Wicked Burn(39)

Vic started into wakefulness, surprised to see the gray light of dawn peeking around the blinds in his bedroom. It gratified him that he’d slept for a good majority of the night. The reason for his profound sleep was enfolded snugly in his arms.

He’d never really had to convince Niall with words to sleep in his bed that night. After they’d finally left her new condominium, exhausted and completely happy from their multiple rounds of phenomenal lovemaking, they’d ducked into a Thai restaurant for dinner. Vic had guessed from Niall’s heavy eyelids after she’d drunk a glass of wine and devoured almost her entire portion of chicken pad thai that she wouldn’t be long for the waking world. So he’d suggested they watch a DVD together at his place, and sure enough, within forty-five minutes he had an armful of soft, warm, sleeping woman.

He nuzzled the hair at her nape and inhaled her scent. Maybe it was the dampness he found at her neck, or maybe it had been the sensation of the tremors that periodically shook her body that had awakened him in the first place. Or perhaps the primitive part of his brain recognized the scent that mixed with the residual fresh, floral scent of Niall’s perfume.

It was the smell of fear.

His fingers skimmed along her neck and back. Sweat soaked through her shirt. She moaned in her sleep. The sound pained Vic on some deep, indefinable level.

“Niall. Wake up. Wake up, baby,” he murmured as he stroked her sides and pressed his lips against a flushed cheek. She whimpered, the noise reminding him of a trapped animal, both mournful and panicked at once.

He couldn’t stand it.

“Niall.”

She jumped in his arms.

“Vic?”

“You were dreaming,” he muttered close to her ear. He continued to rub her body from her thigh to her ribs, attempting to soothe her. She moved restlessly in his arms and finally sat up. For a few seconds she just sat on the edge of his bed as her breathing slowed, her face shadowed by the dim light and her huddled posture. Neither of them spoke when she finally rose and went to the bathroom.

She returned to the bedside a minute later. “I’m sorry for waking you,” she said in her low, smoky voice that seemed perfectly suited to the muted, gray light of dawn.

“I slept better last night than I have in weeks. You’ve got nothing to apologize for,” Vic told her when she perched on the edge of his bed. He wanted to reach out and pull her back into his arms. He wanted to keep her safe from whatever plagued her dreams. But something in her tense posture made him wary about touching her.

“Maybe I should just go,” she whispered.

“Don’t.”

He saw her head fall forward, sensed her uncertainty . . . her vulnerability.

“I’m all sweaty.”

“So we’ll take a shower in a little bit,” Vic stated with more ease than he actually felt. His jaw clenched when she still didn’t move. This dawn encounter with Niall struck him as heavy . . . even threatening, although why that should be, he couldn’t say. The eerie mist of dreams must be clinging to him as well.

“I’m leaving for Manhattan later today,” he heard her whisper.

“You told me you’re not taking off until four o’clock. There’s plenty of time. Niall?”

“Yes.”

“Come here,” he said softly.

It was only after she’d slid back into bed and was fast asleep in his arms that he finally exhaled the burning air in his lungs.

NINE

Three nights later Niall followed the hostess at The Art, still breathless from her sprint from the museum. She’d landed late at O’Hare and gone straight to her office at the museum without dropping off her suitcase, so that she could make an important conference call. The call had gone frustratingly long. She hated to be late for the dinner that she’d planned with Vic, knowing how little time he had, given his frantic schedule during these last few days before opening night. She knew he could get away for only a limited time tonight for dinner, so she regretted not being able to spend every second of it with him.

She’d missed seeing him these last few days—more than she cared to dwell upon. She’d been busy in meetings with a curator at the Metropolitan Museum, but she’d always been all too glad to receive Vic’s phone calls in the evenings. The fact that he’d hardly said anything during those phone calls only endeared him more to her. She felt more connected to Vic in the silence than she did with most people after an extended heart-to-heart chat.

In fact, something about the fragile connection of those phone calls between Chicago and New York seemed to signal a shift in her relationship with Vic. Or maybe the change had begun last Sunday morning, when she’d awakened from her typical nightmare and allowed Vic to soothe her instead of withdrawing into her typical solitude.

She doubted the wisdom of deepening the relationship with Vic. If what was between them became more serious, she’d have to tell him about Stephen. She’d have to tell him about Michael. She’d experienced a powerful urge to do just that the other day on the stairs of her new condominium. Vic had guessed that there was some story behind the “emergency” that her parents had come to retrieve her for last week. He wasn’t stupid.

But Niall was so used to vigilantly keeping her life private. It was a difficult habit to break.

And there was always the chance that he would judge her—judge her as her parents had, judge her as Stephen had . . .