Page 5 of Safe in Shadow (Pine Ridge Universe #22)

T he human took a long time to fall asleep. She stared at the little screen of her phone for hours, tossing and turning.

In his bed.

Not that he slept on it these days (it didn’t have much of a mattress left anyway), but he slept under it.

When she finally fell asleep, her body hidden under a fresh pale blue comforter and crisp white sheets, he crept closer. The phone was still on her chest. Still softly chattering.

Anything in this house is mine. Let’s see...

Nyx gently reached out, arm extending, turning thin and spindly. His fingers touched the case and closed around it.

He could pick it up.

A tingle of power rushed through him.

Hilltop is still mine . She may own the legal documents for it, but the deeper laws of life and death win over any scrap of paper.

He felt like crowing as he lifted the phone from her chest and put it on the small chest of drawers by the bed.

The rush of power made his essence flow hot, like it had when he’d watched her bathe. Hot and hard.

Wouldn’t harm her.

Grace stirred and shifted, kicking off the covers and pulling at the mat of thick, tangled blonde hair on her pillow.

I’m making her hot. Too hot for blankets.

Nyx grabbed the edge of the sheet and went to drag it back over her naked body, but he stopped. Hesitating.

Wouldn’t hurt to look for just a few minutes. She’s beautiful. Like art. Yes. Like art.

But curiosity overwhelmed finer feelings—and even his baser ones. Could he touch her? Move her?

Like spilled ink, he trickled under the bed, only emerging halfway. If she woke up with a scream, Nyx doubted that she would see him, blackness wrapped in darkness, but out of caution, he would vanish underneath, out of sight. Grace would think she’d had a nightmare, and he’d know better next time.

Head, shoulders, and torso rose, long and lean. Grace had rolled on her side so that she seemed to be facing him, although she was unaware of her audience.

A pretty face with a firm, angular chin and a short, rounded nose. A strong, stubborn face, that’s what he’d call it.

Her body was probably too muscular to be what the men of his time liked, but of course, many men of his time never got to see a body until the wedding night.

They had to base their assumptions on what they could see through layers of corsets, petticoats, and stockings—and brassiers could be stuffed and bustles padded.

Grace’s breasts were small, soft-looking handfuls the size of under-ripe apples. The curve of her hip where it pushed out into the hill of her rear was divine.

Nyx ran a finger down her arm, and she didn’t stir. Nor did she move when his hand closed around hers and lifted it, moving it slowly and gently to rest on her hip.

She’s mine, too. How? How can she be mine?

His hand moved a damp curl from her cheek and lingered where he could feel her slow, warm breath tickling his fingers.

It’s like she’s bound herself to this place somehow. She didn’t know she was binding herself to me, too.

I don’t care how. What do I do?

Banish her? Play with her?

Finally, a treasure worth owning, a single boon in this prison.

Nyx rested his head on his hand for a moment. Why should he rush her off? He hadn’t had anything so pretty to look at in a long, long time, and none of the others who came to visit were pleased to be here.

But if she makes this place livable, people will come, the building will be maintained, and it might last another hundred years. Even longer! I’ll never be free.

She moaned softly in her sleep and stretched, rolling into his touch.

Damn it.

A day won’t make a difference.

His finger brushed over her face. Over her slightly parted lips.

Lower, across her shoulders and her chest, stopping just above her breasts.

So beautiful.

But I shouldn’t touch any—

Nyx found his thoughts halted when Grace rolled again, breast butting into his palm.

He moved back like he was burned, whisking under the bed when he heard her sleepy, startled “Mm?”

Oh, no. Oh, no, no. What am I? What am I becoming?

Under the bed, it was dark and silent, like being plunged into an icy lake where nothing of the living world could reach him.

So how come he heard her breathless whisper, just like it was in his ear?

A soft, disoriented cry of, “Where’d you go? Come back...”

GRACE WOKE UP WET—WHICH was a new thing.

She hadn’t done much in the way of dating in the past six years. Relationships petered out after a few months when the men she met weren’t interested in her hobbies. She had to admit, hanging out with seniors and studying the stock market didn’t make her exciting.

Still. The guys she liked weren’t even polite about her interests. They were eager to get away and look for someone “fun.”

That was okay. Nana said those young men weren’t right for her, and young men hadn’t been her cup of tea, either.

“You’ll find yourself with an older man and be very glad about it; you just trust Nana.

G-Pop was ten years older than me, and everyone told me I should look for a younger man, but from the second I met your grandfather, I knew.

He treated me like a queen—his treasure—and someone never to be trifled with!

Yes, Gracie, older men know how to look after you while seeing that no fools get in your way. ”

In her dream, there was someone with her. Someone in the shadows of her dimly lit bedroom, moving on top of her, inside of her, leaving her breathless with pleasure—but stopping before she could peak.

“Not your fault. I woke up,” she mumbled, hand immediately sliding between her legs. It had been a long, long time since she had the energy, freedom, or privacy to do this.

Maybe being alone at secluded Hilltop would be fun—at least for this kind of thing.

Legs bent at the knee and pulled back in a lazy V, Grace rubbed her clit in slow circles, building to something quicker and harder as she slid wetness from her slippery opening around her folds and up to her nub.

Her head turned toward that peculiar dark corner of the bedroom as her fingers slipped inside, one, then two, and began to thrust.

She wanted something bigger. Much bigger.

Mind tumbling from sleep to sex, Grace’s eyes struggled to stay open, but they kept blinking and briefly focusing on the stubbornly shadowy spot beyond the foot of her bed.

Sunlight beckoned outside the gauzy white drapes. It was a bright May morning. It felt lovely and luxurious to be pleasuring herself in the silence and privacy of her own mansion.

Okay, her own money pit was more accurate, but a girl has to dream.

So why did she care about the corner?

Because I don’t understand. Why is it still so dark? Even now?

Is it spreading? Shrinking?

It was doing something over there.

Her tunnel gave a greedy pull on her fingers as the heel of her palm rubbed hard on her clit. “Oh! Oh, fuck, yes!”

NYX ECHOED HER UNDER his breath, a pained gasp as his form took on some definitely human, masculine traits—like a throbbing erection.

He’d been with a woman in life.

But it had been a dark, drunken fumble each time, a hidden hurry that brought him pleasure but didn’t seem to create the same sensations in...

He’d forgotten her name.

Well, he’d forgotten his own.

But he felt like he would never forget Grace’s name, or her scent, or the sight of her sweet pink tunnel hidden between golden thighs and swimming on crisp white sheets.

Aphrodite incarnate.

And how she moved so easily, so freely, touching her most secret parts with shameless joy.

She glistened when she was done, wet, juicy slit leaving shining trails on her inner thighs.

Suddenly, he remembered the feel of a hot, tight body around his, urging him to release. But his previous partner never cried out, never breathed heavily and bucked her hips like Grace was doing.

What was she doing? She kept looking at him—or at least looking into the darkness where he watched, a pulsating shadow trying to control the urge to become solid so he could pleasure himself while watching her.

Grace’s neck craned so that her head left the bed and stared into his peculiar abyss for a long moment before flopping back. Her hips swished and swiveled, pointing her sweet, soft womanhood at him, letting him have an unobstructed view of her fingers fiddling in her wetness.

“Where’d you go, dream lover? You shouldn’t have left so soon,” Grace whimpered, fingers moving faster.

Dream lover? Me?

She’s calling for me?

It was too tempting, and temptation could be used in his favor in one way or another. If he responded and Grace grew afraid, she’d leave. And he’d like that.

Or she wouldn’t realize what was happening, and he’d get to play with his new toy. And he might like that even better.

Gliding over, Nyx saw that her eyes were closed as she fucked herself with her fingers. His hand, warm with excitement, moved with a ghost-like featheriness over her arm. She didn’t open her eyes. Didn’t stop moving.

His hand lightly rested on her wrist. Still no change in her motions—and now he could share them.

Nyx shrank down small, a mere strip of black, like the slit between blinds. He was a mere stripe on her arm, her wrist, letting his most insubstantial form made of pure shadow feel the pull and push of her fingers as they plundered the juicy peach between her thighs.

It wasn’t long before his heat took a more solid form—a band of pressure, pushing her fingers in deeper, harder, faster.

She’s fucking herself, but I’m helping. Telling her fingers where to go. Reach deeper. Move faster. Pound harder.

“Like that, like that. Almost there!”

Nyx managed not to gasp audibly with an effort. It was like she was aware of the change of force but unaware of what caused it.

“Please!” Her whispered wail almost undid him. He almost slipped, changed form, and gave her what she seemed to crave so badly.

Instead, he vowed he’d relieve his urges later and take care of her first. His weight shifted, pushing her wrist in at a steeper angle, then resisted when she tried to withdraw. He trapped her fingers deep in her soft chasm, wishing he were the one to give her something hard.

No, he thought. Stay there, let your walls have what they want, something to squeeze on, Sunflower. In his mind, he gave her a nickname. He moved his shadowy weight subtly, daring not just to rest on her hand, but to touch her—there.

Nyx felt guilt burn him as he pulsed his dark, heavy energy against her hidden pearl of flesh, so slight that many men would have overlooked it. He overlooked nothing. He was savoring every second of looking at her most secret pieces, and now touching them.

I’m not hurting her. She wants this.

But not from me.

“Please, please, please...” Grace’s whimper absolved him, at least temporarily. Thick and fast, he rubbed her in circles while her thighs clamped down around her own hand. He heard her relieved moan and felt tremors course through her body before it went slack.

“Oh, God. Yes. ”

Nyx fled the room, hurrying straight through wood, stone, and fabric down to the old bathroom at the end of the east wing.

His body rippled and expanded until a tarry form greeted him in the mirror.

Still thinking of her scent and her warmth, the sight of her dewy lips spread around two penetrating fingers, Nyx gripped his cock and came, releasing a smoky white mist that fell like vapor before rejoining his dark shape.

What the hell have I done?

And will she ever let me do it again?