know, telepathically.”

“No. I can’t.” Suddenly not wanting to think, she started talking. “Well, I could but it would take hours working on a spell, and even then

clairvoyant spells usually need to be blessed by a mystic Wiccan.”

“A what?”

“A mystic. They’re powerful in different ways. Telepathically talented. But they aren’t tied to the Wicca Council. There aren’t a lot of

them around.”

He lifted his other shoulder this time. “Then maybe it was like dreamscaping. You know, like Kylie can do.”

“Witches can’t dreamscape.”

“Well, all I know is that I … saw you and you were crying and lying on the grass, bleeding. And you called my name. Then later I had another

image of you on a stretcher. And since—”

“That’s odd.” Especially when she …

“What’s odd?” he asked.

“I … heard. Well, I thought I heard you talking to me a couple times. But I was injured.”

“Then you must have contacted me?”

“No, like I said, I can’t do that.” Realizing she was still not completely dressed, she reached back to attempt to tie the gown strings.

Unfortunately, one-handed it was impossible.

“Well, I’m less likely to be able to do it, so it had to be you.”

She bit down on her lip. “Maybe it was just … a fluke?” She reached back again.