Wicked Burn by Beth Kery

eyelids that grew heavier by the second. She registered that he smiled . . . not wide, but enough for her to see his crooked front tooth.
    And then she succumbed to a deep, profound sleep.
     
     
    It should have been you, Niall. It should have been you!
    The sharp, staccato cracking noise of gunshots followed by a muffled cry of terror—
    Niall started into hyperalertness, knowing immediately that the sound of distress had been her own. She experienced this too frequently to think otherwise. Instinct told her that she lay alone in Vic’s bed. A beam of light glowed through a crack in the bedroom door. She rose and fumbled for her shirt and panties on the floor.
    She noted her perspiration-glazed face when she looked into the mirror in Vic’s bathroom. This, too, came as no surprise. The nights that she didn’t awaken with her heart pounding in fear and her body drenched in sweat were becoming less frequent.
    Still, good nights were the exception, not the rule.
    She wet a washcloth with cool water and used the soap at the sink to repair the aftereffects of her nightmare and several rounds of phenomenal sex.
    It was nice to think of their lovemaking while her body still tried to recover from the bad dream. Her hand slowed as she washed her thighs. The slight soreness and tingling sensation at her breasts and sex strangely satisfied her instead of striking her as unpleasant.
    A few moments later she padded barefoot into Vic’s living room. She paused next to the end of the couch when she saw him. She studied him while he worked, completely unaware of her presence.
    He wore only a pair of black sweats tied low on his lean hips. His dark brown hair fell on his forehead as he leaned over in deep concentration. What looked like a typed manuscript lay in his lap. Other pieces of paper and tablets were scattered on the coffee table in front of him. He occasionally wrote on the pages with quick, almost angry movements of his pencil or turned a page briskly.
    His glasses intrigued her. How could such a big, masculine man who looked like he would thrive in the brisk outdoors doing hard manual labor look so natural wearing glasses while he worked at his art with total focus?
    A strange, unwelcome feeling overcame her. At that moment Vic Savian seemed so vast to her. She’d come to know only the tiniest part of him . . . the outer limits of the universe of his character.
    Niall didn’t think that she’d moved or made a sound, but suddenly his chin shifted and his eyes pinned her. A feeling overcame her that took her a moment to recognize.
    Shyness? She laughed at herself for that. Why would that feeling overwhelm her at this moment and not when he’d tied her to his bed and had his way with her as he had earlier?
    “I’m sorry, I saw the light. I didn’t mean to bother you,” she said in a hushed voice that paid tribute to the early morning hour.
    “Come here,” Vic said after a moment of silence.
    Niall came around to sit on the sofa. She’d just seen something in his usually impassive expression that amazed her.
    “You’re nervous, aren’t you? About the opening of your play next week?” she asked as she sat and folded her legs beneath her.
    He yanked off his glasses and pressed his fingers into his clenched eyelids. Niall could almost feel the burn he must be experiencing. Had he slept at all?
    “I always get nervous, but this fucking monster is gonna flop hard enough to give me whiplash. Forget about the damage it might do to the unsuspecting public,” he muttered after a few seconds.
    He glanced up sharply when Niall chuckled.
    “What’s so funny?” he asked sourly.
    Niall refused to be cowed by his scowl. She’d been around artists since her undergraduate days, which meant she had plenty of exposure to the artistic temperament. “I just had this image of you madly flipping switches at a control panel behind the eyes of some kind of raging Godzilla monster. I have a feeling the citizens of Chicago will