Running Hot (The Arcane Society #5)(22)
Author: Jayne Ann Krentz

“How’s Theresa doing?” he asked.

“She’s fine, just a little impatient. She’s more concerned about Nick. He’s turning into a basket case. It’s been a long nine months for him.”

He smiled. His eldest son was a stone-cold hunter when he was working but when it came to his beloved wife and his soon-to-be firstborn kid, there was nothing icy about him. Nick had scheduled his jobs so that he could attend prenatal classes with Theresa. He had devoured every book on the subject of birth and parenting that he could find on the Internet. He had even insisted on hiring a decorator to design the baby’s room in order to create what one of the texts had called a “nurturing environment.” Now he was determined to assist at the birth.

“He’ll survive,” Harry said. “I did.”

“Hah. Every time you came into the delivery room with me, I was afraid you would faint.”

“Okay, maybe I got a little pale around the edges but I didn’t keel over.”

They chatted for a few more minutes and then signed off with their customary ritual.

“Good night, Gorgeous.”

“Good night, Handsome.”

The phone went silent in his hand. He dropped it into his pocket and stood looking out at the black mirror of the ocean. Something had definitely happened back there on the path. He tried to remember exactly when his other senses had shut down. He had passed an elderly couple who had been holding hands. Next he’d noticed a man using a cane and a woman. They had been walking side by side, not touching. Something about the man had drawn his attention. His jacked-up hunter instincts had recognized another potential predator. But an instant later he had lost interest.

The next thing he knew he was several yards down the path, cranked back to normal. Relaxed on a job when he had no business being relaxed.

ELEVEN

The dream was familiar, one of a handful of repeat nightmares connected to the day she killed Martin Crocker. But there was something different about it this time. For one thing, she was aware that she was dreaming. The most striking aspect, however, was that she was not afraid.

. . . Martin was coming toward her, only a couple of yards away. The bags of groceries had fallen from his arms. A loaf of bread, a package of coffee beans and a plastic bag filled with lettuce lay scattered on the dock. She wanted to run but she could not. Soon the pain would slash across her senses. Martin would reach down to take hold of her.

But something was wrong. She was not stricken with fear. Instead she felt calm. That wasn’t right. She should be mortally afraid, not only of Martin but of what she was about to do. . . .

“No.”

She pushed through the veil of unnatural serenity, searching for the right emotion.

She came awake suddenly but her heart was not pounding the way it usually did after the dock scene dream. She wasn’t even breathless, and her nightgown was not stuck to her skin with icy sweat.

She opened her eyes and looked out through the sliding glass doors. The outline of the lanai railing and part of a lounge chair were etched against the pale gray light of dawn. You’re not in Eclipse Bay anymore.

Right. She was in Maui; here on a mission for J&J and, oh, by the way, trying to learn to live in the moment.

“Are you okay?” Luther said from the doorway.

Startled, she sat up and turned to look at him. He had put on his pants but that left a lot of him uncovered. She was intensely aware of his bare feet and the broad expanse of his strong shoulders and well-muscled chest. Clearly, the fact that he used a cane did not keep him from working out.

Vivid memories of how those shoulders and that chest had felt beneath her fingers the night before cascaded through her.

Sex. She’d had sex with this man. The most intimate kind of human contact. Okay, technically there had been no penetration, at least not by the portion of the male anatomy that was, by tradition and in legal terms, generally considered the penetrating object. “Heavy petting” was probably the correct term. Still, there had been a lot of skin-to-skin contact. Also an overwhelmingly powerful climax, at least for her. She felt a little guilty about that part.

The truth was, she had been too shattered by the experience to reciprocate. Just staying on her feet had required most of her strength and willpower. The whole experience had left her oddly disoriented, balanced precariously on a knife edge of exquisite relief and anxious amazement. Was she cured of her phobia or had last night been some bizarre interlude created by the close brush with the hunter?

Luther seemed to have understood. Either that, or he had lost interest when she had collapsed, crying on his chest. Men were not keen on dealing with tearful women. That probably went double when it came to women who cried after an orgasm. She couldn’t blame him.

Whatever the answer, he had seen to it that they returned immediately to the hotel. The elevator had been empty, thank goodness. She didn’t think she could have managed the stairs. When they reached the suite, he’d ushered her into the bedroom and then closed the door very deliberately.

Obviously at some point during the night he’d opened the door. Well, he was a bodyguard, after all.

“I’m fine,” she said. She drew her knees up under the bedding and wrapped her arms around them. “Just a bad dream.” Alarm sparked through her. If she had awakened him, she must have cried out. “Did I say anything?”

“No.”

“Good.” She relaxed a little.

“You said no,” he explained. “You were thrashing around a lot and you said no a couple of times. Must have been bad.”

“Well, it wasn’t terribly pleasant.” She sank back against the pillows. At least she hadn’t mumbled Martin’s name in her sleep. But there was no getting around the fact that it had been a very close call.

“Probably brought on by that brush with the hunter last night,” Luther suggested. “That kind of thing can affect the dream state in people like us.”

“People like us?”

“Sensitives.”

“Right.”

But it wasn’t the hunter who had invaded her dreams. The memory of the way her nerves had quieted when he went past returned in a rush. She had been too occupied with other things, including her first orgasm in longer than she cared to recall, to think about what had happened out there on the path. But now it occurred to her that last night she had experienced the same eerie, unnatural sense of calm that had made the dream feel so very different. In both instances the ratcheting down of the panic had been unnatural. She had fought it instinctively.