Ghostwalker 02 - Mind Game

to start fixating on my breasts again?”

    He closed his eyes and savored the memory of the sun shining through her wet shirt.
    “You’re incredibly beautiful, Dahlia.”

    She was silent, watching him closely. Feeling for his emotions. Checking to see if he was sincere. “Thank you. That’s a nice thing for you to say.” She rubbed her chin on top of her knees. “Mostly I’ve been told I look like a witch. Too-big eyes, too much hair. Too small, too everything. No one ever used the word beautiful before.”

    “ Incredibly beautiful,” he qualified. “Get it right Dahlia.” He consulted his map again and turned without hesitation into another branch of the waterway. “We’re almost there. And I love your eyes.” He was particularly smitten with the small expanse of skin around her midriff and her intriguing belly button.

    Dahlia wasn’t about to tell him what she found attractive about him. He was already far too arrogant and sure of himself. He didn’t need to be told she could barely contain her own sexual energy. She loved the way he felt around her. She’d never had anyone want her the way he did. She could feel the energy pouring off of him, reaching out to swamp her, to raise her own temperature several degrees.

    She rubbed her chin back and forth across her knees, her body feeling too full and heavy and tight in her skin. It shocked her how sensitive her breasts were, rubbing against the material of her shirt and aching with need.

    “You feel it too, don’t you?” he asked.

    “I feel what you’re fantasizing,” she admitted.

    “Other men must have had sexual fantasies when they were around you. What about Calhoun? Come on, Dahlia, is this really a first?”

    “Yes. And I don’t like it. It makes me moody and uncomfortable and edgy. I feel like scratching your eyes out for making me feel this way. And that sets up violent energy and that sets up heat and eventually something—or someone—gets burned.”

    She did sound edgy. He shouldn’t have been pleased, but he was. He could make her feel all those things when no one else had. “Well, at least life with me isn’t boring.”

    She smiled just like he knew she would. She didn’t want to, and she hid it against her knees, but he caught the brief flash of her teeth and the curve of her mouth. “I should have told you I love your mouth. Every time I look at your mouth I want to kiss you.”

    Dahlia wasn’t touching that. She watched the outline of an island take shape. “Is this the place?”

    “If Gator drew the map correctly. What’s that noise?”

    “Alligators calling to one another. They’re in love.”

    They rounded a bend, and a small dock came into sight. The cabin was just back from the pier. Grass covered the ground surrounding the house. To his dismay, an alligator rested on the wooden dock and another in the yard. “Do you think they moved in while Gator was gone?”

    “It’s very common on these small islands to have alligators share your yard.”

    “Well get your flamethrower ready, we may need it.”

    Dahlia burst out laughing. “You don’t give off enough energy to stoke the fires, Nicolas.”

    He turned his head and looked fully into her eyes, causing her heart to jump wildly.
    “Little liar.”

    Nicolas’s tone was so silky smooth, such a promise of passion and pleasure Dahlia shivered, her entire body aching in reaction. How in the world could he make her so aware of him not only as a person, but also as a male? It was silly. It was too dangerous.
    Someone had to think with brains instead of other portions of the anatomy. She sighed and stepped out of the boat, carefully avoiding the alligator as she tied the boat to the dock. “We’re just visiting,” she assured the creature.

    “Don’t you dare pet it, Dahlia,” Nicolas warned, his heart in his throat. He wouldn’t put it past her. “You give me gray hair with the way you seem to have no fear.” He pushed a hand through his hair in agitation. “I think I’ve been more afraid since I’ve been around you than at any other time in my life. And it’s damned uncomfortable.”

    She watched him shrug into his pack. “I’ve been taking care of myself for a very long time, Nicolas.”

    He didn’t answer but went past her to the cabin. A member of Gator’s family checked on it weekly, keeping the bayou creatures from invading, so the cabin was neat and tidy and the propane gas tank was full, allowing them to have hot