See You in My Dreams: Speed, Book 1 (16 page)

“The lullaby isn’t just a bedtime song, is it?” She stared at Nathan. “It-it’s more like a…prophecy.” Gooseflesh spread over her arms. For ten years she’d tried to make sense of her dreams, tried to understand them. And here Nathan sat, unraveling the mystery for her. Yet the explanation seemed more unbelievable than the dreams themselves.

A prophecy? Something her gramma had known all along?

“I think so.” Nathan looked as dazed as she felt. “Have you ever heard anyone else sing it before? Apart from me and your gramma.”

Sophie shook her head. “My gramma always told me it was our special song. That almost no one else in the whole world knew it.”

“My grandmother told me the same thing.”

Sophie felt stunned all the way down to her toes.

“Want to hear something else weird? My grandmother never sang the lullaby to Seth or Zachary. She told me it was meant ’specially for me.”

“
Eyes of fire
,” Sophie said out loud, “
heart’s desire
.” A sense of wonder filled her. “They’re your eyes, aren’t they?”

Of course they were. Now that Nathan had sung her the song, it all made sense. The eyes couldn’t possibly belong to anyone else.

Nathan nodded. “And yours. We see them in our dreams. Wanna know what else I think?”

She wanted to know
everything
he thought. “Tell me.”

“I don’t think we’ve just been dreaming about each other. I suspect we’ve been having the same dreams.”

Her eyes grew even wider, stretching so far they began to hurt. It should be an utterly absurd idea. Really, it should be, but…

If they’d been dreaming about each other all this time—something that should be impossible—was it such a stretch to believe they’d been dreaming the same dreams?

“You know how you said you’d dreamed about the bedroom in the hotel suite?” Nathan asked.

Could she ever forget? “Yeah.”

“I dreamed the same thing. And in my dream I said word for word what I’d said to you in that bedroom. I just didn’t remember it until after you told me about yours.”

Sophie’s mind reeled.

What would Karl Jung have made of their dreams? They brought a whole new meaning to the term
collective unconscious
.

Dear God, why was she thinking about Karl Jung when Nathan sat opposite her?

Nathan looked as bemused as she felt.

It all began to make perfect sense—in a totally nonsensical kind of way. And yet something still worried Sophie. “But…but you seemed so shocked. So appalled by my confession.” His reaction still hurt. It was the reason she’d bolted from the suite.

“I was shocked, but not appalled. Christ, not at all appalled. I couldn’t quite believe everything you were telling me. That you’d experienced everything I had over the past ten years. It was, well, astonishing. But at no point was I ever appalled by it. I was fascinated. And perplexed, and…” He grinned. “And very, very happy.”

“You…” An unexpected lump formed in her throat, making it hard to speak. “You were?”

“Hell, yeah. I’ve been happy since I found you in my bedroom. Knowing you share my nighttime fantasies? It blows my mind. Makes me kind of euphoric. Makes
me
crazy too. But not in the way you think. I’m crazy about you. I’m crazy, madly in love with you. I have been since the first time I dreamed about you. Meeting you, getting to know you, has only cemented these crazy feelings.”

Holy crap. Was that the sun? Rising in the living room of Nathan’s rental apartment? Sure felt dazzling enough to be.

“I’m crazy about you too.” Sophie smiled. A huge smile she couldn’t possibly repress. Just like Gramma Rosie had predicted. “Crazy, madly in love with you.”

Nathan pulled her into his arms, crushing her against him. “Thank fucking God.” He held her so tight she couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think.

She tried though. Tried to hypothesize how two people, living on other sides of the world, who’d never met, could first dream about each other and then meet and fall in love.

And then she stopped trying, because at that moment it didn’t matter.

All that mattered was she was in his arms—and he loved her. Nathan James Pace loved her.

“You put me through hell,” Nathan chastised. He didn’t loosen his hold at all. “Running off like that. I wanted so badly to tell you about my dreams and about my grandmother, but you were gone. Vanished.”

“I’m sorry. I should never have left. But I was so scared you thought I’d lost my mind, or worse, that you saw me as just another crazy-assed fan who’d do anything to get into your pants, I couldn’t stay. Couldn’t face the disappointment in your face or the rejection that I suspected was coming. I thought you’d hate me.”

“Love you,” Nathan corrected immediately. “I could never hate you.” He rearranged her on his lap so he could lean in and kiss her. A long, proper kiss, with tongue and all. A kiss so incredibly bewitching, Sophie tingled all the way down to her toes.

“I had to find you. Had to tell you my side of the story.” He dug the clips from her hair, allowing the bun to twirl free and her hair to swing down her back. Then he started on her coveralls, pulling down the zip and pushing the top off her shoulders. “I couldn’t believe the woman of my dreams had slipped through my fingers—and I’d been fool enough to let her go.”

He latched on to her nipple with his mouth, seemingly unaware of the T-shirt and bra in his way.

Sophie arched her back, and a soft moan filled the air.

It came from her.

Nathan may sing like an angel, but whenever he touched her, sweet music filled her head.

“Your boss refused to give me your address, and I couldn’t find your friends at the party, so I didn’t know how to get a hold of you. Your number isn’t listed in the white pages.”

“I know. After my gramma died, I never bothered to relist it.”

“The only way of tracking you down was checking back into the apartments. I’ve finally found you, and I’m never letting you go. Ever. Now that I know how it feels to hold you in my arms, my dreams will never suffice. I need the real thing. I need you.” He kissed her fiercely, the possessiveness of his mouth a strong aphrodisiac to her senses.

His words made her glow from the inside out.

Her hands found his waist and gorged on the satiny skin covering his hard muscles. Luckily he wasn’t wearing a shirt, because she’d have torn it off in her need to touch him.

“You have to let me go. You don’t have a choice.” Her heart stuttered. It seemed to lose the will to beat as she spoke. “You don’t live here. We don’t even live close enough to each other that we could ever see each other.” That had been the whole problem in the first place. Both of them had known their fling was a short-term affair because they lived on opposite sides of the world.

Nathan growled fiercely and tore the rest of her coveralls off. “Never letting you go!” He kissed her again.

She thought to argue. Almost tried. But his tongue was in her mouth again, and his hands were on her now-bare breasts, and it felt so damn good she couldn’t possibly think of a valid argument. She couldn’t think of anything at all, actually. Not until she lay naked on the floor, beneath Nathan, with her legs wrapped around his waist.

She had no memory of losing the rest of her clothes, or of stripping Nathan, for that matter. All she remembered was the fierce hunger that consumed her. The aching, blistering need to get him inside her. To feel him driving into her, making her his.

His cock filled her pussy just as his presence filled the hollow emptiness in her heart.

It wasn’t there anymore. The vacant space was vacant no longer. It was full of Nathan and her, and devoted grandmothers, and dreams coming true, and lullabies promising eternal love.

“Nathan,” she whispered, tightening her muscles around his cock, holding him deep inside her.

He stilled, looking at her with so much love she got all choked up.

“I don’t want to lose you.”

“You won’t, sweetheart. I’ve only just found you. I’m not letting you go.”

“You have to. You’ve got a tour to finish. And a life to live. In New York.” She closed her eyes, trying to block out the pain her words caused her.

Nathan laid tiny, tender kisses on her cheeks. “Come with me.”

Her eyes popped open. “Where to?”

“Everywhere. Travel with me while
Speed
is on tour. Live my life back in New York, share it with me.”

“Wh-what about my life?”

“Continue living it. Don’t stop doing what’s important. Bring your studies with you. You can work on assignments while I’m busy with band stuff.”

Stuff, as in press interviews, live concerts, screaming fans… She almost laughed at his casual description of his work. But her head was too full of all the possibilities his suggestion had evoked.

She could work on her degree while Nathan toured. It wasn’t an impossible option. She could also quit her job. Alana was looking to increase her hours and would happily take on Sophie’s work, so she wouldn’t be leaving her boss in the lurch. But…

Sophie sighed. “It’s not possible. I just couldn’t afford to lead your lifestyle. I can’t even afford the travel costs from here to Melbourne.” She was just a cleaner. Living on a cleaner’s salary. Paying off a student loan. Hoping one day to afford a better way of life.

Nathan’s smile was tender enough to make her heart swell. “I may have played down the Jamie side of my life with you initially, Sophie Rose. But I’m still Jamie Speed. I’ve made more money in the last three years than I could spend in ten lifetimes. It would be my pleasure to share it with you.”

She shook her head vehemently. “I don’t want your money. I don’t want to be your charity case. Or your kept woman.”

“I don’t want you to be either of those things,” he agreed. “I just want to be with you. I want you at my side, so we can share our lives and not just our dreams.”

Sophie’s chest spasmed. “I want that too. But not like this. Not with you paying my way.”

“The money means nothing.”

“To you, perhaps.” He probably didn’t see money in quite the way she did. She’d learned to appreciate the value of every cent she earned and spent.

“It’s about the dreams, Sophie Rose. And the lullaby. And our grandmothers. They knew we were supposed to be together. We know it. Why fight it?”

“I don’t want to fight. I want to be with you. Just not like this. Not with you paying my way.”

“Will it make a difference if I tell you it was Luke’s idea to invite you on tour with us?”

“Luke’s?”

“I was off my game at the Melbourne concert. Couldn’t concentrate for shit. Zachary and Seth were all over me about my vocals and timing. Luke was ready to blow a gasket. Told me another performance like that one, and concerts would start getting cancelled.”

“You’re kidding.”

Nathan shifted, moving his weight onto his arms. The change affected the angle of penetration and made her pussy walls flutter. “I never kid about my voice. I can’t afford to fuck up while I’m singing. Ever. The critics would eat me alive. They’d eat
Speed
alive.”

“What happened?”

“I was thinking about you. Obsessing about you. Wondering how the hell I was ever going to find you again. Luke told me to, and I quote, ‘Go the fuck back to Sydney, find the woman, and bring her back to Melbourne.’ He told me not to bother returning without you.”

“And you always listen to Luke?” A kink developed in her chest.

“When what he says is for the benefit of the band, yes.”

“A one-off poor performance isn’t going to change history.”

“Yeah, but if you’re not around, my performances might never be the same again. I need you around, Soph. Need you to ensure my life is in balance. Need to know you’re with me so I can concentrate on the other things in life too, and not just the dreams.”

Sophie tried to work out the kink, stretching this way then that.

Nathan groaned, and suddenly he was moving again, thrusting into her, pulling out. Kissing her eyes, her mouth, her cheeks. Making love to her.

Kink forgotten, she raised her hips to meet his thrusts, adoring the sensation of him rocking inside her, filling her with his love.

“Travel around Australia with me,” Nathan begged as he thrust into her again. “And New Zealand.” Another thrust. “Live in my world while we’re on your side of it. Let me look after you, just for now. If it works, if you’re happy, we can make it permanent.”

Thrust, twist.

Thrust, groan.

His or hers? She couldn’t tell.

“See if you like it, see if you could do it forever. Just give us this chance. Please.”

Thrust, thrust, thrust.

He pushed up on his forearms, and the change made her clit rub against the base of his cock every time he drove into her.

The sensation was maddening. Exquisite.

An orgasm built.

“We could make love like this every day. And night. We could be together. Get to know each other in the real world—not just in our dreams.”

He dragged his cock from her pussy and plunged back into her, hitting a spot so sweet Sophie saw stars.

She wound her arms around his neck, dug her nails into his shoulders and clung on for dear life as he rode her.

Her clit was a swollen bundle of nerves, and every time he pumped into her, it grew more sensitive. More tingly. So tingly she thought she might scream.

“Come with me, Sophie Rose,” he insisted.

How could she not?

The tingles gathered and burst, exploding through her groin. Sophie climaxed on a loud cry, her pussy clasping around Nathan’s glorious penis. It took long seconds, possibly even minutes for the rapture to peak, ebb and finally fade.

And it was only then she realized that she had not come with Nathan. She’d come alone.

“Nathan…”

“Come with me, sweetheart,” he rasped. “Please. Don’t let us go. Don’t let the dream go.”

She didn’t want to. She wanted to grab hold of their possible future and never let go.

“Join me on the tour, Sophie. Say you will.” He thrust faster and with less coordination. “Need you with me. Need you to come with me. Need to…come.”

Perspiration beaded on his forehead, and his eyes shut tight.