Page 75 of Bewitched By the Sea Monster
Alistair’s voice continued to tease my brain—lightly, at first. Soft, whispered words, most of which started to sound like murmured gibberish. But then he grew more insistent. Demanding, almost.
“Pippi. You look lovely.”
His voice dropped to a raspy whisper, one that had goose bumps exploding over my skin.
Stars, that accent of his, and the way it caressed each word…
It wassinful.
I rolled over, curling myself into a ball, and tried to ignore the spindles of arousal sparking in my belly as I drifted off.
Behind me, the bed dipped.
Jackson.
I sighed and scooted back, seeking him, the warm weight of his arms. The heat of his body. The comfort and affection and security, and…
My eyes burned when the bed gave a little shudder, and the weight disappeared.
Jackson never touched me.
I called for him, brokenly, hating the way my tears scraped my voice raw. But when I managed to lift my leaden head from the pillow and peer at the doorway of our bedroom, my heart slammed against my chest.
It was gone.
The door.
The wholebedroom.
There was nothing there. No walls, no bureaus, no windows. The suitcases we’d left piled in the corner had vanished. There wasnothing.The edge of my mattress dipped off into an endless pool of inky black.
“Jackson?” I bolted upright.
Or, well, Itried. But something heavy and iron-solid pinned my body to the bed.
“Jackson!”
I swiveled my eyes around, but the black plagued my vision. I couldn’t even make out the shape of whatever was holding me down.
“Jackson! Help!”
My heart turned into a heavy thrumming motor between my ears.
The thing pressed more fully against me, crushing me.
Every inhale became a struggle. My lungs were too smooshed to work properly. And I couldn’tmove.My wild attempts at flailing, at freeing myself, only locked me down tighter.
The black swelled around the fringes of my vision, an obsidian ocean puffing itself into a massive tsunami.
My cry came out in a warbling gag.
“Pippi?”
It wasn’t Jackson who called to me.
“Alistair!” I bellowed. “Alistair! HELP!”
With a sticky roar, the black waves at the edges of my vision gyrated, contorting themselves as though in pain, and retreated.
