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"I don’t know"

Although Tess hardly noticed Dante ainst each other, his solid, muscled body like a warm, protective wall beside her And he s spicy and dark that probably cost a fortune She drew in a deep breath of hi’s mite-infested ears "Have you noticed a loss of appetite or a proble food and water down?"

"I couldn’t say"

Tess lifted the terrier’s lips and checked the color of his diseased gums "Can you tell me as Harvard’s last vaccination?" "I don’t know"

"Do you know anything about this animal?" It sounded accusatory, but she couldn’t bite it back

"I haven’t had it very long," Dante said "I know it needs care Do you think you can help, Tess?"

She frowned, knowing it was going to take a lot to reverse everything the dog suffered from "I’ll do what I can, but I can’t make any pro on the countertop behind her and fumbled it The pen dropped to the floor at her feet, and before she could bend down to pick it up, Dante was there He caught the Bic in niers and held it out to her As she took it from him, she felt his thuainst her body in an abrupt motion

"Why do I make you so nervous?"

She shot hi "You don’t"

"Are you sure? You seelected animals such as this one, which looked like a poster child for the SPCA And stress over everything that was going wrong in her life right noas also weighing her down

But running undercurrent to all of that was the disquiet she felt just being in the saaze lit on his, she was blasted with a very vivid, very real iether, li into each other on a bed of scarlet silk sheets

She could feel his large hands caressing her, his ainst her neck She could feel his sex sliding in and out of her, as his teeth grazed the sensitive spot below her ear, which throbbed now like the heavy beat of dru all of it as clearly as if it was rasp

With effort, Tess e connection

"Excuse asped, and hurried out of the room, awash in confusion

She closed the door behind her and took a couple of quick paces down the hallway Leaning back against the wall, she closed her eyes and tried to catch her breath Her heart was racing, pounding against her sternu fork

Her skin ar around her neck and in her breasts, and down, in her core Everything in her seemed to have awakened in his presence, all that was fe out for so with her?

She was losing it If she was smart, she’d leave Dante and his sickly pet in the exaht now

Oh, sure That would be really professional Very adult So he’d kissed her once before All he’d done noas brush fingertips with her; she was the one overreacting Tess took a deep breath, then another, willing her hyperactive physiology to calain, she turned around and went back to the exah a dozen lame reasons for why she felt the need to run away

"I’ht I heard the phone--"

The fli on the floor as if he’d dropped there not a second before, his head hung low and caught between his large pal into the thick hair of his scalp He looked to be in excruciating agony, his breath hissing through his teeth, eyes squeezed tightly shut

"Oh,farther inside the room "Dante, what happened? What’s the matter with you?"

He didn’t answer Maybe he was incapable

Although it was clear that he was hurting in soer that see him there in pain on the floor, Tess felt a sharp stab of d?j? vu, a niggle of foreboding that tickled her spine She started to back away, ready to call 911 and let his proble shoulders hunched over in a tight, pained ball He let out a uished sound was more than she could bear

Dante didn’t knohat hit hi hiht He ake, at least, but suspended in a paralyzing state of awareness, all of his senses gripped in a debilitating, full-on assault The vision had never come to him outside of sleep It had never been so fierce, so ruthlessly strong

Onenext to Tess, swaes of what he wanted to do with her; the next thing he knew, he was ass-planted on the linoleuulfed in smoke and fla thick plumes of black, acrid smoke He couldn’t move He felt shackled, helpless, afraid

The pain was immense, as was the despair It shas, how hard it was for hih in hishe could do whenever the vision struck him, and he prayed it would be over soon

He heard his na him what he needed He couldn’t answer His throat was dry, his mouth filled with ash He sensed the honesty of her concern and the truth of her apprehension, as she drew closer to hio, to let him suffer it out on his own, the only way he kne

But then he felt cool and gentle fingers come to rest on his shoulder He felt the white cal blanket as she stroked his taut spine and the sweat-daht," she told him softly "Let me help you, Dante You’re safe"

And for the first time he could ever recall, he believed that he was