This time, CT's hand rested on her seatback, slipped to her shoulder, and eventually, when he was shifting in the rougher patches, kept bumping her thigh. Everywhere he touched her was an erotic zone, amazing as it seemed. Her shoulder blade took on new depths when his fingers clasped it over a particularly rough bump. It suddenly seemed to be in direct connection with her pelvis.

When his hand nudged her thigh, Claudia was struck with a sudden impulse to straddle it. To see what those magic fingers which could alter shoulder to G-spot could do with the real thing.

Dear God, I'm going mad! Surely it was insane to be driven into a sexual frenzy by the mere brush of a man's fingers.

He's alive, dearie—and you haven't had anything real in a very long time. Six years. Six long years Nigel had been invading her life, and she'd learned to substitute chilling orgasms, frightful spasms, arching phantasies for the real thing. The only thing heated about Nigel was his conversation.

But I love the way we fight. For a moment, nostalgia lingered on the air, and if CT noticed a change in the mood, he didn't say anything. Claudia did, though—a change in herself. CT drew her, with his pulsing heart. Even the sound of his breathing thrilled her, after co-habitating so long with a dead man. Nigel may have encouraged her—may have even directed her steps toward this place—but he might as well have been prepping her to say goodbye. Her profession, her talents, her visions might deal with the dead…yet it didn't mean she had to live with them. It was time to leave Nigel behind.

Collapse Excerpt