Siobhan seemed to hesitate, biting her lip before replying. “Well, that’s a good point. I don’t know that it would be of Melanie, no.”
He groaned, leaning his head back. “I do not want to start seeing other crimes and deaths while I’m still dealing with this one, Siobhan. I’m still getting used to this. One at a time. Maybe it’s better to just wait and hope for a vision. After all, we do have more information to go on, and we know where Melanie is.”
“Yes,” she agreed. “But we already talked last night about the fact that our only real solution to this case is to confront Xander. If that’s his real name. And we’ve lost his trail. So…we need a little push.”
Surprising him, she reached out and clasped one of his hands between both of hers, pressing hard so that he looked into her eyes.
“Try for me?”
It was such a simple request, but the earnest tone was unlike Siobhan, and it somehow touched him, though he doubted that she meant it that way. “Okay,” he agreed, seemingly unable to resist her when she was charming. “I’ll give it a shot.”
Her grin spread over her face, crinkling her eyes. “There we go! Now you’re on board. Okay, hold my hand.”
“I am holding your hand.”
She shot him a look. “You know what I mean. Clasp it. Channel my energy.”
“What’s special about your energy?” he asked, clasping her hand anyway and closing his eyes to see if his senses could reach out to hers. He didn’t know how to control his senses, but he focused on finding her in the room, without sight, going only by the warmth of her palm against his, the scent of her shampoo wafting around him, and the sound of her soft breath beside him.
“Nothing. Why would my energy be special?”
He opened his eyes again, surprised at the sudden change in her tone. “I don’t know. I was just wondering why channeling you would help. I understood why channeling Ophelia helped, given that she has the…gift.”
Siobhan seemed to mentally check herself, nodding. “Yeah, right. She’s going to be a really good option to channel because she can infuse her power in with yours. But all beings carry a connection to nature and spiritual forces, and the more of that that you can channel into yourself, the more likely you are to spark something.”
Oh, something was sparking. His hands were still wrapped around hers, and he brushed his finger against her knuckles. “Okay, well let me try again then. But just so you know, I’m channeling without a license here. No idea what I’m doing.”
“Close your eyes.”
He complied, focusing his senses on the softness of her fingertips and the faint heartbeat he could feel as they pressed into his skin. Her palm was soft and smooth, and he turned it over in his hand, using the other to trace patterns across her skin, running his fingertips along the length of each of her fingers and dipping between them to tease the sensitive nerves there.
Her hand was so all-consuming that Julian found he was thinking far more about her than channeling anything at all.
This isn’t going to work, he thought, seconds before he fell into a vision that played in blurry shades of gray and gold.
The dragon was the same as the one he had seen the night before. It had a friendly but fierce face, its large golden body standing regally before him, elongated neck arching upward as its wings stretched out on either side. The dragon dominated the field they were standing in, its powerful tail sweeping back and forth and its individual scales reflecting the sunlight so that it danced all around them.
There was a warmth to the creature’s eyes, and when it looked down at Julian, he wasn’t afraid, despite having never been confronted by a dragon before.
Without warning, the dragon lowered its head, nudging Julian to the side so that it could sweep him up with one wing. One moment he was standing on the grass, his feet bare, and the next, he was surrounded by the dragon’s wing, then dropped lightly onto its back, his legs sliding down on either side of its neck.
A gasp escaped him as he reached for the ridges on the creature’s neck, instinctively holding on.
And then they were rising. The dragon took him up into the air, higher and higher, and he could see the city laid out all around him, waiting to be explored from above. Ahead of him, the Atlantic Ocean spread out like an unending body of glistening sunlight, and as they flew toward it, he found himself leaning over the dragon’s neck, eager for a better look.
He didn’t fear for his life. He didn’t wonder where they were going. He didn’t feel anything but total amazement and contentment.
Then the dragon dipped downward, lowering its neck as it sent itself into a slow, downward spiral. Julian had to grip on harder, but there was no danger to him as the dragon descended, perching in the strong limbs of a tree right on the ocean coast.
Julian took a peek down, but saw nothing but unbroken green beneath him, then looked up and saw nothing but unbroken blue ahead of him, all the way to the horizon. He stroked his hand down the dragon’s neck, feeling a kinship with it that he couldn’t describe.
He spoke, for the first time ever in a vision. “It’s amazing.”
The dragon nodded its head, then shuffled a bit, settling Julian down between the ridges on its back and looking over its shoulder to smile at him.
The dragon smiled at him. It really smiled at him. And he smiled back, unable to keep his emotions bound up within him the way he liked to. “You’re amazing,” he said, touching its neck. “You’re so beautiful. I’ve never seen anything so beautiful in my life. How are you real? I want you to be real so much.”
Nudging his face with its nose, the dragon gave its only reply. Then it looked out over the ocean, settling into its bed in the trees, and Julian settled in, too, content to stay there as long as he could.
When the image began to fade from his mind, he almost panicked, trying to reach back into the vision and stay there longer. He wasn’t ready to leave behind the incredible creature that was buried somewhere deep inside his psychic power.
But Siobhan’s office swam back into view, and he was in reality again, still holding Siobhan’s hand as she looked at him expectantly. But he was oddly crushed to have left the vision, and he pulled away from her, getting to his feet and pacing the room.
“You saw him again,” Siobhan said. “Melanie? Or Xander? Which was it this time?”
Another moment passed before he could answer her. “Neither. It wasn’t about them.”
Her shoulders slumped. “Oh. God. Don’t tell me there’s another murder we have to prevent.”
“No.” He looked over at her, shaking his head. “I…don’t really want to tell you what I saw. It’s too…I don’t know. It’s too personal.”
Chapter Seventeen
Siobhan
“It’s too personal?” Siobhan asked, having expected him to say anything but that. “What are you talking about?”
He shook his head, seeming to be at a loss for words. “I don’t know. I can’t explain it. I wouldn’t even know where to start. I feel like…if I tried to tell you, it would be so impossible to explain that you wouldn’t understand, and it would just…cheapen it. And I really don’t want it cheapened.”
The look on his face told Siobhan how sincere he was, and she stood up, walking toward him. “I’m going to try to be sensitive about this,” she said. “But you know that’s not my strong suit.”
Julian let out a laugh. “You want to tell me to just get over it and tell you because you can’t stand not to know.”
“Yes. I’d like you to get over it.” She smiled, knowing from his tone that he knew she was being light with him. “How do you feel about that?”
“It wasn’t about a case. It was about an experience,” he said, reaching out and running his hand down her arm. His fingers against her sent thrills of sensation through her and her whole body responded, instinctively leaning toward him as his fingers tightened around her wrist.
When her eyes lifted and met his, he seemed to be looking i
nto her, as though mesmerized momentarily by her eyes. She felt a punch of intensity, and it felt as though he was looking into her soul and wrapping his own around it. It took her breath away, and she had no resistance in her when he pulled her toward him, his free hand sliding around her waist until his arm anchored her against him.
“I don’t know why I’m doing this,” he said, lifting his hand from her wrist to cup her cheek, his thumb stroking along her skin. “From the moment I met you, you’ve inspired all kinds of emotions in me. Right now, all I’m feeling is that I have to have you. Say something.”
Siobhan wasn’t one to comply with orders, and she wasn’t going to start now. Instead, she lifted her hand to cup the back of his head and yank his mouth down to hers.
The moment their lips met, she knew she had made the right decision. There had been chemistry between them from the beginning, even if it had been antagonizing chemistry at first. Now it was ready to explode, and she wasn’t going to be the one to get in its way. Her fingers tangled in the dark waves at the back of Julian’s hair, where it got longer against his neck. The strands were thick and silky in her fingers, and she tugged, eliciting a groan that slipped from his mouth to hers. His hands gripped her hips, and she pressed herself into him, feeling his arousal as it stoked her own.
His mouth was hot on hers, his lips meeting hers again and again, his tongue teasing at her lips and slipping between them to play with hers.
“I’ve wanted to do this for a while now,” he whispered, sliding his hands into the back pockets of her overalls and squeezing the curves of her ass. “You are so totally effortlessly sexy. Do you know that? God, you’re this drop-dead gorgeous blonde wrapped in a sexy farm-girl package, and it makes me crazy.”
His words only heightened her desire, and she gripped his shoulders, lifting herself up to wrap her legs around his waist. “Does that mean you want me to ride you like the Italian stallion that you are?” she asked, grinning at him. “Because that’s what I want…”
Julian’s eyes flashed with need, and he stumbled them backward into the chair that he’d been sitting on, falling into it with her legs splayed over the sides and her body open to him. Wasting no time, Julian undid the straps of her overalls, letting them fall to the side as he pulled her tank top off her shoulders and exposed the tops of her breasts.
Her head fell back as he began to kiss along her collarbone, growing closer and closer to the fullness of her cleavage, and she tangled her hands in his hair again, her hips moving against his as she urged him on. It didn’t take him long to run out of places to kiss, and he pulled back to lift her tank top all the way over her head, then fastened his lips around one bare nipple.
“You’re not wearing a bra,” he groaned, swirling his tongue around the hardened pebble. “God, that’s so sexy. Everything about you is so sexy.”
She felt the same way about him, and as good as his mouth felt, moving from one breast to the other, she was desperate to finally get a look at what was beneath those tailored button-up shirts that Julian was always wearing. She knew that his body was ripped and rippling with muscle, and Siobhan wanted to drag her nails over him, feeling the ridges of his muscles beneath her fingertips, then pressing her palms against him to feel the thud of his heart.
Pushing him back, she reached for the top button of his shirt, taking his mouth with hers as she began to fumble her way down the buttons, exposing more and more of the tanned breadth of his chest. “Gorgeous,” she groaned, pushing him all the way back against the chair and beginning to explore his own chest, lingering at the firm curve at the outer edge of his pectoral as her hand snaked down to his abs. “How are you this ripped? Accountants aren’t supposed to be this ripped…”
“I relieve stress at the gym,” he told her, returning his hands to her ass as he began to grind her against him while he enjoyed her mouth teasing his nipple.
“I’m going to relieve so much of your stress,” she promised, leaning back so that she could lift one of her legs up over his shoulder and pulling him back to her, his body locked between her legs as she lay back on his lap in the chair.
They kissed eagerly, their position perfect for their bodies to tease each other to distraction. His hand gripped her thigh as she hooked her knee over his shoulder, and she closed her eyes, losing herself completely in the moment.
The knock on her door didn’t register at first, and Siobhan was still lying back on Julian’s lap, her bare breasts spilling everywhere as he played with her body, when her office door opened.
Whatever Moira had been saying got lost in the mutual screams that all three of them let out, Siobhan fumbling to cover herself, Julian pulling back and putting his hands up in the air, and Moira throwing her own hands over her face.
“Oh my God!” Moira groaned, turning her back on the room without taking her hands down. “That’s something I could have gone my whole life without seeing.”
“Don’t you knock?” Siobhan demanded, sitting up with Julian’s help and scrambling off his lap as her overalls, not strapped over her shoulders, threatened to fall all the way down. She held onto them with one hand, her other lifting to cover her breasts. “You can’t just come in here!”
Moira turned back around, her hand still shielding her eyes. “I always just come in here! Are you dressed yet? Both of you?”
Pulling the overall straps over her shoulders, she snapped them into place. She didn’t know where her tank top was, but the overalls covered her modesty, at least somewhat sufficiently. A glance at Julian confirmed that he’d buttoned up his shirt, and when she saw that he was sitting there in the chair, clearly trying not to bust out laughing, Siobhan did it for him.
Her loud, rich laugh filled the room, and she relaxed, perching one hip on the desk as she tried to straighten her hair. “Okay, then. Yeah, we’re dressed.”
Moira dropped her hand, looking between Siobhan and Julian with a stern look that held no real punch. “Honestly. The two of you. This is a place of business.”
“Sorry,” Julian said, still covering his mouth to hide his chuckling. “Very unprofessional. It was my fault. Totally.”
“I’m sure it was, stud.” Moira, having overcome her shock now that everyone was dressed again, walked in and perfunctorily patted Julian on the shoulder. “Anyway…I was coming to tell you that Kean has picked up on someone else following Melanie. Hasn’t seen his face, but there’s someone else watching her.”
Siobhan’s eyebrows shot up, and she looked at Julian. “Xander. I bet it’s him. Let’s go.”
He just looked at her with a shocked expression, no doubt thinking about what they had been in the middle of just minutes earlier. Her body still felt it too, desire thrumming through her in all the right places. But if this was their chance to get a lead on Xander, they had to take it while they had it. They could pick up where they had left off later…at least, she certainly planned for them to.
Chapter Eighteen
Julian
The last time that Julian had ridden in a car with Siobhan, it had been awkwardly silent between them. And it was the same this time, but for very different reasons. Last time it had been because the woman drove him insane.
Well, it was still because she drove him insane, actually. Just in a way that was a lot more fun.
After he had come out of his vision of the dragon, he had looked into Siobhan’s eyes and felt something so powerful that he hadn’t been able to look away. Even though he hadn’t been able to tell her about the vision, it was like she was connected to it with him somehow. He had wanted to fall into her, wrap around her, be within her, and he hadn’t been able to stop himself from pulling her into his arms.
Her reaction had been more than he could have hoped for, and he would happily have sat in that office chair with her for the rest of the afternoon, exploring each other and just tasting her lips.
But instead, they were in her car, driving to meet up with her friend Kean to try to catch sight of Xander. And he knew th
at was what they were supposed to be doing. It was important, and they would have time to figure out what had just happened between them later. But his body was still humming with need, and his hands didn’t know where to rest, and he had absolutely no idea how to broach the subject between them.
“So, about the sex.”
Julian laughed in surprise at Siobhan’s sudden intro. That was certainly one way to handle the situation. “Yes…”
“I was okay with it.”
He looked over at her, unable to keep himself from noting the light line of definition in her arms, her slender fingers wrapped around the steering wheel, and the attractive bounce of her thigh muscle as she jiggled her leg impatiently as they came to a stop light. “You were okay with it?”
“Yeah. Really okay.” She glanced over at him too. “Were you not?”
“No, I was definitely okay with it. I was just hoping that maybe you felt like it was more than…okay.”
She gave him a look, like he should know better. But he saw a touch of nervousness in her gaze as well that told him that while she was trying to be very blasé about the whole thing, it had meant something to her too. But she wasn’t about to let on. “Oh, come on. Don’t get hung up on the adjectives. This isn’t a sitcom where we have to use strings of them to describe the experience to each other as we lie looking up at the ceiling afterward, with my bra still on.”
Julian pursed his lips, picturing that scene and realizing that it really was in every sitcom. “Fair point.”
“What I mean was…I’m glad it happened. Really glad. That’s all. So don’t be sitting over there wondering if things are weird between us now or if I’m upset or whatever. The only reason we’re not describing the greatness of our sex to each other while we stare at the ceiling is because we have to take this chance with Xander while we have it.”
“And because we’re not on a sitcom.”
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