He’d held her all through it, without moving a muscle except for the slow beat of his heart, giving her the animal comfort of his body. She lay against him, spent, listening to his strong, steady heartbeat, feeling his even breath ruffle the hair on the top of her head. One huge hand covered the back of her head and one arm was around her waist, holding her just tightly enough to give comfort, without making her feel restrained.

Her eyes were swollen, her throat ached. She lay heavily against him, as if her skin could melt into his.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered in a soggy voice.

His hands tightened briefly. “Don’t apologize, duschka.” She had no idea what duschka meant, but the tone made it unmistakably an endearment. “You can cry all you want. It is a world made for crying. You lost your friend.”

She rolled her forehead against his shoulder. It was like rubbing it against a warm rock. “Yes,” she said simply. “I lost Harold. I miss him so much.”

“I know you do.” He nodded. “And you lost your paintings in your home. Your beautiful paintings in the gallery. They’ll be gone by now.”

It was what she’d suspected. “Yes.”

“And you lost even more than your friend and your paintings. It is no wonder you cry.”

They were both silent, because the last thing she’d lost was her life, the life she’d known.

Grace was held so tightly against Drake, felt so surrounded by him, by his utter physicality in the here and now, that her old life felt far away.

Her entire system had quietened, the crying jag like a violent tropical storm that then moved on, leaving behind silence and calm. Her breathing slowed, quieted. During the jag, she’d focused on the hot ball of grief and sadness in her chest, but now outside sensations seeped in.

The warmth of his body, like a huge heater under the covers, the feeling of being utterly surrounded by strength, the slow thud of his heart against her breast. She shifted slightly, and her hip came up against his erection, huge and ready, as always.

An electric current swept through her body at the feel of him as he surged against her at her lightest touch. She’d just cried her heart out, and yet her body was already preparing for him, softening, becoming wetter…

She lifted her head to look at him. Drake’s face was so solemn, strong features still as he watched her. As always, he made no effort to charm her. He never used words to seduce her. He was a man of action and he showed what he felt by actions, not words.

Each feature was fascinating. The dark, hooded eyes that seemed to see so much. The full, sensual mouth. The high cheekbones and beard-roughened jawline. Features becoming so dear, so…

So familiar?

Grace cocked her head, blinking. How could…? She stopped breathing for a moment, overwhelmed.

“Oh my God,” she whispered, cupping his face with her hand. How had she missed it? Why hadn’t she recognized him? She felt her eyes go wide.

He brushed his lips across the ball of her shoulder. “What is it, duschka?” he murmured.

“It—it’s you.” Grace ran her finger over his features, tracing the dark wings of his eyebrows, the slight lines fanning out from his eyes, easing down the straight bridge of his nose. Why hadn’t she seen this before?

“You’re the man of my dreams,” she whispered, then stopped, heat rushing to her face. “I mean—I dream about you, Drake. I’ve been dreaming about you for over a year now. They’re more nightmares than dreams, actually. Danger and violence, always. And always safety provided by a man. I’ve tried to paint his face but I’ve never come closer than a generic look because I never remember his face when I wake up from the nightmares. But…he’s you. Somehow, Drake, he is you. The man who saves me. Now that I can see it, it’s so clear. I have been dreaming of you.” She ran the back of a knuckle down the left side of his face. “Except…in my dreams, the man who saves me always has a big white scar here. As you must know, because you’ve bought five of those portraits.” She frowned. “I haven’t seen them hung in your study, though.”

“No.” Drake shook his head slowly. “They were too…personal. They’re in a vault, where only I can see them. Because I recognized myself right away.”

Grace shook her head, amazed. “How could you? How could you recognize yourself when I didn’t? I only now realized that I was painting and drawing variations on you. Each portrait was different, because I never saw your features clearly. The only things they had in common were dark hair and dark eyes and a—a strong look. But each portrait was different.”

He took her hand and placed it against his left cheek. “How could I not recognize myself? Each portrait was the same,” he protested. “Each man in the paintings had a long white scar on the left side of his face.”

He pressed her index finger into the flesh of his left cheek. “Feel, duschka. Feel what is underneath the skin.” At first Grace didn’t know what he was talking about, but then she could feel it—a line underneath the skin, following the scar of her dream saviour. “I had the best plastic surgeon in the world, but even the best plastic surgery only heals the skin. My scar ran deep and the surgeon couldn’t repair all the tissues underneath.”

She watched him, fingers on his skin, running the pad of her index finger up and down his face. The hidden scar was there, from his temple down to his chin, exactly as in her dreams.

“This is impossible,” she whispered.

“Yes, it is,” he said simply. “And yet, impossible or not, it is so.”

Grace’s head swam. She was such a…a prosaic person. She didn’t do shrinks or self-help books or group therapy. She didn’t believe in ghosts or past lives or angels. She led a quiet life, painting and reading, mainly in her own apartment, almost always alone. All she’d ever wanted was to paint and be left alone.

She’d never had a feeling of destiny or of great things in store for her. Fate had never been a factor in her life.

But here it was. Inexplicable and otherworldly.

She’d dreamed, over and over again, of this man. A man she’d never met, never even thought to meet. Somehow she’d known him, known that they were fated to be together.

Goose pimples ran up her forearms and the hair on the nape of her neck rose. She felt an inner trembling, as if she were in a frozen wasteland instead of in a warm, comfortable bed with a fire blazing in the hearth.

The chill went deep, to her core. Her icy hands shook.

She’d been touched by something she had no words for. She knew only that it was big, tapping into something that she now realized was the energy that ran the world.

At that moment, in an act of total surrender, Grace gave herself over to her destiny. She was somehow meant to be with this man.

Drake. Drake was her destiny.

“It was you,” she whispered. “Always you.”

“Yes, duschka,” he said quietly, face sober. “We are somehow linked. I don’t know how and I don’t know why, but I knew there was a connection the first time I saw your portrait of a man I recognized as myself.” He ran his hands along her side, as if shaping her. His eyes searched hers. “I knew you were important to me, but I stayed away from you for a full year. I knew I couldn’t share my life with a woman, it was much too dangerous. So I stayed away. But I couldn’t stay away completely. I was there every time you came to the gallery.”

His head shook slowly, eyes never leaving hers. He shifted her until she was on top of him, opening her legs with his until her knees flanked his sides. He was hugely erect, hard and hot. With a soft touch, he reached down to open her until the lips of her sex rode him.

The deep voice grew even more deep, the timbre rougher, the accent stronger.

“It was like you were giving me life, duschka. Your paintings, the way you talked, moved. Your very existence. There was no way I could do without seeing you, after that first time.”