Thankfully, Chaya and Natches’s daughter was becoming very interested in it, and Natches’s objections had been swiftly vetoed by his wife. So hopefully, soon, there would be regular lessons.

She was learning martial arts, learning how to fight, and toning her muscles to enable her to protect herself in most situations.

Sweat poured down her face, dripped from the side of her neck, and dampened the long, jet-black hair pulled into an intricate braid along the top of her head before twisting into the heavy rope that fell past her shoulders.

Her brief sports bra was soaked, her skin damp with moisture, while the black shorts she wore clung to her skin. Still, her heartbeat wasn’t up as it should have been, her pulse remained steadier than it had in past months, and her muscles weren’t burning yet.

She couldn’t stop, wouldn’t stop until her body was ready to collapse from weariness and exhaustion. She couldn’t. If she did, then she had to think, she had to remember the nightmares, and that she didn’t want to do.

She slammed her wrapped fist harder into the heavy bag, her teeth gritting, desperation lancing through her senses as she began pounding at the punching bag. She didn’t want to remember . . .

“It was a dream,” the dark voice commanded, barely loud enough to hear but pulsing with the demand.

The shadowy image stepped into her dreams, his warmth wrapping around her, sinking inside her. She could feel him, and it made her ache to feel him closer. To feel him without the barrier of clothes, hot and naked against him while his powerful hands touched her.

“You’re safe, Zoey. You’re safe. Harley’s safe. It was a terrible, terrible nightmare.”

A nightmare.

A terrible dream.

So why hadn’t anyone seen Harley since that night? He didn’t answer his phone or his texts, nor had he returned to the apartment he’d rented. Several witnesses saw him that night at an all-night convenience store, after an obvious fight, gassing his truck. He’d even told the young woman he was seeing that he was leaving town and didn’t know when he’d be back. But surely he would have answered calls to his cell phone, the texts or desperate emails she’d sent since that night.

It was just a dream, Zoey.

That shadowy image of the man who had taken her into his arms for such a brief time, danced with her, then left, haunted her. His voice, reassuring her and his arms holding her.

It was a nightmare. A terrible dream . . .

Damn, you were in trouble when your dream man lied to you in your dreams. There had to be some kind of psychosis that went with that. She had no doubt there was one. And it was just her luck to be afflicted by it. Because she knew he was lying to her, she could feel it. And she hated it.

“Zoey, do you hear me?” he urged her, that demand piercing her soul, pulling at her even now. It was just a dream, nothing more. And she believed it was all a dream. She really did.

“Don’t ever forget you killed me, Zoey . . .”

Her fist plowed into the bag as a harsh sob tore from her throat. Did she believe it? She didn’t know what to believe anymore. The nightmare of blood, death and pain, or the fantasy that stroked pleasure through her senses.

Holding on to the bag, her muscles trembling, Zoey closed her eyes, sinking into the memory of that nightmare, that fantasy, just as it had been before she awoke that morning.

“I’m scared . . .” She was terrified. Until his voice came.

Now it was a fear of being alone to face the demons once his voice was gone. The demons that raged and clashed inside her head and fought to convince her that she had indeed killed Harley.

“Don’t be scared anymore, Zoey.” Warm, callused fingertips eased from her temple to her jaw. “Listen to me, and everything will be okay.”

She imagined she could make out a hint of his face, his profile perhaps. Strong features, dark eyes. His smiles were sad and filled with a loss of hope.

“Zoey. You have to listen to me so the pain will go away.”

And that was all she had to do? Just listen to him? She didn’t believe that. She could sense there was more, something he did that made the fragments of her brain come back together again and the pain fade away.

What had he done? She could sense it, she could feel the answer, but it drifted away now, before she could capture it.

“See, I’m going to make it better, no matter what you do, pretty girl,” he whispered so softly she had to strain to hear him. Hunger filled his voice. Male hunger. The hunger a man feels for a woman, a lover. With no fear of the Mackays, no apprehension of what her brother might do. Just pure, carnal intent.

That intent filled her with pleasure. It stroked through her senses as his hands began stroking her body. Caressing her, stoking her need that much higher, hotter than ever.

“Isn’t this part of the dream so much nicer?” His lips brushed over her neck as he laid her back, his naked body coming over her.

For a moment she tensed. Harley came over her to hurt her. But there was no pain here. The shadowy features of her lover didn’t morph to Harley’s features as Harley’s did into a monster’s.

“I always like this part of the dream better than I do the part that rips open my skull and leaves me wanting to scream, but I can’t find my voice to scream.”

He knew what it felt like.

He knew the pain, the agony, and she hurt for him while she dreamed. Ached for the sense of intuition that assured her he’d suffered in untold ways and still faced the nightmares. “I hate that part of the nightmare too. See how much better this part is? See, that’s how you know it’s just a nightmare, baby. Because before it ends, if you don’t wake up, then I’ll be here with you and if I’m here, then the pain will go away.”

“Don’t leave me. Hold me.”

“Just for a little while, baby.” His lips eased over her fingers. “But I’ll be back. If you promise me you’ll know it was just a nightmare.”

She would promise him anything. “Just a nightmare.”

“Sleep for me now, Zoey,” he whispered. “Sleep. And know when you wake up that everything’s going to be fine. It was just a nightmare.”

“But it wasn’t just a nightmare,” she cried out as she pushed away from the heavy bag, her breathing rough and heavy, sweat soaking her skin.

Tearing off the tape wrapped around her hand, Zoey restrained the urge to kick something. She’d felt the anger burrowing deeper, growing stronger inside her since the night she dreamed she’d murdered Harley Perdue.

Her fingers found the plastic water bottle sitting on the cement ledge that ran along the outside wall. Gripping it firmly, she placed the straw in her mouth and drew on it, the cool water washing over her tongue, easing the dryness in her throat though the bitter taste of fear remained.

When she finished drinking she tipped her head back, squeezed the bottle, and let the water cool the heated flesh of her neck and shoulders before it ran into the already soaked material of the sports bra.

The music cut off abruptly. Swinging around, body bracing defensively, she immediately relaxed when she saw who had managed to slip into the gym with her.

Her sisters called him her hot, sexy roommate. He actually just rented one of the huge spare bedrooms at the other end of her apartment. He’d been the answer to a prayer in that first week after she moved in and realized she was panicking at every sound, certain someone was coming in on her.

He was always there in the evenings, never left the apartment at night, and he didn’t creep around either. He walked like a normal person instead of a ghost like her brother, cousins, and brothers-in-law were prone to do. A person never knew when they were sneaking up on her.