PROLOGUE
Prologue
She rose out of the gentle, lapping waves of the lake, wet T-shirt clinging to every luscious curve of her body. Her nipples peaked against the cotton shirt, from wet or cold he couldn’t tell. The fabric molded to her full breasts, slender waist, and gently rounded hips and buttocks. That skimpy T-shirt showed off long, muscular legs to distinct advantage.
She walked out of the water and stopped, her gaze riveted to him. He stood still, trapped in that hungry stare. Long dark hair, gleaming wet in the moonlight, fell around her shoulders and down her back to her hips. His heart skipped a beat and then lurched into a faster rhythm. His body hardened to a painful familiar ache as she continued to watch him, staring as though at her favorite dessert and she was eager to bite.
“They chose you for me.” Her voice, a low husky invitation, stroked his senses, rippling through him. “But I give you the choice.” She faltered and uncertainty flickered in her eyes. “Don’t take me unless you want me—forever.”
His body yearned. Every fantasy he ever had rolled into one glorious woman, one moment in time, and she offered herself to him—forever. His brain, his intellect, balked at that word—Forever. The word, her tone, the fantasy—he looked away from her before he lost his sanity. As though a cage closed around him, he backed up a step. Unable to stop himself, he looked at her again. He needed to look at her. It was too dark, even in moonlight, to know the color of her eyes, but he could not mistake the hunger, the need, which mirrored his own.
Water slid off her gleaming body like a temptation. His fingers ached to touch, his hands to slide over bare wet flesh. His mouth suddenly dry, he swallowed hard and barely grasped logical thought.
“What do you want? What is going on here?” he demanded, his voice rough with desire. “What happens next?”
The stunning apparition shook her head. “I don’t know.”
He stared at her. He had no choice. His rapt gaze roamed over her luscious body and stopped, trapped, by her eyes. In the harsh moonlight they gleamed, stark and direct, as she continued to stare at him. His hands clenched into fists at his sides. Every instinct he possessed urged him to either run from the trap or grab her and spring it. He stood, frozen in place, his gaze never leaving her.
Benjamin Thornton woke with a start, his breathing harsh and ragged in his ears. His heart pounded. Blood rushed through his veins. The sweat of desire glistened and cooled on his skin as though from a broken fever. His cock, hard and throbbing, strained against the sheet twisted around his waist and legs.
“Jesus,” he groaned in the aftermath of the vivid erotic dream he'd experienced on and off for the past ten years.
Scowling, he sat up in the bed and glared at his reflection in the large mirror on the wall across the room. Different locations, different clothes, little or no conversation, the dream always focused on the same woman—sexy, alluring, blatantly inviting. He long ago dismissed them as harmless fantasy. He never met the woman and certainly never bedded her, he would remember that, but the intense sense of familiarity nagged at him. Deliberately, he shoved the woman and the erotic dreams from his mind and, naked, left the bed.
He forced himself to forget her, as usual, as he prepared for the workday ahead of him. In his work as an electrical construction foreman, Ben had plenty to keep his mind busy and his body exhausted.
Heat scorched her back as she ran, panicked, through shadowy metal corridors. Locked doors taunted her from both sides in the large wavering shadows that flowed along the walls, chasing her. Fire roared behind her from around the corner she had just blindly turned. Thick smoke choked her nose, mouth, and lungs as she rushed toward the door at the end of the hall. Nearly blinded, she barely made out the fixtures along the walls of the corridor. A huge menacing shadow, a silhouette of a man with a gun held at the ready, appeared from the intersection just ahead of her.
Despair settled over her like a wet blanket. The others had already escaped. Would she, one of those who masterminded and led the escape, be able to join them? Her eyes burned from the thickening smoke as she focused on the doors ahead of her.
The heat at her back increased as the fire drew closer. Alarms screeched and clanged amid human screams and shouted commands. The shadow coming at her grew larger, infinitely more menacing, and he stepped directly into her path. Heart pounding erratically, she skidded to a halt. On a spurt of panic, she reached for the nearest door knob and twisted it. Locked, it didn't budge. Trapped between the roaring fire and her nemesis, she deliberately looked up into his glittering eyes—eyes so cold they might freeze the oceans.
“Don’t,” she whispered, her throat sore and raw from smoke inhalation. “Please.”
Her gaze slid to the gun pointed at her and then back to his harsh expression. Without a word, he reached out with his free hand and took her upper arm in a bruising grip. It was useless to struggle. He had her. She closed her eyes and waited to die. Instead he jerked her along with him, the gun barrel at the side of her ribs, prodding her along.
“What are you going to do with me?” she demanded in a hoarse croak.
“Shut up,” he ordered as he forced her around the corner, further from the fire blazing like an inferno through the building.
Heavy smoke and blistering heat followed them, overtook them. She coughed, twisted in vain against his iron grip, and finally screamed.
That furious, terrified scream rang in her ears and jerked her out of sleep. Disoriented, she panicked in the dark room until her mind insisted the dream had ended. Chest heaving, heart pounding, she shoved off the blankets, sat up, and switched on the bedside lamp.
Naomi Carter met the wide-eyed frightened stare of her reflection in the mirror across the small room and blinked. It took concentrated effort, but her breathing slowed to normal. Her heart and pulse rates might take a little longer. As she drew in slow, deep breaths, the horrifying images of fire and a man deadlier than any creature on earth began to fade until the nightmare seemed no worse than any other bad dream.
By the time the coffee finished brewing and she had showered and dressed, the nightmare’s details had blurred in her mind, leaving her drained and worn out. She’d had the nightmare before, off and on, for the past ten years. It terrified her, left her gasping for breath, bathed in the sweat of fear. The details, though fuzzy, indicated a terrified flight from something—or someone.
