Читать книгу In His Wildest Dreams - Debbi Rawlins, Debbi Rawlins - Страница 7

HOW THE HELL had he let Brenda talk him into this? Nick checked the rearview mirror to see if anyone had entered the deserted parking lot. Okay, so he was early and the doc had probably just gotten off her shift. He’d have to remember to ask Brenda what kind of work Emma did. Not that he really cared but if she was going to be poking around his head, he figured he had a right to know something about her.

He stared down at the notes he’d taken from last night’s midnight romp. Here he’d purposely instructed himself not to dream and he’d ended up having a couple of doozies…about naked women with long dark hair, long legs and silk thongs.

Shit!

He glanced at the rearview mirror again and this time an older, beat-up white sedan chugged into the parking lot. Doc was behind the wheel. He couldn’t see her face, but he saw the mass of shiny dark hair. Since he was the only one there, he had to suspect she’d seen him, but without any acknowledgment she veered off toward the side of the building and parked out of sight.

A few minutes later, she hurried around the corner, her hair pulled back in a messy bun, the collar of her long tan coat pulled up around her neck. Odd. It had warmed up and wasn’t cold enough for her to be wearing a coat.

He continued to watch as she made tracks in the opposite direction, nearly running into the pink azaleas flanking the stark white lab. If she’d seen him, she was pretending she hadn’t.

He got out of his Porsche. “Hey, Doc.”

She slowed, reluctance in every small jerk of her body as she turned around. “Sorry, I’m running late again,” she called out, slightly breathless.

“You’re not. I’m early.” He closed the car door.

“Give me five minutes, okay?”

“All right if I wait inside?”

She touched the back of her hair, and quickly tucked up a stray. “Um, why don’t I make sure things aren’t a mess. Someone else used the lab after we did yesterday.”

He snorted. “You should see my place.”

She looked hesitant, and then he got it. Maybe she had to get her friend out the back door, although why the cloak-and-dagger was a mystery to him.

“Damn, I forgot something.” He opened his car door. “Can we make it ten minutes?”

“No problem.”

He got into the Porsche and watched her unlock the lab door and then hurry inside without a backward glance. He didn’t bother to start the engine, but waited until the door closed before he got out and strolled around to the back.

No one was there. He started to wait but then noticed there was no back door. He kept walking until he’d made a circle around the small building. Only one door. Obviously the woman had still been inside while he met with Emma. But why would she lie about someone else being there? It didn’t make sense. Unless Doc thought he’d get testy about the confidentiality issue. That was possible.

He gave her a couple of extra minutes before he went inside with the leather binder of notes he’d taken. She was ready for him, sitting at her desk, her glasses perched on her nose, a notebook in front of her, and a tape recorder set on the opposite edge of the desk, closer to the guest chair. Presumably where he would sit.

Man, everything he said was going to be on tape. Immortalized. They would have to discuss that.

“Have a seat.” Those great lips lifted into a tempting smile, and he almost forgot about the tape recorder. “I see you have some notes.”

“Man, do I. It’s amazing I got any sleep at all last night.”

She laughed. “Everyone dreams quite a lot. We just aren’t all lucky enough to remember the details.”

“Well, Doc, I’m not sure you’re going to want all these details.” He opened the binder and flipped through pages and pages of writing.

“Excellent.” She lifted her gaze to his. “I’m impressed.”

“Don’t be. You probably won’t want all this stuff.”

“Are you kidding? This much recall is a gold mine.”

He wasn’t so sure. “Do I just give this to you, or what?”

She seemed surprised. “No, you have to describe the dreams in as much detail as possible.”

“What do you think all this is?”

She gave him a small tolerant smile that annoyed him. “A reminder for you. I promise that as you relate the events of the dream, you’ll begin to recall other details. There is nothing unimportant. Once you begin, keep talking. Let it all flow.”

Hell, this wasn’t going to work. He didn’t do “flow.”

“What’s wrong?” She laid down her pen. “You look distressed.”

“Hell, yeah, I’m distressed. You asked me to record all this stuff, and now you want me to go over it again.”

She had that tolerant, patient look down to a damn science.

“I know this isn’t easy. Dreams seem so personal—”

“Of course they’re personal.” He slouched in his chair, annoyed and frustrated.

“But you don’t have control over them. There’s no reason to be embarrassed.”

“Embarrassed.” He grunted. “That has nothing to do with it.”

She tapped her pencil on the desk with hard rapid intensity. Impatience pulled her lips into a straight line. “Let me be blunt. Brenda explained what we needed to do here before you set foot in the lab. What’s the problem?”

He glared back at her. Dammit. She was right. “Okay, you want the details. Here are the details…” He set his notes aside. He didn’t need them. One particular dream he remembered with so much clarity he still had a hard-on.

“Wait a second.” She flipped on the recorder.

“Is that necessary? You have my notes.”

She didn’t answer him. Just gave him one of those tolerant looks again, and then leaned back in her chair with a pencil in her hand. “Begin whenever you’re ready.”

Next year too soon? He took a deep breath, exhaled slowly. “I’ll start with my first memory,” he said, and she nodded. “I was in this—look, it’s going to sound weird.”

“Don’t worry about it. Most dreams do. Go on.”

He shifted to a more comfortable position. “There was this room with a bunch of chairs and sofas, almost like a waiting room, except there weren’t any people there, only me. Seconds later, women started to parade in, most of them topless. Some of them were big-busted, like really big, like augmented big. The blonde with the tassels started to unbutton my shirt.” He paused. “Can I have some water or coffee or something?”

Emma stared at him, wordlessly, and then she blinked. “Of course. I should have asked you before we started.”

They both stood at the same time.

Nick motioned for her to sit back down. “Tell me where it is. I’ll get it.”

She shook her head. “We have colas, orange juice and water. If you want coffee I’ll start a pot.”

“We?” Now he had her.

“I share this place with two other graduate students and we all chip in to keep the fridge stocked.”

Another graduate student. Of course.

“Water’s fine.” He sank into his seat, and watched her out of the corner of his eye as she hurried into the back room.

Well, now that he sort of knew who the other woman was, he couldn’t just come out and ask for her name and phone number.

Could he?

He sighed. He had his plate full for right now. Normally talking about sex in any form didn’t bother him, but he could tell he’d startled her, which made him uncomfortable.

To him sex was a game, harmless recreation, but only if both players agreed and got equally as much out of it. Nick very carefully stuck to partners who shared his philosophy. That way no one got hurt. However, he also understood that not every woman agreed with his attitude, and he respected their opinions, too.

Unfortunately, his dreams weren’t nearly as discreet.

He glanced at the binder he’d set on her desk. It seemed to take her a long time just to get a glass of water, and he was tempted to grab his notes and do some creative editing, maybe clean up the details a little, omit some of the more colorful parts.

Before he could think the possibility through, she was back with a bottle of Evian. It sure hadn’t taken nearly five minutes to grab that.

“Anything else before we resume?” she asked, her finger poised over the recorder button.

“I don’t think so.”

She made a face at the recorder. “I thought I’d stopped it. Let me rewind to where we left off.”

He took a long cold sip of the water while she fiddled with the machine. But he nearly spit it out when she stopped and hit play, and he heard his own mutterings. Not of his dream as he’d relayed it to her, but the mild oath he’d uttered after she’d left the room, and then the more damning murmurs expressing his doubts.

Hell, he hadn’t realized he’d said anything out loud. Fortunately most of it was unintelligible.

To her credit, she didn’t even try to listen. She quickly continued to rewind the tape further. She played the last few seconds to remind him where they’d stopped, and then settled back in her chair, her gaze lowered.

He took another sip of water. “Okay, the blonde undid the top three buttons of my shirt, but she stopped when a redhead came in and told her I wasn’t the one. By the way, the redhead had on clothes.”

Doc looked relieved.

“The blonde got angry and said she didn’t believe her, and then tried to unfasten my next button. The other woman said something but it was in another language, and the others started laughing.”

“The other women?”

“Yeah.”

“Where were they?”

“Sitting on the chairs or lying on the sofas. Do you need to know whether they had their clothes off or not?”

“Yes.” Her tone was crisp, professional, but a faint pink crept into her cheeks.

“All but three of them had taken everything off.” At the vivid memory he shifted to accommodate the strong reaction his body was having.

“Were they strangers, or did you know any of them?”

“Never saw them before.”

“Sometimes in our dreams people take on different shapes and forms. Did you believe any of these women to be someone you knew…even though she didn’t look like she was supposed to?”

He thought for a moment. “No.”

She made a brief notation. “How about the room? Did you know where you were?”

“Nope.”

“Any other details about it you remember?”

“Not really.” He shrugged. “I guess my mind was on the women.”

A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth and she pressed her lips together. “Okay, let’s get back to the women. What else do you remember about them?”

“The redhead had a bag with her and she started taking out scarves and handcuffs and massage oils. When the blonde unzipped my fly, the redhead didn’t say anything. She just kept staring at me while she laid out the stuff she’d brought. But then the blonde reached into my pants to stroke me, and the redhead yanked her hair until she moved back.”

He paused for another sip of water. No surprise, he’d gotten harder than a rock replaying the scene.

“What were the other women doing?” Doc’s voice didn’t sound too steady and her face was getting redder.

He gladly avoided her gaze. “Kissing and fondling each other.” When the silence grew, he chanced a look at her. “Shall I leave out that part?”

“There’s more?”

He nearly laughed at her scandalized tone. “I’m not your first male subject, am I, Doc?”

“No, not at all.”

“Then you know men can have, um, wilder imaginations sometimes.”

“Of course.” She straightened, pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose. Her cheeks were still pink, her voice a little high, but her gaze narrowed suddenly, and when her glasses slipped, she looked over them at him. “There is a major difference between dreams and fantasy.”

“I know that.”

She stared at him in silence for a long torturous moment. “These are dreams you’re describing, and not wishful thinking, right?”

He chuckled. “Trust me. I would not be describing my fantasies to you.”

She blinked, lifted her chin. “As long as we understand each other.”

“Look, I’d be happy to edit some of this. It can’t all be that important—”

She vigorously shook her head. “That would compromise the results of the study. Tell me everything you remember.”

“Okay, Doc, where were we?”

She pressed rewind and kept her gaze on the tape. It took a couple of tries before she found where they’d left off, and each time she had to listen to him describe the dream, her cheeks got a shade pinker.

“There, I think you’ve got it,” he said, taking pity on her, and she immediately stopped the tape and pressed record.

“Okay, so while the other women were kissing, and the redhead and blonde were arguing about something—”

“About what?”

“I couldn’t tell. I don’t think I really heard what they were saying but just had a sense they were angry. Anyway, I was too concerned about this other woman who came in.”

“Another one?” Her eyebrows lifted in shock, and then she quickly wiped all expression from her face. “Tell me about her.”

“Let’s see, she had long dark hair, great legs, a great— I couldn’t see her face. I got really agitated about that, but the only view I got was the back of her.”

“Did you feel as though you knew her?”

“Nah, I think maybe I was trying to place her but I really had no idea.”

“What was she wearing?” She paused, frowning. “Nick?”

He slumped back. How could he have been so stupid! Through the haze of dawning, he vaguely heard Doc call his name. “A black thong,” he said absently. “That’s all.”

The woman in his dream was the same one he’d glimpsed yesterday. That’s why he couldn’t see her face in the dream. Wow, this was really something. Kind of weird. He’d never obsessed like this before.

“You’re remembering something, I take it?”

He stared blankly at her. Should he admit he saw someone else in the back room? She’d have to fess up then. But she’d also have a million questions about the woman being the centerpiece of his dream. No thanks.

“Not really.” He shrugged at the curiosity in her face. “Sorry, Doc, I guess I was too excited about, um, the upcoming events to think about anything else.”

“Right.” Emma fidgeted with the pencil, and then stared down at her pathetic notes. Good thing she was taping this interview or she’d be in sorry shape later. Either the other male subjects she’d studied had held back on her, or this guy had only sex on the brain. Of course the others had relayed some sexual encounters, but Nick was too much.

Part of her was glad for the opportunity to make her study so thorough. The other part wanted to sink into a hole and not surface for a month. It wasn’t that she was a prude, but it wasn’t easy to sit here and listen to this stuff and pretend it didn’t faze her. The last thing she wanted to do was spook him so that he started censoring himself.

On the other hand…

“Did you want me to continue?” he asked casually, as if they were discussing the weather.

“Yes, of course. You were telling me about the dark-haired woman.”

“Oh, I didn’t forget, Doc.” He smiled again, shifted in his seat, getting comfortable, his eyes half closing, probably trying to get back into the dream. Oh, boy. “She didn’t say anything, just watched the other two women argue. And then it was almost like she communicated to them silently because they stopped suddenly, and the redhead picked up the handcuffs and slapped them around my wrists.”

“Wait a minute, let’s back up.” She was really botching this. She hadn’t had him set the scene up properly. “You said you were sitting. Were you restrained in any way?”

“No.”

“So you could have gotten up and left if you wanted?”

He drew his head back in exaggerated surprise and flashed a quick grin. “Would you have?”

She tried not to glare. “Go on.”

“Let’s see, oh, yeah…the redhead cuffed me to these two pole lamps on either side of my chair and then she finished unzipping my pants.” He paused, frowning, as though he were trying to recall something.

“Was there anything familiar about her?”

“Which one?”

“Any of them.”

“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “Yeah, maybe.”

“I’m not trying to put words in your mouth. Think about it for a minute and see if anything comes to mind.”

“Uh, sorry, Doc, but it wasn’t my mind they was appealing to.”

Emma sighed. “Would you be serious?”

“You kidding? I’m being so serious and honest, it’s scary.”

She groaned inwardly. She had to give him that one. “What else?”

“The dark-haired woman was just about to turn around but the blonde blindfolded me with one of the silk scarves before I could see the brunette’s face. And then I felt all these different hands on me, yanking off my shirt, pulling down my pants.”

He paused to take another sip of water, and Emma braced herself for what came next. “Maybe you should just use my notes for the rest.”

She forced her gaze to meet his as she stopped the recorder. “You don’t need to be embarrassed.”

He leaned back, totally at ease. “I’m not. Actually, I’m enjoying the replay. I figured you might be a little uncomfortable.”

She gave her best breezy laugh and shoved her glasses into place. “I’ve heard hundreds of dreams. I’d hardly be embarrassed at this point.”

And then she caught her reflection in the brass stapler. Oh, God. If her cheeks got any redder, Nick would probably think she was having a stroke and call the paramedics.

“Okay, Doc. Have it your way.”

She stared down at her notebook, and thought about how many loads of laundry she had to do, how she’d waited too long to defrost her freezer, again. When heat still stung her cheeks, she thought about how she’d already eaten her backup pint of chocolate ice cream and hadn’t replaced it. That helped sober her a little.

“Ready?” She started the recorder again without waiting for his reply.

“After they had my clothes off, one started kissing me while another one licked and bit my nipples. I was irritated that I didn’t know who they were, and then they both backed off and I remember being cold where the air hit the damp spots on my skin where they had their mouths.”

Emma swallowed…mostly to make sure her mouth wasn’t hanging open. “So it was important to you to know the aggressors’ identities?”

“Do I seem like the kind of guy who’d go for anonymous sex?” Nick grinned with that devilish twinkle in his eyes, and for the first time she could recall, Emma wanted to smack a test subject. “No, Doc, I didn’t care particularly who they were. I wanted to know if it was the blonde or the redhead who was sucking me so hard I thought I’d come for a week.”

She tried her damndest not to show any reaction. “I guess you left that part out,” she said crisply, attempting to cool her rising temper. He was trying to goad her, she was sure of it.

“Actually, I was just getting to that— Hey, why are you looking at me with malice in those pretty hazel eyes? It’s a dream, Doc, I can’t help what went on in my sleep. You said so yourself.”

“You’re right.”

“You also told me not to hold back or censor myself.”

“Yes, I did.” It was difficult to maintain her composure when she truly had the urge to smack that innocent look off his face.

“So why are you looking so pissed off?”

“I’m not pissed off. That would be unprofessional.” She pushed up her glasses, enormously thankful they hadn’t fogged up. “I’m disappointed that you seem to think this is a joke.”

“Not true.” He gave his head an emphatic shake. “You may be used to all this blunt talk but I’m not. I have to look for a little humor to ease the tension.”

Oh, yeah, she was really used to all this. She cleared her throat as she readied the recorder again. “I apologize for misjudging the situation. Please continue.”

He tried to hide a smile, but she saw it, lurking at the corners of his mouth before he passed a hand over his face and blew into his palm.

She didn’t believe for a minute that this talk made him uncomfortable. He’d already admitted that he was getting off on it, and that she believed. Because, dammit, she wasn’t making it through this session totally unaffected herself. She’d had to shift twice to make sure he couldn’t see how much her nipples had tightened, and how they pushed against her flimsy bra and thin cotton shirt.

“Well, Doc,” he said, stretching, his arms wide, his chest broad and muscled under his snug blue T-shirt. “I hate to disappoint you but that’s about it. After they got me out of my pants and started—” A ghost of a smile played about his lips again. “Doing ‘the nasty,’ I woke up. I had urgent business that was best taken care of in the bathroom. But I don’t think you need to know about that.”

She gave him a disapproving glare in answer, and clicked off the recorder.

He immediately straightened. “We’re done?”

“Yes, unless you have another dream you remember.” She almost hated to ask.

“You’re in luck.” He indicated his notes with a jut of his chin. “The next one I call In Broad Daylight.”