The scar nearly reached up to his heart. It appeared as if a razor-sharp blade had entered at his stomach and slashed upward.

When she could drag her gaze from the mark, she surveyed his bared chest. It was broad and generously packed with muscle. With his hands behind his back, those rippling muscles seemed to flex even at rest. His entire torso looked hard as rock, with not a spare ounce on him.

She wondered what his skin would feel like. She would never know... .

His pants waist sat so low that she could see the line of crisp, black hair descending from his navel. That dusky trail taunted her to ease his pants lower, but she resisted—barely.

The men Néomi had been attracted to in the past had been older and handsome in a soft, cultured way. In contrast, this male was all hardness and sharp edges.

So why did she find his battle-scarred body so attractive?

"Oh, wake up, Conrad," she said with difficulty. Speaking was an arduous undertaking for her—she often felt like she was trying to shove elephant-sized sounds through a pinhole. To her, the words came out echoing and extended. "Just... wake up." She wanted to jump on the bed or scream in his ear. If she'd had a bucket of water—

Conrad's eyes shot wide open.

He comes to. The light is murder on his sensitive eyes. Pain shoots through him. He grits his teeth against waves of it.

Get free. He fights his bonds. Limbs feel leaden. Drugged. Rage stabs him, the need to kill strangles him like clenched hands around his own throat.

How long have I been out? He remembers where he is. The manor—as forbidding as he'd sensed it would be. When he'd been in the car, the sight of it had made him sweat and thrash.

The feeling of being watched is multiplied here, the tingle on the back of his neck unrelenting.

He tenses. He'd seen... had he seen a spill of shining black hair as some female twirled round? Can't determine what's real and what's illusion. Before she vanished, he'd thought he'd glimpsed blue eyes going wide with surprise. He'd smelled roses and had seen a bared shoulder—slim and impossibly pale. Yet no one else had reacted to her.