Page 36 of Whispers of Torment

Your Visions of me are quite vivid, he said teasingly.

She thought about the things she had seen when she touched Nathan’s art. The images flitted through her head, rapid fire. The feather mattress, the passionate weight of Nathan pressing her down. The taste of him?—

Stop. She felt him groan. This is too erotic.

Lillian laughed out loud. The sound was strange and startling in this quiet place. There was a beat of silence, and then Nathan said, I’ve never heard you laugh.

I suppose not.

I have centuries to make you laugh.

She felt his words shred her. An invisible cord yanked her back through the entrance of his soul, and she suddenly stood on her own side now, peering worriedly through the glass which she felt separating them.

You’re thinking of him.

It’s impossible not to.

Just so you know, I won’t be Calling to you anymore. I’m not up to that again. This time, his mouth was hemmed in by parentheses of pain.

Please don’t be angry. This is so hard for me.

It doesn’t need to be, he growled.

You have no idea what you’re talking about. You can’t sit there and judge me. Even Will understands.

Too late, she knew waving Will at Nathan was a red flag to a bull, taunting him with the fact that yet another man was with the woman he searched for.

Tears scalded her chest.

No, don’t. I’m sorry. You’re right. I don’t understand all of it. I only know you are the entire reason for my existence, and I’m crazy with the thought—and the Visions, goddammit—that you are in the arms of another man.

Stop. Please. Don’t go punching any more trucks.

His laughter bubbled up, beautiful music that filled her with joy. Is that how he’d felt a minute ago?

All right. All right, Lil. I can’t make promises, though. His hands flexed, and she felt the light bruising. He lifted them and ruffled his hair into spikes.

She couldn’t stop thinking about that pale hair and how it would feel beneath her fingers. Someone is going to be hurt, she thought. Probably all of us, in the end.

What are you doing? You’re shoving me away, he cried.

I have to. I’m not strong enough to continue right now.

Lillian—

But she did it. She slammed down the sash on the window to Nathan’s soul, and he was suddenly gone from her. She dropped her face into her hands and wept.

And then Will’s arms were spinning about her, lifting her, supporting her and holding her head above the water of a turbulent sea. She had no idea which direction she was to swim, and so she simply bobbed along and allowed Will to hold her afloat.

But Lillian knew the tempest was yet to come.

Nathan had never struggled much with jealousy.

As an only child of older parents, he had been doted over, and when he joined the military, some of his friends were married or had sweethearts. One man swapped over fiancés in two different towns, much to the delight of his comrades.

But Nathan never paid much attention to the opposite sex, plus they were thin on the ground, and the ones of marriageable age weren’t interesting to Nathan.

Recently, he felt faint jealous stirrings in the presence of Dante and Maria, whose love transcended any that Nathan had seen.

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