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Was he her protector? Or a predator…

It was the final glimpse Erin Ramsey would have of her sister: Megan’s body, drained of blood, lying lifeless in a New York alley. Tormented by the fact that she hadn’t been there when her sister needed her, Erin promises herself that she’ll find Megan’s killer.

Detective Nicholas Slade tells Erin to go home, back to California. He says he doesn’t want her to be the murderer’s next victim. But his warning comes too late. Erin is already in danger, in thrall to a man who cloaks himself in shadows and haunts her nightmares.

Erin is desperate to find her sister’s murderer—and desperate to avoid becoming his prey—but she feels her own life spinning out of control as the silver-eyed specter from her dreams lures her deeper into his world. Nick may be the only one who can help her, but she’s afraid to trust him. Her deep attraction to the secretive detective is tinged with fear. He only works the night shift. He wears sunglasses in the dark. And he may have been the last person to see Megan alive…

Previously published.

“I can take care of myself,” Erin assured Nick.

“Can you?” he asked.

There was something in his tone—a faint challenge—that made Erin grow even more uneasy. She glanced around the darkened hallway. There was no one about.

She was completely alone with a man who made her tremble, a man who made her think of moonlight and madness. Of secrets and whispers and promises that could only be told in the dead of the night.

She looked at him, telling herself that she couldn’t be feeling this pull, this strange attraction for a man who seemed to embody her deepest fears. Her darkest nightmares.

What kind of woman would be drawn to the thing that frightened her most?

Amanda Stevens knew at an early age that she wanted to be a writer, and began her first novel at the age of thirteen. While majoring in English at Houston Community College and the University of Houston, she was encouraged to write a romance novel by one of her instructors, who was himself writing a historical. Her first romance was sold to Silhouette Intimate Moments in 1985. Amanda lives in Houston, Texas, with her husband of sixteen years and their five-year-old twins.

Dark Obsession

Amanda Stevens

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

Drake D’Angelo woke up suddenly, the realization that it was almost dark and he was starving coming upon him. Soon, he comforted himself. Soon he would taste again the sweet red nectar that he had been deprived of for too many years.

He licked his lips in anticipation as he got up and strolled out to his balcony. The soft twilight fell around him, blanketing him with the cool comfort of the approaching night. This was his favorite time, this tenuous moment right after sunset when the world came alive with the darkness, when the night stretched before him like an endless dream. How he had missed it during those eight years when he had lain deep underground, sleeping the sleep of the dead while the wounds that had nearly destroyed him healed.