Falling Awake

was turning into a full-blown quarrel, she thought. Why was that happening? Now that the small scare was past, they should both be relaxing, savoring the relief, maybe even joking about the incident.
    But there was no amusement in Ellis. She could feel the edgy, battle-ready tension coming off him in dangerous waves of raw power. She wouldn’t have been surprised if there had been a few sparks in the air.
    “No,” he said. “I don’t want any tea.”
    She folded her arms tightly beneath her breasts. “Maybe a drink?”
    “No.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “You think I’m overreacting, don’t you?”
    “I think that, under the circumstances, your reaction is entirely reasonable.”
    “Lawson says my jumpiness is a side effect of my post-traumatic stress and my obsession with Scargill.” Ellis scrubbed his face with one hand. “Maybe he knows what he’s talking about. Maybe I have gone around the bend and just don’t realize it.”
    “I don’t believe that,” she said quietly. “Not for a moment.”

    He lowered his hand and stared hard at her. “How can you be sure?”
    She unfolded her arms and moved to stand directly in front of him, inches away. “I’ve walked through your dreams for the past year, Ellis Cutler. I would know if you were dangerously obsessed or deluded. I would also know if you were suffering from post-traumatic stress.”
    He exhaled slowly. “Yes. I think you of all people would know the truth about me.”
    She smiled slightly. “Want that drink now?”
    He shook his head, slowly, deliberately. Then he raised one hand and wrapped it lightly around the nape of her neck.
    A rush of heat flashed through her, igniting her nerve endings all the way to her fingertips. She knew that her body’s internal temperature-regulating mechanism had just gone on the fritz, because she was suddenly hot and cold all over.
    “I dream about you,” Ellis said. He spoke in the harshest of whispers, producing each word as though it were a chunk of ore that he’d been forced to dig from the farthest reaches of a deep, sunless cavern. “I dream about taking you to bed.”
    Her mouth went dry.
    “You do?” She had to struggle to get the words out.
    He searched her eyes. “I’m scaring you, aren’t I? You’re starting to wonder if maybe Lawson is right about me, after all.”
    “You’re not scaring me.”
    “Didn’t you just hear what I said? I dream about you. Some folks would call that a sign of an obsessive personality.”

    She touched the side of his face. “Studies show that a significant percentage of dreams involve sexual content, and dreams about engaging in sex with strangers are quite common for both men and women.”
    “I don’t dream about having sex with strangers. I dream about having sex with you.” His eyes darkened. “And the dreams are all Level Five, extreme and very, very lucid. Do you have any idea how many cold showers I’ve taken in the past year?”
    “Oh.” She did not know what else to say. She was dazed and breathless.
    His mouth twisted. “Now you’re scared, aren’t you?”
    “No. Honest.”
    “You probably should be.”
    “You don’t scare me, Ellis Cutler.”
    “Maybe not. But I think I’m scaring myself. I should go back to the inn.” He took his hand away from her neck and started to turn toward the briefcase.
    She was suddenly very cold.
    “Ellis.”
    He stopped. The heat in his eyes burned away the chill.
    “What is it?”
    “I dream about you, too,” she whispered starkly. “Level Five with all the trimmings.”
    He was very still. “You never saw me. Never knew what I looked like.”
    “In my dreams your face was always in shadow but I knew who you were. There was never any doubt.” She smiled. “I knew enoughabout you to recognize you the other day when you walked into the auditorium at Kyler headquarters. Somehow you looked exactly like you were supposed to look.”
    He took a step toward her, not touching her but crowding all the air out of the space that separated them.
    “I recognized you, too.” Now he touched her, cradling her face in his warm, strong hands. “But I had an advantage.”
    “What was that?”
    “After I started dreaming about you, I told Belvedere I wanted a photo of you. Gave him some tale about needing it for security reasons. Not that he cared one way or the other.”
    She went blank for an instant. Then a memory returned. Delight and wonder rose inside her.
    “The gorgeous