Captured at Nightfall (Capture My Heart Love Story) (10 page)

She cried out when his hands abruptly left her, the feeling of bar
renness absolutely killing her. “No, Matthew. Please.” She arched up into him, begging him with her body to return his touch to her needy flesh.

“
What you do to me. My control
. . .”

His
chin rubbed against her throat, deep words vibrated over her skin. His hands came back then, heavy on her shoulders. Fingers crept up to encircle her throat. “
My control
,” he growled. “
You strip me bare.”

His grip tightened around her throat, captured her startled cry inside his hands.

No! Stop!
Allie wanted to plead. But his hands only tightened even more.

Tears sprang to her eyes, her legs tried to thrash against his unmovable body. Her fingers clawed at his deadly grip—but all to no avail.

She felt the crack of cartilage just before her screams pierced through her dreams and she was blessedly released back into consciousness.

“
Allie!” Lainie was sitting beside her in bed, shaking her by the shoulders.

Lainie
recoiled when Allie shot up to a sitting position; a sheen of sweat clinging to her brow and upper lip. She blinked in confusion, trying to separate dream from reality.

“Are you okay?”
Lainie’s face was pinched with worry. Her hair was a wild, brown mane around her face. “You were having a nightmare. Screaming. Scared the hell out of me!”

Allie
prodded her throat with shaking hands, half-expecting to find the flesh there tender and swollen.

“It was a dream,” she murmured in grateful disbelief.

Her fingers combed through locks of hair that had fallen over her face, pushed them behind her ears. Her eyes darted through the dark bedroom, her vision trying to penetrate each thick shadow, to expel Matthew’s ghost from its hidden depths.

Lainie
’s arms wrapped around her. “S’okay, Allie. It was just a bad dream.”

The memory of
Matthew’s blazing, green gaze pierced her still. That look, so calm and contained, coupled by his crushing grip around her throat.

Allie
anchored herself to Lainie’s embrace, adrenaline and residual fear trembling through her limbs.

“Just a dream,” she whispered.

***

The next few days passed slowly, without any more dreams of Matthew.

Allie
focused on school by day, and work by evening, before she succumbed to an exhausting onslaught of restless nights.

Though, no longer in dream form, Matthew
continued to haunt her thoughts, however. She couldn’t deny the elicit fear he’d drawn out from her. His hands had been committed to her memory perfectly. Those hands, beautifully created with long, curving fingers that had the capability of producing such pleasure, were also scarred and battered from delivering death to who-knew how many people.

He’d wanted her to be frightened of him.

Well, she supposed he’d succeeded.

To an extent, anyway.
Perhaps she was stupid, allowing herself to want him so much—to ache each night for the return of his deadly touch upon her skin. But, the hunger he’d ignited in her that night against her car could not be doused, no matter how her subconscious tried to warn her. It had only been stoked brighter each day and night by this clawing desperation to see him again. She craved him like a drug—to hell with the cost.

Needing to sort through her confusion, she decided to make a trip to see her mom.

***

The Silverado Senior Living Center was roughly forty minutes from where
Allie lived. She hated living so far, felt guilty she couldn’t visit more often—only making the trip down on Sundays when she didn’t have to work or go to class.

The SSLC building had been renovated from an Urgent Care facility, while the section in back had been added later to accommodate the
new Alzheimer’s wing. It was easy to see where the old met the new; the grey stucco in the back was a few shades lighter than the front.

Allie
signed in at the front and then walked back to another desk, where a nurse sat as sentinel.

“Hey, Sybil.”
Allie smiled. “How’s it been around here this week?”

Sybil was the check in/security
nurse for the Alzheimer’s unit. It was her job to make sure only approved family and friends came to see the patients, as well as ensure that none of the residents wandered off.  She was in her early fifties, her narrow face sprouting the tightly-permed, bleach-blonde hair of a poodle. She was thin and bony with the skin and rasp of a chain smoker, wearing light blue scrubs with clouds and rainbows splattered here and there. Allie loved the gossip Sybil dished every time she saw her.

Sybil returned
her smile. “Mr. Shanks has been in the women’s rooms, raiding panties again, the dirty old bird.” She shook her head and laughed. “Had to pry him off Mrs. Jakowski yesterday. The two were canoodeling—
very
loudly.”

Oh, boy.
Mr. Shanks, the unit’s pervert, was eighty-six, with slumping shoulders, a wrinkly, bald head, thick glasses, and a pointy little nose that was always turned in the direction of his new lady.

Kind of reminded
Allie of a hedgehog.

He had a new girlfriend every month. Funny what could happen when you
r inhibitions went out the door.

“Pretty exciting then, huh?”
Allie grinned.

Sybil coughed, eyes watering as she leaned into the desk. “
Always is, darlin’.”

Allie
signed her name on the visitor’s log and waved a
see-ya-later
as Sybil buzzed her through the security doors. The Alzheimer’s wing was less about comfort, and much more about functionality. Its walls were hospital boring, dotted here and there with mass-market watercolors and lined with oak railings. Light beige ceilings on top, and green, commercial-grade carpeting on the bottom. The area was free from tables or anything else that could catch a passing wheelchair or walker.

The dog lady, Connie, passed
Allie coming down the hall. Connie’s golden retriever, Betsy, ambled beside her. Allie stopped to scratch the dog’s floppy ears and say hello to Connie before moving on down the hallway.

She peeked into the activity/dining room and immediately spotted her mom in a corner where she was folding a pile of towels. The nurses left things like that around for the residents.
Helped to sooth their compulsion to keep their hands busy.

Allie
’s mom, Mary, was still beautiful despite the card God had played her. She was tall and thin, with a knock-out body, grown thinner over the past few months, her hair the same chestnut brown as Allie’s. Mary sat, regal as ever on a green, floral couch tucked beneath a window. The afternoon light filtered in through a set of sheer drapes, warming the sterile atmosphere of the room and painting red highlights over Mary’s head.

“Hey, mom.”
Allie smiled as she tucked a stray lock of hair behind her mom’s ear. Mary turned cloudy, brown eyes up to her and a lump rose to Allie’s throat. Mary’s eyes were the only thing that gave away the sickness that was slowly ravaging her mind. She met Allie with the mild friendliness you’d use to greet a stranger and Allie’s heart gave a painful tug. Mary didn’t talk much anymore, so Allie wasn’t surprised when she didn’t respond.

She
sat beside her mom and pulled her hand into her lap. “You look good today, mom. The nurses did your hair. It’s pretty.” Even though her mom couldn’t offer any advice, Allie felt calmed just being in her presence. There was something about a mom’s juju that could sooth away the worries with just a hug. Simply by holding her hand, Allie knew instantly she was loved, safe, and cherished. She realized that had been what she’d come here for. With all the crazy ups and downs—and that horrific attack of a few weeks past—she’d been bombarded by a tornado of emotions—fear the most frequent to surface.

“I met a boy, mom. You’d be proud of me.”
Allie squeezed her mom’s fingers. “Very handsome. And in the Navy, like gramps was.”

Mary
pulled her hand away and went back to folding her towels. Allie sighed and continued to recap her last week’s tests and all about how different it was now living with Lainie. She stayed as long as she could, until the nurses began to assemble tables for dinner. Then she kissed her mom on the head. As she gathered her things to leave, she wrapped her mom in an extra tight hug. “I’ll still come on Sunday. Promise. Just had to see my gorgeous mom a few days early.”

***

That night
all the humidity of the past week’s on-and-off rain had settled over the valley like syrup in the air. Allie traded in her ratty tee-shirt—which tended to twist up around her in the night and drive her nuts when it was hot out—for a tank top and her favorite boyfriend-style panties.

Coming back into her room from showering and brushing her teeth, s
he carefully closed the worn out copy of Great Expectations that was laying spread eagle on her pillow and set it on her bedside table. She could have easily pulled the book up on her e-reader, but most of the paperback books like this one had come from her mom’s cache. She guessed it offered her some additional comfort to run her fingers over the same dog-eared pages her mom had flipped through numberless times before her.

Movement from the corner of her room had her lifting her head, but the green eyes that met hers stopped her heart in a second.

“Hello
Allie.”

“Matthew.”
Allie’s hands flew to her throat and she stumbled back. “What in heaven’s name are you doing breaking into my room?”

He sprang to his feet, his eyes widening like she’d startled him just as much.

Oh, he was breathtaking.

The
way the night’s light caressed his skin made it almost glow. Stylish jeans hung from muscular legs and narrow hips. Allie’s mouth instantly watered at the thought of pushing his tight-fitting tee shirt up so she could run her tongue down his washboard abs and that sexy “v” of muscle between his hips that had entranced her before when she’d seen him topless in the locker room. Dark shadows traced the curve of his lean jaw. The sight of his mouth was the thing that tore the breath from her lungs, though. Curving and full, sensual as hell; Allie flushed with heat as she remembered what he’d done with it . . . imagined what she was certain he
could
do to her with it.

Holy
moley.

Her thoughts seemed to take a head dive straight into the heated depths of carnality anytime she saw him . . . or thought about him . . . or dreamed of him. . . .

Damn it all.

The man really was a sex god!

Allie tried acting more alarmed by his materialization than she actually felt. Maybe if she acted properly pissed, she’d be able to mask the crazy urge to jump his bones.
Geeze
, what was she turning into? It felt like ho-bag central in here.

Controlling the
shaking in her voice, she repeated, “What on earth are you doing in my room?”

“I, uh,” his eyes raked her head to foot before snapping up to the ceiling. “Your roommate was with company. Let me in and told me I should wait in here.”

Lainie!
Oh, she was probably having a good laugh in her room over this. She was so dead in the morning.

Allie ran a hand over her face as her heart returned to normal again.

Matthew’s Adam’s apple moved up and down as he swallowed, his eyes still up on the ceiling. “You’re dressed . . . uh . . . I mean, you’re not wearing much, Allie. Do you mind covering up a little? I’m having a hard time concentrating.”

She looked down at herself and cringed when she noticed she was sporting a dazzling set of glass cutters.

Shit!

Damn it!

She snatched a blanket off her bed and jerked it over her chest, glaring as she snapped, “Well, excuse me for not dressing appropriately. I’ll keep that in mind
for next time I find a strange man in my room.”

Matthew
ignored the jab and folded his long limbs back into the chair beside her computer desk. His mouth hardened, hands raked through his hair. He slumped backwards and Allie’s forehead crumpled. She had no idea he was capable of slouching—G I Joe badass that he was.

He
seemed . . .
nervous
?

Her teeth set into her bottom lip as she waited for him to offer some kind of explanation. His eyes moved to her mouth and he leaned forward, hands rubbing up and down his thighs.

She raised her eyebrows. “What do you want, Matthew?”

He blew out a frustrated breath.
“
You
, damn me.”