Holly's Intuition (12 page)

We’re stil here, together, we stil care about each other. It didn’t change anything, and it was damned good. You were given a taste of the world and you’re stil prepared to deny it exists.”

One thing was clear to him—Stewart was fighting for Hol y to remain in the picture. “You real y want her, don’t you?”

“Yes, but so did you. And that’s the point, that’s why it happened.” Stewart was vehement. “Do you see what I’m saying?”

Josh glared at him, annoyed that his lover always seemed to be one step ahead while he floundered to come to terms with what was happening around him. “Yes, I see it.”

Silence reigned.

I can rise to this
. Joshua took a deep breath, fil ing his lungs. “This psychic thing. What the hel does it mean?”

“I’m not sure. But Hol y is in a state about it.”

Joshua stared down at the table. He didn’t want to hear that. “That’s not good.”

“No. On that we are agreed.” Stewart gave a wry smile. “Whatever happens, Hol y is our friend and she needs us to know about this. It’s weighing heavily on her.”

Joshua put up his hands. He hated to think that she was burdened in any way. Hel , he was burdened enough for the three of them. “I just want to understand it. I can’t begin to deal with it if I don’t understand it.” He felt like that about a lot of things. This thing with Hol y had now become bound up with al the other issues in his life.

Stewart pushed back his chair and stood up. “Hol y can help with that.”

Joshua rose to his feet too. “Before we go over there, there’s something I have to ask.”

“Go ahead.”

“Did you always want her?”

Stewart stepped away from the table as he replied. “I’d always thought she was attractive, a special woman. I admired her a lot. Once it was blatantly obvious you wanted her, that flipped me into overdrive…it was so hot. It had to happen, Josh, you know it.”

He nodded, joining him. “And now?”

“Now we’re doing what she asked, as friends.” Stewart reached out and put one hand on Josh’s back, between his shoulder blades. “Chil man, stop over analysing everything.”

Josh managed to smile. “I’l try.”

By the time they left their flat Hol y was already on her feet and standing inside her front door, trying to steady her breathing while she waited for them to knock. Her emotions were ragged, her heart racing. She’d felt every ounce of Joshua’s upset and anger, and she hated how it had been directed at Stewart. What had emerged from the conversation had made her want to barge in there and tel them no, this wasn’t why she had told them about her psychic connection. It had been brewing perhaps, but she was the trigger and that left her shaky with emotion.

Before Stewart had even knocked at the door, she opened it.

“Knew we were coming, huh?” Amusement rang in his tone.

She thought he would look tired, haggard even, but instead he looked kind of wired. It was if he anticipated how this would pan out and was watchful to keep it on track. His glance sidled back over his shoulder towards his companion then he reached out and put one hand around her upper arm, squeezing it affectionately. The way he looked at her took her right back to that afternoon and to the brief intimacy they had shared in his office at the gym, and her breath hitched as she tried to respond. “Yes, sorry. I did know.”

“Weird,” he replied amiably, as he stepped into her flat.

The way he said it made her wonder if he liked that though—having an intense man and a freaky woman in his life. She shook the odd notion off.

Behind him Joshua lingered, and she could feel the tension and uncertainty in him. Mustering a smile, she wil ed him to know how important this was for her, and how difficult. “I’m so sorry, Josh. It just happened. It’s not something I wanted and at the moment it’s beyond my control. I wish I could change that.”

Joshua looked at her silently for what felt like an age. “You’re going to have to help me with this.”

“I wil .”

Al the while she felt two things from him, desire, and his resistance to the idea that they were bonded in some psychic way. When he walked into her space the driving force that made him do so was desire—raw human need for the object of affection.

Hol y’s legs grew weak for a moment. She straightened her spine, beefing herself up. Desire was good, she decided. She could attempt to build on that. It was gladly accepted, she didn’t want to lose his trust now. She closed the door behind him and ushered them into her sitting room.

Stewart immediately strode across the room and made himself a seat perched on the windowsil , with his feet up on a dining chair to counterbalance him. He was like a stalking cat, taking up a position slightly above them to observe. Joshua remained standing, close to the doorway to the hal and with his hands shoved into his jeans pockets.

Awkward tension fil ed the atmosphere, and it was shot through with wary anticipation. She took a deep breath. “I appreciate you both coming over and giving me the chance to explain.”

“Why has this happened?” Stewart asked, breaking the ice for her.

“I don’t know. It started at the time of the accident. Faye, one of my sisters, thinks it might be tied into that event. She’s read some theories about it,”

she continued cautiously, “but they don’t real y explain why it happened.”

“You’ve discussed it with your sisters?” Josh seemed surprised, and wary.

Hol y had to resist the urge to groan. “Yes, I did. I know you think I’m a strong woman, and mostly I am, but occasional y I need my support networks too.” She wished it hadn’t come out quite as snippy as it did, but her emotions were running high.

“My sisters are the only ones who can begin to understand what this feels like for me,” she said, urging him to try to understand. “The bottom line is I have a psychic ability, and it has become engaged with you at a deep level. I care about you, Josh, and deep down I think perhaps that is why it happened.”

He met her gaze directly, not flinching, and she felt something begin to unlock inside him. It was almost imperceptible, but it was the fact she might occasional y need some support that had got through to him. He real y did think she was impervious to life’s crap. Wel mostly she was, but not always.

“I can’t explain the mechanics of it, but then neither I nor my sisters have been able to explain why we have psychic powers while other people don’t.

We’ve grown to accept it as a fact of life, just as some people are gifted with the ability to learn many languages and others aren’t.”

Joshua shifted for the first time. He pul ed off his sweater and put it over the back of a chair. Hol y was relieved. At least he didn’t look quite so much as if he was about to walk off in a huff. He sighed aloud. “You make it sound so simple.”

A low, almost harsh laugh came from where Stewart sat by the window. “And that doesn’t suit you because you do love to make everything so very complicated.”

Both Hol y and Joshua pul ed back and looked at him. He shrugged in response, one corner of his mouth lifting. Hol y thought Joshua might have been annoyed, but he was way beyond that now. He shot Stewart a warning glance, but didn’t respond verbal y. He was reaching out, he wanted to understand, but it was stil out of his reach at the present time.

Hol y longed to take him in her arms, to hold him and somehow make him understand by osmosis, but unfortunately that wouldn’t happen. She took strength from Stewart’s reaction earlier that day. He’d been sceptical, but he hadn’t let it be an obstacle between them. He was more a creature of instincts than Josh. Josh was more cautious and reasoned, and his reaction to anything he couldn’t control was to put up a barrier.

Frustration boiled up inside her. “Consider this. Would I have come to your family party on Saturday, had I not been able to feel that you real y wanted me to?”

Oh yes, that startled him.

“I could feel how torn up you were over the mix-up on the phone, but the most instinctive and enduring response was that you wanted me to be there.

That’s why I agreed to it. God knows, being someone’s pretend girlfriend is not an ideal situation for any woman, especial y when she cares about the man in question.”

That seemed to level him somewhat, so she continued on.

“Likewise when I got into bed with the pair of you. Stewart makes his feelings obvious in a situation like that, but you didn’t. It was only because I could reach you psychical y I knew how much you wanted it. Do you real y think I’d have chosen to put myself out there if I hadn’t known you were fascinated by the turn of events? Can you imagine the risk, playing gooseberry in that setup?”

He reeled inside, his thoughts ricocheting from what she’d said, back to the events of that night.

“Good point,” Stewart said. “Hol y doesn’t know you as wel as I do. She had to have had that inside track otherwise that situation would not have attracted her.”

Joshua looked as if he’d been slapped in the face, and she could see and feel how the raw truth dawned on him.

“You’re seeing it now, yes?”

He shook his head and gave a disbelieving laugh, and she knew that he understood what she pointed out, that she could reach inside him even now, that she knew his innermost reactions, every step of the way.

“Yes, I can see what you’re saying, but it doesn’t make it any easier.”

“Of course not. My sisters and I have spent the whole of our lives keeping our abilities secret because it’s just too surreal for most people to take on board. It becomes less freakish with time. I know that because one of my sisters has a successful relationship, and for both it’s just become part of them now, part of everything that makes them who and what they are together.”

She sensed he was growing closer to an understanding, but it was a struggle.

“Saturday night happened because of that,” he queried. “Is that what you’re saying?”

“Yes. The attraction was there between the three of us, but you were the one who was having trouble with it. You wanted it though. That’s why it happened, and that’s why we are here now. I just can’t go on with this inside knowledge of you, without you knowing. It feels wrong to me, and it might be the wrong thing bringing out in the open like this, but I had to. I don’t want to lose either of you as friends, and the time we’ve had together has been precious to me, but this had to be said.”

After a moment, she pushed on and added, “Do you need more evidence?”

He was silent, but only because he didn’t want to offend her again.

“Yes, you do.” She raised her eyebrows at him. “Okay, here goes.”

She knew she was taking a real risk now, delving deeper into his psyche in order to prove a point, but it had to be done. Wishing she’d had a stiff drink before they arrived, she stepped back and forth across the room. The sense of movement made her feel less awkward about what she was about to say.

“Last Wednesday night…you started to make love in the hal way. You didn’t make it to the bedroom. You knew Stewart was worried about your injuries and, you let him…handle you… but you wanted more. You hated what the accident had done to you. You didn’t want to feel fragile, you wanted to tussle.”

From under lowered eyelids she assessed them both. Joshua was stil wary but enthral ed. He nodded, his attention total y hers. Stewart observed from his perch. There was a brooding quality to his pose and his expression made him look as if he was about to pounce.

Hol y felt strangely uplifted. “The fol owing night, after your successful appointment at the doctor’s, you went down on Stewart, and you thought briefly about the first time he touched you and kissed you.”

His reaction flooded her.

She edged it on. “It was in the gym, in the changing rooms.”

“Bloody hel , that’s incredible.” Joshua shook his head as he stared across at her. “You real y can…”

Hol y nodded. The sense of relief she felt was so big it burned in her chest. He was addressing it now, and he looked at her with a kind of awe. Al she wanted was the understanding, but his response made her feel so much better she became close to tears, happy tears. It had been the right thing to do, tel ing them.

“You’re amazing.” The emotion she could hear in his voice was reflected inside him, tenfold. Given the proof that he needed, he’d taken the leap of faith and now he was thinking of her and what this meant to her.

She gave a soft laugh. “I don’t feel amazing. To be honest I’ve felt like a naughty voyeur with a dirty little secret. That’s why I had to get it out in the open.”

Stewart gave what sounded like a growl from the window. “If it turns you on as much as it did on Saturday night, you can share his emotions with us any time.”

“Jesus, Stewart,” Joshua said. “Does everything come back to sex with you?”

“Hey, I’m honest.” He gave a nod to both of them. “I’m in a room with the two people I want to shag most in the world, and they are currently talking about the first time you and me got it on. What’s not to love?”

Joshua shook his head, but he was smiling. “You have a point.”

He pursed his lips, thoughtful as he looked back at Hol y.

She sensed his expectation. He wanted more. Her pulse raced, her thoughts moving rapidly forward now that he was beginning to come to an understanding. “I’ve being dying to know more, about that first time, about how you two evolved.”

He stared across at her. He was thinking about sex now, the three of them—just as Stewart had hinted at in his previous comment—and as his blood pumped harder, hotter, so the desire rushed around Hol y’s veins too.

“If I think about it now, wil you experience that?”

“Good cal ,” Stewart said, putting his elbows on his knees, his feet widely spaced on the chair they rested on. His upper body was angled forward as if he didn’t want to miss a word.

“Go ahead,” she said, “let me feel the way you felt about it. We’l test it out.”

Joshua retraced his memories, pausing only when she spoke.

A barrage of information hit her. “Every time you went to the gym, you hoped Stewart would be there. At first you thought it was because you enjoyed chatting with him, comparing notes about diet and forms of exercise. Then this one day you were chatting in the changing rooms and you touched him on the shoulder, measuring his muscle during a discussion. That flashed you forward, and you knew you wanted him.”

“It shocked you at first, because you were having an erection, and you prayed he wouldn’t notice. And then something shifted and you wanted him to notice, you wanted him to know.”

“Seriously?” Stewart interrupted.

It drew Josh’s attention away from her and he looked across the room at his lover. He nodded and they stared at each other across the space.

“Why haven’t you told me this,” Stewart asked. “Why don’t I know that you thought those things?”

Josh didn’t respond for some time. “Because I can’t say it out loud the way Hol y can, it’s too hard. Just like you don’t say stuff to me…”

They stared at each other, and the impact of those few words was tremendous. Hol y felt it echoing through Josh, and once again she felt as if she were intruding on their relationship. Then she felt Joshua’s gratitude, and it was directed at her. These were al the things the two men hadn’t discussed.

That evening, both in their place and now in hers, they were addressing it al . Until then they’d barely talked about it. Beyond moving in together and coming out, they’d both just rol ed with the moment and al that fol owed, and she was now enabling them to learn a little bit more about each other.