Jayne Krentz - Dream Eyes

High wire, she reminded herself. No net.

“Do you always talk out loud to the ghosts in your trance dreams?” Judson asked.

He didn’t sound worried. He sounded curious.

Bored by the proceedings, Max jumped down to the floor and wandered off toward the other room, tail high.

“Not always,” she said. But in this case, I was talking to Evelyn again. I deliberately put myself into the dream to see if I could understand what she was trying to tell me with the map. It has to be important. Otherwise she wouldn’t have hidden it inside the mirror engine. And she wouldn’t have left that message on the back of the photo for me to find.”

Judson looked at the map unfolded across her thighs. “Get any ideas from your dream?”

“Nothing concrete.” She ran her fingers through her hair, pushing it loosely back behind her ears while she struggled to pull facts from her visions. “In my dream, I set out on a road trip. I was walking from one circled town to the next. Evelyn’s ghost told me that the names she wrote on that map and the six circled towns were important. But she also told me that I should go back to the beginning.”

“Back to Wilby?”

“That’s just it—I’m not sure what it all means. I went into the dream assuming that the places she marked were sites of paranormal activity that she had researched online, places that she planned to check out as potential Dead of Night episodes. I thought one of them might be a clue to whatever is going on here in Wilby.” She stabbed a finger at Reno. “I got this far before Evelyn appeared and told me I have to go back to the beginning.”

“Wilby.”

“I suppose so, one way or another.” She tightened her hand into a frustrated fist. “Sometimes my talent is so damn frustrating.”

“It’s been a long day,” Judson said. “You need rest.”

“Probably.” She sank back against the pillows. “So do you. Sorry I woke you.”

“I wasn’t asleep, at least not very soundly.”

She gave a small sniff. “I’m not surprised, given all that psychic noise you’ve got going on in your aura.”

He tensed. “Don’t start with the therapy talk. I am not in the mood.”

“Okay, okay, you’ve made that clear. But for the record, if you ever do decide that you’d like help getting a good night’s sleep, let me know. I’m the only psychic counselor in town, and it just so happens I specialize in dream therapy. What with you being a Coppersmith and all, I’m sure you can afford me.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. Now, about our mutual issues with bed partners.”

She stilled. “What about them?”

“I’m willing to discuss possible therapeutic solutions to that problem.”

She was suddenly a little breathless. Her pulse was kicking up again but not from the rush of adrenaline and anxiety that always accompanied the crossing of the dream river. This new, unfamiliar exhilaration was a good kind of rush. There was certainly risk here, but at the moment she could not find a reason to care about the potential downside.

No net.

“Are you absolutely sure it doesn’t bother you that I talk to ghosts?” she said.

“It’s no big deal.”

“You don’t think I’m maybe borderline crazy?”

“I’ve met crazy. I know crazy. Trust me, you don’t qualify as crazy.”

“What makes you so sure of that?”

He smiled slowly, deliberately. “I’m psychic, remember?”

“Oh, yeah, right.” She smiled. “I almost forgot.”

He pulled her into his arms, giving her time to change her mind. But changing her mind was the last thing she planned to do.

When his mouth closed over hers, a sweeping tide of certainty crashed through her, the same kind of certainty that she got when she reached the shores of the surface world after a harrowing journey to the underworld of dreams. This was solid. This was real.

At least for tonight.

She sank her fingers into Judson’s shoulders, finding the rock-hard muscle beneath warm skin. He responded with a low, husky growl that conveyed male hunger and need in the most elemental language of all. He deepened the kiss. She opened her mouth for him.

He pushed her back down onto the bed and covered her body with his own. A raging thrill flashed across her senses. She curled her leg around his thigh. The fabric of his trousers was rough against her skin. When she thrust one hand beneath his T-shirt, she discovered that his back was already damp with sweat.

She knew that he had heightened his talent. He wasn’t focusing his psychic senses, she realized. He had simply opened them wide to savor all of the raw energy of the passion they were generating. She was doing the same thing.

“Judson.” She twisted beneath him, threaded her fingers in his hair. “Oh my goodness, Judson.”

She kissed him with a ferocity that he took as a challenge, returning the embrace with the same passionate intensity. It was as if both of them had been waiting for this to happen for a very long time, and now that the moment was upon them, they were each determined to seize the opportunity.

Locked in sensual battle, they rolled together across the bed. For an exhilarating time, she was on top, glorying in her power. And then he was pinning her beneath him, and she was relishing the sensual assault he waged on her body.

He wrenched his mouth away from hers and caught her wrists on either side of her head. He was breathing hard now. There was a hot, dark energy about him that radiated across the spectrum. His ring burned in the shadows.

He got her out of the robe and the nightgown and kissed his way down the length of her. When she felt the edge of his teeth on the inside of her thigh, she gasped and twisted her fingers in his hair.

He used his hands and his tongue on her until she was melting and desperate for him. Only then did he pause to sit on the side of the bed. She heard some soft rustling sounds. There was a muffled clunk when he put the ankle holster and the gun on the bedside table.

He stood and stripped off his T-shirt, khakis and briefs. When he came back to her, she made a place for him between her legs and wrapped him close.

He thrust into her. The thrilling shock of the heavy, deep invasion was almost too much. But even as she caught her breath, her body was already adjusting, her core clenching around him. She held him prisoner, demanding that he deliver on the sexual promises he had made.

He drove slowly in and out of her until she was mindless with need, until she could not abide the sweet, piercing tension for another instant.

Her release surged through her in waves. The experience was shattering, dazzling—unlike anything she had ever known. She opened her lips on a scream of astonishment and wonder. Judson covered her mouth with his own, swallowing her cries, even as he rocked forward.

His climax powered through both of them.

She could have sworn that for a timeless, joyful moment, the currents of their auras seemed to resonate together. The sensation was at once unnerving and breathtakingly intimate. It was as if for a split second they were looking into each other’s very souls.

I know you, Judson Coppersmith, she thought. I’ve been waiting for you.

The wind chimes clashed and clattered, sounding the alarm. But Louise Fuller knew that the music was not powerful enough to stop the demon from entering her house. It came and went as it pleased. It had been months since the last visit. Every time it went away, she dared to hope that it would not come back. But it was here now. She could sense its presence.

She stopped in the center of the darkened basement and swung the beam of her flashlight toward the top of the stairs. She could hear the demon coming down the hall.

The lights had gone out a few minutes earlier. She had come downstairs to check the electrical panel, but now she knew that the demon had tricked her. The only question was why had it gone to the trouble of luring her down here into the darkness tonight?

The demon had controlled her for years. She was its slave and they both knew it. The demon laughed at her puny attempts to protect herself. In the end she always did its bidding. She would do it again tonight.

Why drive her down here into the basement?

The footsteps in the hall were closer now. The chimes rattled and thrashed in a rising crescendo. The music was frantic, desperate, ominous. Hopeless.

The demon appeared at the top of the stairs, a dark shadow silhouetted against the weak glow of the emergency nightlight that illuminated the hallway.

“Hello, Louise,” the demon said. “I have to tell you that those chimes of yours have become really irritating. Good to know you won’t be making any more.”

The demon raised one hand. Louise felt a terrible chill, as though her heart was freezing in her chest.

Now she knew why the demon had forced her into the basement. In this place there was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. She was trapped.

She had always known that one day the demon would kill her. Tonight was the night. A part of her welcomed the promise of release. At last the torment would end.

But a strange, unfamiliar anger surfaced out of the depths.

She would be avenged. The other witch was in town, and she had brought a man of power with her. Sooner or later they would come around, wanting to ask questions about what had happened to Evelyn and the others.

Louise knew that she would be dead when the other witch arrived, but that was not a problem. Gwendolyn Frazier could talk to ghosts.