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I checked with the kitchen to ensure Mike and Frank—our chef and kitchen hand, respectively—had everything under control, and bolted upstairs to my bedroom, closed the door, and rested my forehead against it for a couple of seconds, until the anger and the pounding of my pulse had eased. Then I stripped off and fell onto the bed. I didn’t dream, but that intangible feeling of approaching doom nevertheless made for a restless sleep.

When I woke, it was to the comforting warmth of a body pressed against mine and the whisper of breath against the back of my neck. He smelled faintly of the citrus-and-ginger soap I kept in the shower, and his skin was cool and damp, meaning he’d only just joined me on the bed.

I turned in his arms and smiled as he drew so close my breasts were lightly pressed against his chest. “Good evening.”

“It is now that I have you in my arms.” His lips brushed mine, a sweet caress that barely hinted at the fierce desire that burned through him, around him. It was a heady scent. “I hear you and my mother had words this afternoon.”

“Good God, the gossip lines in this place really are impressive.”

He laughed, a warm sound that vibrated delightfully through my breasts. “It wasn’t them this time. Ciara rang me and said she’d had words with Mom?—”

“From what I gathered, it was more a full-on argument. Your mother was most displeased.”

“Yeah, she said that, too. And apparently her face was something of a picture when she returned to the compound. What did you say to her? More importantly, what did she say to you?”

I told him, and he laughed. “You seriously demanded an apology?”

“Well, don’t we deserve one?”

“Yes. I’m just picturing her expression when you said that. Few have stood up to her—including me—for far too long. But I wouldn’t be expecting my mom to apologize anytime soon. It’s not in her nature.”

“Hmm.” I trailed my fingers lightly along his side to his hips, then slipped them down between us. His cock jumped under my touch, and desire curled through me, a hungry, low-down, burning ache that said, without even being touched, I was already ready for him.

He skimmed his fingers, with torturous slowness, down the side of my neck and then across the right side of my breast. Delight shivered through me, and that spark of hunger deepened in his eyes.

“I’m not expecting anything from her,” I said softly. “It’s an entirely different matter when it comes to you.”

He raised a lazy eyebrow as his fingers continued their journey toward my hip. “And what might that be?”

“To stop playing around and get serious about satisfaction.”

“Says the woman who is driving me to distraction with her delightful caressing of my cock.”

“Said cock is obviously enjoying the attention. My counterpart is feeling decidedly left out.”

“Perhaps I should remedy that?”

“Perhaps you—” The rest of the sentence was lost to a gasp as he slipped a finger into the heated heart of me and lightly brushed my clit.

He chuckled softly, then rolled me onto my back and began to devour me with lips and tongue, until I was a shaking, needy mess, unable to do anything more than simply plead for him to end the exquisite torture.

He didn’t. Not immediately. He simply held himself above me for several long seconds, his gaze devouring mine, hot and heavy and yet so filled with love my heart swelled.

“I love you, Elizabeth Grace.”

“And I love you, Aiden O’Conner.” I hesitated, but devilment rose, and I couldn’t help adding, “I doubt I will ever love your mother, however.”

Amusement twitched the corners of his lovely mouth. “A normal man would find the specter of his mother being raised at such a critical moment in proceedings rather deflating.”

I wrapped my legs around his hips and drew him down, shivering in delight as his body slipped into mine. “Just as well you’re no ordinary man, then, isn’t it?”

He laughed, kissed me, and then drove me to heaven.

The dream came again.

I walked barefoot through the forest, the air alive with luminous threads of moonlight, some far older and more powerful than others. Unseen shadows paced me, but there were only four this time, rather than five.

In this version of the dream, no one paced beside me.