Delaney's Shadow (17 page)

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Authors: Ingrid Weaver

Tags: #mobi, #Romantic Suspense, #Paranormal Romance, #Fiction, #Shadow, #epub

BOOK: Delaney's Shadow
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“Nothing like you. Stanford was sixty-eight when we got married.”
“Sixty . . . ?”
“Eight.” She paused. Even with the honesty they’d always shared, she hesitated to go further.
Yet as bizarre as these circumstances were, they
were
forcing her to face reality. The strength of her reaction to Max was indisputable. She plunged ahead. “It wasn’t so much his age, it was the demands of his business that absorbed most of his energy. Our sex life wasn’t . . . very active.”
“Sixty-eight.”
“You sound as if you’re having trouble grasping that.”
“Damn right. Now I really can’t picture you married.”
“He was seventy-three when he died.”
“You spent five years of your life with a man who couldn’t satisfy you?”
“I never said that. There’s more to a relationship than sex. He was good to me in other ways. He doted on me. He treated me as if I were precious. We were happy . . .” She stopped. There was that word again. It came automatically whenever she thought of her marriage, as if she’d brainwashed herself into making the response, as if she were afraid to make any other.
“Why did you marry him, Deedee?”
“Because I loved him.” That response had come automatically, too.
Max withdrew his foot. “You said he was rich.”
“I know how it appeared, but I didn’t marry him for his money.”
“He was more than twice your age. You didn’t marry him for his looks or his sex drive, either.”
“Age is irrelevant. I feel disloyal to Stanford even thinking about this. I’m sorry now that I told you anything.”
Max snorted.
“What was that for?”
“You were married, not sentenced.”
“Care to explain that?”
“Just because a man’s your husband doesn’t mean you have to take what he dishes out. You had a choice. You weren’t locked up. You still had control of your life.”
“There’s such a thing as loyalty.”
“Not when it’s blindness.”
“You sound angry.”
“It’s a dangerous pattern, Deedee.”
“I don’t understand. What pattern?”
“Some women can be so afraid of being alone that they stay married to a monster.”
“I’m not afraid of being alone.”
“Then why do you keep calling me?”
“That’s different.”
He rubbed his face. “Right. Because I’m not real.”
“And Stanford was
not
a monster. He was simply human, which meant he had flaws like the rest of us. When did you develop such a flair for the dramatic, Max?”
“Did he know you liked yellow roses?”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“Did he hold you when you were scared? Did you show him your thoughts?”
“Max . . .”
“Did he have any idea how powerful your mind is?”
“Powerful?”
“How can you doubt that? Your mind is incredible. Otherwise I wouldn’t be here.”
“My imagination has nothing to do with the quality of a real-life relationship.”
“You mean sex.”
“All right, yes. That’s what I thought I wanted to talk about, but I can see it was a mistake. You’re deliberately confusing me. Sex doesn’t mean anything without love.”
“Yeah, right. Thought you’d outgrown your fairy tales.”
“Don’t you believe in love?”
Rather than replying, he shoved away from the bedpost and knelt on the mattress in front of her. “How many times have you woken up in a sweat after dreaming about him?”
Never. “Max . . .”
“Do you enjoy imagining him naked?”
She tried to keep her gaze on his face. She couldn’t. There was simply too much more to admire. “That’s not fair.”
“Why not?”
“Because no one could compare to you, Max.”
He framed her face in his hands.
In the one remaining rational corner of her mind, she realized he wasn’t really touching her. The sensation was too muted, yet at the same time it was too deep for a touch. She didn’t feel it on the surface, but she felt it in every quivering nerve, even the ones that should have been dead.
“Do you want to kiss me, Deedee?”
If she’d wanted to lie, her body wouldn’t let her. Her lips parted as she focused on his mouth.
With all my heart, Max.
But this was a fantasy. He wasn’t truly here. What was wrong with her?
His silhouette wavered. “Don’t.”
She tipped her head into his caress. “Don’t what?”
“Send me away. Not yet.” He traced his thumb along her cheek. “One kiss. What’s the harm in that?”
“What’s the harm? You mean besides losing what’s left of my grip on reality?”
He brought his lips to hers. Sweetly. Gently. Somehow, in spite of his bluster, the grown-up Max understood what she needed the same way he’d done as a boy.
Delaney closed her eyes and surrendered to the moment.
His tongue slid into her mouth as his thoughts pushed into her mind.
The reaction was instantaneous. Pleasure flashed from the inside out. She felt Max’s kiss in every corner of her being as a wave of delight surged through her body. It was more intimate than a physical orgasm. More vivid than reality. It was more intense than anything she’d experienced in her life.
And it was so achingly, undisputedly genuine . . .
. . . that she was probably quite insane.
ELEVEN
 
 
MAX SLOWED TO A STOP AT THE STONE GATEPOSTS AND LET the engine idle. A red-haired teenager was mowing the grass with a lawn tractor. An old man in coveralls stood on a ladder to use a hedge trimmer on the cedars that bordered the property. Pots of purple and white petunias followed the curve of the driveway, and more flowers spilled from boxes that were attached to the veranda railing. The Wainright House was the same gleaming white he remembered, with its gingerbread trim hanging from the eaves like scrolls of icicles. A profusion of gables poked from the roof, along with a rounded spire on one corner. The house was as different from the home Max had built as a Jaguar was from the old Jeep he drove.
Deedee had said she was rich. From the appearance of the place, her grandmother wasn’t hurting for money, either. A lot of women married for wealth. When there was an age gap of forty-three years, it was usually the major factor. He didn’t believe it had been for Deedee. She wouldn’t have sold herself for a checkbook. She was too honest with her emotions and too passionate. She must have believed that she’d loved the man she’d married. That was typical of her. In spite of the darkness that lurked in her nightmare, she still clung to the concept of love.
He wasn’t sure why that bothered him, since her marriage wasn’t any of his business. He knew better than to get involved on an emotional level. Hearing her talk about her dead husband shouldn’t have made him jealous, either. He had no claim on her, nor did he want one.
So, what was he doing here?
Curiosity. Masochism. Or maybe he just wanted to take his time going downtown. He was a free man, and this was a public road. He didn’t give a damn about the curious looks the old man with the hedge trimmer was giving him.
The front door of the house opened.
Max held his breath, his pulse kicking.
This
was the real reason he was here. To get the adrenaline push of a gambler’s high. To have the decision taken out of his hands.
To tempt fate.
But it wasn’t Deedee; it was a couple in matching Hawaiianprint shirts. They loaded two suitcases into the back of a station wagon and started down the driveway. Departing guests, he decided, watching as they drove past. According to the sign on one of the gateposts, the place had been turned into a bed-and-breakfast.
He exhaled hard and returned his gaze to the house. He couldn’t see the window of Deedee’s room from here, since it faced the backyard, but he knew his way there. Up the stairs with the curving oak banister, down the hall to the bump in the floor where the front half joined the original house, then through to the last door on the right. He pictured her bed, letting his thoughts float in search of her, probing for her presence.
He found her in the kitchen. Her hands were wrapped around a mug that was decorated with geese. A crumbled muffin was on a plate in front of her.
She lifted her head quickly, as if she sensed his approach.
But she didn’t welcome him into her mind. A barrier of wariness surrounded her.
He pictured brushing his fingertips across her knuckles.
Coffee sloshed out of her mug. She crossed her arms, tucking her hands beneath them, as she shielded her thoughts from his touch. Her image wavered, then dissolved like windblown smoke.
Max fisted his hands on the wheel. She had deliberately refused the link. He was disturbed by how much her rejection stung. This was what he’d advised her to do from the start, wasn’t it? For her own good, she had to be more careful about leaving herself open.
Yet he doubted whether her new caution was due to his warnings. It was because of their kiss.
He should have thought of it before. What better way to convince her he wasn’t the boy she remembered than to act like the man he was?
Too bad that hadn’t been what he’d been trying to prove. He’d been operating on instinct. He hadn’t questioned the impulse to kiss her. Given the circumstances, the real question was how he’d managed to hold off so long.
It had been better than he could have anticipated. Their thoughts had been so in tune, they hadn’t needed to physically touch to connect. The pleasure had been pure, undiluted sensation, like colors squeezed straight from the tube. Simply remembering it was sending blood to his groin. It was more tempting than ever to visit her in person.
Yet she’d let him kiss her only because she’d thought he wasn’t real.
He regarded the driveway for a full minute, then jammed the Jeep into gear and drove past. Seeing her in the flesh would add complications he didn’t need. He had no intention of starting a real-life relationship with her.
But if she thought she could keep him out of her head, he would enjoy proving her wrong.
 
DELANEY CONCENTRATED ON HER BREATHING. IN, OUT, in, out. Her lungs were working as they should. So were her senses. The coffee smelled delicious, but she suspected the rest of it would slop onto the table if she tried lifting the mug. Maybe Max would drop in again to steady her hand for her . . .
She held out as long as she could, then slid from the breakfast nook and stumbled toward the phone that hung on the kitchen wall. She dialed Dr. Bernhardt’s number from memory, thankful that her memory functioned for this, anyway. Who could predict how the mind worked? Who could have guessed that a harmless imaginary childhood friend would get so out of control?
But he hadn’t been truly out of control, since he’d done what she’d wanted him to do, even though she wouldn’t have guessed that what he’d done was even possible . . .
She dropped her forehead against the wall.
Focus!
The phone rang three times, then went to voice mail. According to his message, Dr. Bernhardt was on vacation.
“No,” Delaney whispered.
He went on to give the number of another doctor who was covering for him in case of emergency. She grabbed the pen that hung from the notepad that was tacked up beside the phone. Did this qualify as an emergency? Or should she wait until reality disappeared altogether?
Describing her symptoms wasn’t going to be easy. What exactly was her complaint? That she’d experienced too much pleasure in her fantasy? Some women might consider themselves lucky to have an imaginary lover who was too sexy for words and showed up naked at the drop of a thought and kissed as if he was making love to her mind.

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