A knock sounded at the bathroom door and I looked over with furrowed brows.

“Not yet,” he said in warning, his fingers diving inside me, drawing me back to him.

I gasped and clutched on to his wrist to push him away. Instead I pulled him deeper, clawed at him, begging for release.

He pressed his steely body against mine and leaned in until his mouth was at my ear. “Stay with me,” he said, his deep voice rich and smooth. He released my chin, took hold of one of my hands, and led it down the solid wall of his abdomen.

The knock sounded again and I felt myself being ripped away from him.

“Dutch,” he said as my hand encircled his erection, but water rushed up and around us like a flash flood until I was literally fighting for air.

I bolted upright, sending bathwater splashing over the edge of the tub as I remembered where I was.

“Okay?” I heard a voice say. Amber.

“What, sweetheart?” I said, wiping water from my face. “I didn’t hear you.”

“I’m going home. My cell’s about to die and I have to call Samantha. Her boyfriend broke up with her, and the world is apparently going to end.”

I struggled to catch my breath. “Okay, hon. See you tomorrow,” I said, my voice too airy.

“’Kay.”

I forced myself to calm, to get a grip on reality, to unclench my fists and free the sopping towel I’d dragged into the bathtub at some point. Then I eased up and perched my chin on my knees as I waited out the storm trembling through me.

This was getting ridiculous. If I’d bound him, how was he still entering my dreams? What the hell was that about? Not to mention the fact that I’d fallen asleep in a bathtub. I could’ve drowned.

Freaking son of Satan.

My phone chimed, letting me know I’d missed something. I reached over with a shaking hand and grabbed it off the vanity. My sister, Gemma, had sent me a text. Three, in fact. She was having car trouble, couldn’t get a hold of Dad, and wanted me to pick her up at a convenience store just outside of Santa Fe. I tried to call her as I stepped out of the tub, but an annoying voice cut in, saying her phone was either off or she was out of the calling area. Wonderful. She did say her battery was low. Maybe it died.

Having no choice, I patted dry, dragged on a pair of jeans, a Blue Öyster Cult sweatshirt, and my hard-won biker boots, and stepped out of the bathroom. The television sat silent, the living room dark.

I didn’t bother drying my hair before I left the apartment, advising Mr. Wong not to let strangers in as I did so. A freezing rain pelted me when I rushed outside to Misery, swearing on all things holy if Gemma wasn’t at the convenience store when I got there, I would begin my illustrious career as a soul collector for real, starting with hers. I supposed I’d have to pick up a jar first.

I drove to Santa Fe for the second time that day as sheets of icy rain cascaded down my windshield. My hair, frozen to my head, was slowly thawing. At least it was easier to stay awake in Popsicle mode. Misery was doing her best to warm me, and I had to admit, my toes were pretty toasty. I should have brought a towel or a blanket. What if something happened? What if Misery died and I froze to death? That would suck.

I wondered if Reyes ever got cold. He was so hot, as though his body generated heat from its own source inside him. He should’ve come with a HIGHLY COMBUSTIBLE warning label.

When I was finally warm, I realized the shaking I’d been experiencing was not due to the temperature but to Reyes’s latest visit. Figures. I forced my mind away from him and onto the case at hand. My first order of business would be to use my supernatural connections to find out if Teresa Yost was still alive. The odds were certainly against it, but with any luck, she’d survived whatever the good doctor had in store for her. I needed more information on him as well.

The rain continued to fall in a procession of thick angry droplets that sounded more like hail against Misery than raindrops. It forced me to slow, to take the turns more cautiously than I wanted to. But its aggressive disposition matched my own. The slapping of the windshield wipers lulled me into serenity, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t stop my thoughts from traveling back to Reyes.

Why did he come to me? He was so angry, so reluctant to be with me, yet there he was, enjoying it each and every time as much as I.

Then again, he was a man. Why men did anything they did was beyond me. And they have the nerve to complain about women.

I took the exit that would lead to the convenience store outside of Santa Fe. It sat in a fairly remote area, and I couldn’t help but wonder what in the name of jelly beans Gemma had been doing out here. As far as I knew, she rarely went spotlighting for jackrabbits. A delivery truck ahead of me caused me to slow even more, but since the rain made it impossible to see beyond twenty feet, I actually felt safer behind it. I focused on its taillights to stay on the road. Rain in the parched deserts of New Mexico was always a good thing, but driving in it was becoming dangerous. Thankfully, the heavily lit convenience store came into view. The truck continued on as I coasted into the parking lot, then stopped short. Only one car sat off to the side, probably the night clerk’s. I scanned the area for Gemma’s Volvo, a realization coming to light along with a stunned kind of anger. She wasn’t there.

Clamping my jaw together to keep from cursing aloud, I tried her cell again, to no avail. Then I checked the texts again to make sure I had the right place. I did. Maybe she was lost, had told me the wrong convenience store. Before I could make a decision on what to do, my passenger’s-side door opened. Thank goodness. I figured her car was stuck somewhere out in this tempest and she’d had to hoof it to the store on foot. But instead of my sister’s blond hair and slight frame climbing in, a large wet man crawled inside and closed the door behind him. After an initial period of astonishment, a jolt of adrenaline rushed through me in a delayed reaction I would later shake my head at in befuddlement.

Cookie was right. I almost get killed in the most unlikely places.

I jumped to open my door, but long fingers that could easily be mistaken for a Vise-Grip locked around my arm. The fact that I knew the survival rate of abducted women spurred me into action. I fought him with a few well-placed punches while groping for the door handle. When he jerked me toward him, I raised my feet over the center console and kicked. But he bound my legs within a steel-like arm and pulled me underneath him.

A large hand muffled the screams I’d let rip as he pushed himself onto me. His weight caused the console to grind into my back painfully, but I still kicked and squirmed and used everything I’d learned in the two weeks I’d lasted in jujitsu. No way was I going to make this easy for him.