After Moonrise: Possessed\Haunted (17 page)

CHAPTER SIX

One moment Levi was trapped in a world of black and
helplessness, and the next Harper was spotlighted in front of him, all that he
saw, all that he wanted to see. Like an angel, her pale hair had seemed to form
a halo around her, her concerned gaze so gentle it caressed him. She had been
his only anchor to the world, a tether that would not allow him to slip
away.

He’d remembered going to the station, speaking to Bright.
Remembered finding out Harper had been reported missing, and her roommate had
failed to tell the police she’d returned home. He’d had every intention of
interrogating Lana, but then the darkness had come for him, right there in the
station. And now he was…somewhere else, and Harper was with him....

“Levi?” she said.

Had he called her and asked her to come over? Dragged her here?
He
hated
not knowing.

Frowning, he glanced around. He was inside his apartment, the
lights switched on, bright enough to make his eyes water, though he couldn’t
remember how he’d gotten here. He was sitting on his couch, and Harper was in
his lap.

He liked that she was in his lap.

Was she truly here, though? Was she real? Was she healthy,
whole,
alive?
Unharmed by a murderer? He had to
know…and he had to taste her, he thought, the need consuming him in an instant.
She would keep the darkness at bay. She would keep him in the here and now. And
he would protect her, he vowed.

He pressed his lips into hers.

The moment of contact, she gasped, and the moment her mouth
opened, he took full advantage, kissing her as if she possessed everything
necessary for his survival.

Maybe she did.

No one would hurt this woman. Not ever again. He wouldn’t allow
it.

At first she was stiff, but as his tongue rolled against hers,
she melted against him, her hands making their way into his hair. Nails dug into
his scalp. Her legs straddled him, those lethal knees pushing into the back of
the couch.

How sweet she tasted, like an aged wine, heady and something to
savor. He forced himself to gentle, sipping from her for as long as his control
would allow, then he drank deeply, already addicted and needing more. He wasn’t
sure he’d ever get enough, but, oh, he would try. He would take everything she
had to give, and still demand more.

He didn’t like the circumstances that had brought them
together, but he was glad they
had
been brought
together, that something good could come of something so ugly.

“Harper.”

“Yes?”

He meant to say something, but once again he got caught up in
kissing her and couldn’t remember what it was. Him, a man who could memorize any
number at any time, now so forgetful. But what better thing to concentrate on?
Her moans of approval blended with the rough rasp of his breaths; they strained
against each other, his need for her deepening, spiraling, threatening to burst
from his skin.

And she was with him all the way—until his hands began to roam
down her back, circle around her hips and slip up…up…toward her breasts. She
gave another gasp, this one laced with fear. She jerked away from him, stumbling
into his coffee table, tripping to the side, falling, then crab-walking away
from him until her back hit the far wall.

Fear…that fear permeated the cloud of desire in his mind.
“Harper,” he said in a voice still affected by smoky desire. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m not ready,” she said with a tremble in her voice. “I
can’t. I can’t, and you can’t make me. Please don’t make me.”

I’m not ready.
The words echoed
through his mind, and he froze.
I can’t, and you can’t make
me. Please don’t make me.
Had someone once forced her? His hands
curled into fists. No. He didn’t want to believe it, was sick at the thought.
This had to be about the painting. A lone female, bound to a cold slab of metal,
naked, tools of torture hanging on the walls.

“Harper,” he said. She was breathing too heavily, would
probably pass out if she failed to calm.

He’d once looked at her and thought her somehow broken. Now he
knew beyond a doubt. She was—but she was so much more. She had stalked into the
apartment of a man she’d never before met and asked for help. She’d had the
strength to patch herself up, to hunt for answers.

“Harper,” he repeated as he stood.

A little mewl left her.

One step, two, he approached her, his steps unhurried, as
nonthreatening as possible. He held his hands in front of his body, palms out.
“I’m not going to make you do anything, okay?”

Another mewl.

“You’re here with me, with Levi, and you’re safe.” Before, he’d
told himself he would leave her alone if she was broken in any way, that he was
too weighed down with his own concerns to help someone else recover. Now he knew
there was no way he could stay out of her life. Not just because he wanted more
of her, more of everything she had to offer, but because he hated seeing her
like this. He wanted his smiling, teasing Harper back.

When he reached her, he crouched down, careful not to touch
her. “Harper, sweetheart. Can you hear me?”

A tear rolled down her cheek.

A sharp pang in his chest had him biting his tongue to stop a
curse from forming. Slowly, so slowly, he extended his hand to brush the hair
from her brow. He wasn’t sure what he expected, but what he got wasn’t it. She
erupted into a blaze of motion and fury.

“No!” Her fist struck him in the eye.

A surprising amount of pain exploded through his head,
considering her tiny size, but still he remained immobile. He’d been hit enough
times in his life that being smacked with a semi probably wouldn’t have fazed
him. But she wasn’t done, and next did her best to rain a world of hurt on him.
He let her. By the fifth punch, his adrenaline was so high he hardly felt a
thing, anyway. It was only when she began to kick and to twist, trying to claw
her way out through the wall, that he reached out to stop her.

He caught himself just before contact. If he touched her too
soon, her terror and desperation would only be driven higher and he’d have a
whole new set of injuries to contend with. He would have to wait this out.
Shouldn’t be too much longer now. Her motions were slowing…slowing....

Finally, the fight left her entirely. She collapsed on the
floor, sobbing, breaking his heart into so many pieces he wasn’t sure he’d ever
be able to glue them back together.

He said gently, “Harper, sweetheart?”

“Levi?” she asked with a sniffle.

Thank God! Springing into motion, he scooped her up and cradled
her against his chest. She allowed this, her head burrowing into the hollow of
his neck. He could feel the wetness of her tears, and wanted to howl.

He carried her to the couch and eased himself down, still
holding her close. Several minutes ticked by in silence. He’d dealt with victims
of abuse before, but never this up close and personal. So, because he wasn’t
exactly sure of what to do, he went with his instincts and massaged the back of
her neck, played with the ends of her hair, traced his fingers along the ridges
of her spine.

“Tell me what happened,” he said.

She drew in a deep, shuddering breath, released it. “I don’t
know. One minute I was kissing you, and the next I was on the floor, crying.
That happens sometimes. Not that I’ve kissed a lot of guys,” she babbled. “Even
the most casual of touches can set me off. Lana and I don’t even high-five
anymore.”

He frowned. “So…you have blackouts?”

A heavy pause. Then a whispered, “Yes.”

That little ball of information did more than land in his yard.
It shattered his window. She had blackouts, just like him. A strange
coincidence. Far too strange. His Spidey senses were suddenly tingling.

“Did I do something to you?” she asked, hesitant. “Say
something I shouldn’t have?”

“We kissed, only kissed, and you jumped to the floor. That’s
all, I promise. I never even made it to second base,” he said with as teasing a
tone as he could muster.
But I will. I will help you, and
we will do more, all.
“And just so you know, I have blackouts,
too.”

She jerked upright, twisting to fully meet his gaze. “What!
Really? You’re not just saying that to— Oh, my goodness! What happened to your
face?” she ended, horrified.

He could only imagine what he looked like. The beginning of a
black eye, surely, as well as a swollen cheek and busted lip. A lip that ached
as it twitched at the corners. How could she amuse him in the worst of
situations?

“What’s wrong with it?” He placed his hands on the couch, off
her body. Just in case. He didn’t want a repeat of the Episode; he just wanted
her, but he was willing to wait.

“Everything! You look hideous!”

Won’t grin.
But man, he liked her
honesty. “You should see yourself.”

Her eyes were red, swollen, and her skin spotted with pink.
Strands of pale hair were stuck to her cheeks, saturated from her tears. “What’s
wrong with me?”

“Nothing.” She was the most exquisite creature he’d ever
beheld.

The thought made him cringe. He so was not a poet.

“You’re
that
disgusted by me?” she
squeaked.

He rolled his eyes. “You’re hot. I’m hooked. And if what just
happened didn’t scare me away, nothing will.”

Her features softened. “So what
did
just happen to you?”

“I got into a fight,” he said, unwilling to say more if she
couldn’t remember.

“When? With who?”

He loved that, even though her hands were probably throbbing,
she refused to consider herself.

“I promise you,” she continued, “I’ll
ruin
him. Me and Lana, we have a system.”

He donned his best “I’m a cop and you’re in trouble”
expression. “What system?”

“Oh, uh. Hmm. Never mind about that.”

As if he’d really arrest her for defending him. A body-cavity
search, maybe. A stint with the cuffs, definitely. But anything behind bars?
Probably not. “So how long have you been having those blackouts?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she muttered.

“Do it, anyway.”

“No.”

Stubborn. “Here’s how this is gonna work. You’re gonna show me
yours, and I’m gonna show you mine.”

A calculating gleam entered her eyes. “I do want to see yours,
so…okay. Yes.” She nodded. “They started just before I moved here.”

His frown returned. “Same for me.”

“So you really do have blackouts?”

“I do.”

A thousand different emotions played over her features. “I
can’t believe… You’re the first person… Levi, do you know what this means?” she
asked, adjusting herself on his lap, once again straddling him.

“No.” Only the memory of what had happened the last time they’d
been in this position kept his hands at his sides.

“I’m not alone! Do you know how thrilling that is? I mean, no,
not thrilling, that would be a terrible thing to feel.” Her nose scrunched as
she struggled to experience what she deemed appropriate. “I’m sorry you’ve had
to deal with something like that. It’s terrible.
But I’m
not alone!
”

“Me, either.” And he was as thrilled as she was, he realized.
For the first time since his parents’ death, there was someone who understood
him.

“What do you think this means?”

“I don’t know. Does Lana have them, too?”

“No. I asked.”

But had the secret-keeping Miss Bonnie Wee Cutie told the
truth? He
had
to interrogate that woman.

“That’s what was wrong with you when I first got here, I bet,”
she suddenly exclaimed. “You were in the middle of a blackout, weren’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you know what time or where you were when it began?”

“It hit a short while after I left you. I had just talked to my
friend at the station, was walking to the elevator to leave, and that’s the last
thing I remember.”

She toyed with his shirt, twisting the material. “I can fill in
a bit of the missing time. I came over around midnight to speak with you, but
you didn’t answer. The door was unlocked, by the way. When I came in, you were
sitting on your couch, staring into the darkness, unaware of anything around
you.”

Relief cascaded through him. He’d always wondered—fine,
feared—what he’d done while lost to the darkness, and sitting on his couch
hadn’t made the list. “What did you want to speak with me about?”

Her hand flattened over his heart, her nails almost cutting
past his shirt. “Well…the blackout here wasn’t the only one I experienced today.
One second I was waiting for you, the next I was in front of my painting. I’d
filled in a few more details.”

He was gripping her by the waist, holding on to her as if she
would slip away at any moment, before he even realized he’d moved. “Tell
me.”

“I… The girl I’m painting…it’s Lana.”

Lana? Impossible. But…the secretiveness, the trepidation, the
odd behavior, reporting her friend missing but never reporting her found…yeah,
the pieces could fit. “Where’s the painting now?”

“My apartment.”

He would study it—in a bit. “So, you think she was abducted,
tortured and somehow escaped,” he said, a statement, not a question.

“Yes. I mean, I know I told you the girl in the painting was
dead, but I had to be mistaken about that.”

“And?”

“And I think I went looking for her…saw her trapped, hurt.”

Poor darling. “Have you recalled anything from the scene
itself?”

“No.” The rapid puffs of her breath were the only sound in the
room. “I’m stumbling on one fact, though. Like me, Lana wasn’t ever found with
injuries.”

There was that, wasn’t there. “Maybe she healed during one of
your blackouts.”

Her shoulders drooped. “Maybe.”