Locked Out of Love (11 page)

They stole the breath from her lungs and lit her nerve endings on fire. She pushed closer against him and twined her arms around his neck. Her breasts pressed against his chest; one of his hands moved from around her waist to cup her bottom, drawing her hips flush with his.

They both groaned at the contact.

His erection pressed hard into her hip and she untwined one arm from around him to stroke him through his shorts.

He cursed under his breath and took hold of her wrist to bring her arm back around his neck. “I'm not going to last if you keep touching me like that.”

She nipped his bottom lip. “Maybe I don't want you to last.”

Joel closed his eyes as if trying to draw strength from within. “Jesus, Melanie,” was all he said. “You slay me.”

His words made her feel powerful and sexy, and she loved every minute of it. “You make me feel more alive than I've felt in a very long time,” she confessed.

Those midnight eyes opened and fixed on her. He cupped her cheek and brushed his thumb across her skin. “I know the feeling.”

This time his kiss was painfully slow, creating a gentle warmth in the pit of her stomach that radiated out. Joel was a man who could make a woman melt. She was halfway gone when the handle on the door jiggled.

They both looked up.

The door shook, but Joel's Lock stayed intact. Muttered cursing came from the other side and Melanie grinned. Joel mirrored her grin. His eyes glittered with mischief, like a little kid getting away with a prank, and she wanted to kiss him all the more.

“What do you say? Want to stick around and see how far they go to get the door open or blow this Popsicle stand?”

Melanie arched a brow as a wicked idea came to her. “Want to see how far they'd go if we pretended to be locked inside and freaking out?”

Joel laughed. “You're a little rebel, aren't you?”

She looked meaningfully at his Darth Vader shirt. “Just call me Princess Leia.”

She grabbed his ass.

Joel couldn't get the image of Melanie in a Princess Leia slave costume out of his head. All that creamy skin exposed, her silver-blonde hair shining, those crystal-blue eyes flaring with heat.

They'd driven down to the beach after making a break from the community center. Melanie had cracked. She didn't want the community center staff to break anything unnecessarily and she didn't want to get banned from the establishment for any reason, so they'd Unlocked the door and made a run for it.

They stood on the boardwalk, Melanie slipping her shoes off to walk in the sand. They'd just missed the sunset, but the lingering light still hung in the air. The wind carried the salty scent of the ocean, and Joel breathed it in deeply. He'd never tire of that smell.

He followed Melanie as she made her way to the water.

They passed an empty, boarded lifeguard tower and Joel nudged her. “Hey, want to sit up there?”

“Sure.”

They situated themselves on the tower, legs dangling over the edge. Joel glanced at Melanie out of the corner of his eye. She seemed better than when he'd first seen her walk into yoga that evening. There had been something in the air around her, a sadness that had pulled at Joel, but the class had started before he could get any information out of her.

He could make out the lingering sadness coming back. It was in every step she took, the slight hunch to her shoulders, and lack of bounce in her step.

He bumped his shoulder against hers. “Want to tell me what's bothering you?”

She tightened her jacket as the wind kicked up.

He wrapped his arm around her, expecting her to stiffen. Instead, she snuggled into him and rested her head on his shoulder.

He was finally doing something right.

“Can I ask you something?” she said.

“Sure.” He didn't point out that she was avoiding his question.

“How does your friend, the Dreamer, keep herself … ?” She sighed and started over. “How does she deal with all her visions?”

So that's what's bothering her
.

She was worried about her brother.

Joel tried not to dwell on Niella's dwindling mental health. That was not the comforting information Melanie sought.

He stared out at the waves. “She writes stuff down. I think it helps her keep her Dreams and the real world separate. Acts like a barrier, I guess. If she writes them down right away, she can put them out of her mind and try to forget about them. They're out of her head, you know?”

She moved off his shoulder. “It's that simple for her?”

He shrugged. “I don't know about simple, but I think it eases the burden. She has this notebook she carries around all the time.” Melanie's body stiffened at the mention of a notebook, but he hesitantly continued. “I don't know what she writes in it, I've never looked, but maybe it's therapeutic and can help your brother.”

She was quiet for a moment. “Maybe. So there's no … cure?”

It was the perfect opening for Joel to mention Mirror Mates. Did he dare?

He didn't want to scare her off. Hell, he didn't want to have to answer her if she asked him outright if they were Mirror Mates.

As they sat together watching the vast ocean, the waves crashing rhythmically into the sand, he came to a decision. He wouldn't keep her in the dark any longer. She needed to learn about Mirror Mates eventually, and he wanted her to hear it from him first. If she met the guild then it would only be a matter of time until Cali or Sydney mentioned Melanie's possible connection to Joel.

 “There is one way,” he said.

Her head snapped around so fast he could all but feel the whiplash. “There is?”

Was that fear in her eyes?

“Niella will able to control her Dreams if and when she becomes full-forced.” He'd keep the conversation all about Niella. He'd let Melanie come to her own conclusions about them.

“Full-forced?”

He puffed out his chest. “It's a term I came up with.” Felix would have his neck if he knew Joel was cutting him out of the credit. “It signifies when an individual with powers experiences an added boost to their ability and gains complete control over them.”

He waited for the next question.

“How does someone become ‘full-forced'?”

He kept his expression as neutral as possible, channeling his inner Jedi, while holding his breath at the same time. “They find and bond with their soul mate.”

He dropped his arm from around her as she nearly jumped out of her skin. “Soul mate?”

Think Jedi, think Jedi, think Jedi.

“Yes, Melanie, soul mates,” he said as calmly as possible. “Out there somewhere is a person's other half, and when people like us find it, we experience this instant connection, this yearning inside that draws us together. And once those two people bond, each person's powers are amplified—they become stronger and more controllable. Felix knew a Dreamer who could control what he saw and when. If the Dreamer can just withstand their journey leading up to that point, then they're free.”

She'd scooted a few inches away from him on the lifeguard tower. Her hair flew around her head as she stared unseeing at the sand, eyes darting from side to side.

Shit. Had he overloaded her with too much information?

“Melanie?” he asked hesitantly. Should he reach out and touch her, or would that spook her?

“That's impossible,” she said finally. “Soul mates don't exist. How do you know you're not being lied to?”

“Because there are four members in my guild, two couples, who are bonded with their Mirror Mates.”

“Mirror Mate?” she asked incredulously.

“Another term I came up with.”

“Why Mirrors?”

He rubbed the back of his neck. “It seemed like a good idea at the time. Have you ever been outside and the sun reflects off of a window or a mirror in a car and seems like it's so much more potent?”

She nodded.

“Well, when a person bonds with their Mirror Mate, their power is reflected back at them—stronger. Some of my guild members like to say that souls who truly reflect one another are destined to find one another.” He waited for her recoil at the mention of destiny, but Melanie remained seated, digesting all he had to say.

“And you said there are people in your guild who are full-forced?”

He nodded. “My best friend, Felix, and his fiancé, Cali, as well as my friends Sydney and Merrick.”

“But they still have their powers. If my brother became full-forced, he'd still have his powers?”

Joel nodded. “There's no way to get rid of someone's powers. They're a part of us.”

“So you don't know of any other way someone could be cured?”

He frowned. “Not that I know of, but it's not like powers are a sickness, if that's what you're implying.”

She grew silent, lost in thought as she stared at the white caps out in the distance. Joel had a strange lump in his gut and he couldn't place his finger on what it was. He only knew that Melanie's odd behavior worried him.

Full darkness fell and with it came a colder wind that went right through Joel's clothes. Melanie had to be freezing. “Let's get out of here.”

She shook from the cold but managed a quick bob of her head in agreement.

They made their way back to his vehicle, but he held an arm out in front of Melanie to keep her from getting any closer.

A shadow moved in the dark, suspiciously close to his truck. “Hey!” he yelled.

The stranger froze and then made a run for it down a side alley.

“Son of a bitch.” Joel sprinted over to his truck, Melanie right behind him.

“Did he take anything?”

The outside of the vehicle didn't look like anything had been taken. He pushed his face into the driver's side window to check that the radio was still there. It was.

“Huh,” he said, a chill running down his spine.

“Maybe it was just someone looking for any visible cash in the car,” Melanie said.

Joel turned in the direction the person had taken off, debating whether he should pursue them in his truck and figure out what the hell they'd been doing so close to his property. Ever since Vander came into their guild's lives he'd adopted a healthy dose of paranoia. And the idea of someone messing around with his truck didn't sit well with him.

He crouched down and checked the underside, looking for anything suspicious.

Melanie's face came into view on the other side. “What are we looking for down here?”

He wanted to tell her that he'd take care of it, that she could wait in the truck with the heater on so she wouldn't freeze her cute little ass off. But what if whoever that was had planted a bomb?

Okay, the idea was ridiculous, but he also knew Vander has made his dislike for the Guild of Truth very obvious. They'd been there every step of the way to keep Vander from the one thing he wanted: his Mirror Mate. For all Joel knew, Vander was keeping a low profile so he could pick off each member of the guild with a bomb, one by one. He was just the right amount of crazy super villain to do it, too.

“Look for anything that doesn't seem like it belongs,” he told Melanie. “If you see anything blinking … ”

“Run?”

“Yeah, but don't forget to tell me first so I don't get blown to smithereens.”

She shook her head at him, but she dutifully started to check the undercarriage of his truck. “I'm curious—who do you think would want to blow you up?”

“Wackos?” He didn't dare tell her about Vander, not right now, not when he'd already told her enough to saturate her brain. The last thing he wanted her to know was how potentially dangerous it was to hang out with him. It might scare her off, and at this point he couldn't stand the thought of losing her.

She seemed content with his answer and didn't ask further questions as she continued to search for any suspicious objects.

“Clear on this side,” she said after a few moments.

Joel finished his fourth check, debating a fifth check when he gave up. “Same here.” He hung his arms over the bed of his truck.

Melanie mimicked his moves on the opposite side, watching him. “You okay? You look confused that you didn't find anything. The guy was probably homeless, looking for something in the bed of your truck to pawn.”

Joel couldn't shake the feeling that it wasn't some bum off the street who'd been near his vehicle. “Yeah, maybe.”

He unlocked the doors and gave the interior of his truck a quick once over. Nothing looked touched. He sniffed the air, but there was no trace of gas or any other chemical he could detect.

Melanie was already buckled in and ready, her eyes taking in his every move, one brow arched as he sampled the air.

Heat rushed to his face— he probably looked like a freak. He cleared his throat and shoved his key into the ignition.

He needed to get over his paranoia. Everything was fine. He just needed to get Melanie home safe and sound.

Melanie sat in the passenger seat as Joel took them up Newport Boulevard. Her head whirled with so many thoughts that she didn't know which ones to focus on.

Did she dare believe that Juliet could cure Nathan without this so called Mirror Mate? Should Melanie confide in Joel? Was Joel her Mirror Mate? She couldn't deny the instant attraction she felt the first time she'd laid eyes on him. Or the way her heart always seemed to flip in her chest when she saw him or even thought about meeting him. Then there was the fact that she felt a physical ache when he wasn't around, like her body craved—no,
needed—
him around. And it was only in his presence that the ache left her. Was she really buying into the whole soul mate concept? She couldn't believe she was even entertaining the idea. Alexander was the kind of guy who believed in things like fate. Joel … Joel was normal, the first normal guy she'd met in so long. She wasn't afraid of him. She enjoyed his company, and she loved the way he made her feel, as if she were a rare treasure and he was the luckiest guy in the world.