“You and me. You don’t have to explain or apologize. I understand exactly what happened between us.”
“Yeah? Then maybe you can explain it to me.”
“It’s the pressure of everything that’s been going on.” She started to wave her other hand and then evidently realized that she was clutching her heavy satchel in it. She lowered her arm. “We’ve both been under a lot of stress. After all, people were trying to kill us. That generates some very powerful but very temporary emotions.”
“Emotions,” he repeated, careful to keep his tone neutral.
“Exactly. Plus, I know you’re probably feeling grateful to me at the moment because the case is now closed. That’s a normal reaction. A lot of clients experience it.”
“You’re saying I shouldn’t feel grateful?”
“I’m saying that you shouldn’t confuse gratitude and physical attraction with . . . with other stuff. I’m sure there are other dreamlight readers out there who could have worked that lamp for you. You just happened to pick me, that’s all.”
“I was attracted to you before I knew that you would be able to find the lamp, let alone work it,” he said. “And I think you were attracted to me. How do you explain that?”
“I’ll admit there was definitely a strong, initial attraction between us, but it may have gotten blown out of all proportion because of the tense situation in which we found ourselves. And we can’t forget the possibility that the lamp exerted some influence on our auras. We probably need some perspective here.”
He pulled her out of the stream of strolling people, into the shadows cast by a large outside stairwell that led to the upper floor of a resort shopping mall. He crowded her gently, deliberately, against the stone wall and caged her there.
“Jack?”
He leaned in close, opening his senses to the subtle aura of feminine energy that was so unique to her. He put his mouth against her ear.
“You want perspective?” he asked. “I’ll give you perspective.” He kissed the side of her throat. “I wanted you before we found the lamp. I wanted you after we found the lamp, and I still want you now that the lamp is in Arcane hands.” He brushed his mouth lightly across hers. “That’s my perspective on the situation. What’s yours?”
For a few seconds, she did not move. Then, with a low, throaty murmur, her arms wound slowly around his neck.
“Well, when you put it that way,” she whispered.
It wasn’t exactly the total capitulation he’d been going for, but he was no fool. Tonight he would take what he could get. This was Vegas, and in this town strat-talents knew when to hold ’em.
He kissed her again, feeling her soften and warm against him. The noise of the street crowds faded into the distance.
After a while they walked back to the hotel, hand in hand.
He could get used to this feeling, whatever it was. Hell, he was already addicted.
40
SHE AWOKE TO THE KNOWLEDGE THAT SHE WAS ALONE IN the bed. When she opened her eyes she saw Jack silhouetted against the window, looking down into the neon night. He had put on his trousers but not his shirt. She did not need her other senses to perceive the tension prowling through him. It was a palpable force in the atmosphere.
She sat up against the pillows and wrapped her arms around her knees.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
He turned to face her, his expression unreadable in the darkness. “Could you do to me what you did to Drake Stone today?”
She frowned. “Lift a hypnotic trance? Yes, I suppose so. Assuming someone actually managed to hypnotize you.”
“You don’t think that’s possible?”
“I think it’s extremely unlikely. You’re a very strong talent. High-level sensitives are notoriously difficult to hypnotize. Frankly, I doubt that anyone could put you into a deep trance, not even a strong para-hypnotist.” She paused. “Not unless you cooperated.”
“How would I do that?”
She wrapped her arms around her knees and considered the problem. “You’d have to deliberately open your senses like you did last night when we worked the lamp. Even then, it would be hard for anyone to put you under. And even if someone succeeded, I doubt if any hypnotic suggestion would hold for long. It would wear off quite fast.”
“What if the emergence of my new talent left me vulnerable to a hypnotist?”
“We’ve talked about this, Jack. You don’t have a new talent; you have a fully developed talent.”
“Call it whatever you want. The hallucinations were a real pain in the ass, but at least I was aware of what was happening. The nightmares were bad, but I was dealing with them. It’s the blackouts that have me worried. It seems logical to me that during that time my natural defenses might have been down. Who knows what I was doing or what happened to me?”
“There is no indication that you’re getting your memory back yet?”
“Flickers and shadows.” He looked out the window into the night. “Whispers. It’s going to drive me crazy, Chloe. I need to know what happened during the blackouts and the sleepwalking episodes.”
“As far as I can tell, the only thing that is still going on is the static caused by those sleeping meds you were taking. But like you said, you started those after the blackouts and the sleepwalking episodes.”
“Can you get rid of the disturbance caused by the meds without the lamp?”
She thought about it. “I can calm the currents temporarily, like I did the other night, at least enough so that you can get some sleep. But I’m not sure it would be a good idea to try to do any more than that. I don’t think it’s necessary, either. It looks like your body is flushing out the medication on its own.”
“I don’t want to wait. Who knows how long it will take? I need answers now.”
“I might be able to reestablish the normal rhythms of the portion of the spectrum that is affected,” she said. “But if I get it wrong I might end up fraying the channels between your dreamstate and your waking state again. If I screw up, the hallucinations and nightmares will come back. If we do this, we should probably have the lamp handy, just in case we need it again.”
“It would take time to get to L.A. and persuade Arcane to let me run another experiment. I don’t want to wait.”
“This is that important to you?” she asked.
“I have to get some answers, Chloe.”