Simply Irresistible Part 25

He pushed open the kitchen door and stepped inside. The kitchen had once been considered huge--a full-sized square room with a window over the sink, a place for the kitchen table, a freestanding stove, and counter s.p.a.ce on two walls.

By today's standards, the kitchen was small and dark, its original herringbone wallpaper and green tile ugly and old. The mess didn't help, either. He still had dishes in the sink. Newspapers covered the butcher-block table he'd bought twenty years ago, and rolled-up bags of cat food sat on the counters. The dog food kibbles were spread all over the floor--the cats had been playing with it again.

The house smelled faintly of cat pee, thanks to a late torn he'd saved thirty years ago, and the inevitable litter boxes that he didn't clean as often as he should.

Nurse Ratched, his Siamese, sat on the counter, watching as if she disapproved, which she probably did. When she realized Dex had noticed her, she meowed at him angrily and jumped down, disappearing behind the stove.

Vivian looked around, drinking it all in, seeing his failures and his losses and all the things that he hadn't done in all the years, things people like Blackstone and Vari probably did in their sleep.

She turned toward him and smiled. "I grew up in a house like this. I loved it."

Had she heard his thoughts? He thought he had blocked them, but he wasn't being as cautious now as he had been earlier. Or was she just being polite?

He made himself smile. "I don't know if you're hungry after that soup, but I have stuff here--"

"No," she said. "I'm tired. I just want to sit down."

He'd forgotten how pale she'd been. "Let me check what Vari did to your neck."

She nodded, and turned so that her back was facing him. Her neck was long and slender, the kind that should be highlighted with jewels and open collars. The fine hairs had been singed, many of them broken off, and a line of dried skin ran down her spine, disappearing into her shirt.

His fingers hovered near the base of her skull, not quite touching. "Does it hurt?"

"No," she said. "It did before he took the spell away, but it hasn't hurt since."

"Good." Dex let his fingers brush against the singed hair. It was coa.r.s.e, although the nearby curls were fine. She smelled faintly of rosewater and soap, a good combination. He wanted to lean in and inhale.

But he didn't. His fingertips brushed the injured area, and he closed his eyes, touching her with his magic as well. No one's power remained except Vivian's. He found Vari's magical signature in the singed hairs, but no one else's. The other spell had been cleaned of its identifying marks. Dex couldn't tell who cast it.

Only its sh.e.l.l remained.

It had been a very subtle and powerful spell. Dex wasn't sure he'd be able to disable it without causing some damage to Vivian's spine. He was glad Vari had done the cleansing.

"Did Vari say who had done this?" Dex asked, opening his eyes.

Vivian had her head bent forward. The dried patch ran up into her scalp. "He said he couldn't tell. There was no--signature?"

Dex nodded. Unless Vari was a more talented mage than he seemed, he didn't have the skill to clean off two spells like that. "Well," Dex said, "looks like he got all of it."

"Good." Vivian started to turn around, but Dex put one hand on her shoulder.

"Let me take care of the damage the spell left," he said.

"Is it burned?" Vivian asked.

"Like a sunburn," he said, and felt thankful that nothing more had happened. There had to have been an explosion to cause this kind of damage. Vari must have absorbed it into himself, or the damage would have been a lot worse.

Dex felt his cheeks heat up. He hadn't really been fair to the Quixotic team. Blackstone had been right: Dex was used to working alone. He hated taking orders, and Blackstone had rubbed him the wrong way. Staying with that group would have meant listening to Blackstone, and Dex wasn't willing to do it.

He also wasn't willing to share Vivian.

He used a light healing spell, sending it through his fingertips. He ran them along the dried skin and the singed hair, restoring it all to its original state.

Vivian's skin was silky, her hair shimmery. He let his fingers linger a moment longer than they needed to before his hand dropped.

"There," he said.

Vivian turned to face him. "Thank you."

He smiled. "My pleasure."

It was his pleasure. She was his pleasure. He ran his forefinger along her cheek and she leaned into his touch. She was enjoying this as much as he was. He could feel her longing mingling with his own.

He cupped her cheek with his hand, and then leaned in, hesitating for a moment in case she wanted to back away. She didn't. Her gaze met his and then her eyes closed as their lips touched.

For a moment, his lips rested against hers, then their mouths opened together and they explored each other. She tasted good. She felt good.

He cupped her other cheek, holding her gently. His eyes were closed too, but he couldn't remember when he closed them. Maybe when she had. They seemed to be in tune on everything else.

He felt himself disappear into her, and knew, for the first time in his life, that he had found the person he had been looking for--even though he hadn't realized he'd been searching.

It felt as if he had come home.

Then, abruptly, Vivian pulled away. She slipped away from his mouth, his hands, backing up until she slammed into the stove. Her mouth was open, her lips swollen from his kiss.

He felt her absence as if he'd lost a limb. He reached for her--and she shook her head, running deeper into the house.

Dex stood completely still, letting his heart rate slow. He thought she had felt the same way he did. He thought they were both enjoying the kiss, enjoying each other.

Had he used her mind to force her to do something he wanted? It hadn't felt that way, but she was such a novice, and he--well, he hadn't thought it through.

Dex bowed his head. Nurse Ratched was weaving through his legs, as if rewarding him for a job well done. He didn't want to pet his crabby, somewhat psychotic cat. He wanted to go to Viv.

And he didn't know if he dared.

*Chapter Seventeen*

Vivian fled blindly into the next room. It was a dining room, filled with an oak table covered with magazines and open books. An archway led into the living room, and she followed the path until she felt like she could have some privacy.

She sank onto a couch so old that its springs no longer worked. It looked like it had been pushed against the wall for decades. The carpet was matted in front of it.

Three cats peered at her from their perches on the coffee table below the picture window. Another cat's tail dipped beneath the closed curtains. A wiry terrier, small and terrified, took one look at Vivian and disappeared beneath an armchair as old as the couch.

She had wanted Dex to kiss her. She had wanted him to touch her. The kiss had been wonderful, and then she realized that her mind had disappeared into his. She didn't know where he began and she ended. They had become one person, moving in unison, just with a touch of the lips.

The thought had frightened her. No--it had terrified her. She was a strong woman, unafraid to be in a strange city alone. She'd handled the murder of her aunt, three odd women coming to her door, a change in her worldview, and an attack by an enemy she didn't even know. But she had done that because she was secure in herself, because she knew who she was and what she wanted from life.

Even when Dex's disappearance had made her uneasy, she had been able to smile at her own reaction, thinking it almost too traditional.

She hadn't expected this, this loss of self. No matter how much she wanted him, no matter how attracted they were, no matter if she fell in love with him, she wouldn't be able to be with him if it cost her herself.

She was shaking. Of all the things that had happened to her this day, from learning about magic to the headache to fainting to being bugged, this was the thing that terrified her the most. She couldn't even trust whether her attraction was real. What if Dex was attracted to her, and all she felt was the echo of his emotions?

Something like that hadn't happened to her since she was a child. And Aunt Eugenia had taught her how to handle those stray emotions.

Aunt Eugenia. Vivian frowned. She'd had a flash memory of Aunt Eugenia earlier. It had lasted only a second, and she hadn't realized that was what the feeling was until just now.

But when had that happened? It felt important.

Vivian stopped shaking and leaned back. It was important. It had something to do with the Fates. Something- "You all right?"

Vivian jumped, startled, and turned toward the voice. Dex was leaning against the archway, his hands in his pockets. The Siamese that had given Vivian the evil eye earlier was winding her way around his legs, and Sadie sat beside him, looking at Vivian as if she had betrayed Dex somehow.

Vivian hadn't even heard Dex approach. She hadn't felt him either. She couldn't feel him now. The connection between them, which had been so fine earlier, had been severed.

Had she done that with her reaction? Or had he?

"I'm sorry," she said. "I've never run away from a kiss before. It's just that..."

She let her voice trail off. She didn't know how to explain her reaction. She couldn't really, not without sounding accusing. 'Were you making me feel like you did? Was the reaction I felt during that kiss yours or mine'?

He was studying her, but she didn't get the sense that he had heard those thoughts. She didn't get any sense of him at all. And she missed it.

That emotion was hers. She knew it. She missed his reaction, missed him. How could she become so dependent on a feeling she hadn't had the day before? She was in love with him--her emotions-- and that made this somehow worse.

Because she would want to be with him, and she couldn't. She couldn't because they wouldn't have a relationship of equals. She'd become a non-person, someone neither of them recognized--and, she would wager, someone neither of them liked.

"It's just that what?" he asked gently. He hadn't moved from the doorway.

Vivian blinked, surprised to find her eyes growing damp. "I got lost," she whispered.

He nodded, just once, and looked down. "I thought that's what happened."

Vivian frowned. He sounded like this was a normal thing--and maybe it was for him. Maybe the women he kissed got so involved in him that they didn't realize what was happening to them. But she did, and she didn't like it.

Dex's head was still down. He wasn't looking at her. But the Siamese was. As soon as she saw Vivian's gaze meet hers, the Siamese jumped onto the couch's arm and stared at her. The stare seemed malevolent.

"I didn't think," he said after a moment. "If I'd considered it, I would've realized that might happen. You and I are so attuned ..."

The cat's ears flattened, as if she had understood what Dex was saying and didn't like it.

"This has never happened to you before?" Vivian asked, and there was an edge to her voice. Anger. She was blaming him for this. The anger was coming out of her fear, and she knew it, but she couldn't stop it.

Dex looked up. He seemed embarra.s.sed. It felt odd to guess at his emotions. She had known them so intimately from the moment she met him that it almost felt as if part of him were missing.

"No," he said. "It's never happened to me before. Has it ever happened to you?"

She shoved her gla.s.ses up her nose with her forefinger, not because they'd been sliding down but because it gave her something to do while she remembered. She hadn't been kissed a lot. In high school, the boys had considered her geeky. In college, she'd dated a few times, but the lack of connection she had felt with the boys there had actually bothered her.

Once she graduated, she'd been more focused on building her psychic hotline than on dating. Or maybe, as Travers said, she focused on her psychic hotline because she wanted to avoid dating.

She had a connection with her family, especially Megan and Aunt Eugenia. She loved Travers and Kyle, but Dex was the first person to make her feel complete--and the very thought embarra.s.sed her.

"It's never happened to me either," she said. "At least not when I was kissing someone."

That last statement made him raise his eyebrows. "When did it happen?"

"When I was a little girl." Vivian ran her hands over her thighs, looking down. The couch had pilled--probably from generations of cats scratching on it. The Siamese was still glaring at her, but the cats on the coffee table had gone back to sleep. "Sometimes people's emotions were so strong that I thought they were my emotions."

Dex was watching her as intently as the Siamese was, only his expression had none of her malevolence. "How'd you fix that?"

"My Aunt Eugenia." Vivian frowned. Aunt Eugenia again. What was it about her that had been triggered today? And when? Something to do with her death.

"What did your Aunt Eugenia do?" Dex asked.

"After this morning, I would guess she put some kind of spell on me so that my reactions wouldn't be tied into other people's. But at the time, I thought she taught me how to fix it."

"Maybe she did." Dex pulled his hands out of his pockets. He picked up the Siamese. She yowled at him and tried to bite his fingers, but he didn't seem to care, setting her on the floor. "What did she have you do?"

"Pretend there was a wall between me and other people," Vivian said.

"That's the right solution," Dex said, "although if you do it all the time, you don't feel anything. Has it been hard for you to get close to people?"

Vivian started. She had just been thinking about that. Was that because of what Aunt Eugenia had taught her? Had Vivian been distant from everyone around her except her family because there had literally been a wall between her and the rest of the world?

Dex sat on the arm of the couch, where the Siamese had been. "It's kind of like the gla.s.s jar you put around the building. It was there. It was real enough that it protected the Fates and real enough for this person who's after them to touch it, and figure out who you are."

Vivian turned toward him.

"It's wrong, Viv, for us to say you won't come into your magic until you're older. You've already got some of it. That's what your mental powers are. Just a hint of the magic to come."

She hadn't moved. There was still no connection between them, but she didn't need it. Not at the moment. He was being sincere and caring all at the same time.

"What we all mean when we say you haven't come into your powers is that they arrive one day, at full strength, and usually out of control, no matter how much training a person has had."

He glanced out the window, clearly lost in a memory. Of the day he had gotten his powers? If what everyone had told her was true, that would have been more than eighty years ago. Would he remember what that trauma was like, then? Would it still bother him?

She wanted to ask, but she knew that she was merely diverting him, that some part of her didn't want to hear what he had to say. She was afraid of this, just like she had been afraid when her Aunt Eugenia had called her over the years, asking her to come to Portland. To explore her future, Eugenia used to say. To see what was possible in the world.

Vivian hadn't wanted to see what was possible. She knew. She had experienced the emotions, the thoughts, the fears of other people. She didn't need to experience any of her own.

"You haven't gotten your full powers yet," Dex said, turning back toward her. He had such compa.s.sion in his eyes. She wanted to touch him. But she wouldn't. She wasn't ready. "You won't get those for thirty years or so. But when they come, you'll be one of the most powerful mages ever. You'll probably be more powerful than all of the people you met at Quixotic today. More powerful than the person who's after the Fates. The psychic powers you have--the mental powers--are amazing. What you did earlier today would be difficult for some people who've come into their full powers. You did it on one-one-hundredth of your strength."