Free Dreams for the Dead by Heather Crews Page A

he was staring out the window. Metallic droplets decorated it in irregular, chan ging patterns.
    “I have to go to the bathroom,” she announced.
    Tristan glanced toward the back of the restaurant. “Hurry up.”
    She paused. “You aren’t going to follow me?”
    He was amused. “You’d like me to follow you into the bathroom? What do you want to do in there?”
    “Nothing that involves you ,” she snapped, her cheeks flaming.
    The shouts and clangs of the kitchen grew louder as she approached the back hall. There were doors not only for the restrooms but also an exit. She looked back and wondered why Tristan hadn’t at least come to wait outside the bat hroom door for her. She didn’t wonder too long, though, and headed for the exit.
    Much to her relief, the door had no alarm. She pushed it open slowly and gave a cautious glance over her shoulder once more. A harried waiter dashed into the noisy kitchen, but there was no sign of Tri stan.
    Dawn flung herself outside. Fat drops of rain immediately pelted her in the face. She swiped them out of her eyes and opened her mouth for a gulp of air. Oh, god, where would she go? This town was small, but there had to be somewhere for her to hide until she got her bearings. She—
    Arms captured her from behind, lifting her off her feet. She kicked wildly. And then somehow she was on her back, Tristan’s weight pinning her to the ground, his hands trapping her wrists above her head.
    “I told you I’d catch you,” he said, grinning.
    “Get off me!” She thrashed beneath him until she realized how intimately their bodies touched. Mortified, she went still and averted her gaze.
    Still grinning with strange elation, he pulled up her by her wrists and escorted her through the rain. They were both soaked. She shivered, but he seemed impervious to the wet, chilly weather.
    She worked hard to gather courage in the time it took them to get back to the room, but her knees felt unstable. She grabbed a towel from the bathroom for her hair and skin. She needed to get out of her wet clothes, but she didn’t. Not yet.
    Dawn arranged her features into an expression she hoped conveyed u nbreakability. “I guess you’ll tie me up now while you go take care of your shit ,” she said, emphasizing the last word in an attempt to mock him. She tried to sound tough because it was how she wanted to feel.
    He tilted his head at her. “You want to be tied up?”
    “No,” she snapped. “I just assumed you would, since you seem to get some kind of perverse enjoyment out of it.”
    “Dawn,” he said casually, “I can do whatever you want me to do. I’m especially good at perverse forms of e njoyment.”
    She kept staring at him and he stared back. She thought of the things he’d said, the threats he’d made and never acted on. Somehow he’d managed to disturb her senses in a wonderful, horrifying way that went against everything levelheaded in her. He’d done it just by looking at her. Just by sa ying her name in a voice like water on rocks. She’d been imagining his eyes lingering over her bare skin, achingly ardent. She’d been thinking of his lips, full enough to tempt, chiseled enough to seem cruel, and soft enough to kiss her into surrender. Whenever she looked at him she had to keep herself from falling to pieces.
    Stay away , her inner voice had warned that first night.
    She had never intended to listen to it, not even now, not even with what she knew.
    Anyway, running hadn’t worked. Now she really did have to rely on something a little more drastic.
    If you please me, I might let you come back alive.
    He wasn’t a normal person, though she didn’t know in what way he was different. Her desire for him, for his otherness, was a strong motivator, though it was almost painful to admit that to herself. It was better to believe her desires were irrelevant if she hoped to change her situation this way. If that wasn’t just another lie she told herself. She would be a spy, a