“Who are you really?”
“I told you. I’m Reese.”
That didn’t sound right. “What are you?”
“I’m a Chimera. I help keep Rêve safe,” he said, “And I want you to join me.”
“You want to recruit me.”
“Yes. I want you badly.” In dreams, sometimes, the truth was hard to disguise. Hard to deny, too.
“And if I say no?”
“Eventually you’ll have to agree. Others are sure to find you soon, if they haven’t already. I’m your best option, such as I am.”
She looked over her shoulder to meet his eyes. “Is there a way to go back to the way things were?”
He’d answered this already, but he would again and again until she understood. She’d changed. “No. And you don’t want to, anyway. Admit it, you like lucid dreaming, and when you discover what you can do here, the real world will pale in comparison.”
She shook her head. “I don’t want it.”
Want? There was that word again, piercing through the conversation.
He wanted to put his hands low on her hips and feel her arch back into him. He could forget what haunted him with her. He knew he could.
“Are you making me feel like this?” she demanded. “Why do you make me feel like this?”
“Like what?” Did she feel it too, then? This atomic attraction, like molecular bonds straining to attach?
But her eyes just got wider, her glare accusatory.
“It’s your dream, Jordan,” he said. “I can find you within it, but I can’t make you feel anything.” Though there were some agents who had the knack. He was just a humble tracker.
“Well, you don’t have to stand so close.”
“Your dream,” he said again. “Push me away.”
He knew she could—it was well within her ability—and soon she’d be able to do so without thinking. Her dreams were her playground. It was only deeper into the waters of sleep, Darkside, that she’d have difficulty.
But she didn’t push him back.
Okay, still scared. Still disoriented. He needed her trust, so he’d give her the space she requested, and he would back off.
Except…his backward motion was met with stiff resistance. She wasn’t pushing him away; she was keeping him close. He could break her hold. However strong she was, he had considerably more experience. He could break the dream, but he didn’t.
A smile of deep satisfaction pulled at his mouth, an entirely foreign feeling to his face, to his soul. If he begged, would she let him stay here? He’d promise to keep the darkness at bay, because it would come. It always did.
“Michael?”
The false name was a reminder. There are rules. There are rules. There are rules.
She rose on tiptoe, drawing closer by the pull of attraction between them.
His hands found her hips, knew just the angle to his grip—she didn’t protest. He tugged her flush against him, and her back arched, just slightly, exactly as he’d hoped it would, her ass pressing—good God—into his groin.
Warmth coursed through his gut and spread out to his limbs and mind. It was part lust—no helping that—and part peace. It was a full-body sensation, burning out pain and loneliness, leaving only this feeling of want and connection.
She tilted her head back.
All her little adjustments meant yes, yes, and yes.
At the moment, hers was the only permission that mattered.
So he kissed her.
***
Michael Reese’s mouth on hers was like being struck by a prolonged bolt of lightning. Every nerve crackled, her blood heating and rushing faster, beating her mindless and throbbing at her core. She needed as if she’d never needed anything before, like oxygen in space or water in a desert. She needed him in order to survive, because she’d gone without feeling like this for so long, too long, since Mom had died. She’d starved herself of the pulse of being alive, of indulgence, of desire. Until now, she’d only chosen romantic fictions of men she could keep at a comfortable distance, and her soul was weaker for it.#p#分页标题#e#
But this senseless, crazy rush?
His hands shifted from her hips—she’d sob if he let her go—but he splayed one low on her belly, the other caressing none too gently up to cup a breast. She opened her mouth and their tongues rubbed and tangled. She wanted more, not caring any longer that he was basically a stranger, that she wasn’t being smart or safe. The electric shocks of awareness shook her so badly that she whimpered.
She grabbed his hands where they heated her body. How could she get him inside her, to be full of this incredible feeling, mindless of anything else?
His mouth ripped from hers, and she cried out. But he didn’t let her go. He found the crook of her neck where it met her shoulder and breathed there, panting hot and fast. His hands moved across her body, his arms banding her to him to control her shudders.