Page 58 of It takes a Psychic

She clutched at Oliver’s shoulders, hanging on to him as if he were a life raft in a storm-roiled sea.

He came down on top of her, caged her with his arms, settled between her legs, and pushed heavily, deeply into her. The muscles of his back were bands of mag-steel.

It was too much. She was already impossibly sensitized. A second wave broke over her just as Oliver’s release pounded through both of them. Their auras flared. Resonated.

The room burned.

Chapter Twenty-Five

“…Molly didn’t run away. She’smy sister. She wouldn’t leavewithout me. You have to find her…”

Leona’s voice was soft, blurred by sleep and infused with desperation. A chaotic energy swirled in the atmosphere.

Oliver came awake on a surge of adrenaline.

“It’s my fault she’s gone…”

He rolled onto his side and propped himself on his elbow. Leona was stirring restlessly. Her dreamstate anxiety electrified the room. The yellow crystal pendant was glowing more intensely than it had earlier in the evening.

“My fault. I wasn’t paying attention. I was on the swing…”

“Leona,” he said quietly. “It’s okay. Just a dream.”

“…You have to find my sister…”

He put what he hoped was a reassuring hand on her shoulder. Her eyes snapped open. Tension gripped her, rendering her motionless. Heknew she was trapped in the strange, unnerving border between sleep and wakefulness. It was the territory where hallucinations and night terrors lurked.

“Wake up, Leona,” he said.

He tightened his grip on her arm and generated a little energy, just enough to interrupt the sleep state paralysis. She shivered and then awareness returned to her eyes. The panic dissipated.

She looked at him with a wary expression and then she groaned and draped an arm over her eyes. “Sorry about that.”

“There’s nothing to be sorry about. You had a bad dream.”

She pushed herself to a sitting position, evidently remembered she was naked, and grabbed the sheet to hold to her throat. “I fell asleep before you went back to your room. That’s not supposed to happen. All I can say is that it’s been a stressful couple of days. Make that a stressful week. Actually, it’s been kind of a stressful month or two. Great. Now I’m making excuses.”

He sorted through her words and focused on the ones that bothered him the most. “What do you mean, it’s not supposed to happen?”

She glanced at him, bemused. “What?”

“You apologized because you fell asleep while I was still here. You said that wasn’t supposed to happen.”

“Oh, right. I told you, when we were younger, Molly and I decided to live our lives as free spirits. We made a couple of rules. Number one was that we would never date anyone who was married or registered with a matchmaking agency.”

“A sensible rule.”

“Number two was no sleepovers. No sticking around for breakfast in the morning.”

“Because spending the entire night represents too much of a commitment?”

“And because it might set up false expectations. We were afraid thatwe might get too comfortable and start thinking there could be more to the relationship.”

“And that would be a bad thing?”

“Realistically, yes,” she said.

“Your sister, the other free spirit in the family, changed her mind.”

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