Page 1 of While You Sleep

Chapter One

Cillian

She was a heavy sleeper.

Sophia didn’t wake when I let myself into her apartment, or when I slid the book from under her hand to see what she was reading this week.

I put the book back carefully and picked up the bottle of body lotion that sat on the bedside table, then twisted off the lid and breathed it in. Vanilla and cinnamon. Her favorite. I put it back and studied her lying there.

My mother had read fairy tales to my brother when he was little. I used to sit outside his room and listen. I hadn’t really understood them. I wasn’t one for whimsy. I wasn’t one for anything at all when it came to the finer nuances of emotion, but I’d come to think of Sophia Brennan as my very own little Sleeping Beauty.

When Seamus asked me to find out everything there was to know about her, I did the usual: her address, details of her building’s security, the places she regularly went to, the people she spent time with. She worked from home as a graphic designer, so that kept her list of in-person acquaintances short. I’d also bribed the receptionist at her doctor’s office and gotten a copy of her medical records.

I’d handed all the information over to Seamus. Job done.

But then, I’d come back—repeatedly—only these times while she was here. While she slept.

She whimpered in her sleep now, her leg kicking out, her arm jerking back. The sound gripped me low in the gut, my body reacting as if she’d made the sound just for me.

Sophia suffered from REM sleep behavior disorder, which meant she often physically acted out her dreams and nightmares—thrashing, screaming, talking, crying, moaning in her sleep. All that restlessness had resulted in a secondary disorder: hypersomnolence. She needed more sleep than others, slept for longer periods, sometimes needed naps, and, in Sophia’s case, very heavily.

She whimpered again, and I stepped closer.

I didn’t know why I kept returning to her bedroom week after week. I didn’t do things like this. I studied her face, like I always did, as if she could somehow give me the answers. Her head was to the side, her cheeks pink, flushed. The blond hair at her temples was damp. She always had too many covers on. I peeled one back, like I did every time I came here. The nights I didn’t visit, I wondered if she was too hot or if she’d thrashed so much she’d hurt herself. Why? I had no idea. I didn’t know why I thought about her at all.

Yes, she was beautiful—you didn’t need to be in possession of a wide variety of emotions to see that—but there were lots of beautiful women in this city. She had a good body; nice tits, a round ass that jiggled when she walked, and a tight waist I imagined wrapping my hands around while I fucked her from behind.

But I wasn’t desperate. If I wanted to fuck, there were plenty of women who would offer themselves to me. Even if they looked at me with fear, I had status and money, and that was enough to get them to spread their legs for me. And others just wanted to know what it was like to fuck a monster. I didn’t think about them, though, about any woman until I had use for one. When I was done, I didn’t give them a second thought.

So why did Sophia Brennan keep entering my head at random times of the day and night?

Her lashes rested on her cheeks, her eyes moving behind her lids as whatever dream she was having played out. Her lips were full and a little puffy in sleep. I wondered, not for the first time, how soft they’d feel against mine. I didn’t think about a woman’s lips, except for how they’d look stretched around my cock.

Sophia stilled suddenly, so much so, I couldn’t hear her breathing. She did that sometimes as well, becoming so still, so quiet, she could be dead. I held the back of my hand in front of her mouth until I felt her warm breath brush over my knuckles. My heart rate increased instantly.

There were only three things that made my heart beat faster: working out, fucking, and Sophia Brennan. My pulse didn’t even elevate when I blew the top of someone’s head off.

So what was it about her that had that effect on me? There was no logical explanation for this obsession, but I’d found a word for it online. Limerence: a state of involuntary obsession for another person. Symptoms included obsessive thoughts about that person, a strong desire for reciprocation, and an idealized image of the object of one’s obsession—I had them all.

She rolled over, making a little noise that lifted goose bumps across my arms, then she stiffened, her body bowing before she opened her mouth and screamed. Her arms flew out, her legs kicking under the covers. She barely missed the bedside table. The cushion she’d put there before going to bed had fallen. If she hit the table hard enough, she could break her arm or hand; if she fell out of bed, she could knock her head, despite the extra cushions and quilts she’d scattered around the bed for protection.

I stepped forward and did what I had to, what she needed me to do, even though she had no idea that I regularly did it. I climbed onto her bed and wrapped my arms around her, restraining her so she didn’t hurt herself, holding her tightly until the dream passed and she settled down.

I lay there as she thrashed in my arms, until her cries and whimpers finally stopped, then I buried my nose against her neck, in her hair, and listened as her breathing evened out, breathing in her addictive scent.

Once, I’d walked in to her apartment to find her moaning and rocking. Someone had been fucking her in her dreams, I was sure of it. I’d never seen anything like it, and I’d had the irrational urge to murder whoever she was dreaming about. Then and now, I thought about how easy it would be to slip under the covers with her, to stay right here—she’d never know. But I wanted more. I wanted her to look in my eyes as the O’Rourke monster claimed her as his.

For now, this had to be enough.

Whatever this feeling was inside me, the logic I lived by didn’t apply, and, apparently, I was okay with that.

Chapter Two

Sophia

Eight months later

Brian’s gaze sliced down my body and back up. My face heated. I really wish I didn’t blush so easily. He’d been texting while I was home with my family this weekend, and we’d talked about going out on a date.

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