“It’s the energy,” she whispered. Dahlia was fully aware of the danger she was in. She could read Nicolas’s eyes, blazing with heat and hunger. He was half-mad with it.

“I know that,” he snapped. Immediately he regretted his reaction. The idea was to ease the energy level for her, not make it worse. She didn’t react to sexual energy in the same way as she did to violence, but he hadn’t counted on the two energies mixing until he had to fight himself just to maintain control. “Are you feeling any better?”

Dahlia nodded. “Yes, I’m not so sick. I’m sorry, Nicolas.” She wanted to get away from him. Away from herself. It was one of the worst moments she had ever endured. Nicolas Trevane was a man of honor, yet she had shown him a monstrous part of himself no man should ever have to face.

Nicolas allowed the energy to slowly disperse, as its natural form required. He breathed it away, willed it away, accepted the wash of heat and let it go. Cautiously he looked around. They were in a secluded corner, but anyone close couldn’t have failed to feel the heightened sexual energy flowing around them. “Dahlia, maybe this isn’t such a good idea. He isn’t going to be easy to follow.” He had no idea what to say to her, how to apologize. He shoved at his hair with an unsteady hand.

“You mean with me along.”

“He knows the territory and we don’t.”

“I know most everywhere around here. I don’t sleep much at night so I wander around. It’s safer than in the daytime. I can avoid the heavily populated areas but still feel as if I’m part of the human race.” Why was she telling him these things? Dahlia couldn’t believe she was telling him every little detail of her life. She sounded pathetic, even to her own ears. Worse, each time she revealed a piece of information, she felt his inner struggle not to react to it. “I can guide us sufficiently and maybe even take a reasonable guess at his destination.”

“I’m tall and you’re short. He’ll have noticed everyone on this ferry. I’ve tried using a ‘push’ on him to look the other way, but he isn’t susceptible. He wouldn’t have missed our fireworks just now. We can’t be seen following him.”

“I’m very good at not being seen.” Dahlia wanted to drift into unconsciousness, to slip away from the battering she had taken from the violent swirl of energy. It was a normal reaction, much like after having a seizure. Her body and brain needed to shut down for a while. She blinked rapidly to keep from closing her eyes and fought to stay on her feet. Her insides hurt from the punch she’d taken. Her internal organs felt swollen and bruised, and her mind felt battered by the continual assault of energy coming from being in close proximity with so many people along with the violence of murder.

“It may be the best thing if I dropped you at a hotel,” he persisted.

She hung onto her temper by a thread. This was her problem, not his. “You can go to a hotel,” she counteroffered. She felt humiliated and frustrated, and more than anything she wanted to be alone, but she wasn’t going to have him take over her job. And there was that secret fear of him now. Fear of his enormous strength and what he could do to her if he lost control. She hated herself for that.

Nicolas sensed her rising temper. The aftermath of the energy was preying on both of them. “I need to call Lily and see if she has any information for us,” he said mildly. “The cell phone doesn’t like this area much, but a little ways out and I might be able to get her.”

Dahlia gripped his shirt with both fists. As long as she maintained the physical contact with him, the energy didn’t overwhelm her completely. It was another source of irritation to her. She didn’t want to have to hang on to him like a clinging vine. “Cell phones have a way of disliking the bayou and the river. It must be a water thing.”

“But what about when you weren’t in the bayou? Surely Calhoun gave you a cell phone to keep in touch when you were in town.”

“I melted two of them. He decided it wasn’t worth it.”

He looked down at her to see if she was teasing him. Her gaze was all too serious. “You melted them?”

She nodded. “I melt things. Accidentally.”

Nicolas wasn’t touching that. Considering all the melting going on inside of him any time he was close to her he could believe she’d melted a couple of phones. After all, they were much smaller than he was. His breath chuffed out and he took her hand, deciding to try to defuse the situation. “Try not to melt any body parts.”

They lagged behind the crowd as people began to disembark. Nicolas kept his eye on his quarry. “Look how he moves, Dahlia. He’s probably ex-military, most likely a mercenary. I’ll bet he’s good in a fight. Watch his eyes. Nothing gets by him, he sees everything. He just murdered a man, yet he’s not even in a hurry.”

Nicolas didn’t want to draw attention by lingering too long away from the group, yet it was important to keep Dahlia protected from prolonged exposure to so many people. He timed their exit by watching the man in the dark shirt step to one side and light a cigarette. Clearly he was waiting for the crowd to get in front of him. Nicolas kept Dahlia to the far side, shielding her with his body as they sauntered past.

His energy is very malevolent.

Don’t get sick or I’ll start asking you if the baby is all right in front of him.

Dahlia nearly choked. She kept her head down and one hand pressed tightly against her stomach where she’d taken the punch. Every step hurt. Longingly she glanced at the water. She would love to be back on her little island, surrounded by her books.

Nicolas tightened his fingers around Dahlia and pulled her closer to the shelter of his body. He walked past their quarry without even glancing at him, leaning down to murmur some nonsense into Dahlia’s ear to make it appear they were completely absorbed in one another as well as to further shield her body from sight.

And he wished they were really completely absorbed in one another. He’d never had anything or anyone shake his calm, rational world the way Dahlia did. He’d built his entire life on the principals his grandfathers had taught him. He thought he was prepared for everything. He had been prepared for everything—until Dahlia. He could barely keep his mind on saving their lives or tracking his quarry. As they walked in the general direction of the popular restaurant located on the bluff overlooking the river, he struggled to make sense of the havoc Dahlia wrought on him.

Dahlia was a firestorm to his ice. Where he was cool and calm, she was fiery and seemed out of control, battered by the very energy of every living thing. Where did she fit into the universe? How did someone like Dahlia survive in a place so hostile to her nature? And why was it so damned necessary to him that she survive in a place with him?

He could accept the physical attraction, even though the intensity might be disastrous. He could even accept his deep need to protect her. He was always the one that looked out for his men, and he took the role seriously. That was part of his character and he was well aware of it. But to find himself obsessed—and that was a good word for it—was uncomfortable. He was trying to keep them both alive, and all he could think about was Dahlia. The sound of her voice. The way her smile flashed at him unexpectedly. It was unnerving how much he thought about her.

“Don’t think about it too much, Nicolas,” Dahlia advised in a low voice.

“About what?” He kept his voice even with an effort. She said she wasn’t telepathic on her own and didn’t read minds. He didn’t want her reading his confusion. Until he knew the answers, he wasn’t willing to share the questions.

“Whatever it is you’re thinking about. It isn’t worth getting more upset over.”

“People have upsetting thoughts, Dahlia.”

“I know. Believe it or not, I’m a person, and I actually do think about things. I even have regular emotions. I once saw a man kick a dog, and I got so upset three houses behind him caught fire. I was nine years old.” She glanced up at him, checking to see how he took it. Telling him something important. Something they both had to know. “Can you imagine if I ever got into an argument with my husband? He’s silly enough to disagree with me over the amount of milk that goes into tea or some other inconsequential thing. Poof. He goes up in smoke.”

When he looked down at her, she was already looking beyond him to the river. “What happens when you feel pain?”

“From the overload?”

“No, just regular pain. You stub your toe. You get a cold. You get punched by some man in the street because I’m too slow on the trigger.” There was a hiss of anger in his voice. It came out of nowhere, that slow smoldering burn that seared his belly and flared with a dark heat that threatened to consume him. His palm slipped over her stomach and lay there gently. The touch was meant to be impersonal, to soothe her. To take away the pain. It turned into something altogether different. Not sexual, but intimate. And her skin burned through the thick material of the dark sweatshirt. Or maybe it was his skin. He shouldn’t have been able to feel her, yet he did.

She closed her eyes against the emotions swamping her. Or maybe it was energy, she honestly couldn’t tell anymore. She wanted to run away from him. Away from everyone. Her head pounded and her skin itched and felt too tight for her body.

“Don’t try to run out on me, Dahlia,” Nicolas cautioned, reading her easily. His voice roughened, sounded edgy. “You’re so busy trying to keep an emotional distance you’re forgetting what we’re doing here.” He pulled her from in front of the window where her face could be reflected and drew her around the side of the building, pushing her back into the heavy shrubbery.

Her black eyes blazed at him. “Of the two of us, you’re far more afraid of emotional commitment than I am. I may have limits, but at least I put myself out there. You’re so busy taking care that nothing disturbs your perfect tranquility that you’ve forgotten to live your life.”

The air fairly crackled with electricity. Nicolas could feel the rising energy beginning to surround them. It fueled the raw emotion building inside of him. He also glimpsed their quarry walking along the street toward a small blue Ford that was parked a block up from them. The man seemed to be in no particular hurry, almost sauntering as if he hadn’t a care in the world.

He glanced around, saw a taxi parked close to a restaurant. Certain the cab was waiting for customers, Nicolas had a twenty-dollar bill in his hand when he signaled. He kept a firm grip on the nape of Dahlia’s neck, keeping them connected. He told himself it was because he needed to stay close to her to keep the energy at bay, but the truth refused to stay in the back of his mind. He was the one that needed the connection. They were at odds, and he needed the reassurance of physical contact.

“You’re dragging me.” Dahlia pointed it out with a little bite in her voice.

Nicolas actually snapped his teeth together, inwardly swearing. It was insane the way he was always so off balance around her. Insane, and damned uncomfortable. The worst of it was, she could walk away from him. She might not like it, and she might even fantasize over him now and then, but she could do it. And she was the emotional, fiery one. He couldn’t walk away. He had no idea how it happened, how she had managed to crawl inside of his lungs until he couldn’t breathe properly without her.

“Get in the cab.” He made it an order knowing she hated orders.

He didn’t know how it happened. He had been perfectly fine without her for years. He’d never given much thought to finding a woman to share his life. He lived a life of solitude, going where he wanted, not tied to anything emotionally or physically, and it was his preference. Until he found himself in Louisiana with a woman who could shake him up with one look.

Dahlia slid onto the backseat of the cab. The pressure welling up in her chest was amazing. Anger was hot and furious. Just like the intensity of the passion she shared with Nicolas. She dragged air into her lungs. They fed off each other. There was no other explanation. When she touched Nicolas, he cleared outside energy away from her. When they formed the arc of energy between them, they built the strength and passion of it together, one feeding the other’s intensity.