Page 1 of Nightmares and Numerology

Chapter One

Lydia

“I can’t,” I whispered.

My voice escaped in a shuddering breath. I couldn’t seem to get enough air. Angelo was pressed too close, his body caging mine against the wall, trapping me before I could bolt like a startled doe. The hands that manacled mine were long-fingered and inhumanly dexterous.

“Can’t?” he murmured against the skin of my throat. “Or won’t? There’s a difference, dearest Lydia.”

His hands wound around my back, pressing me tightly against him. The scent of his starched suit collar was delicious enough to make my mouth water. I wanted to produce a snappy retort, but no words came. Proximity to the sleek, velvet-voiced incubus I shared a home with generally had that effect on me. It was a miracle I hadn’t thrown myself under him already.

“Can’t,” I managed after an embarrassingly long pause. I felt like I had to force my thoughts together with glue. “I can’t do this.”

I felt his lips curve into a small smile against my throat. “I’m quite sure you’ve got the winning argument. Once you’re through, you never have to look at the undercooked pastry you call an ex-husband ever again, Bean.”

I laughed, though it came out as more of a warbling gasp than true amusement. Angelo’s nickname for me had sprung from my borderline addiction to vegan jelly beans. I’d gotten the whole household hooked on them, though it hadn’t been difficult in Bluebell’s case. The adolescent faerie was as hungry as any human teenager, and sugar was a must for most faeries. They adored the stuff, incorporating enough into their diet to makeour local vampire dentist cringe.

But even the cutesy nickname and casual disparagement of my ex couldn’t spur my traitorous legs into action. Idid notwant to go into yet another courtroom and argue over assets with Rodney. He’d been dragging the divorce out for years, if for no other reason than to make me miserable.

Well, to make me miserableandculpable for his many debts. He’d mismanaged our bookstore so badly I’d needed to pare back on pretty much every aspect of my life to keep myself afloat. My new lawyer, a devilishly handsome associate of Angelo’s, had wrangled me a good deal. All I had to do was go in, speak with the judge, sign a few papers, and it would all be over. Years of frustration, all to get to this moment. I should have been singing the hallelujah chorus.

Except Rodney had messaged me the night before, smugly informing me that he would be attending with his new girlfriend. Some insanity had prompted me to scour his social media to see what I was up against. It had been a monumental mistake. His new girl, Andrea, was at least a decade younger than I was, with a waist so snatched it looked like she’d fold in half and be unable to stand upright again. I felt stout in comparison. I didn’t have mile-long legs or smoldering good looks. I wasn’t a former Filipino model turned successful businesswoman. I was just a gypsy who’d blundered into a dangerous situation and somehow, impossibly, managed to bag an incubus.

If I stepped inside that courtroom, I’d look over at her and wonder if one day Angelo would try his sexy demon schtick on someone younger and better looking. Like a former model with boobs that deserved their own spread in a naughty magazine. Her rack seemed to defy gravity and probability both, somehow fitting her slender frame without looking top-heavy. It had to be some kind of magic keeping them aloft. You couldn’t engineer a bra with enough support for Andrea’s assets.

“I can’t,” I repeated with a touch of a whine. I sounded childish, and I knew it. You’d think my spine might have adopted a little more fortitude after all I’d been through recently, but my courage had taken a vacation right alongside my dignity.

“Hmm,” Angelo hummed, trailing his fingers up my spine, leaving delicious tingles in his wake. Heat pooled in my belly, and my mouth went dry. It was just a small pulse of power, but it was enough to rouse every nerve ending I had.

A soft sound escaped my throat when he lifted a hand, pressing the pad of his thumb against the pulse straining the vein in my neck. His eyes were a hypnotic shade on a good day. Now, there was a bit of the devil in them. They’d darkened with some primeval hunger, and it took all my concentration to remember why shedding my clothes in public was a bad idea. There were cameras pointed at us, I was sure. The poor security personnel would get an eyeful. Then again, thiswasa Hollow. It was possible they’d seen worse.

“You can’t seduce me in there,” I hissed at him.

He lifted an eyebrow. “I can’t?”

Angelo raked his eyes down my front, taking in the ensemble I wore. Wanda, the High Witch of our local coven, had enchanted it to attract good luck to the wearer. I was pretty sure the outcome of the trial had more to do with the expensive lawyer Angelo recommended than the garment, but I’d worn it, regardless. The black skirt suit flattered what figure I’d been able to recover in the last few years. I’d never be a taut twenty-something or a gorgeous Filipino model, but I’d managed to drop a few pounds in the last few months.

Pro tip: Running from demons is great cardio.

Before I could open my mouth to speak, the desire intensified, and I had to stifle a lusty moan before it escaped. It was the kind of sound you heard in X-rated films, definitely not appropriate for this venue. Angelo smirked when I gave him ashove.

“Shut it off! This isn’t the time or place!”

“Anytime, anyplace,” he said, his voice caressing the words like a velvet promise. “I have no problem being an exhibitionist, Lydia.”

He rolled my name over his tongue as though savoring it, and the gleam in his eyes told me he liked the flavor.

“I have a problem with you being an exhibitionist!”

He chuckled, a sound far more intriguing than it had any right to be. Everything about him was designed to tantalize: the laugh, the face, the eyes, the smile. He was nothing less than spectacular because he was a demon that fed on sexual energy. He’d been after mine from almost the day we met.

“Liar,” he said quietly. “You’d like it too. I know what you want, Lydia, and it isn’t anything vanilla.”

Heat rushed to my cheeks like a fast-moving wildfire. I knew I must have been red in the face, but I still couldn’t help my reaction to his words. Maybe my irritating mental companion had a point. Maybe I was really that cliché: the oversexed librarian who wanted to be bound and gagged in the stacks while being taken without mercy.

“I don’t think the judge would appreciate me being late,” I responded. “You only have fifteen minutes to make an impression, right?”

His breath brushed over the shell of my ear before he leaned in to whisper, “I can reduce you to a quivering mess in a handful of seconds. Maybe less. My personal best for bringing a woman to climax was fifteen seconds. I’ll make you scream, Lydia. But if you want to do power play in the dark, you have to get that monkey off your back. Wouldn’t you like to play schoolgirl and principal as a single woman?”

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