Forcing herself to reflect back six or so weeks ago, she realized he might be right, even though she hadn’t taken a bottle of pills to bed with her this time. No, this time she’d decided to make it as long and painful a process as possible, hadn’t she? He was right. She’d been punishing herself through willful negligence.
“You were right” was her horrified whisper.
She was still only just barely grasping the concept. It was hard for her to admit. Just yesterday she’d told him she was okay, that her suicidal moment of over a year ago was long over. How easily she’d lied to herself! Self-deluded much, Amanda? she mocked herself. She was humbled now, by golly, wasn’t she?
“I think I owe you an apology too, Zack. Thinking back on it now, I see it a little more clearly and I sure don’t like what I remember,” she owned up sadly and shamefully.
Zack reached for her and pulled her into his lap, cradling her against him as her head lay against his shoulder while he stroked her back. Another victory! She finally, got it! She’d admitted she wasn’t well. She’d done that yesterday with Dr. Lombardi, too. But today she really got it, finally understood. It was one thing to say it, another to accept it. Now, would she use the help provided to her, be it the antidepressant or his influence, or would she continue to choose her own path?
He wanted to strike while the iron was hot. “What are you going to do, babe? What do you want me to do? I’ve already promised myself, and now I’ll promise you. I’ll only influence you if you specifically ask me to. Actually, I need to talk to you about problems I might have doing that.”
He was thinking about how she never responded to him the way most people did. Now he wasn’t so certain that he was her answer after all.
He was astounded when Amanda told him that her decision would hinge on several factors, one of which was whether he’d be able to accept her.
“It’s my turn,” she eased herself from his lap and sat across from him. “Let’s see how you feel about me after I come clean, okay? It might all be a moot point afterward.”
Now it was his turn to feel anxious about what she had to say. He steeled himself. Amanda had handled his confession with calm and grace. Surely he could do the same, right? He was about to find out and tried to ready himself for her confession.
She took the same direct approach as he had and came right out with it. “I’m psychic as well. Though, my talents differ significantly from yours.” She stopped and took a deep breath as Zack nodded to himself. Apparently he’d known something was different about her, too, he just didn’t know what it was.
“I’m clairvoyant and telepathic.”
Zack’s eyebrows flew skyward as his mind raced through the implications and immediately he opened his mouth to ask her questions rather than waiting for her to explain herself.
This time it was Amanda’s turn to place her fingers on his lips and tell him. “No, I’m not done yet.” She gave him a bittersweet smile as she remembered when he’d last used those very words.
“Will you wait and allow me to finish?” She knew how hard it would be for take-charge Zack to sit passively and listen to her. He pressed his lips together and nodded, he would wait. He took her hand in his as she’d done with him. But she knew his curiosity was killing him.
Determined to be honest with him she told him about how, since she was a young child of two or three, she could touch people and objects and get impressions from them. She told him how the stronger her relationship was with a person the clearer the impressions were, and the more she received. She described how she visualized them in her mind. How they used to come sometimes as single snapshots, or even as an entire slide-show, and how they were now more frequently coming in high-definition video instead.
She told him how she used to only see the past, but that since the accident she now also sometimes saw the future too. She tried to explain how much the telepathy bothered her and how she had to work really hard to guard herself and shut out people’s thoughts and how tiring it was for her to do so consistently.
“At least I can’t read their minds without touching them, so that’s helpful. I don’t know how open telepaths handle it. Touch telepathy and touch clairvoyance are difficult enough!”
She saw him pale as she informed him that she had actually died, twice, after the accident and been brought back. She’d been clinically dead for at least four minutes the first time around, for at least two minutes the second. His grip on her hands grew so tight that she winced and he had to make himself ease up. She explained that though she didn’t remember it, she felt that her brief trip to the “other side” had caused the changes in her abilities. She told him how much she hated every part of what she could do. She told him how maddening it was for her that she couldn’t control what she saw or how much of it. How maddening, too, that she didn’t know yet if the future visions were absolute, or if they were changeable.
She didn’t tell him about what she’d seen that involved him. She knew better. If the future wasn’t absolute, would what she told him create that future, or destroy it? She also didn’t tell him about her newest and scariest ability, the one that had been growing ever stronger over the past month’s time. She could see ghosts. Somehow, she didn’t think he’d take that too well, and wanted to see how he’d deal with clairvoyance that had begun to bridge into telepathy, first.
Zack waited, impatiently, he’d admit, until Amanda finished her confession. It never occurred to him to doubt her abilities. He had his own talents, he didn’t doubt there were other kinds of talents out there beside his own. He’d also been a doctor for too long not to know there was more to the world, to the people in it, than most saw. He’d seen miracles occur, healings happen that shouldn’t have.
“So you knew I was doing this?” He wanted validation of his thoughts.
She shook her head in denial. “Only just yesterday, Zack.”
She explained to him that she’d figured it out so late because the first time he really used his influence on her she’d been too sick to read him. And since she went to extreme measures to avoid physical contact with him, or to simply block him out at the office, she hadn’t picked up on it until she finally allowed herself to, and that had been yesterday, in the truck, while he held her on his lap.
“Now, at least, I understand why I was so uneasy around you.” She hit him in the chest. “You actually had me worried I was becoming bipolar, you know? So I’m guessing I kind of understand what you mean by having trouble helping me. I don’t know if it’s you, me, or our abilities in conjunction that are causing the problem. We’ll have to play around with that.”
She was kind of self-reflecting rather than talking to Zack as she said the words. As he listened to her though, he felt a little more hope. She was actually considering allowing him to help her then? He smiled, then frowned as another thought occurred to him.
“What else have you read from me?” He was worried. Nah, if he was honest, he was scared shitless. What if what she’d seen painted him in a bad light? Oh Lord! What had she read in his thoughts of her, in his thoughts of taking her to bed! He gulped and thought about what he’d asked and decided to clarify it, although he lied just a bit. “I don’t care that you can read me. I’d just like the opportunity to explain anything bad you might have seen.”
Amanda laughed at his discomfort and tried to ease it. She knew he was lying about not caring and had easily picked up on his thoughts of her in his bed, a scenario she was growing used to and even now looking forward to.
“Since I’ve only gotten glimpses from you before yesterday, I only have so much to go on. Are you sure you want to know?”
That caught and held his attention “So you have read stuff from me before yesterday then? I thought you said it was harder to read people you weren’t close to?”
Crap! Amanda thought. Think before you speak, girl! Well, she’d be as straightforward as she could. Until she couldn’t.
“Normally, I can’t, and that threw m
e, too. I couldn’t understand why I got those peeks into the future when I didn’t know you well.”
Now though, as she considered it, it had to have been because he was going to be a part of her future. She did respond to him, finding herself attracted to him unconsciously on many levels even before she’d been ready to admit it. Could that be why? Ugh! This future crap was going to drive her bat-shit!
“Mandy?” Zack lightly shook her arm to focus her on his questions and she brought herself out of her thoughts.
“Um…anyway, yes, that last day at work, when I asked you to reassign the Tabott project, and then again, that second day I was ill and you held my hand and kissed me good-bye. Remember how I was trying to yank my hand from yours? I was getting overloaded and was too sick to handle it all.” Partial truths then, huh, Amanda? she asked herself.
Zack interrupted, his eyes narrowed thoughtfully “Oh! That’s why you jumped like you did at the office!” He considered for a moment and then asked the question she dreaded. “What, exactly, did you see when I touched your hand that day at the office? I could tell it upset you. Actually, I could tell you were terrified. I’ve been wondering about it ever since. Did I…? I mean, am I going to do something wrong? Something you don’t want me to do? Tell me what you saw when I kissed you good-bye.” He didn’t want to hurt her. Was he that much of a bastard, he wondered?
He felt a wave of sexual desire slam through her, and her face turned an interesting shade of crimson. His eyes widened and, again, his brows shot up nearly to his hairline as he considered those particular implications.
“Mandy? Anything you’d like to share?” He gave her his sexiest smile, hoping to break her.
She was tempted, oh boy was she tempted, but she shook her head vehemently. “No! Look, Zack. Like I said, I’m not sure how this future stuff works just yet. I’m afraid if I tell you what I see, it might change the course we’re supposed to be on, whatever the hell that course is! I’m not one to screw with fate, and I’m not entitled to play God.”
He leaned toward her, grasping her around her waist, and lifting her into his lap once more. “Come on, Zack! I mean it! I’m not telling you!”
She squirmed as she tried to move away from him and watched as his blue eyes blazed and darkened. His arms tightened around her and he bent closer, running his lips lightly down her jaw and once more to her ear, nibbling and tasting his way down her throat.
“Don’t you think it’s only fair to let me in on our future, Amanda?” he murmured between kisses, licks, and nips. “I know for a fact that you see a future with me.”
Again, he reminded her that he’d heard her conversation with Lombardi yesterday. Damn him anyway! But she couldn’t get too angry. She was naturally invasive on her own, because of her ability, and she knew he did it because he cared about her. But she decided he needed a warning anyway.
“Don’t you understand privacy, at all? There are things I don’t want you to know, that you have no right to know!” She gasped as he found a sweet spot at the base of her neck near her collarbone and tongued it. “Come on, Zack, focus! We still have stuff to straighten away and…oh!”
Her arguments faded as his mouth found hers once more. His hand went to her hair as he pulled the elastic out and ran his fingers through the silky texture, then cradled her head in his hands as he invaded her mouth with deep wet kisses and nibbled at her lips. Abruptly, she was caught with another thought and tried to push him away. He didn’t want to cooperate though, and she was having a very difficult time staying on task. She hadn’t planned their conversation around make-out sessions.
“Stop!” she begged, finally getting his partial attention by grabbing a handful of his hair and tugging at it, causing him to reluctantly ease his embrace.
“I need to know the range of your abilities,” she told him breathlessly.
“Later,” he responded huskily, breathing the words against her lips. His fingers tangled in her hair and he more forcefully tipped her head back to run his tongue down the soft skin of her neck. Tasting and teasing, stroking her libido ever higher.
“No, right now!” she demanded, really pushing against him this time. “I need to know if what I’m feeling for you is really coming from me and not from you!”
Zack groaned and loosened his grip, allowing her to hold herself away from him. It was an important question and he needed to be honest with her. This was the same issue that had destroyed so many of his relationships. His partners hadn’t been able to trust that what they felt were their own feelings and not ones created by him. He didn’t want Mandy to worry about that. He did not want his empathy to come between them.
“Amanda, truly, I cannot create these kinds of feelings in someone who is not willing to have them or who isn’t interested in me. I can calm, bring peace, send some feelings of contentment, or I can stimulate someone from lethargy. I can read how they feel. I can also help to deaden the sensation of pain, both physical and emotional. Which, by the way, is exactly what I wanted to do for you yesterday if you’d have allowed me.” He grimaced, remembering the severe pain she’d felt.
“I cannot make you feel something for me you wouldn’t naturally feel on your own. I cannot make someone love me, or desire me sexually, if they aren’t inclined to. Believe me, sometimes I wish I could!” He waggled his brows at her, trying to make her laugh, but only got a little nervous smile in return.
Then his eyes narrowed and his gaze turned dark with his need for her and with a bit of devilment. “However, I can feed an already desirous state of the woman I am with, and read what makes her feel good when I touch her. Which has its advantages, you must admit. But I promise you, I’ll never deliberately influence you to feel more than you want to.” His voice dropped in a rough whisper filled with desire that tickled her ear and nearly left her panting. “If you’ll ask me to though…well…I’ll be more than happy to boost your current arousal level in more ways than one.”
He ran his fingertip very slowly along her cheek and down her neck, lightly sweeping it across her collarbone and then between her cleavage, caressing the side of her breast. His teasing fingers then trailed down her abdomen to her navel. Her body arched and she moaned like a cat in heat. As he’d teased down the length of her body he’d offered her a taste of that “boost” he’d just mentioned and she felt a rush of desire suddenly climb, hit the edge of ecstasy, and explode over it as her world spun on its axis and she experienced a very short, but extremely powerful, orgasm, right then, simply from that single long stroke. She shuddered in his arms and closed her eyes, gasping and trying to get a grip on her traitorous body. Oh God, she couldn’t even begin to imagine what it might be like if he really fed that desire full-force.
She’d never felt anything like it, not even with David. They’d had a wonderful love life, fun, exciting, inventive sometimes, even. But this! Oh Lord! She opened her eyes and looked up at him in wonder, every nerve in her body tingling, her panties more than damp, and found him watching her with a satisfied and knowing look, as well as an impish smile. He was tightly holding onto her limp body because he’d literally brought her to collapse. Wow! Her thought was a severe understatement, but it was all she could mentally muster at that point.
When she could speak, she said the first thing that came to her mind. “Holy hell! I don’t know why you don’t have women lined up at your door, just to experience that!” she said unthinking.
Zack burst out in a roar of laughter that seemed to echo off the mountains and actually stilled the noise of the forest around them.
“See,” he told her with devilish amusement and a sexy smile, “dating an active empath does have its perks,” and pulled her closer, nestling her into him once more.
More seriously he asked her, “Any other questions? What can I do to help you feel more at ease with me?” His blue eyes focused solely on her face as he tasted her emotional climate, rather than her lips, which were what he’d much rather be tasting. But he wanted to know if she
was okay with what she’d been told, to see if she believed him.
Amanda was still awestruck by what she’d just experienced and had to drag her mind into the present. “I just want a promise that you won’t influence me unless I ask you to. Well, then again…” and her thoughts drifted back to his amazing touch and the feelings she’d experienced and she shivered once more in desire. She watched his eyes light up and his mouth quirk in a sexy crooked smile as he read that from her loud and clear and she said, “Oh dear! What am I in for?”
He laid her down on the blanket, holding himself over her with hands firmly planted on each side. Leaning down, he kissed her lightly on the mouth and replied, “I’m not sure, but I’m betting it’s going to be one hell of a ride!” Then his lips parted hers as he, again, took what he’d just claimed as his own.
Chapter 8:
The Truth Hurts
They’d spent an hour or so just lounging on the rocks, appreciating the view, snacking on their sandwiches, apples, and granola, and conducting a lighthearted make-out session, just getting to know each other’s minds and bodies a little better. They’d tickled, teased, and joked around. They’d both agreed this was not the time or place to get serious due to her injuries, the hardness of the rock, and the newness of their relationship.
Amanda wasn’t yet ready for more. Did she want more? Oh, yes! Did he want more? Hell, yes! But there was a lot left unsaid between them, and Amanda needed to tackle it because she could tell all was not right with Zack’s world, though he was trying hard to hide his discomfort.
Zack had explained why he’d basically abandoned medicine. How difficult it had been for him to deal with all the emotional turmoil of his patients. How it had worn him down day after day. He seemed ashamed to admit he just didn’t have the emotional wherewithal to not let it affect him, drag him down. He felt her concern for him, and she reached out to stroke his cheek, her gaze sympathetic. He captured her hand and held it against his face, rubbing his cheek along her soft knuckles. He didn’t deserve her. She was a better person than he was. His growing unease about her abilities made him feel like shit.
Amanda's Touch [D.A.R.E.ing Women] (Siren Publishing Allure) Page 21