Through the Night

by Janelle Denison

  She didn’t want to wait that long to feel him inside her, not when she was already so primed and ready for him. “I’m on the pill, and I’m healthy,” she said, knowing he’d know what she meant.

  He gave her a smile that melted her even more. “Me, too. I’ve never had sex without a condom,” he said, revealing so much in that confession. “And I’m so glad you’re the first.”

  He lifted her up into his arms, and the next thing she knew, she was on her back on the bed, her head resting on a pillow, and Chase was crawling over her.

  “Now, about that ache of yours,” he murmured as he settled his hips between her spread thighs and pressed the length of his body to hers. He linked their hands together at either side of her head, palms flattened together, fingers entwined as the tip of his shaft slid through her wet heat, teasing her sex, and she arched restlessly and moaned with the need for him to fill her up.

  “I’m getting there, sweetheart,” he said with a sinful grin. “Wrap those gorgeous legs of yours around my waist so I can get as deep as possible.”

  She didn’t hesitate to do as he asked, and when he finally flexed his hips and pushed inside her all the way to the hilt, she felt the warm, tingling impression of his tattoo against her skin, branding her as his. For a breathless instant, he stared down at her and held himself absolutely still, as though absorbing the feeling of them being locked so intimately together.

  Then he lowered his head and covered her lips with his, and as he began to move, desire and passion coalesced into pure emotion, and oh, God, she felt everything with this man. The tenderness in his kiss. The heat and undeniable hunger between them. The heavy beat of his heart as his body pumped oh-so leisurely inside her, filling her up and completing her in ways she hadn’t believed possible.

  His tongue and his hips moved in perfect rhythm, and Valerie was certain she was going to burn up in flames as her body clenched around him like a glove. He deliberately kept things slow. Purposely made the ache turn into a liquid kind of heat that flowed through her veins. And just when she didn’t think she could take it any longer, he finally picked up the pace, each thrust a little harder and a whole lot deeper than the last, until she finally splintered apart and he shuddered through his own orgasm right along with her.

  In the aftermath of such exquisite pleasure, her body went lax and she lay there, bundled in his strong arms, sheltered from the rest of the world.

  And for right now, for the moment, it was the only place she wanted to be.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Valerie woke with a start and an audible, panicked gasp as the remnants of the awful dream she’d just had shook her to the very core. Her heart raced in her chest, and her entire body trembled, even though she was safe and secure, wrapped in Chase’s embrace.

  That was the problem, she knew. Touching Chase in any capacity seemed to connect them physically and mentally, and in slumber she was defenseless and vulnerable, with all her normal protective barriers stripped away. After their earlier emotional conversation, then the heightened intimacy of making love, the bond between them was stronger than ever. And the dream she just had about Chase had been just as intense … and incredibly frightening.

  She knew all too well how those terrifying visions ended, and a small moan of distress escaped her. She suddenly felt desperate to put distance between her and Chase. She attempted to scramble away, but his arm tightened around her waist as he came awake.

  “Hey, are you okay?” he murmured sleepily.

  Feeling smothered and stifled, she forcibly peeled away his arm so she could move away to her side of the bed, breaking the connection between them. Even then, breathing was difficult, and a wave of nausea rolled through her that she was barely able to tamp down.

  Chase came up on an elbow, a frown of concern creasing his brows. The slumberous haze from his eyes cleared as he stared at her in the early morning light. “Valerie, what’s wrong?”

  “A dream,” she said, her voice escaping on a croak as she sat up in bed and pulled the covers up to her breasts. “I had a dream.” No, not a dream, she corrected herself, but a nightmare. The kind that threatened to destroy the bit of happiness and contentment she’d found with Chase. And put his life directly at risk, too.

  The horrific thought sent another surge of apprehension twisting through her, sharp as a knife and just as painful.

  “Okay,” he said slowly, clearly understanding that this hadn’t been one of those sexy, erotic visions she’d told him about last night. “What did you see?”

  He was so calm, while she felt as if her entire world were shattering, and she feared that she’d never be able to pick up the pieces if her chilling premonition came true. “I saw you,” she said, and wrapped her arms around her waist. “Someone shot you, and you were lying on the ground in a pool of blood.” Just saying the words out loud made her shudder in dread.

  “Sweetheart,” he said in a gentle, placating tone. “It was just a bad dream. Everything’s fine. I’m fine.”

  She shook her head frantically. “No, it wasn’t just a bad dream, Chase. You were touching me, our bodies intimately close, and what I saw was a premonition. I’ve had enough experience to know the difference.”

  He didn’t argue the point, and instead took a different approach. “Are you sure it was me you saw?”

  “Absolutely.” She’d clearly seen his pale face and the agony in his eyes, had witnessed the desperate way he gasped for breath as the blood drained from his body. She shivered, wishing she could erase the disturbing images from her mind, but knew they’d haunt her for a long time to come.

  “What else did you see?” he asked patiently. “Do you know when this happens?”

  She shook her head. “No.” And that’s what made it so much worse. Sometimes her visions gave her plenty of details to pinpoint a time or place, and other times she saw only bits and pieces. She had no clue what would lead to the shooting, which was both frustrating and disconcerting.

  But at least he wasn’t outright dismissing her concerns, though she wondered if he would really give her dream a second thought beyond this discussion. Knowing Chase, a man who lived in the moment and had a reckless streak a mile wide, she was fairly certain he wasn’t going to start worrying about risks and danger now. He’d admitted to deliberately cheating death and tempting fate, and she couldn’t live with a man who had no qualms about putting his life in jeopardy on a regular basis.

  God, was she always destined to lose the ones she truly loved?

  The realization that she loved Chase pushed another panic button and constricted her chest with a bone-deep despair because the potential to lose him was so great. There was no denying the truth of her feelings for him, but she still had the ability to protect her heart and emotions from further pain and grief. And that meant severing ties with Chase and walking away before she fell any harder, any deeper, with no way out.

  “You’re overthinking things again, Valerie,” Chase said, and patted the mattress beside him, his gaze compassionate. “Come here.”

  “No.” She couldn’t touch him again, not when their emotions were so heightened. And she was afraid of flashing on something else about Chase that would completely destroy her. It was bad enough that she already knew he was going to get shot and, if he didn’t take care with his life, possibly die. “I … I can’t do this with you.”

  He frowned at her, and she could tell that he wasn’t happy she was pulling back and withdrawing from him again. “Can’t do what, exactly?”

  “Be with you,” she forced out, the most difficult words she’d ever spoken. But once they were out, she finished what needed to be said. “We both knew this thing between us was temporary, and after tonight, I’m done. I’m flying back to Vegas tomorrow.”

  He looked stunned, and she took that as her cue to get out of bed, get dressed, and put this painful conversation behind her. But as soon as she moved, his hand snaked out and his fingers closed over her wrist, keeping her from going
anywhere. His touch was hot, and she instantly felt his desperation—and a bit of anger, too.

  “What the hell is going on, Valerie?” he asked, his voice a rough demand. “What the hell just happened here? Talk to me.”

  Her throat clogged with misery and tears, and it took her a moment before she could speak around the emotion choking her. “I can’t … I can’t handle watching another person I care about die.”

  Shock passed over his features, and he gradually let her hand go. “What do you mean you can’t handle watching another person you care about die?”

  The sheet that had been covering Chase dipped lower on his hips, exposing his tattoo. The one she’d been dreaming about for months. The one that proclaimed him as her soul mate and the one and only man who’d ever complemented her so completely.

  He was waiting for her reply, but sitting next to him in the bed, with both of them still naked, was much too intimate. As was the room where he’d taken her, made love to her, and where she realized she’d fallen in love with him. She needed clothes on, and she needed physical and emotional space between them before she opened up and talked about her past.

  She dragged her fingers through her sleep-disheveled hair and released a deep breath. “Let me get dressed, please, and then I’ll explain.”

  He hesitated, and she knew he believed she was trying to avoid the discussion. His lips flattened into a thin line, and though he looked like he wanted to argue, he ultimately relented. “Fine. Get dressed and I’ll meet you in the kitchen. But we’re not done with this conversation.”

  Since they’d yet to get their bags from the car, she grabbed the clothes Chase had stripped off her last night and retreated into the bathroom, knowing her respite was going to be short-lived. After changing into her jeans and sweater, she washed her face, then brushed her hair and scrubbed her teeth with a new toothbrush and toothpaste she found in the cabinet.

  When she knew she couldn’t put off the inevitable any longer, she straightened her shoulders and headed into the kitchen, where Chase was waiting for her. Fresh coffee was already brewing, and at some point during the night the storm had passed and cheery sunlight spilled into the room.

  The man himself didn’t look so cheerful, though. His expression was pensive as he leaned against the counter, and while she wore her clothing like a barrier, the only thing he’d donned was a pair of jeans that rode deliciously low on his lean hips. His chest was magnificently, gorgeously bare, and far too distracting.

  She headed straight for the coffee and poured herself a cup of caffeine. After adding cream and sugar, she took a seat at the small table across from where Chase was standing and took a sip of the strong brew.

  Chase watched Valerie, knowing she was stalling while he wanted to get this conversation out in the open and over with. After everything they’d been through together over the past week, he’d learned enough about her to gauge her moods and demeanor, and she was retreating from him fast—all because of a dream that might, or might not, come true.

  His gut was in a tight knot, because with each moment that passed he could feel her slipping through his fingers, pulling back, withdrawing to that safe place where she didn’t have to feel. And while the fear and anxiety in her eyes were real, he couldn’t alleviate her doubts and concerns until he knew exactly what he was up against, which appeared to be directly related to her past.

  “Your reprieve is over, sweetheart,” he said, giving her a pointed look. “And now you have some explaining to do over that comment you made about being unable to watch another person you care about die.”

  She took another drink of her coffee, then spoke. “My parents were the first,” she said, her voice filled with pain that had been dulled over the years, but obviously still had a profound effect on her. “Around the age of five, I started having light psychic flashes, but at the time I had no idea what they were or what they meant. I was so young, and I found it all very confusing, and I never told my mother or father that I was seeing things that came true, because I didn’t know how to explain something I didn’t understand.”

  She wrapped her hands around her coffee mug, as if needing to absorb the warmth seeping into her palms. “One night my parents were going out to dinner, and when my mother gave me a hug good-bye, I flashed on a vision of them in a fiery car crash and felt the sensation of them dying. It scared me so badly, and I didn’t say anything to my mother because I thought it was just my imagination. But when I woke up the next morning my aunt and uncle were at the house, and they were the ones who told me that my parents were killed in a car accident.”

  Oh, hell. Chase could only imagine how devastated she’d been as a young child. It was terrible enough that she’d lost her parents, but that pain and grief had undoubtedly been compounded by the fact that she’d seen the collision in her mind before it even happened. “I’m so sorry, Valerie,” he said, his voice low and sympathetic.

  “I’m more sorry that I didn’t tell my mother what I’d seen,” she replied, the guilt etching her features speaking louder than any words could. “Maybe if I had, they’d still be alive today.”

  She looked so broken and torn, and it took everything in him not to go to her and pull her into his arms and offer her the comfort of his embrace. But she had those walls up, and for right now he was better off staying right where he was. “You can’t blame yourself for what happened to your parents,” he said softly.

  “Just like you don’t blame yourself for what happened to your best friend?” She arched a brow, calling him out on his attempt to appease her conscience, especially when she knew he carried his own regrets about the lightning strike that had killed Doug and given him his psychometric abilities.

  Yeah, he understood exactly how it felt to be encumbered by those kinds of emotional burdens, how anger and sorrow could compel a person to react in severe and desperate ways in order to cope with such a senseless loss. Valerie had kept her feelings locked up tight and avoided intimate relationships, while Chase had taken his guilt of surviving to the extreme, indifferent to whether he lost his own life in the process.

  He was beginning to care. A whole lot. And she was the reason.

  “I’ll always feel directly responsible for my parents’ death,” she went on before he had a chance to say anything. “How can I not when I could have saved their lives? I’ve spent most of my life asking myself that dreaded what-if question, but I’ll never know what could have been. And I swore that if I ever flashed on something like that again, I’d tell the person what I saw. And of course, it did happen again.”

  He didn’t ask the obvious question that would prompt her to share, just crossed his arms loosely over his chest and waited quietly for her to continue, knowing she would.

  “The second time I had visions of someone’s death, it was a coworker,” she said, staring into the depths of her coffee cup, her voice flat and monotone. “I was nineteen at the time and was working as a receptionist at a construction firm. A lot of times the men who worked out in the field stopped by the office at the end of the day to turn in time sheets and invoices, and there was one young guy in particular who would always stop by my desk and flirt with me.”

  Lifting her gaze back up, she knitted her brows over eyes that appeared vacant, as if she was trying to keep herself far removed from the pain that colored her past. “His name was Owen, and he was always asking me to go out on a date with him, and I’d always, very nicely, turn him down. One day, he was in a playful mood, and he picked up my hand and I immediately flashed on him skiing, then hitting a tree and dying. He had no idea I was clairvoyant, so I casually asked him if he skied, and he told me he was going on a ski trip that coming weekend with some friends and invited me to go with them.”

  Her lips compressed into a grim line. “I told him not to go, and I explained that I was psychic and told him what I’d just seen. Of course, he didn’t believe me and thought it was all a big joke and ignored my warning. In fact, he told most of the office about
my ‘prediction,’ and everyone had a good laugh over it, and me. It was awful, but more than that, I felt helpless because there was nothing I could do to convince him that I wasn’t some charlatan messing with his head.”

  Chase knew exactly how this story would end, and while it would be easy to stop Valerie from having to dig up the unpleasant details of the past, he realized that in order for them to have any kind of chance at a future together, she had to release everything she’d suppressed for so long, and hopefully face the fact that she had no control over the choices other people made with their lives.

  “He went on the trip, and he and a few of his friends decided to go on one of those extreme skiing expeditions where a helicopter drops you off at the top of a mountain.” She swallowed hard, her voice dropping to a low, husky pitch as she continued. “Owen lost control because of his speed and slammed into a tree. He died instantly.”

  Chase groaned. “Again, what happened to Owen is not your fault,” he said, doing his best to make Valerie see reason, even as he watched her raise those protective walls a little higher. “He made the choice to go on that ski trip, even after your warning. There was nothing else you could do.”

  She stood and walked over to the sink and rinsed out her coffee mug, her body stiff with a palpable tension. “And for the rest of my life, I’m left agonizing over the situation, as well as knowing if he’d only listened to me and stayed behind, he’d be alive today.”

  Chase jammed his hands on his hips, his own frustration mounting. “Maybe. Or maybe not. But you are not responsible for someone else’s actions or decisions.”

  “And what about my vision of you getting shot and bleeding to death?” she asked as bitter anger and an icy shade of fear clashed in the depths of her gaze. “What am I supposed to do with that?”

  “There’s nothing you can do,” he argued, his tone just as heated. “You don’t know the time or the place or the circumstances, and if you did know specifics, I could make decisions or changes based on those facts. Trust me, I’m not dismissing what you saw, but I can’t secure myself in Bubble Wrap, and I can’t stop living my life.”