Page 24 of Dream Lake

The ghost looked exasperated. “Just talk to her. Pat her back.”

Alex gave him an appalled glance. There was no possible way to explain his unwillingness to touch her. The sure knowledge that it would lead to disaster. But Zoë swayed on her feet, looking like she was about to pass out, and there was no choice. He reached for her, his hands closing lightly around her arms. The feel of her skin against his palms, the texture of her flesh, sent a thrill of heat through him, which, in light of the circumstances, was nothing less than depraved.

He had been with women in every imaginable sexual position, but he’d never taken one into his arms with the sole intention of comforting her. “Zoë, look at me,” he said quietly.

To his relief, she obeyed. She was panting, gulping painfully as if she couldn’t get enough air, when the problem was that she was taking in too much.

“I want you to take a deep breath and let it out slowly,” Alex said. “Can you do that?”

Zoë looked at him without seeing him, her eyes desperate and tear-blurred. “My ch-chest—”

He understood immediately. “You’re not having a heart attack. You’ll be fine. We just need to slow your breathing down.” She continued to stare at him, wetness leaking from her eyes, mingling with the pearly mist of sweat on her cheeks. The sight caused something to twist painfully inside his chest. “You’re safe,” he heard himself saying. “I won’t let anything happen to you. Easy…” His hand came to the side of her face. Her cheek was cool and plush, like the sepals of a white orchid. Carefully he touched her nose, pressing one nostril shut, holding it like that. “Keep your mouth closed. Breathe through one side of your nose.”

With the intake of air restricted, Zoë’s breath began to regulate. But it wasn’t easy. She gasped and hiccupped, and kept fighting to breathe as if she were trying to insufflate corn syrup through a straw. All Alex could do was hold her patiently, and let her body work it out. “Good girl,” he murmured, as he felt her begin to relax. “Just like that.” A few more constricted breaths. To his relief, she stopped struggling. He let his hand cradle her face, while his thumb wiped at the stippling of tears on her cheek. “Take long breaths from deep down.”

Looking exhausted, Zoë dropped her head to his shoulder, the pale golden curls tickling his jaw. Alex went very still. “Sorry,” he heard her whisper in between broken gasps. “Sorry.”

Not as sorry as he was. Because the feel of her had sent a shock of pleasure through him, so pure and searing that it was almost pain. He had known somehow that it would be like this. He found himself gripping her closer, until her body molded to his as if her bones had gone liquid. A few remaining tremors went across her back, and he chased them slowly with his hands. He felt his senses opening to take her in, the incredible lush delicacy of her. She smelled like crushed flowers, a dry and innocent scent, and he wanted to open her shirt and breathe it directly from her skin. He wanted to press his lips against the wild pulse in her throat and stroke it with his tongue.

Heat uncurled and rose through the stillness. The urge to touch her intimately, slide his hands through her hair and inside her clothes, nearly drove him crazy. But it was enough just to stand here with her, disoriented from the desire that flowed all through him.

Through heavy-lidded eyes, he saw a movement nearby. It was the ghost, only a few yards away, regarding him with lifted brows.

Alex shot him an incinerating glare.

“I think I’ll check out the other rooms,” the ghost said tactfully, and vanished.

***

Zoë clung to Alex, who was the one solid thing in the world, the still center of the merry-go-round. Dancing at the edge of her awareness was the mortified knowledge that, after this, she would never be able to face him again. She had made a fool of herself. He would have nothing but contempt for her. Except… he was so gentle… so concerned. His hand moved over her back in slow circles. It had been a long time since a man had held her—she had forgotten how good it felt. The surprise was that Alex Nolan was capable of such quiet, fluent tenderness. She would have expected anything from him except this.

“Better?” he asked after a while.

She nodded against his shoulder. “I… I’ve always hated spiders. They’re like… hairy wads of death on eight legs.”

“Usually they only bite humans to defend themselves.”

“I don’t care. I’m still scared of them.”

Amusement rustled in his chest. “Most people are.”

Zoë lifted her head to look up at him with wide eyes. “Including you?”

“No.” He caressed the edge of her jaw with the backs of his fingers. His face was austere, but his eyes were warm. “In my line of work, you see enough of them that you get used to it.”

“I wouldn’t,” Zoë said vehemently. Remembering the one in the kitchen, she felt her pulse skyrocket. “That one was huge. And the way it dropped out of the cabinet and started hopping toward me—”

“It’s dead,” Alex interrupted, his hand returning to her back, resuming the calming stroking. “Relax, or you’ll start hyperventilating again.”

“Was it a black widow?”

“No, just a wolf spider.”

She shuddered.

“They’re not lethal,” he said.

“There must be more. The house is probably full of them.”

---