Sam pulled her into his arms and wrapped her close and tight.
“Maybe there’s a lesson here,” he said.
“What would that lesson be?”
He dropped a kiss into her hair, and then he moved his mouth to her ear.
“Maybe neither of us should be sleeping alone,” he said.
She slipped her arms around his neck. “Do you think that sleeping together would stop the dreams?”
“Worked for me last night.” He kissed her throat. “What about you?”
“Well, I had the dream before we went to bed together. That’s what woke me up. But afterward, I went out like a light. I don’t remember any dreams.”
He nuzzled her throat. “What do you say we rerun the experiment again tonight and see if we get the same positive results?”
She smiled. “Is that the way you science guys talk when you want to get a lady into bed?”
“Depends. Is it working? If not, I’ll try another approach.”
“Don’t bother.” She brushed her mouth against his. “It’s working.”
The lovemaking was compelling and intense, just as it had been the first time, but there was something different about it tonight, Abby thought. Last night she had experienced what felt like a metaphysical as well as a physical intimacy at the height of her release. The short-lived sense of connection had been unlike anything she had ever experienced, but she had told herself it was a result of the paranormal energy involved. They had both been running a little hot last night.
The same alarming, enthralling sensation of psychical and physical intimacy swept through her again tonight. But this time when she shivered in Sam’s arms and wrapped herself around him while he powered through a shuddering climax, she knew that the connection was not temporary. Something much more permanent was going on with their resonating auras.
Her last coherent thought before she tumbled down into sleep was that even if she did not see Sam again for the rest of her life, the link between them would endure to the end.
She did not know whether to be thrilled or terrified.
23
Grady Hastings was enveloped in dream fog. He reached out to her. “Help me. You’re the only one who can save me.”
“Please, you must tell me what you want,” she said.
“Help me.”
She tried to grasp his hand, but she could not get close enough. She tried to walk toward him through the swirling fog of energy, but some unseen force stopped her.…
“ABBY, WAKE UP,” SAM SAID. HIS VOICE WAS QUIET BUTfreighted with the weight of a command. “Can you hear me? You’re dreaming.”
Somewhere, a dog whined anxiously.
She came awake on the usual rush of energy, dismayed to find herself on her feet, almost halfway to the door. Sam was standing directly in front of her. He had both hands clamped around her shoulders. Newton pressed against her leg.
“Crap,” she said. “I did it again. My own fault this time. I forgot to set my alarm.”
“What alarm?”
“Gwen said I should set a psychic alarm so that I would go into the lucid dream state if I had the Grady Hastings dream again. She said that strong talents are especially good at manipulating lucid dreams, they just have to focus. She told me that if I took control of the dream I might be able to find out what my intuition is trying to tell me.”
“So much for my theory that sex before sleep would ensure that you didn’t dream,” Sam said.
“Guess it’s back to the drawing board.”
“Let’s not be too hasty here. We don’t want to abandon the experiment just because we had one failure.”
