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Faith shook her head "I get the feeling it’s being careful not to contact ood at tracking its ive away the fact that it can talk to Psy outside the Net"

Clay shrugged off the loss Even if Faith had been able to contact it, communication with the neosentience was difficult "Thanks"

"Clay," Faith said, her face tormented, "I want you to be happy"

"Tally htness in his gut It was true - Tally er, and frustrate him, but she also made him happy in a way no one else ever had He wanted to do the saht in mind, he decided to bed down on the second level in case she needed him They hadn’t spoken ht - she seenore it - but the fact hatever it was that rong with her, it was getting worse And unlike when he’d been fourteen, Clay couldn’t slay theout To hell with that! He’d kidnap an M-Psy if that hat it took to help Tally He had no limits when it ca for years Unlike the other things that haunted her, this one wasn’t a nightmare It was almost peaceful

She floated in a field of black, her body insubstantial Occasional stars flickered in greeting, but it was the strands of living rainboeaving through the darkness that truly captured her attention They see mischief

As always, she halted, reached out, touched a strand And as always, that was the h her body, such deep, aching, incomprehensible need that it rocked her to the core of her soul, had her jerking awake, grasping the night air forso important

But there was nothing but elanced at the s hour She should stay here, she told herself If she went downstairs, she’d disturb Clay - his hearing was too keen to allow her to ainst the , throwing shadows into the roohten her The forest was Clay’s ho that she didn’t want to stay up here, ot out of bed and pulled on a pair of sweatpants to go with her tank top and panties Usually, she slept in clothes she’d be ready to run in, but two nights with Clay nearby and she felt secure enough to indulge Ready, she opened the trapdoor and began to head down

"Tally?"

Startled by the sleepy low eyes looked at her froot to be afraid of the dark "Clay?"

"Hmm" Those eyes closed, but their position told her he’d made up a bed on the floor

Totally unprepared for his presence, she hesitated midway down the ladder

"Can’t sleep?" His eyes opened again

She shook her head, realizing he could see her perfectly well

"Come here" It was a lazy masculine invitation

Chapter 25

That voice Deep Husky with sleepand an oh-so-seductive hint of bad

She shivered, her nipples tightening against the soft cotton of the tank top She’d asked him to be her friend but at that , she gripped the ladder with desperate hands "I shouldn’t"

"Come on, Tally"

He sounded so drowsy, so persuasive, that she hesitated What harm would it do to sit with him for a while? And he had promised to behave She told herself that that wasn’t disappoint into the most sensitive parts of her body "I can hardly see" With small, careful steps, she made her way to the foot of his hts on, night setting"

A soft glow lit up the kitchen area She adored hihts off I’ sound of sheets sliding over skin "Made you a space by the wall"

She hadn’t expected anything else - Clay would never allow her to be on the vulnerable open side of thedown to her knees, she felt her way around and on to what seemed to be a very wellherself between the wall and Clay The bottom part of the mattress was firm, but he’d thrown so on a cloud"