She knew this dream well. Johnny handed her a glass of wine before touching her cheek. She trembled and could barely contain her tears, because her brother had been arrested for drug charges that would send him to prison for a long time if he was convicted. She knew he was innocent; he would never jeopardize his future like that, or hers. He was going to be a teacher, for God’s sake. What kind of a teacher gets arrested for dealing heroin?
“Don’t cry,” Johnny soothed. He lounged in a chair across from her, his legs crossed. “I’ve got it all worked out.”
She gasped in relief. “How? Do you know who did it?”
He shook his head regretfully. “No, but I know people, and I can get your brother released and the charges dropped and erased.” He snapped his fingers. “Just like that. But I need something from you.”
Her gut twisted at the tone of his voice, but Johnny had been kind to her. He wanted to help her. She wanted to believe he could set everything right.
“I’ll do anything,” she breathed.
He smiled. Rising, he sat next to her and set his arm on the back of the couch behind her. He didn’t touch her, but he didn’t need to. She felt the gesture in her heart: it was a gesture of ownership.
She gripped her wineglass harder.
“If you want your brother to go free, you’re mine. Do you understand?”
“I’m already your girlfriend.”
His lips quirked. “Yes, you are.” He brushed her throat with his fingers. “But you won’t let me touch you. Still a virgin, aren’t you, Rosie?”
She blushed scarlet, looking away. He leaned forward to kiss her shoulder.
“Your end of the deal is this: you’re mine to do with what I want. You don’t get to say no, because then I’ll have your brother arrested again and thrown in jail for the rest of his life.” Johnny’s voice had hardened with each word, until Rose wanted to jump off the couch and run.
Fear coursed through her, until the wine in her glass splashed onto her thigh.
“What do you say?” he asked, his voice quiet yet lethal. “Yourself, or your brother? Your dear, dear brother, who took care of you when no one else would.”
She knew what her answer was. What it had to be. Setting the wineglass on the table in front of her, she began to take her hair down from its braid.
And Johnny smiled.
She awoke with a scream lodged in her throat. She always did. The scream could never be let out, because Johnny wanted that. He wanted her to scream.
Her head in her hands, she whispered the litany she told herself whenever she had this nightmare.
You’re free. You’re here. He’s gone. He’s not going to hurt you anymore.
If only that were true.
Callie followed her into the bathroom. Rose washed her face and considered taking a shower, but decided she’d rather sit and watch Bob Ross to soothe herself.
It was ridiculous, but she loved Bob Ross’s voice, his happy little trees. Only joy could be found in his paintings, those hotel paintings of landscapes. Rose sometimes considered taking up painting, but she had a feeling her paintings wouldn’t be full of happy little trees.
They’d be full of darkness, and shadows, and things better left buried six feet under.
She heard a noise next door, and the reminder of Seth Thornton made her pull her blanket closer around her shoulders. She almost laughed. What would he think about what she’d done? The deal she’d made with the devil to save her brother?
She thought of the kiss, the way he’d said her name. She wanted him to touch her as much as she wanted him to leave her alone.
Seth would think she was a fool, most likely. She knew very well how stupid she’d been. She’d thought she was being brave and honorable and saving her brother, but what did it mean when you sacrificed your own well-being for someone you loved? You lost yourself in the process.
So one person dies, anyway. Maybe not physically, but spiritually. Part of her had died that moment Johnny had touched her.
She pushed the memories aside. Callie pushed her nose against her palm, giving doggy comfort. Rose smiled. She didn’t cry—not anymore. She’d cried enough for five people.
All she wanted to do was repay Johnny the money he had spent to get Heath’s name free and clear. And then she’d get a life of her own.
She fell asleep to the sounds of Bob Ross painting a mountain, and her dreams weren’t nightmares this time. They were just as unsettling, however.
She was in Seth’s apartment—she didn’t know what it looked like, but her imagination supplied shadowy pieces of furniture. The walls were bright colors, which she thought was strange.
Then Seth emerged from his room without a shirt, and although she’d never seen him shirtless, she knew her imagination wasn’t overblown here. He was cut like a Greek god, and her mouth went dry with sheer lust.
When he touched her hair, tipping her head back, she didn’t hesitate. She closed her eyes as he kissed her. It was like the kiss outside, yet it wasn’t. It possessed an intensity that shocked her to the tips of her toes. She moaned as he thrust his tongue inside her mouth, licking and searching, and she wished he was inside of her in other ways. She wanted him to make her forget.
He picked her up and carried her to his room, never breaking the kiss. When they fell onto his bed together, she laughed, but then they were both naked—as dreams tended to do, without any logical reason—and when he pushed her legs apart, she wanted to protest. She couldn’t move or speak. She gripped his hair as he touched her, torn between what she wanted and what she feared.
And when he had almost pushed inside her, he disappeared into a mist, leaving her all alone.
She awoke a second time with her heart pounding and her entire body on edge. With a sigh of resignation, she touched her heated sex, not surprised by the slickness she found there. And as she came against her fingers in mere moments, Seth’s name trembled on her lips.
Chapter Seven
“Why did I agree to get up this early just to see you?” Rose joked as she barely stifled a wide yawn.
Heath grinned. “It’s only nine a.m.”
“You’re a morning person, I’m not.” She yawned again, and Heath laughed.
Rose had agreed to meet Heath for coffee that Sunday at The Rise and Shine, the bakery Megan Thornton—née Flannigan—owned and ran. Rose had only been here a few times; working at The Fainting Goat, she tended to get up late and return home in the wee hours of the morning.
“I’m not a morning person,” Heath replied, “but I’ve been getting up early for work so many years now that I can’t break the habit.”
“I’ve never had that problem.”
“Why does that not shock me?”
Rose stuck out her tongue right as Jubilee Thornton placed their two coffees and muffins in front of them. “Cinnamon latte for you,” she said as she handed the drink to Rose, “and a latte with an extra shot for you. Just how you like it,” she said to Heath.
Rose suddenly felt more awake than she had been just a second ago. So not only did her brother come here often enough for Jubilee to know his order, but she made a point to remember said order.