Page 7 of Now You See Him
He’d be home any minute, and she absolutely could not be seen like this. Tina bolted out of bed and raced for the bathroom.
She’d have to think about her dreams some other time.
Chapter
Four
It had been two weeks since her sex dream that started with her trip to the basement. She almost felt like she’d imagined the whole incident. The only problem was that when she’d showered, she’d found fingerprint bruises on her thighs. Her vagina had been swollen and sore as well. It had been as if she’d actually been ravaged. Her body had been tender, and her muscles had quivered like she’d been a virgin taken by a cock too big for her.
Those were very real experiences that marked her body.
It had to be her imagination, something she did to herself since Tina was alone in the house that night, unless some serial killer was hiding in her basement.
But that couldn’t have been it. There had to be another explanation.
She’d done her best to dismiss any thoughts of ghosts or paranormal nonsense. She was even grateful for Logan’s return. With him around, the bursts of cold against her arms, the odd pressure against her back, the feeling of constantly being watched, could be explained. And at night, he’d be able to tell her if she was sleepwalking or something.
Except nothing remotely similar happened in the days that passed. She continued to experience sex dreams that were too vivid to be anything but triggered by…something. The touch of hands that were not her fiancé’s, the weight of a man that was muscled, heavier, more assertive than her fiancé, remained a constant presence in her life. She always woke up in a cold sweat, to the sounds of Logan still snoring at her side with flashes of Derrick Sutter’s face in the shadows. Most nights, she was left unsatisfied.
She had to be experiencing some sort of a breakdown. Even the melatonin she’d started taking had done nothing to protect her. She’d need to go to the doctor and get something stronger if she had any hope of getting a dreamless night of sleep where she didn’t wake up terrified and horny at what was happening to her mind.
“Wow, you look exhausted.”
Tina looked up from her morning coffee, across the small table that she’d positioned in the kitchen area. Logan was reading the newspaper on his tablet, his gaze discerning.
“It’s…work,” Tina said. “I’m heading up a big project.”
“Oh, well if it’s too much to handle, then maybe someone else on your team can take care of it for you.”
“It’s not too much to handle,” she said, trying to keep the bite out of her tone. She knew that he was just trying to problem solve, just trying to help her. “I just need a nice hot shower and I’ll be as good as new.”
Logan snorted. “Good luck with that.”
“What do you mean?”
He put his tablet down. “Sweetheart, haven’t you heard my complaining about our damn water for the last two weeks?”
“I’m sorry, I…”
He waved her off. “Every time I try to shower, the water is ice-cold. I haven’t had a hot shower since coming back from NewYork. I almost want to go to the city just so I can know the feeling of warm water again.”
“That’s so strange, I’ve been showering in hot water this whole time,” she mused.
“Maybe you’re using up all of it,” he said. He paused as he picked up his coffee mug. “No, that’s not right. The last couple days, I’ve showered before you. I think something’s wrong with our brand-new hot-water heater. We should probably get someone out here to have a look at it. I wouldn’t know the first thing about fixing it myself.”
At that moment, the purse that she’d left on the kitchen island tipped over and crashed to the floor. Tina jumped out her chair, barely containing her scream.
Logan also got to his feet. “Whoa, are you okay?” he said. There was genuine concern on his face when he reached for her belongings to put them back in her bag. “I have never seen you so jumpy like this before.”
She didn’t want to tell him, to explain to him that she’d had sex in her dream and woke with bruises and signs that the sex was real. Every time she went to bed, she was touched and stroked and kissed in a way that had her wound so tight but failed to reach an orgasm. She didn’t want to admit that she saw a man’s face that wasn’t Logan’s when she closed her eyes at night.
“The sound just caught me by surprise,” she said as she picked up a lipstick tube that had rolled to bump up against her bare toes. Then she saw the card that had also slipped out of her bag and slid across the tile.
“What’s that?” Logan asked when she picked it up and rubbed her thumb over the simple lettering.derrick sutter.
“I, ah, met a contractor in town. He…ah, he did some of the renovations on the house.” She didn’t know why she didn’t want to tell Logan that Derrick Sutter sold her the house. Maybe itwas because her fiancé was freaked out when she wouldn’t agree to buy any other property except this one in the first place. She didn’t want to deal with his berating again.
“Tina, why don’t you call him and ask him to check out the hot-water heater? Maybe he screwed up the install or something.”
