The Missing

you?” he asked persistently.

    Dazed, she tried to remember what he’d asked. Would she give it up? “Give up the ability to see things?” She averted her eyes. She couldn’t think when she looked at him. “No. No, I wouldn’t give it up.”

    Self-preservation kept her from looking at him, but it also left her unprepared for his touch when he reached out, curved a hand over her neck. He drew her close. The feel of his hand on her flesh weakened her to the point that she couldn’t resist—that she didn’t want to. “Always so strong, aren’t you, Taige?” he murmured, his thumb rubbing back and forth over her neck.

    No. She didn’t feel strong at all, staring in his blue green eyes and wishing he was actually here with her, not in some dream, even if they were both sharing the dreams, and that was something she still didn’t want to think about. “It doesn’t have anything to do with being strong, Cullen. It just has to do with being me. I can’t change what I am any more than you can change who you are.”

    “Hmmm.” His gaze dropped down, lingering on her mouth. “I don’t know that I’d want to change you.” His thumb stroked over her lower lip, and she felt an answering throb deep inside. “But I’d do damn near anything to change how much you’ve been hurt. From me, from this job of yours, from life.”

    Turning her head aside, Taige said in a flat, unhappy voice, “Life hurts, Cullen. That’s just a fact. Nobody can change it.”

    “But it shouldn’t hurt,” he whispered. His hand moved to her chin, bringing her face around so that their eyes met. “It’s going to, but there ought to be just as much pleasure as pain. How long has it been since you felt the pleasure of life, Taige?” He didn’t wait for an answer.

    Instead, he kissed her. With his free hand pressed to her back, he pulled her up against him. She groaned into his mouth, and in response, he growled rough in his chest. The tension in the air seemed to heighten. Taige could sense the wild hunger inside him. It echoed her own, and she braced herself instinctively, but Cullen kept his kiss soft, seductively slow. He lifted his head just a fraction. She could feel the warmth of his breath on her mouth, could still smell him, still taste him as she licked her lips. “I want to show you some pleasure, Taige.”

    The word no seemed to freeze inside her throat. She wanted to say it. It was circling inside her head, but when she tried to force it out, she couldn’t. Her body was rebelling against her, willing to go along with whatever Cullen might want. As he slid his hands under the straps of her swimsuit, she stood motionless and let him strip it away. When he sank to his knees in front of her, she looped her arms around his neck and cuddled him close as he kissed her belly. “I miss the taste of you,” he said on a sigh. “I should have kissed you, really kissed you, before you walked away from me.”

    He shot her a dark look and added, “But I’m coming back, Taige, and when I do, we’re making up for some lost time.”

    That arrogant, confident tone grated against her pride, and she wanted to sneer at him. Instead, she found herself sinking down so that she straddled his hips. She wanted to laugh at him, wanted to do something to hurt him like he’d hurt her. Knowing that he shared these dreams made her want to do that very badly: inflict some measure of hurt on him. But instead of doing that, she found herself leaning into him and kissing him, watching him from under her lashes.

    He cupped her butt in his hands, and the feel of his rough, callused palms on her flesh was a sweet sensation. Almost as sweet as the one of his bare chest pressed against hers when Cullen finally pulled his shirt off and pressed their torsos together. “If you make love on the beach in a dream,” he murmured as he rolled forward and urged her to her back in the hot sand. “Will the sand bother you?”

    Taige laid a hand against his cheek. “Cullen, just touch me. I need that. I don’t need talking or apologies or jokes.”

    Turning his head into her palm, he kissed her. She felt the rough growth of stubble under her palm as he asked, “And if I need it? I need to see you smile at me again. I need to hear you laugh. You never laugh enough.”

    Staring into his eyes, she slid her hands down his chest and freed the button of his jeans, dragged down his zipper. Then she slid her hand inside his pants and closed her