The others withdrew. Gavin waited for them to go, then laid his hand on her shoulder, encouraging her to look away from Jack and up into his eyes.
“You aren’t powerless, Lara, any more than the bird on your balcony. Far from it,” he said. “The bird needed a way out and got it. You needed a way in. Now you have it, don’t you?”
“Yes,” she said, surprised that Gavin understood. He may not be able to see the golden thread, or even sense it the way Poppy did, but he knew what she could and wanted to do. The thread would open a way into Jack’s heart, where she would live for them both, until he was ready to wake up.
“Then…” he said, and backed out of the little glass room, leaving her to it.
Lara rearranged the tubes and wires as best she could one-handed, making a place for herself next to him. She climbed into bed and wrapped her arms around Jack, closed her eyes, and let her inner senses take over.
Back in her condo, when her hand had swollen to twice its size and infection had raged through her body, Jack had lain beside exactly like this, giving her his strength. Though out of her head with pain and fever, and not yet ready to believe in her new life as a dreamrunner, she’d still been aware of his energy pouring into her hour after hour, willing her to stay alive long enough for him to find and save her.
Lara did the same for him now, wrapping the golden thread around and around them until they were bound together inexorably. They would live or they would die, but they would do it together.
“Don’t go, Jack,” she whispered in his ear. “Don’t even think about leaving me.”
Chapter 29
Jack stood over the three graves in the sparkling gloom, head bowed. That strange light that infused everything in the fields turned to rain that fell in molten-colored drops and ran down his face. It filled the empty holes in the ground in front of him so that they looked more like pools of dark yellow lava, than what they really were, symbols of the three victims he’d failed on his missions, Jamie, Starr, and now Lara. All dead, or worse than dead.
Their bodies weren’t here, of course, only his memorials to them, each with a headstone inscribed with their name, and the unfilled graves. Empty, because he’d never had a chance to say good-bye to them, and because he suspected they were trapped here in the fields, never to leave. Jack kept vigil by the graves, understanding this was where he was stuck now, too. He could never leave the fields, but he would wait and he would search and when he found the three again, he would find a way to release them from this beautiful Hell, so that they could go to their proper rest. They were dead, but not dead. They needed to be free. He might be condemned to this place, but they didn’t deserve the limbo to which his incompetence had sentenced them.
He didn’t know how long he remained graveside—time had no relevance here—when he felt the soft hand at his back.
“Lara,” he said.
Who knew the last dreamrunner he’d lost, would be the first to find him? Lara circled round in front of him. It didn’t make sense. She’d stepped over one of the graves, but miraculously didn’t plunge into it. Instead, she hovered above it. Her bare feet acted like they stood on solid ground.
“What are you doing here, Jack?” she said.
“Waiting.”
“Waiting for what?”
“Can’t you see?”
He gestured at the funereal triptych, the three matching gravestones, the three holes side by side.
Lara glanced over his shoulder at them.
“All I see are blown glass flower vases.”
“Vases?” he said. “That’s what you see?”
“Yes, vases. What should I see?”
“I don’t know. I guess you should see what I do.”
“What do you see?” she asked.
“What I put here. Graves. Three of them. Each with its own headstone.”
She turned and looked again, frowning. “I don’t see that at all.” She reached up and stroked his brow, her fingertips tracing the deep lines sorrow put there. He saw worry in her eyes.
For me? Why is she worried about me? Doesn’t she know she’s dead?
“Tell me what you see,” he asked her.
“Well, like I said, vases. The glass is hand blown, swirling with colors so amazing I don’t know how to describe them. They don’t have names.”
“What else? Are they all the same?”
“Yes, and no. The vases are all the same shape, but different colors. The first, that one…” She pointed at Jamie’s headstone. “Is filled with the most glorious bouquet of sweet peas I’ve ever seen.”
Jack’s voice hitched. “Sweet peas?”
“Yes, sweet peas. And the second one, I’m not sure, but I think those are called star asters, and there are vines mixed in, too. Star jasmine. A riot of blooms in both vases. I’ve never seen flowers so alive.”
He felt himself trembling at her description of Starr’s grave. He tried to suppress the shaking, but Lara saw it. “And the third vase?” he asked.
“What third vase? I only see two.”
“Two?”
What was going on here? Why weren’t they seeing the same thing? He’d never felt so bewildered. So…lost.
“Come back with me, Jack.”
“I can’t. I belong here now. In the fields.”
“No,” she said. “You don’t.”
“I do.”
“No one belongs here. Not permanently.”
“I have to pay.”
She put her hand in his, and wrapped something several times around his wrist, binding them together. A golden thread of light. It looked familiar, though he couldn’t say why.
“There’s nothing to pay for,” she told him.
“Don’t you see?”
“I see you,” she said. “I see you clear as day. I need you, Jack.” She urged him away from the memorials. “Can we go home now?” Her eyes pleaded. “Please?”
He turned his back on the graves.
“Okay,” he said. He smiled at last and took her hand more firmly in his.
Jack found himself sleeping on his side in a strange bed. Lara spooned up against his back, her arms clinging to him fiercely, even in sleep. He’d dreamed. Something important, he was sure, but the dream popped, the pieces flying away out of sight like a burst balloon.
Where was he? Where were they?
My God. Lara?
Right here, she answered in his mind.
He flipped over in bed to face her. She was alive. Beautifully, wonderfully alive. Her eyes smiled at his, though her mouth opened in a drowsy yawn.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hey,” he said back. His voice sounded rusty and he had the worst sore throat of his life, though he didn’t feel ill. In fact, he felt good. A little weak, but healthy and whole.
Lara glanced around, confused.
“What happened? We’re not in ICU anymore.”
They sat up together, studying their surroundings.
He recognized exactly where there were, the hospital at The House. Not only that, Lara wasn’t in the non-members section where new Lost Ones stayed. They occupied a larger than standard issue hospital bed, designed so spouses could visit and sleep with each other, provided the patient was in stable condition. Unlike other hospital beds it was minus rails. Monitoring equipment for heart and respiration stood to one side, none of it turned on. He noted the bandages on his hand and inner elbow that must have covered needle puncture sites. More bandages covered where he’d been shot, but all of this was peripheral. Lara occupied his main focus. Her well-being was his world.
“Are you okay?” he asked her.
She nodded.
His gaze went directly to her injured hand. The tips of her fingers poked through the end of a temporary cast. All of them. Their tips were pink, normal looking.
“Are you?” she asked.
“I feel surprisingly good. Almost 100-percent.”
He marveled that she was here with him, really here, neither
of them as their twin. He lifted his hand, yet hesitated to touch her, afraid he couldn’t believe what he saw.
“I thought I’d lost you,” he said.
“I was sure I’d lost you.”
He still couldn’t bring himself to touch her. Guilt and shame at losing consciousness after the battle with Grey Man weighed on him so heavily he couldn’t bring himself to take what he desperately wanted.
“I felt the thread letting go,” he said.
Their faces moved closer.
“The thread! You saw it, too?”
“It’s been there since the beginning.”
He felt the warmth rising off her skin, inhaled her scent, a heady mix of honeysuckle and summer rain. Their lips came so near to each other their whispers teased and tested his restraint more than a kiss could ever do.
“I tried to hold on to the thread. I swear, Jack, but I couldn’t–”
His mouth took hers. There wasn’t time for second-guessing. Thoughts only got in the way. He wanted and he would have what he wanted. Her lips parted for him and he stole the decadent taste of second chances in their hidden mating of tongues. Her teeth nipped and dragged along the inside of his lip. Slowly, so taunting, and then hungry, hungry.
Give me more, she urged.
He crushed her to him roughly. He licked the sassy, upturned corner of her smile, as it promised hedonistic pleasures he’d never think to ask. Her good hand explored and mapped every part of him accessible without ripping off his clothes.
Rip them off.
Had she thought that? Or had he?
They parted lips to stare at each other for several seconds, take the sexual measure of the other. He noticed his hand on her breast. Her heart, running fast and hard, pressed that tantalizing globe into his palm with each breath. He sensed the tremor of need thrum along the nerves in her body. He couldn’t stand it a second longer. He felt himself grow hard, erect, the ache from needing to be inside her turning years of profound loneliness into an erotic beast he couldn’t deny existed.
Lara heard a deep, throaty moan, shocked to discover the sound came from her. Jack leaned in and nipped her neck at the pulse point, just hard enough to turn on the wanton woman concealed inside of her, the one that had spent years longing for someone capable of waking her innately carnal nature. Ravenous for the dark flavor of sin on his lips, she pulled his mouth back to her own where her tongue met his tongue in a fervent tangle.
Deliciously, his fingers skimmed the trim along the opening of her hospital-issue clothing, a soft, pajama-like robe that crossed and tied in the front. She clasped his hand and led it inside. She started in delight when his palm made contact with one aroused, sensitive nipple.
And then she remembered her other injuries. The scars, the burns, the bruises that had only just started to heal. All the signs of Grey Man’s torture. Shame assaulted her. Regretting her own weakness, she pulled free and leaned back away from him. Their lower bodies almost touched, but her hands betrayed her own secret disgust over what he might see if she removed the robe. She clutched the edges of it together.
“We shouldn’t,” she said, “You aren’t ready for this.”
“Who says I’m not ready?” he asked. His tone was quiet, passion held in sudden reserve.
“You were in a coma for a week,” she said.
He pried one of her hands from its death grip on the robe, and guided it to the straining erection behind his own hospital pajamas.
“Does that feel like someone who isn’t ready?” he said.
“You don’t want me. Not really.”
He laughed. “I beg to differ. That begs to differ.”
She didn’t move. Or know what to do. Or what to say.
“Let me,” he said. “Please?”
Jack pulled on the bow securing the ties to her pajama robe, and the two sides fell loose, but not open. Thankfully, nothing was revealed. Reverently, his caress began at the v-shaped hollow at the base of her neck, then trailed downward, tracing the shape of her breasts. They faithfully studied, yet never paused at the irregularities in her skin or the raised dots where stitches had recently been removed. His touch was interested in her and every part, damaged or not, each blemish and new scar was an important part of the exploration. His touch loved her, showed her his awe, and left no doubts about what he wanted. His fingers brushed the underside of one breast, then trailed lower, his large hand on her abdomen, opening flat to possessively span her narrow waist. Then lower and lower until it was all she could do to–
“Oh…”
His hand reached and delved between her legs, cupping around her pubic mound. He held her there, his thumb massaging a spot on her flat belly just above where her white blonde curls ended. He parted her folds, seeking the passion-swollen bud within. His rough fingerpads expertly teased and rubbed, driving her closer and closer to the ragged edge. She bucked into his hand and nearly sobbed in ecstasy.
He leaned in and claimed her mouth again.
Moaning into their kiss, her wet, ready body told him how much she wanted him back.
“With the lights out,” she said.
“No.”
“I don’t want you to see.”
“But I do.”
She loved feeling his lips speaking without leaving hers, the physical intimacy of his body passing his thoughts to hers using touch. Each word spoken became a tangible declaration.
This is selfish. He almost died. What if he has a heart attack?
Fuck heart attacks, came his defiant thought.
“Shouldn’t you talk to the doctor first?” she insisted aloud.
You’re just making excuses.
She squirmed and got free, flipping to her other side.
To find herself trapped between the bed and a wall just inches away.
“Hmn,” he mused, “doesn’t look like there’s too many places to go.”
She didn’t want to go, didn’t want him to stop. She wanted him to hurry and make the next move. When his hard body came up behind hers, a fine shiver of excitement slid across her skin. The heat between them was palpable. His hands slipped under her robe’s hem from behind, each hand skimming over a rounded, bare cheek. Gripping. Squeezing. His straining erection slid along the tender gap at the back of her thighs.
Would he enter her from behind?
No. Or not yet. Or, Please. I need you. Now.
What was he waiting for?
“The robe. Take it off.”
“No, I mean it. You can’t see,” she repeated.
“But you should. You should see what I do. The amazing, breathtaking woman in bed with me,” he said. “Don’t hide her away while we make love.”
She froze, not sure what to do next, how to go forward. Or more impossibly, to give up on what she craved and could have from him.
“If you won’t do it for yourself, then do it for me,” he said. “I want to see all of you.”
“All right.”
It wasn’t easy to undress herself with just one good hand, while lying in bed, even when the only thing she had on was a one-size-fits-all robe. Her attempts were awkward and fumbling, but she did it without his help.
“Thank you,” he said.
She rolled over to face him again.
While she’d been pre-occupied with getting naked, he’d easily shed his own clothing.
The virile majesty of his body almost undid her.
“You…” she said, at a loss for words. She worried. Could she take him all in? He was ready, but was she?
“Let’s see,” he said, reading her mind, and responding with a wicked grin.
He claimed his rightful due. Suddenly, she was under him, awed by the perfect view. His heavily muscled biceps suspended his body above hers. Tilting her hips, she wrapped her legs around him.
“You,” she said.
“Me?”
“I want.”
She pulled him down, taking him greedily into her.
If none of this was real…if,
like so many things that had happened to her since she’d been taken, this was just a dream, it was the best dream because for the first time in her life she knew she wasn’t alone. She took all of him, felt her body stretch to accept every delicious inch while he stroked her in and out in a rhythm that took them together to a golden climax. It shattered the darkness and left nothing but the brilliant fire of a world without fear. It was their world, forged of primal heat and unquestioned trust, and for Lara, a safety so absolute, she no longer worried what might come tomorrow or five minutes from now.
Jack shuddered in pleasure, life spilling into her, and she came again, letting the decadent waves ripple outward through her body.
Chapter 30
“Who are Jamie and Starr?” Lara asked Jack, breaking the companionable silence between them. They’d eaten and then slept until late morning.
“Who?”
Lara lay against Jack’s bare chest in bed. One of his hands stroked her hair, fingers absently twirling a blonde lock. He’d been lost in his own thoughts and Lara hadn’t wanted to intrude by trying to listen in.
At her question, he went still and his abdominal muscles clenched, becoming a tight wall at her back. What she’d asked was literally a blow to the gut.
Lara persisted. “Jamie and Starr.”
She needed to know about the graves she’d been unable to see when she’d rescued Jack from the limbo of the fields. All she’d found were sweet peas, asters and star jasmine, but Jack’s mind had evidently created graves, which he alone saw, to represent important people in his life who had died. The third invisible grave had been for her. She understood that now. Just as she believed he’d died when she couldn’t hold onto the thread binding them any longer, he’d also believed she was dead. Thank God she’d able to rejoin the thread between them, and he’d come back with her to the real world when she’d asked him. If he’d refused, she had no doubt she could have returned to find her arms around his dead body.
“Who told you those names?” His question sounded worse than an accusation, more like a betrayal.
Dangerous Dreams (A Dreamrunners Society Novel) Page 17
