“And with the boots,” Justin added. “Those boots were sexy as hell.”
Holly’s head came up just as he released the banana clip Gia had used to put her hair up for tonight when they were getting ready. She stared at him blankly as her hair fell around her shoulders. “What boots?”
“The thigh--high ones you wore to the nightclub the first night we had our shared—-” Justin stopped abruptly, something flickering in his eyes. She would have called it a silent “oh shit.”
“Our shared what?” she asked grimly. The only time she’d ever worn this outfit was in a dream. Gia had worn it that day and she’d admired it and wished she had the courage to wear something like that even just once . . . and then she had, in her dream. The dream and what had happened in it were what had given her the courage to wear it tonight when Gia had suggested it. Although she suspected Gia may have given her courage a little nudge too to help her along, because she’d been about to say a definite no when she’d suddenly found herself saying yes.
That didn’t matter right now, though, of course. What did was that Justin was claiming to have seen her in it before, and since the only place she’d worn it was her dreams, she suspected—- “You can read me.”
“What?” Justin said with surprise.
“You’ve been lying all this time,” she accused. “You can read me and you read that memory from my mind.”
“No, Holly, I didn’t,” he assured her quickly.
“Then how could you know about the dream I had?
Justin hesitated and then ran a hand through his hair with a deep sigh. Turning, he paced a -couple steps away and then turned back. “Another symptom of life mates is shared dreams.”
Holly stiffened. “What are shared dreams?”
“They’re just what they sound like, dreams the life mates share,” he said simply, and then seeing her bemused expression, explained, “If life mates sleep within a certain distance of each other, their minds sort of merge in sleep and share their dreams. It’s the only time, aside from sex, when life mates’ minds open to each other.”
Holly sucked in a breath at this news, her mind whirling. Shared dreams? Her wet dreams? Like the one where he’d screwed her up against the wall of a nightclub? Or in a car? Or—-dear God, did he actually know what she had dreamt? Was he dreaming that stuff too? Or, she wondered suddenly, was he making her have them?
“You put those dreams in my head,” she accused, suddenly furious.
“No,” he assured her. “It doesn’t work like that. Our minds merge; one doesn’t dominate the other. I couldn’t make you do anything you don’t want to do in the dreams. We are both contributing to them subconsciously.”
Holly stepped back with dismay, her mind racing. Oh God, oh God, oh God. That had to be cheating. It was certainly more cheating than just having those dreams by herself. And he’d known all along what was happening. Dear God, he’d actually been a party to it when she’d invited him to screw her up against the wall in the nightclub, and then in a car, and then—-Oh God, he’d laid her out on the table like a feast and then gone at her like he was eating a quarter slice of watermelon. And that was after she’d acted like he was her own personal pogo stick and then tried to swallow his sausage whole on the freeway.
It was one thing when she’d thought they were just her own mind trying to work through what might be a subconscious attraction, but if they were both there, doing those things, even if it was in dreams . . .
They might not be able to arrest you for dreaming about a robbery as a rule, but what if you woke up with the bags of money in your bed? Because she’d woken up drenched from orgasm after orgasm, and she knew from the dreams that he’d reached completion too. They might not have physically touched each other, but they’d had orgasms together and that had to be cheating. Where did one draw the line?
“I’m going to be sick,” Holly muttered, pushing past him to stumble out of the bathroom.
“Holly.” Justin followed, concern in his voice. “Honey, shared dreams are a normal part of being a life mate. They’re natural.”
Suddenly furious, Holly turned and slapped his face. “Get this through your thick goddamned skull, Justin. I’m a married woman. I have a husband I made vows to that I plan to keep. We can never be life mates.”
Whirling away then, she rushed into the ladies’ room to escape him and slammed into the first open stall. In the next moment she had the door locked and was perched on the edge of the toilet seat, sobbing into her hands.
She’d cheated on her husband. She hadn’t thought she was cheating, and her mother had assured her that the dreams she was having weren’t cheating, but they were. They weren’t normal dreams. Justin had been right there with her, in mind if not body. She was a cheater. A slut. A two--timing ho--bag.