Nine Inches of Snow and the Ebony Princess (17 page)

"I thought you loved me, too."

For the first time since getting up that morning, finally ready to do something about this problem—the proverbial elephant sitting in the middle of their living room for the last year—Nova felt uncertain. She was abandoning her fiancé, a man she loved, who clearly loved her and with whom she had been sharing a pretty decent life until a year ago—before the accident and the resulting visions that had precipitated this urgent need to act. To leave.

What am I doing? Why?

When she stated her reasons out loud, she could well understand Matt's incredulity and concern. He feared for her sanity. Nova knew this, because she feared for it herself. It was surprising she had been able to relate her plans when he’d pressed her for a logical explanation of her departure. She was acting irrational, impetuous, impractical—she could go on down the line—all attributes not normally found in the makeup of a successful, levelheaded stockbroker.

But this was a battle she’d been waging since she was a girl—

her undisciplined fey side facing off against her disciplined pragmatic side—a battle she’d seen played out time and time again between her spiritualist medium mother and Marine sergeant-major father. Although her mother accepted and fully embraced reincarnation and the continuous existence of the human soul, Nova didn't think even she would go this far. Traveling thousands of miles, transplanting to a strange city to look for a man who may or may not exist, who more than likely would think her a kook if she were lucky enough to find him—and all this based on a transcendental meeting in a rarefied tunnel with a woman who’d probably only been a figment of her imagination.

Hmm, maybe even dear old Mom would think this all a little crazy.

"Nova, you're willing to risk so much, risk us, on something that probably isn't—"

"Real?" She pulled out of his arms. "I knew you wouldn't understand."

"You know what I mean, hon." Matt immediately turned conciliatory. "It's all a little…far-fetched."

"Far-fetched or not, it's real to me."

He pulled her close again, nuzzling her hair with his chin.

"Can't you just take some time off, a vacation? I really think that's all you need."

Nova let the irony of his suggestion wash over her as she smiled. A vacation wouldn't cure what ailed her, and it was what had gotten her into her current straits in the first place.

Matt must have read her thoughts, for she saw the look of guilt flash in his slate eyes when he pulled back to stare at her.

"I never meant for anything to happen to you, Nova. Surely you know that."

"I know, Matt." She returned his hug, wrapped her arms around his waist. "I made an amateur's mistake. Don't blame yourself."

"How can I not? You were my responsibility."

"So you're no Stipe Bozic," Nova teased, trying to lighten his mood but immediately realizing her mistake when Matt frowned.

"Stipe may be the best, but I had more at stake than breaking a mounting climbing record." He kissed her forehead before sliding his face down, cheek-to-cheek, and whispering against her hair, "I feel like I've already lost you."

Nova swallowed, unable to speak. She didn't want to confirm or deny the truth of his words. She didn't want to tell him he was right, that he had lost her to that mountain. She had come out of the experience a changed woman; almost dying did that to a person.

"You know how this sounds? Me, letting you run off to another city to look for some stranger you've seen in a vision?"

"I hate to break it to you, pardner, but you're not
letting
me do anything." Nova grinned, tried to take the edge off her statement, inject a little levity. But she didn't want Matt making any mistake about her intentions; she was leaving come hell or high water.

"Nova—"

"He's in danger, Matt."

"
If
that's the case, I don't see how it's your concern."

"I don't expect you to understand."

"I want to."

That was what made this so difficult. She knew he did, and wanted to make him understand but didn't know how or where to start. How could she tell him she wouldn't be able to live with herself if she didn't make this trip and at least try to find him?

Matt diverted her thoughts when he caught her against him, palms sliding up, firm on her shoulder blades, as he leaned in for a kiss. He coaxed her lips open, his mouth tempting and insistent.

She let his tongue in, more out of duty and curiosity than lust and desire. She felt nothing but basic affection, almost like kissing her brother. Nothing like when
he
kissed her in her dreams; nothing like the hot and insistent way
his
lips claimed hers; nothing like the way
his
tongue thrust and stroked inside her mouth, and had her eager for his long, eloquent fingers caressing between her thighs…

Nova just barely stopped the whimper rising in her throat when she pulled out of Matt’s arms, and rather than feeling as if she were being unfaithful to him, she felt like she was being unfaithful to the other—a man she hadn't yet met, whose face she’d only seen in visions. And all she could recall of him were the somber set of his jaw, the sensual tilt of his full lips, and the soulful, tea-colored eyes gazing from his painfully handsome face. Not to mention her other dreams of the man, the ones she didn’t want to think about or mention to Matt; the ones that woke her up next to her fiancé in a sinful state of arousal that had her entire body hot with a furious blush and her pussy clenching and wet with need…need of a total stranger.

Matt scowled. "It's him, isn't it? I'm losing you to a specter?"

"I'm sorry, Matt." She could have told him the choice was no longer his or hers to make, but the resolute gleam in his eyes said it wouldn't have made any difference, that he would not give up easily. His next words confirmed this.

"Don't be sorry, Nova, just be prepared."

She frowned and Matt smiled.

"I'll give you one year. Then I'm coming out there to bring you back."

New York City - One Year Later

Nova anticipated a hectic day of highs and lows as she scrutinized the quote boards, following the prices of several securities in which she had invested for numerous clients.

For the last half hour, she had been on the phone with one of her most important customers, the president of a large technology company, trying to calm his frayed nerves, and was now desperate to get the gentleman off the line.

Her stranger came to her rescue before she came to his. Heat suddenly flared through her limbs, kaleidoscopic images bursting in front of her sight before she closed her eyes tight against double vision. Great, an excuse. Not exactly the one she was looking for, but she’d take what she could get.

Nova interrupted Mr. Nelson's droning in her ear about his fluctuating stock. "I understand your concerns, sir, but I'm going to have to finish this later. An emergency's just come up."

"I don't think you do understand my concerns, Ms. Foxx…"

Nova blocked him out as the warmth seeped up her legs into her abdomen, crashing into her gut like a wave of fire. She sucked in a breath as a vision struck her between the eyes, and she was suddenly at a police station surrounded by uniformed officers, no longer in the confines of her executive office. Then she saw her stranger, her clearest, sharpest vision of him yet, standing across the station floor, engaged in conversation with a tall auburn-haired man dressed in plain clothes. Nova assumed the redhead was a detective.

Was her stranger the victim of a crime, or had he committed a crime?

She guessed she should be glad he seemed alive and well and wasn't in the hospital instead of a police station. Still, police station did not bode well, meant trouble in her book.

"Ms. Foxx, I’d appreciate your full attention, and I don't think you've heard a word I've had to say in the last five min—"

"I've heard you, Mr. Nelson, but I really must go. I'll call you back as soon as I'm free." She didn't waste time explaining further, already resigned to kissing major butt when next she contacted Mr.

Nervous Nelson.

How had the man managed to make millions in the technology industry when he was so afraid of taking risks?

Nova opened her eyes to stare at her computer screen and found it hard to concentrate on reading e-mail when her stranger's face still hovered on the edge of her memory.

She closed her eyes to bring herself closer to the vision, closer to him, her body thrumming with anticipation of his heated touch, the musky-clean smell of him, the heavy solidity of his erection sliding against her slit and taunting her already moistened folds.

God, she hadn’t had one of these dreams in so long!

She preferred these erotic fantasy interludes over the Danger-Will-Robinson nightmares which, of course, was why she had more of the latter than the former. The sexy dreams just got in the way and muddled her reasons for leaving Matt and coming to New York.

Despite this, Nova took a deep breath and gave into the vision this time, stepped into the room in her mind, the room marked forbidden and X-rated, the room where
he
stood, clad in nothing but a pair of boxer briefs and a sexy smile, patiently waiting.

Usually, he was clad in a little more, jeans and a T-shirt, something she could strip off of him, teasing herself lingering over each button before she undid it, slowly drawing the soft denim down his long lean legs until she was kneeling before him and eye-level with that hard part of him that had her vaginal muscles periodically spasming hours after an encounter.

But now, it was as if he was as impatient as Nova to be close, skin to skin, feverish pussy to hard cock, firm-muscled chest to aching full breasts.

“I thought you’d never come, Nova.”

Come…not a good word when she was at the edge of orgasm just being in his presence again, just looking at his broad-shouldered, tall physique. “I…I don’t have much time. I’m at work and—”

“Whatever you can give me. I just want to be close to you.” He closed the space between them and Nova’s breath hitched in her chest as he wrapped his arms around her and she realized she was already naked. His bare warm chest pressed flush against her painfully erect nipples.

He nuzzled her throat, made her shudder in his arms. “Be with me, Nova. Just for a few minutes. I need you,” he murmured.

He sounded so desperate, more desperate than she felt when she had these dreams.

Did that mean something bad was about to happen to him at the precinct? Something she needed to be there for and stop?

She slid her hands up to his head, tunneling her fingers through his gloriously silken waves, and closed her eyes. “I need you, too…” His name…Christ, she wanted him so badly and she didn’t even know his name, realized she didn’t care. She just wanted him inside her. Now.

His cock nudged her abdomen, a constant obvious reflection of her need, and Nova got up on her tiptoes as he bent his knees to bring the tip of his cock even with her slit. He grasped her ass and pulled her closer at the same instant she reached for his generous lips, teasing the seam with the tip of her tongue. He opened for Nova, readily let her in, thrusting his tongue out to meet and tangle with hers.

Jesus, his mouth set her off like a bottle rocket, kaleidoscope stars bursting bright in front of her eyes as she squeezed them tight, bells ringing in her head so loud she thought she would go deaf with the sound of it.

Ringing…bells…so loud in her head…

Nova woke with a violent jerk, glance bewilderedly darting around her office before finally landing on the phone on her desk.

She took a shaky breath as if to test her lungs and reached for the receiver with some trepidation. The "Private Number" readout on her phone made her wish she had some of her mother's ESP.

"Bornstein and Connor, Nova Foxx speaking."

"Hey, Yankee."

"Why, as I live and breathe—Ms. Dakota." Nova grinned against the mouthpiece, re-read what was on her screen, tried to get out of fantasizing-about-hot-sex-with-a-total-stranger mode, and back into work mode. She punched in a series of numbers on her keyboard before hitting "Enter" and sending a response to one of the firm's financial analysts. She liked his latest report and wanted to get together with him later to discuss his research and recommendations.

"Why so formal? We're not
compadres
anymore?"

"We're always going to be
compadres
, K.D."

"Oh, good. For a minute there I thought y'all had gotten up north and turned hotsy-ditty on a body."

"Maybe a little hotsy, but never ditty."

"Shucks, it's good to know you ain't lost your sense of humor."

With Kaylee Dakota, personal trainer extraordinaire, that was hardly likely.

"I miss you, Nova."

"The feeling's mutual, K."

"You know, someone else misses you just as much."

Nova braced herself for the scuttlebutt. She couldn't imagine Matthew Dalton pining for anyone, not even her. But according to Kaylee, that was exactly what he’d been doing for the last few months, since she’d refused to come back to L.A. with him. He’d tried everything within his considerable powers of persuasion to get her on a plane to California, but he’d failed. And short of carrying her to the airport caveman-style, as he’d threatened, there was really nothing he could have done to take her away from New York and
him.

"K.D., you promised…"

"What? I said I wouldn't mention his name, and I haven't."

"Like we both don't know who you're talking about," Nova grumbled.

"Can I help it if you're so extra-perceptive?"

Nova giggled against her will. She could never stay angry with the woman for, as Kaylee was fond of saying, "longer than it took shit to go through a tinhorn."

She loved Kaylee, outspoken busybody or not. The woman had been a great friend to her since their first meeting at the Rock Groove climbing gyms. She’d been a real godsend after the accident, helping Nova get back on track, once she was ready to try out her rehabilitated legs.