Man of Her Dreams by Debra Webb (good ebook reader txt) 📕

so thick an hour ago. She supposed it didn’t matter. It was 10:30. The next tour started at midnight. Someone would shut it off. She had no idea where he positioned the machine, or even how it worked, or if—really big if—it was even providing this lovely, deepening element of graveyard atmosphere.

The fine hairs on the back of her neck stood on end once more as the undeniable sensation that she was being watched slid down her spine a second time tonight. She refused to look around like a fraidy cat. There was no one here. She was fine. Her only enemy was locked up tight in a New Orleans jail.

The aboveground tombs rose upward out of the fog like ghostly white temples. A cluster of clouds floated past the moon, casting darker-than-death shadows and adding yet another layer of uneasiness to her mounting anxiety. She was really letting this get to her.

She hastened her step, refusing to outright run, moving quickly past praying angels and marble crosses, through the now murky moonlight scarcely piercing the shadows cast by moss-laden oaks. All she had to do was get on her bike and pedal home. She’d be there in no time.

Stumbling in her haste, Darby barely caught herself before she fell. She tried to slow her racing heart, cast around quickly to regain her bearings. She knew this cemetery. That’s why she’d agreed so readily to do the tour for her friend. She knew as much or more about this place than most of the tour guides being paid for their services. This was pure foolishness.

She sucked in a bolstering breath and silently thanked God when the clouds moved away from the full moon. Forcing her gaze forward, she started toward her destination once more. She ignored the crumbling headstones that usually garnered her attention. Refused to even glance at the marble guard dogs that now seemed to growl silently at her. Even the gargoyles sitting atop the next tomb she passed appeared to sneer down at her.

The second she reached her bike, she released the lock that held it immobile, dropped it into her purse and swung her right leg over the seat. Time to get home. She’d seriously let the night creeps get to her. Something she hadn’t done since…she couldn’t even remember when.

She pedaled through the swirling fog, keeping her gaze focused straight ahead. All she had to do was head toward the sound of music, toward the laughter of revelers.

Swearing hotly, she braked to a stop outside the gate. She had to close the gates. Dammit. She’d almost forgotten. Darby shoved the kickstand down and left her bike long enough to drag one massive gate at a time to the neutral position. Though she didn’t have the key to lock it, closing it, according to her friend, was a precaution to keep honest folks honest. The next guide would lock the gates for the night after the final tour.

“Looks like I’m a little late.”

A shriek escaped her before she could prevent it. She spun around to find Aidan waiting near her bike.

“Lord, you scared me half to death.” Not that it had taken much. She pressed her hand to her chest and ordered her thundering heart to slow. Two deep breaths later and she felt a little more in control.

“I’m sorry,” he offered, moving closer.

It wasn’t until he stepped from beneath the canopy of the trees that she really got a good look at him. Dressed all in black as he was, about the only thing that stood out were those eyes. As dark as they were, there was a kind of light that emanated from them, a beacon that drew her.

His extraordinary good looks devastated her all over again. She’d known handsome men before. Certainly in a city this large, a girl ran into a good-looking man now and then. But this went well beyond the usual meaning of the word. His male beauty was entirely compelling…in a dangerous sort of way. She shivered.

Even the overlong hair she didn’t usually care for looked good on him. It curled around the collar of his shirt. Blue-black silk against the denser black of his shirt. The goatee that framed his mouth did nothing to distract from the sculpted lips that did strange things to her tummy. Made her yearn to know how the man kissed.

And she’d only just met him today.

Okay. Reality check here. Apparently dreaming about serial killers and men in little white coats had pushed her over the edge of reason. Certainly all good sense she’d ever possessed was long gone. Made the dreams about the men in the little white coats actually prophetic. They might just show up to take her away any time now.

“You…missed the…tour,” she stammered, completely at a loss as to what else to say.

“It appears so.” He moved a step closer. “Unless you’d like to give me a personal tour.”

It was the long duster he wore, she decided then and there. Not much imagination was required to go from that to a long, black cape. Oh, yeah, her new neighbor could be one of those seductive vampires in the latest popular fiction novel. She should be afraid. She should be very afraid.

“There’s no need to be afraid,” he said softly, reading her mind. “It’s just a cemetery, right?”

There was something about the way he spoke, or maybe it was the way he took her arm and wrapped it around his before entering the gates of her favorite city of the dead. Whatever it was, she found it stirring, mesmerizing. She simply couldn’t resist. If he wanted a tour…he would get a tour.

He walked through the ankle-deep mist beside her, his movements sleek, confident, as smooth as glass. How could a man with such a hard-muscled physique move so fluidly? So effortlessly?

Aidan couldn’t take his eyes off her.

She was beautiful. Even more so with her face caressed by moonlight. Moonlight that played with shadow, always moving, never constant, giving her ethereal beauty