Sweet Dreams Boxed Set

“Ivy.”


Her head lifted. “I told you all that I remembered about the guy’s description.”

That part he believed. “Did you tell me everything he said?” He knew his witnesses—and his victims. He could tell when they were holding back, and every instinct he possessed screamed that Ivy was keeping secrets.

She wet her lips. “He was just trying to scare me.” She laughed then, a bitter sound that wasn’t at all what he’d associate with Ivy. “I’m a PI. I’m not supposed to be scared, I’m not—”

“Everyone gets scared sometimes.”

Her gaze held his. “Even you, Bennett?”

He nodded and for just an instant, his last case with the Bureau flashed before his eyes. Pain. Blood. Hell.

No escape.

He’d stared at death and he’d seen…

Ivy.

“Bennett?”

“If you’re human, you get scared,” he told her flatly. “That’s normal. No matter who the hell you are.”

Her breath expelled in a fast rush. “I really need that shower.” A thread of desperation laced through her words. “I can feel the blood and…him.”

Bennett couldn’t wait to catch that bastard and throw him in a cell. “He’s not going to hurt you,” he said as he took a step closer to Ivy.

She gave a quick nod. “I’ll show you out. I—”

“I’ll wait until you’re done with that shower. Then you are going to tell me everything.” This time, there would be no secrets between them. It was the secrets that had destroyed them before.

Bennett wasn’t about to repeat the mistakes from his past.

***

Ivy scrubbed her skin until it ached. She scrubbed and scrubbed, but she could have sworn the blood was still on her.

And that I can still feel his touch.

But the water in the shower turned icy, and she knew she had to leave and face Bennett again. She dressed quickly, tossing on some old sweats and a very faded college sweatshirt. Her wet hair slid around her face, curling slightly, and she padded, barefoot, down her stairs.

Bennett was waiting in what her grandfather would have called the parlor. A fancy word that had always made her smile when she was younger, even though she just thought of that place as a den now.

Bennett turned when she approached, surprising her because Ivy had thought that she’d been moving pretty silently. His gaze swept from the top of her wet head down to her toes—toes that were currently painted with a bright blue polish. His lips curled, just a bit when he gazed at her toes.

His smile made her remember the past—their past. Did he know that she’d loved him back then? Probably not. She hadn’t told him. Sometimes she’d wondered…if he’d known how she felt, would that have changed anything?

The silence was stretching between them, and a heavy tension coiled in the air. Ivy cleared her throat and hurried past him. She sat down on her overstuffed couch and tucked her legs under her. “The killer said that he saw me. That I saw him, and he saw me.”

Bennett strode toward her. He didn’t sit, just stood there, towering over her. Making her feel too nervous and aware of him.

“You told me that part at the station,” he said.

Yes, she had.

“You told me…” Bennett’s voice was a deep rumble. “That he knew your name. That he said he knew your brother. When you first found the councilman, you thought that was Hugh’s body.”

“Yes.” When would the memory of that terror end? But beneath the fear, anger simmered. That man—that bastard in the dark—he’d wanted her to think that Hugh was hurt or dead. He’d been playing with her, tormenting her.

And I think the torment is just beginning.

Her hands rose and she touched her throat. “I don’t think he expected me to fight back.” Had he thought she’d be too afraid? No, not happening. Her grandfather had taught her better than that. Never let fear control you. Use it, Ivy. Use it and let it make you stronger. His words whispered through her head.

“He told me I would be fun,” she glanced at Bennett. As she said those words, his jaw hardened. “He told me,” Ivy continued, “that he could be ‘good’ to me.”

Bennett swore.

“Or that he could be ‘bad’.” Ivy paused a moment, considering that. “I’ll just assume the ‘bad’ is when he takes out his knife and starts carving into people.”

Bennett started pacing. “This isn’t a damn game, Ivy!”

“I know. I told him the same thing.”

He whirled to face her.

“I think I’m his next target.”

His eyes changed then. So did his face. All emotion just bled away.

“He said…” Finish it. She just hadn’t been able to reveal all of this down at the station, not with all those eyes on her. Strangers. Staring, judging? “He told me that he was going to give me…um, everything I wanted. That he’d learn my secrets. My d-desires.”

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