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It’s cold out.”
    But Liv was staring at his shoulder. “You’re bleeding.”
    He glanced down. The wound wasn’t deep, but without a shirt on, there was blood chugging slowly down his arm. “It’s not bad. Don’t worry about it.”
    “I did that, didn’t I?” she asked in a whisper, her green eyes enormous. Her finger came out to point at it, then quickly she drew it back, crossing her arms over her chest with a shiver.
    “Yes. But it’s not a big deal. I startled you.”
    “I bit you,” she said, hand flying up to her mouth and scrubbing at her lips and chin. When it came away with a thin smear of blood on her flesh, her eyes rolled back in her head.
    “Liv!”
    Sebastian reached out and caught her as she slumped into a dead faint.
    Gathering her in his arms, he headed for the house, scooping up his clothes on the way. Ten minutes later he had her tucked into bed, wearing a T-shirt he’d dug out of the dresser, the covers pulled up over her. She had woken up in his arms as he was carrying her back to the house, but she hadn’t spoken. She had just looked up at him, then screwed her eyes shut again, her fingers squeezing his arms tightly.
    Even when he had pulled the shirt on over her head after laying her down on the bed she hadn’t spoken. She just stared up at him, eyes glassy, unblinking.
    Unsure of what to do or say, Sebastian brushed his lips across her forehead. “It’s okay. Do you need a glass of water or anything?”
    Finally she spoke. “Did we have sex last night?”
    Sebastian hesitated for a split second, then nodded. “Yes. I couldn’t resist when I saw you…. I missed you so much, sweetheart.”
    “I thought I was dreaming.”
    Stupidly that hurt him. He’d thought she was groggy, but he had still thought she’d known what she was doing. That she was well aware it was him in the flesh she was being intimate with.
    He dropped his gaze to the bed so she wouldn’t see the pain there.
    “No,” he said, his tone harsher than he intended it to be. “Sorry. No dream. This is real and last night was real.”
    Her eyes darkened and her tone was suddenly feisty. “I want my money back.”
    “What money?”
    “The money you stole.”
    “I didn’t steal your money!” He was going to kill his goddamn brother for putting that expression on Liv’s face. “Do you want to know what happened? Six months ago I went on a fishing trip with my brother and my cousins…you remember that, right?”
    “Yes, I remember.” She sat up and held the sheet in front of her. “You decided not to come back, leaving me with no explanation other than you’re an asshole and a user.”
    “I didn’t come back because my brother, my dear, loving brother, stabbed me in the fucking shoulder then tossed my body into the river to drown.”
    Expecting Liv to scoff or argue or roll her eyes, Sebastian was surprised when she went very still, her fingers relaxing their hold on the sheet.
    “Ohmigod. That’s what the bride wanted me to see.”

C HAPTER S IX
    L iv took deep breaths, afraid she was going to faint again. She couldn’t believe Sebastian was standing in front of her, wearing nothing but a pair of low-slung jeans. He was as gorgeous as she remembered, as gorgeous as he’d been in the middle of the night when she’d been so certain she’d been dreaming.
    And he had a wicked scar on his shoulder, one she had noted when he’d been poised above her, his body pushing into hers, but that she had dismissed as a quirk of her sleeping mind.
    “What do you mean?” he asked, standing next to the bed. “Who is the bride?”
    “I don’t know who she is,” Liv said, squeezing her eyes shut, trying to recreate the dream. “But she appears over and over in my dreams, dreams I’ve been having since you left. She was a bride, tossed from a carriage on her wedding night as they were being chased by giant wolves. The wedding party wanted to lighten the load so they could go faster, and she was the easiest