Stolen Dreams (32 page)

 

His
hands instantly covered his ears to shut out the echo.

 

Sorry.
I forgot. Now, explain.

 

He
gave her a sheepish grin. He should have realized she'd know what he'd
done as soon as she read his thoughts. I couldn't block you out. I told
you that.

 

You can't tell partial truths when our minds are
joined. You purposely looked for answers. Why?

 

I couldn't seem
to help myself. It was a little bit like walking into a room and seeing
a whole bowl full of Caresses.
He could feel her annoyance and knew if the situation had been
reversed, he would have been furious. I know it was wrong, but maybe if
you can see how it was when I was a child, you'll understand why it was
so irresistible.

 

Shara felt him making an effort to relax and
waited
a moment before sorting through his old memories. She was suddenly
assailed by a melange of sights and sounds that all overlapped one
another. It was a wonder he remained sane in the midst of such chaos.
Then she felt it, the one secret she didn't know about him—the real
reason he invaded her privacy and was anxious to experiment with her
skills.

 

Gabriel had never gotten over the tremendous
inadequacy he had felt as an average child among so many extremely
gifted people.

 

Perhaps that also explained some of the
jealousy he'd exhibited around her. He wasn't nearly as confident as he
pretended to be.

 

I understand. She let him see that she often
felt the same way.

 

You see? Gabriel thought to her in return.
We have several things in common after all.

 

Several?

 

We
had difficult childhoods, are devoted to our careers, will take risks
to get what we want, and there's that little problem we both have with
obstinance.

 

She made a face at him. Let's get started. You
showed me
what it was like when you were a child. Take the jammer off so I can
hear what happens now.

 

He took a slow breath and did as she
asked.

 

It
was incredible! They were hearing thoughts from people all over the
ship. Gabriel. Focus on me and feel what I'm doing. Slowly, and a
little at a time, she blocked out all the outside voices, then let go
again. Now you try it.

 

At
first he couldn't do it at all. After she walked him through it several
times, he still couldn't eliminate the thoughts, but he could at least
quiet them to where they weren't so overwhelming.

 

Shara could
feel
him tiring and it was wearing on her, but now that she understood why
this was important to him, she wanted to give him a treat for making
progress, like any good teacher would.

 

He arched an eyebrow at
her. What kind of treat?

 

She
clucked her tongue at him as she felt his sex swell in anticipation. I
was thinking of something you hadn't done before! Stay with me, now.
She closed her eyes and mentally left their cabin.

 

Gabriel
balked
for a second, but then he understood that she was giving him a
demonstration of her ability to see things that were not in her vision.
After a quick tour of the ship, she showed him how she could use her
mind to move several items around inside their cabin. He enjoyed that a
lot, but it made him remember how she had removed his tunic the other
night. When he felt how uncomfortable the memory made her, he
apologized, but they both knew he wasn't really sorry. Her only
response was to reconstruct the partition.

 

"That's enough for
now.
Later on, when we're around someone else, I'll let you feel the power
of suggestion. We can work on blocking a little more each day. Who
knows, by the time this trip ends, you may be able to do it on your
own." And then you could go on with your life the way you'd planned it,
as if you'd never been forced to join with me.

 

For the next
three days, they worked on their separate projects, practiced Gabriel's
mental skills, and
made an effort to tire themselves sufficiently to be able to sleep in
the same bed without touching. Shara figured out how to hold the
partition throughout the night and how to hold back parts of both their
minds while they practiced, but the constant effort prevented her from
ever relaxing completely.

 

Every morning they awoke in each
other's
arms and said nothing about it. Every time Shara lowered the wall, she
felt Gabriels restrained desire for her, but he never acted on it.

 

By
the fifth day, Shara was so tense waiting for him to do something more
than merely think about sex, she probed his mind during a practice
session.

 

What was that? he asked as soon as she tried to do it
without his knowledge.

 

She
felt her cheeks flush. It would have been easy to throw the wall back
up and keep him out of her mind until she regained control over her
thoughts, but that was the coward's way out. Congratulations. A few
days ago you wouldn't have noticed a probe that subtle.

 

He
narrowed
his eyes at her. That wasn't just a test. What did you want to know? He
felt her struggling to control which thoughts she would allow him to
read. She was mentally stuttering, and knowing Shara, he guessed
intimacy was probably involved.

 

She gave up on subtlety and
admitted
her bewilderment. I don't understand. I feel your desire constantly.
Even when the wall is up, sometimes you look at me and I know you're
thinking about coupling.

 

Yes, I do seem to be somewhat
preoccupied with wanting to be inside you.

 

His words triggered an involuntary sexual response
deep within her. Then why—

 

Why
don't I act on it? I am not an undisciplined animal, and there's no
fever driving me to satisfy my need without your enthusiastic
participation. As long as you prefer our relationship to he platonic,
that's what it will be. He waited for her to point out the error in his
thinking, hoped she would correct him about what she wanted out of this
peculiar relationship, but all he felt coming from her was confusion;
then the wall was reconstructed.

 

No! he ordered, and tried
every
tool she had taught him to focus his mental energy on tearing down the
wall again, but she was too strong for him. "You can't hide from this
forever, Shara. You're the one who brought it up, so you can't pretend
you're not thinking about it. You've buried your feelings so deeply,
you don't even know what you want. But I'll tell you this: As long as
you can't decide if you want me or not, I'm not going to seduce you
into coupling with me. The choice will be completely yours, with no
coercion on my part except to let you know how I feel."

 

She
turned
away from him, but he spun her around again and held her upper arms.
"Let me tell you what your probing would have learned. I want you so
much, I ache. I want to hold you, kiss you, touch you. Anywhere.
Anytime. And I want you to touch me the same way. We're mated, Shara,
whether we wished for it or not. That means neither one of us will ever
find pleasure with anyone else, even if we go our separate ways. Is
that really what you want? A lifetime of never again feeling what we
shared the other night?"

 

If physical force would have dragged
the answer out
of her, he might have resorted to it, but he could tell she simply
wasn't ready to answer that question. Releasing her, he turned and
walked out the cabin door.

 

 

Shara
took the
tempometer out of her bag and set it on the table. She was fairly sure
she had found a way to fine-tune the destination date, but until they
tested it, she couldn't know for sure. In the meantime, it wouldn't
hurt to examine it and go over Lantana's notes one more time.

 

It
didn't matter what Gabriel said. She'd managed a long time without a
physical relationship with a man before him and she'd manage after him.
Despite her intention not to think about anything but the tempometer,
his words kept replaying in her mind. Suddenly she realized why she
couldn't let it go.

 

He'd said "if," not "when we go
our separate ways." She had assumed there was no possibility
of them having a future together. Had her assumption been wrong?

 

His
comment days ago about them having things in common came back to her.
She had told him only once that she and her ideal mate would have
everything in common, but obviously he'd remembered that and given it
some thought. That in itself suggested that he might be considering a
long-term relationship. Though she and Gabriel might not have everything in common, they did have some common
ground to build on ... if they chose to.

 

She
considered how hard he was working to adopt her skills. Again she had
assumed it was so that he could leave her, knowing that he could keep
her out of his head permanently. Afraid of what she would find, she had
avoided examining his feelings about her too closely. However, she had
noticed that the resentment toward her personally had disappeared. Was
it possible that he was working so hard, not to leave her, but to
adjust to having her around?

 

That possibility allowed her to
bring
her own feelings out from where she'd buried them. There was a lot
about Gabriel she liked, but did she want to spend the rest of her life
with him? With her career in a laboratory and his in the field, she
couldn't imagine how they could share their lives even if they were
madly in love.

 

Like her parents were. Romulus would have given
up his career for Aster, and she had risked her life for him.

 

If
Gabriel loved her . . .

 

There
wasn't much sense in fantasizing over what she could not have. What she
needed to do now was make the best of what she did have.

 

She
had a
mate who was trying very hard to adjust to a situation he'd always
despised. She had a mate who was intelligent, considerate,
entertaining, usually reasonable . . . The list was longer than she'd
realized. He made a fine companion, when they weren't arguing.
Physically, he was a perfect specimen of manhood. She would never tire
of looking at him.

 

She had a mate who desired her and wanted
to please. Now that she permitted herself to think about
their joining, she supposed Gabriel was close to being an ideal mate ..
. except that he didn't love her and would have preferred not to be
mated at all.

 

Even that might not have been so difficult to
accept, if she hadn't already lost her heart to him.

 

Later
that day when he asked if they were going to practice some more, she
put him off. Until she had all her thoughts in order, she didn't want
him to know what a quandary she was in.

 

Finally, in the lounge
after
dinner, while she watched Gabriel playing a game of cards, the only
reasonable answer came to her. She couldn't stop herself from loving
him, and she couldn't make him fall in love with her, but that didn't
mean they couldn't work out a comfortable arrangement. After
deliberating all day, she came to the conclusion that such an
arrangement might be preferable to never seeing him again. He seemed to
be open to the possibility of their maintaining a relationship beyond
the end of this journey, so it was now up to her to show him that
staying together could be more pleasant than living alone.

 

If
he
could discard his resentment and accustom himself to their joined
minds, she could certainly forget her girlish dreams of undying love so
that they could share their bodies.

 

Gabriel? She was pleased
to note
he barely flinched at the unexpected intrusion. He was getting used to
her being in his head. He looked up from the cards in his hand. I'm
tired. I'm going back to our cabin.

 

He started to nod and say
good
night, when he sensed something lying beneath her words. Before he
could question her, however, she raised the partition and left the
lounge. He continued playing the game, but that something kept tickling at his
brain. She hadn't wanted him to know about it, of that much he was
certain.

 

He
experienced a moment of panic when he thought she might be abandoning
him, then realized how ridiculous that was. They were traveling through
space; there was nowhere she could go. So what was she up to?

 

Excusing
himself from the game, he went to find out what she was doing before it
was too late. By the time he entered the cabin, he was prepared for a
confrontation . . . about something.

 

"Gabriel?" Shara called
from the sanitation cell. "I didn't expect you so soon."

 

Good,
he thought, she had not had time to do whatever nefarious deed she'd
planned this time. He thought he was ready for her when she came out of
the cell. But the sight of her readied him for a very different
something than what he'd expected.

 

An enticing white gown
showed off
more of her luscious form than it concealed. Two strips of peek-a-boo
lace crisscrossed over her breasts and the floor-length skirt was sheer
enough to allow him to see a hint of the dark triangle between her legs.

 

The
way he was looking at her made her heart race. She smiled shyly and
said, "If I had chosen to be joined, I would have worn a gown like this
for my mate. I didn't get to experience the formal joining ceremony,
but if you are willing to accommodate me, I would very much like to
have the celebration night that would have followed it."

 

Gabriel
had
to fight his body's urge to lunge across the room and fulfill her
request before she changed her mind, but he wanted one favor in return.
"If this had been a normal joining, there would be no barriers between us. Will you lower the
partition and leave it down for the night?"