The Taking (Seven Deadly Sins #3)(40)
Author: Erin McCarthy

Goose bumps traversed her arms like an electrical current racing along a wire. “Excuse me?”

“You believe that just as much as I do. Otherwise you wouldn’t work to restore cemeteries. You wouldn’t collect art that reflects the beauty given to assuage grief. The dead are always with us. Physically, in things like your sister’s stuffed monkey and in the photos we save, a tomb dedicated to them, or a journal. Spiritually, in that their lingering presence affects our behaviors and decisions, and sometimes, appears in the form of them pressing into our world, either as a ghost, or in our dreams.”

It was moments like this that she looked at Felix and marveled that there were men like him, and that she had never encountered a single one before. It was like somehow he crawled inside her head and made sense of her convoluted and mostly secret thoughts. It was thrilling, yet unnerving in its danger. She could fall for him very, very easily, and that was something she knew she just couldn’t do.

“I would agree with that, I suppose. I guess I never thought about it in exactly those terms, but yes, the dead are with us. Though I’m not sure what that has to do with me seeing a snake that didn’t exist.” Regan pulled back against his arms for release. “I want my nightgown.” She felt too exposed standing there in nothing but her panties.

He continued to hold her, making it impossible for her to leave him and get her clothes. “Regan. I think Camille is using you, in your dreams, to revisit this world she left so long ago.”

She stopped trying to back up and stared at him, her mind screaming that was impossible, insane, ridiculous. The other part of her, the one that had seen Camille, the one that believed her sister’s spirit was sometimes with her, felt the weight of the truth of Felix’s statement. It wasn’t logical by most standards, but something was going on in her house, in her dreams.

It was either Camille Comeaux or Regan was going mental, and if she had to chose, she hoped it was a nineteenth-century beauty reaching out from the dead, not her own mind cracking under pressure.

“How can she do that? I mean, I understand seeing her floating in the hallway, or the French doors opening, but how can she be in my dreams?”

“I don’t know, cherie, but it seems she is. The question is, are you comfortable with her being here, or do you want to try to rid the house of her?”

Geez, that seemed brutal. “I don’t think she’s malicious, Felix. Just angry at her loss, maybe confused that she’s dead.” Regan ran her fingers over his hard chest, musing. “I wonder how she died.”

Felix stiffened beneath her, and she looked up. His face looked pained. Regan dropped her hands immediately. She was touching him too tenderly and he clearly didn’t like it.

“Maybe she just wants me to see what happened to her. Maybe she wants comfort,” she said.

“I don’t know. But she is clearly a powerful spirit to manipulate your dreams and move objects. I think you should be careful.”

“And how exactly do I do that?” She was all for being careful. She didn’t relish the idea of being tomorrow’s news because she’d fallen off her balcony. “Eccentric Heiress Kills Herself in Midst of Divorce from High-Powered Attorney.” She could see it now.

That would be enough to make Regan come back as a haunt.

Feeling a little hysterical, she finally pulled away from him and snatched her nightgown off the floor.

“I’ll protect you,” he said, his voice even, serious, pale blue eyes glassy in the dim lamplight.

And she believed him.

Which scared her even more.

Regan looked wild-eyed and terrified again. Or maybe still. Felix had tried to calm her down, but he wasn’t sure how successful he’d been. “Let’s lie down,” he told her. “Have a glass of wine together.”

It took her a second to respond, her nightgown clutched in front of her, but finally she nodded. “Okay.” She turned her back and pulled her nightgown on over her head.Felix didn’t bother to look away, even though she clearly wanted some privacy to dress. He watched her arms go up, showing off her creamy white back, her narrow waist, and the tight backside in her cotton panties. He wanted another taste of her, a longer, more exploratory foray into her sensuality, her body.

Whether by fate or choice, he had wound up here with her, and he was already in too deep to back out, despite the consequences.

“I’ll go get the wine,” he said. “Is it in the kitchen?”

She glanced over at the chest of drawers, where the empty glass still sat. “Actually, I don’t think I want a glass of wine. But I can go get you one if you want it” Moving over to the bureau, she lifted the glass and swiped her hand across the surface. “Damn it. I stained the marble. A hundred-plus years it sits in this room, and I’m here a week and I ruin it.”

“I’m sure there’s a way to clean it.” Though Felix wasn’t sure why she gave a shit. It was just a thing. A box of wood with a marble top, nothing more. Though truthfully he did know why she liked it. Regan wasn’t materialistic, she was sentimental.

Which meant Felix was the absolute worst man to have in her life.

But here he was.

“I’m spending the night,” he told her, shoving his jeans down and stepping out of them. “And I never do that”

She frowned, rubbing her fingers together where they must have gotten sticky from the spilled wine. “So what do you want, a cookie? Don’t stay if you don’t want to. I don’t need any favors.”

“Why? Why don’t you need favors?”

Slapping the wineglass down on the floor next to the bureau, she said, “Because favors from a man you’ve slept with come with a price. It’s code for ‘you owe me.’”

“But you would accept a favor from a friend at face value? Say the friend who spent the night with you, you would believe his favor was given freely?”

Regan stood back up. “Yes. But that’s different.”

“Why? Oh, I know why. Because your ex-husband was an ass**le, and he did a number on you.”

“I don’t want to talk about my ex-husband. I want to talk about you. So why don’t you ever spend the night?”

Shit. Regan had effectively turned that right around on him. Felix moved toward the bed, grabbing all the bedding he’d hurled to the floor when she’d been panicking. “Spending the night leads to expectations that I can’t meet.”