Page 1 of Power of the Mind

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Tallus

“You’re encouraging criminal behavior. Give your head a shake and get away from the window.”

Pondering the validity of Memphis’s concern and promptly dismissing it, I continued to peer at the dark city street seven stories below.

“Babe, I thought you were refilling our wine.”

“Is it criminal if he knows I know?”

“Yes. Hundred percent. Thousand percent. Wine, Tal. Hurry up.”

“I don’t think it is.” Squinting, I tried to make out the shape of the man sitting inside the Wrangler, but it was impossible. Between the night, distance, reflective streetlights, and the Jeep’s tinted windows, I had nothing but my imagination to go on.

He was there, watching,brooding, no doubt, about my having company. He wasn’t a fan of Memphis, not that he’d ever said italoud, but I knew. The caustic feelings written all over his face whenever my best friend’s name was brought up told me so.

I didn’t have to see the expression to know his stormy gray eyes were on me, full of anguish, confliction, and irritation. If life was a cartoon, the atmosphere would have been rich with the scent of self-loathing, the Jeep clouded with steamy anger. He didn’t believe my claim that Memphis was nothing more than a close friend. Therefore, it wasn’t hard for him to imagine us in bed.

Iwas the object of the troubled man’s desire—but he couldn’t admit it. In the three months since I’d helped him with a case, Diem Krause hadn’t been able to walk away from what we’d started. God knows he’d probably tried. His feelings—however hard he denied them—went against everything he believed.

Did I mind? Not really. Was what we had healthy? Far from it, but what did I care? Life was meant to be fun. If a person stumbled on something—or someone—who was awkward and puzzling on every level, whose actions confounded them and kept them awake at night, they should roll with it. Right? People were meant to learn from their mistakes and improve themselves.

Not that Diem was a mistake.

Besides, the attention was flattering.

If Diem was my stumbling block in life, so be it. I rather thought I was his. Either way, and I refused to acknowledge the truth to Memphis because I loathed his gloating, the situation with Diem was getting out of hand. Even I could admit as much.

The suffering giant hiding in his vehicle had found the courage to approach me a handful of times since the events of the past spring when I’d wound up entrenched in one of his cases. Again. The encounters usually happened close to midnight, when Diem knew I was home alone, after he’d been drinking to excess, andwhen his craving for me could no longer be ignored or satiated any other way.

I didn’t know he craved me for a fact, but it didn’t take a genius to figure him out. Actions spoke louder than words. Diem may not say much—he rarely spoke during our late-night encounters—but I had learned to read the unsaid feelings behind his eyes. The want. The need. The desire.

The fear.

I’d learned to understand the conflict he brought to my doorstep whenever he randomly appeared for a quick fuck. He didn’t want to want me. He didn’t want to cave to weakness and desire. But he couldn’t help it.

Diem could barely bring himself to touch me, and we’d never kissed or cuddled. But on the handful of nights when he buzzed my apartment and we ended up fucking in the front hall or on the couch, even once in the kitchen—never the bedroom—he tried. His hands would linger over my skin. His hot breath, near enough to taste, sent goose bumps over my flesh.

It was those tiny efforts—the brush of fingertips against my thigh, the tentative hold on my hips as he thrust into my body, the sweaty palm splayed on my lower back when he got lost in himself, or the way he no longer startled when I stroked his cheek or squeezed his arm—that fed my own interest in the reclusive private investigator I’d known for a little more than ten months.

The more he didn’t give. The more I wanted.

Diem Krause was torment and tragedy personified, and I couldn’t help being drawn to him. It was something my best friend would never understand.

“Tallus, for the love of god!”

I jumped and glared over my shoulder. “What?”

“Get. Away. From. The window.” Memphis clapped each syllable for emphasis. “Good grief. Kitchen. Wine. Now. I’mstarting to think that man has brainwashed you. Listen to me. He’s. A. Stalker.” More clapping.

“He’s not. He’s… socially awkward.”

“He’s a creep who sits outside your apartment, day in and day out, and follows you around the city.”

“He’s trying to dismantle his barriers.”

“He needs therapy.”

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