When the meal was over and the dishes were done, they didn’t linger. Just said their good nights, and left.
Sam stood in the doorway, waving and smiling until they were all out of sight, then he closed the door, turned, leaned back against it, and heaved an exaggerated sigh.
“Oh, come on,” Megan said. “They’re not so bad.”
“They’re not bad at all. Just a little . . . exhausting.” He straightened from the door, looked at her, then beyond her, to where her overnight bag sat beside his sofa. “Hell, you didn’t even get to settle in.”
“From the sounds of things, none of your dates ever do.”
He scowled at her. “I meant for the night.”
“So they usually spend the night, then?”
“Megan.”
“The way your sisters talked, I got the idea you hustled them out of here before the sweat began to dry.”
“Oh, that’s lovely imagery.”
She shrugged. “You’re the one they call One-Night Sam.”
“This is pretty irrelevant.”
“I don’t think so. After all, I’m not just a witness to a crime you’re trying to solve. You did kiss me in the park tonight. Or was that . . . part of whatever game it is you’ve been playing with me, Sam?”
He narrowed his eyes on her. “I kissed you because I wanted to kiss you, Meg. That wasn’t part of anything, not the case, not your abilities. Nothing. I’m sorry if things my wellintentioned sisters said are making you have doubts about that, because I’d really like to kiss you again.”
“Oh, I’d like that too,” she said. “But I’d kind of like to know what to expect afterward.”
He came to her, slid his arms around her waist, and tugged her close. “Haven’t you ever heard of living in the moment?”
“Heard of it. Never practiced it much.”
“No time like the present.” He leaned closer, and she tipped her head up. He kissed her, slowly and softly. It was wonderful. It was also revealing. And this time the knowledge didn’t come to her as a vision, and it didn’t knock her off her feet or snap her head back. It just slipped gently from his mind to hers.
When he lifted his head away, she blinked up at him. “You don’t get involved because you don’t want to leave someone behind, the way your mother was left behind. And your grandmother.”
He frowned down at her.
“The way you were left behind.”
He shook his head. “Grams has been talking again.”
“She believes there’s a curse on the Sheridan men.”
“It’s silly superstition.”
“But Sam, what if it’s not? Don’t you think you should . . . take some precautions, just in case?”
He released her, turned, and paced across the room. “She convinced you to try to get me to quit the force, didn’t she?”
“Before your birthday next week, if possible.” She smiled. “It’s only because she loves you, Sam.”
“Hell, I know that.” He turned and sank onto the sofa. “Look, I don’t even believe in curses. I’m certainly not going to start letting one dictate the way I live my life.”
She nodded and crossed the room to sit on the sofa beside him. “You don’t believe in psychism or precognition either, do you?” He opened his mouth to argue, but she held up a hand. “It’s okay. I get it. It’s tough to believe in one without believing in the other, and if you let yourself believe in the curse, you’re faced with a terrible choice. Your life or your life’s work. So you refuse to believe in either.”
“Megan, it’s not that I don’t believe you—”
“No, I know it’s not. Because you do. Deep down, you do. And you believe in the curse too.”
He looked at her as if she were speaking a foreign language. “And how did you make that leap of logic?”
“Because you already are letting it dictate your life. One-Night Sam.” She got to her feet, picked up her bag, and slung it over her shoulder. “So where’s my room?”
“Top of the stairs, second door on the left.”
“Night, Sam.”
“You’re wrong, you know.”
She walked up the stairs, shaking her head. “No, I’m not. And you know it. And just for the record, that dream I’ve been having since I was twelve? It was about you, Sam.”
SHE was wrong. Dammit, she was dead wrong. He didn’t believe in the curse. He lived his life exactly the way he wanted to. Did exactly what he wanted to do, every single day. Lived every day as if it were . . .
“My last,” he whispered, finishing the thought aloud.
Hell, what was it with Megan Rose, anyway? One date, and she’d turned him inside out, read his mind, met his family, and was spending the night. One date. Two kisses. Most women barely remembered his last name, after considerably more than a couple of kisses. Most didn’t know or care what made him tick.
Most didn’t touch him the way she did, either. He was so wrapped up in her he barely knew which end was up. Thinking about her every waking moment. Dreaming about her at night ever since the speed trap.
She claimed she had been dreaming about him for years. And hell, he was inclined to believe her. God knew there was something powerful between them.
She seemed able to look right inside his head—not only that, but she managed to see what was going on inside him . . . even more clearly than he did himself.
He closed his eyes slowly. Okay, so maybe she was right. Maybe he did believe in the curse on some level. That didn’t mean he was going to surrender to it. It didn’t change a damn thing.
So why was he having so much trouble sleeping tonight?
He’d done some paperwork, checked his e-mail, taken a shower. It was 2 A.M. and he still couldn’t shut off his mind. He rolled over, punched the pillow, laid on it a moment longer, and then finally gave up. He might as well get up. He wasn’t going to sleep. He sat up in the bed, swung his legs around to the floor. Some of that leftover chicken might take his mind off things.
Damn Megan. He’d been perfectly content to keep this looming death sentence buried in his subconscious mind. Now it was right there on the surface. Three days. Three days left until he turned thirty-five.
A soft tap on his bedroom door made him turn his head sharply.
“Sam?”
Frowning, he said, “Right here, Meg.”
She opened the door, stepped into his darkened bedroom, and then stopped. She was silhouetted by the light from the hall, which she must have turned on to find her way to him. Backlit that way, her white nightgown was virtually transparent, though he didn’t suppose she would have any way of knowing that.
“I can’t sleep in there.”
He lifted his brows, saw her peering at him through the darkness. He sat there with nothing over him but a sheet, and he could tell her eyes were adjusting by the way she stared.
“I keep drifting off, but as soon as I do, I hear that glass breaking, the door opening, that man coming after me, and I wake up with my heart racing.”
“Come on in, Meg. Stay in here with me. Maybe we’ll both feel better, huh?”
She swallowed hard. “Maybe.” She came in the rest of the way, closed the door behind her. He lost the luscious view, but could still see her form as she padded across the room toward the bed. She didn’t go to the opposite side, though. She came to his side, instead. “How long until your birthday?” she asked softly.
“Three days. Why?”
She shrugged. He saw her shoulders move with it. “Because I don’t do one-night stands,” she said softly. And then she peeled the nightgown over her head and stood there, in the dark, waiting.
Sam stood up, took a single step closer, and put his hands on her shoulders. They were small and soft, her skin warm to the touch. She pressed closer, breasts to his chest, belly to his belly, hips to his hips. Her arms twisted around his neck, and she tipped her face up. Sam kissed her, letting his hands slide lower, tracing the gentle slope of her spine, the curve at the
small of her back, and then lower over her rounded buttocks and lower still until he could cup them and hold her harder against him. He was hard, wanting her in a way that was new to him. Unfamiliar. Usually, at this point, the thing he felt himself wanting, yearning for, was sex. Release. Pleasure.
This time was different. This time the thing he wanted, craved . . . was her. Megan. He felt her mouth open beneath his, a silent invitation, and he slid his tongue inside, tasting her. He moved a hand lower, between her thighs from behind, and touched the wetness there. She moved against his hand, rubbing herself over his fingers, and when he slid one inside her she sighed into his mouth.
Turning her gently, he eased her onto the bed, never taking his body from hers. He slid his mouth over her jaw, down to her neck, over her collarbone, and lower until he captured a breast and sucked at the nipple. Her hands clutched his head as he worked her there. He slid around to the front of her, between them, touching her, finding the spot that made her squirm and pant. And then he felt her hand, closing around him, squeezing and rubbing.
She spread her thighs to him, guided him to her center. He moved his mouth to capture hers again, and pressed himself inside her. Soft, wet heat surrounded him, enveloped him, welcomed him. He moved slowly, carefully, until she wrapped her thighs around him and pulled him into her swiftly and completely.
Sam buried his face in her neck, overwhelmed with more than just passion. So much more. “God, Megan,” he whispered.
She moved with him, taking him in a way no woman had ever done. And the wonder he felt in this was rapidly overwhelmed by the tidal wave of passion that swept them both away in a frenzy of clutching, writhing, straining. Her felt her nails digging into his back and heard her cry his name as spasms of release racked her body, squeezing around him until he, too, found release. He came inside her, and it felt as if he were filling her with his soul as well as his seed. He held her there to take all of it, all of him as he drove to the hilt and stayed there, pulsing inside her.
Slowly, her body unclenched, relaxed. Slowly, his did too. He started to roll off her. She held him where he was, and when he looked into her eyes, wide and sparkling in the darkness, she whispered, “No.” And she began to move again. “I need more of you than that, Sam. Much more.”
He gave her what she asked for.
Chapter Nine
MEGAN woke in Sam’s arms, rolled over, and found him staring at her. His eyes, roaming her face as if seeing it for the first time and trying to memorize every feature. When he realized her eyes were open, he smiled, and the solemn expression faded.
“Sweat’s dry,” he said, stroking a finger down her cheek. “I didn’t throw you out.”
“Good thing, I’d have been really pissed.”
“Hungry this morning?”
“Starved.”
“Take the first shower then,” he said. “I’ll make us some breakfast.”
She shook her head slowly. “Shower with me. And we’ll go out for breakfast.”
“I like the way you think.” He sprang from the bed without warning, came around to her side, and scooped her up in his arms to carry her to the bathroom. As he held her, he asked softly, “Will you tell me, Meg? About your dream?”
“There’s really not much to tell. It’s short, simple. I see your face.” She lifted a hand, palm to his cheek. “Your wonderful face. I hear a voice. ‘Break the curse. Save his life.’ That’s all.”
“That’s all?”
She shrugged. “Except that seeing that face of yours always does something to my insides. It’s like every cell in my body recognized you as someone—important to me.”
He lowered his eyes.
“You are, Sam. You are so important to me. I know it doesn’t make any sense, but—”
He stopped her speech by lifting her head to his and kissing her deeply. She was utterly engulfed in him, held in his arms, possessed by his mouth, her head supported only by the strong, large one that cupped it. It was intoxicating. When he broke the kiss, she was breathless.
“I’ll be damned if I’m going to let you get yourself hurt or killed trying to break some fictional curse, much less save my life. I’m a cop, Megan.”
“Then maybe you shouldn’t be.”
He met her eyes, shook his head firmly. “Don’t. Don’t do that. Don’t ruin this by making it about my job, Megan. It’s not what I do. It’s who I am.”
She nodded gently. Getting him to give up his career was not the right approach, she decided. Especially not if it broke the spell between them. “I won’t suggest it again,” she promised.
“Good.” He smiled, letting it go, set her on her feet, and reached past her to turn on the shower.
BY midmorning, Megan was in Sam’s car again, munching on a cheese Danish and sipping coffee from a Styrofoam cup, actively resisting the urge to talk more about what was going on between them. Where it could be going. She knew he didn’t want to. She knew that her uncertainty about their future together—or lack thereof—was nothing compared to his uncertainty about his own future. He wasn’t even sure he would be around next week, much less whether he would still want her by then. Besides, she wasn’t naive enough to think that one night with her would alter his One-Night Sam persona. Though she liked to think it had. He’d silenced her with a kiss when she had brought it up before, and while she loved his methods, she wondered about his motives.
He stopped at a traffic light and looked at her. “What are you thinking about?”
“About Linda Keller,” she lied. “I’m not sure what to say to someone who’s been through what she has. Why, what were you thinking about?”
“I was thinking about whether you were going to come home with me again tonight.”
She smiled at him, just a little. “Would that make me your first two-night stand?”
He looked at her steadily for a long moment, as if considering his reply. Finally, he said, “You’re more than that to me, Megan. Whatever happens, I want to make sure you know that.”
His words set her heart racing, both in delight that he seemed to be telling her she meant something to him—and in fear that he was expecting the worst. “Nothing’s going to happen to you, Sam.”
A horn blew. The light had turned green. He didn’t reply, just put the car back into motion.
When they arrived at the hospital, Megan’s earlier lie became true. She honestly didn’t know what to say to the young woman. But as it turned out, she didn’t have to know. When Megan walked into the hospital room, she was at first stunned by the bruises on Linda’s pretty face. They hadn’t been so colorful last night. Now they were vivid—deep purple, dark blue, nearly black in places. Her shock quickly turned to relief, though, when Linda smiled at her. She was sitting up, the bed in an upright position, one eye still swollen shut, but the other clear and brighter than before. She held out a hand to Megan.
“I’m so glad you came,” she said.
Megan’s tension faded instantly, and she went to the girl, took her hand, felt only genuine warmth. “I wanted to make sure you were all right.”
“I am. I’m going to be fine.” She looked down at her hands. “I’ve only just begun to realize how lucky I am. If this is the same man who killed all those others—” Then she shook herself and snapped her head up again. “But what about you? Are you all right?”
“Of course I am. I’m not the one who was attacked.” Megan sat down in the chair beside the bed.
“No. But . . . something happened to you out there. When I took your hand, I felt it. Like a jolt zapping from my hand to yours. I know you felt it too. It knocked you flat on your back.”
Megan glanced at Sam, who stood near the door. He gave her a nod, silently encouraging her to go on, to tell the girl the truth as she had planned to do. She took strength from his presence, and the look in his eyes—a look that could almost have been described as loving, though she told herself to stop thinking things like that. Then she told herself it was too late.
/> Megan said, “Linda, sometimes I get . . . well, visions.”
“You’re psychic?”
She nodded. “Yeah.”
“So . . . when I took your hand, in the park, you had a vision?” Meg nodded, and Linda went on. “Wow. That’s what knocked you flat? What did you see?”
“I saw what happened to you. Felt it, all of it, as if it were happening to me. Even down to you worrying about your cat.”
The girl frowned at her, studying her seriously.
“It was so fast and so unexpected . . . I didn’t see anything that could help us identify the man.”
“If you were only seeing what I saw, then that makes sense,” Linda said. “I didn’t either.”
“But it was the same for you, sudden, unexpected. And you were terrified.”
Linda nodded, averting her face, failing to suppress a shiver.
“We don’t have to talk about this now if you don’t want to,” Megan said.
The girl licked her lips, lifted her eyes again. “It sounds as if you think . . . there’s something more you can do.”
“There might be. I was thinking if I could hold your hand, and you could try to remember what happened, this time seeing it from a safe place, where you know he can’t touch you, well, between the two of us, maybe there is something we can learn. To help the police catch him.”
“Before he does this to someone else. Someone who might not be lucky enough to have you two close by to save her.”
Megan nodded. “Yes. Yes, exactly that. I know it won’t be easy, and that you’d probably rather not think about it at all, but—”
“I can’t stop thinking about it. At least this way I can put those thoughts to good use, huh?”
“Maybe.”
She nodded again. “What do I have to do?”
Megan got up onto the edge of the girl’s bed, clasped both her hands between both of hers. “We need to go back there, together. In your mind. You talk me through it, everything that happened, and remember it as you do. I’ll do the rest.”
Man of My Dreams Page 13