8. CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 8
O ut of breath, ankle throbbing, Lexi burst through the doors of Club Deux Mondes.
Ten minutes late.
Assuming, since she was still standing there in that universe, the time limit wasn’t quite as tight as they’d made it out to be, and there was really more of a buffer built in, she scanned the scene looking for Margot. Hopefully no one would notice her tardiness and she could slip back in as if nothing had happened, in time for their departure.
No such luck. She saw at once that her cohorts from Taco Shots were nowhere in sight.
Her heart rate kicked into an even faster pace. As intrigued as she was by this world, as much as she longed to explore it, to learn about her prescience, to figure out the enigmatic Gideon Ashe… well, right now item number one on her to-do list was get back home. Underscored twice and circled with pink highlighter.
Maybe the rest of her party was gathered in the study room they’d arrived in, waiting on her. Again. She began a limping path toward the back of the club, when the bartender from earlier in the evening cut her off. “Miss Cross, we were very worried.”
“I’m so sorry.” She twisted her hands together. “It’s just that—”
“Gideon wants to see you. Follow me, please.”
Without pausing for her response, he turned and led her back through the club toward Gideon’s office .
Uh oh.
She followed like she was walking the proverbial plank, and she rehearsed her plea as she went. After all, it wasn’t really her fault she was late, was it? She’d been completely abandoned by Vik and Alana. In fact, she was the one who should be mad, damn it. Screw apologizing. She planned to complain. Because coming back to this world, and as soon as possible, meant everything to her now. It held the key to turning her life around, and if breaking the rules meant she’d now be banned from returning, it simply wasn’t fair. She’d fight for her right to come back. For her right to learn .
Lexi practiced curling her hands into fists and puffing out her chest as the bartender escorted her into the office and then left, shutting the door behind him.
And her well-rehearsed indignation dissolved into wonder.
The office, if you could call it that, was unlike anything she’d seen, and stunningly beautiful, the Architectural Digest version of a man cave. All masculine and warm, the flickering candles and reflective hammered-copper ceiling held her mesmerized. But it was the music that drew her forward into the room, and her gaze pulled to the sight of an elegant grand piano on the far side of the space, on which was being played the most joyful concerto she’d ever heard.
The notes physically vibrated up through her body, moving in a most distinct and discernable fashion from her feet up through her heart, bringing her instantly and overwhelmingly to tears. She fought back a sob, helpless to her emotional response.
Pulled by the music, she crossed the room. Whoever was playing was hidden behind a magnificent chandelier that… no… not a chandelier.
What am I seeing? She wiped the tears from her eyes.
Something rose up out of the center of the piano, from where the workings of the instrument were moving.
What is that ?
She moved closer, her eyes widening as she watched the most spectacular light show she’d ever witnessed. Tiny pinpoints of light, in colors of gold, red, white and purple, swirled around each other in a fantastical display, synchronized with the notes from the piano.
Flowing up and up, dancing as they went, the colors changed, dimming and brightening with the flow of the music, then spreading across the copper ceiling and finally dissipating into the corners of the room.
Where was it coming from? There were no wires or optics that she could see.
Her throat tightened with muffled emotion as she realized that the light and the music were one and the same. And that the creator of both was seated at the piano, completely lost in a world of his own creation, fingers moving with speed and grace, his eyes soft and focused on some inner world of his own.
She took another step closer, and with that, Gideon halted his movement and everything ceased. The lights tumbled back into the piano and disappeared as if someone had suddenly shut off a fountain.
He looked up at her with distant eyes, and it felt like all the joy she had ever known in life was sucked out of her body, and she couldn’t bear to be without that music and color ever again.
“Gideon? Please don’t stop.”
He stood from the piano and walked to her, stopping a chilly foot away.
She tried to remember everything she’d meant to tell him. She knew there were some very good reasons why she, in fact, was the one who should be angry. But her thoughts muddled and mixed, her various desires all vying for prominence.
She wanted to stay, right here. She wanted to go home, right now. She wanted to stop being flung around in life like the damn hacky sack of the gods .
She wanted Gideon to look at her with the same soft expression she’d seen in her visions, not the measured examination he was giving her now.
Frustration rose, boiling up and finally exploding like an old glass mercury thermometer. She straightened her spine, slammed her fists onto her hips, and—
Did she just stomp her foot? She just stomped her foot.
He pursed his lips tighter, fighting to hold back a smile that wouldn’t be fair. Her upset was genuine and not to be dismissed, even if her posturing was unintentionally adorable.
But this wasn’t how he was supposed to be responding to her right now, with a desire to pull her into his arms and ease her distress.
When he’d finished up with the Princeton professor a half hour previous, his frustrations with the night having reached a peak, he’d sent all Taco Shots patrons back at once by playing the reverse tonal music, rather than letting them fade back on their own. Although the artifact had indeed proved interesting, he’d been anxious and testy the entire time. His worries about the portal and awareness of the upcoming fight he’d have on his hands when he announced that he’d be closing it, had haunted the edges of his mind from the first moment of his meeting.
Then the visions had started again, disruptive imagery flashing through his mind’s eye, and this time he clearly saw Alana and Vik seated across a table on this very evening. By then there’d been no more doubt that the images were coming from Lexi. Even as he ran his hands over the ancient papyrus, he finally determined that along with her precognition, she must be nothing more dangerous than an unaware, untrained telepath, broadcasting her brain hither and yon. Even across dimensions, if he was right that the images and emotions he’d experienced before she’d even arrived at his world had been coming from her. A pretty neat trick, he had to admit, for someone untrained. He’d hoped once she went home and got over the emotional high of her evening here, she’d be out of sight and, literally, out of mind.
But when he rounded the visitors up, Lexi Cross had not been among them. He hadn’t been completely worried, because he’d seen snippets through her eyes as she headed back, knowing she was concerned over her tardiness. And she’d been with Vik and Alana, so other than preparing an angry earful for her negligent chaperones, there’d been no need for any greater concern than mere annoyance. He’d waited for her in his office, agitated and restless, soothing himself with his music, planning to question her activities to his satisfaction, to reinforce in her the need for secrecy about his world, and to finally put to rest his interest in her.
Because much to his dismay, he was becoming interested. She intrigued him. She attracted him. And there was no place for that in this situation. No place at all.
Now she stood before him, pumped up with some kind of resolve, chin held high. Foot stomping. Bottom lip… quivering. Oh damn, that bottom lip. He pulled in a deep breath through his nose and remained a statue.
“I know I’m late, and I’m sorry,” she blurted out. “But Vik and Alana totally ditched me. Then I got lost, tripped on the cobblestones, and this old man helped me up, but I guess I kind of freaked, and—”
He took a step toward her. “Miss Cross—”
“—Margot told me that your Philly and my Philly weren’t exactly the same, but I forgot and went down an alley, but there was a monument there and—”
She was flipping between anger and panic, confusion and indignation. He knew this because he felt it down to his bones. Not from reading her face and body language, though her feelings were written there plain as day, but because somehow her emotions were inside him. In his heart, his mind. Osmosis.
It was unnerving. Beautiful. Painful. He felt… twice as much.
Twice as full.
“—I ran back another way, but that wasn’t right either, and I twisted my ankle and—”
She was losing her center, reaching a pitch.
Had he been planning to dismiss her? Send her out of his universe and spinning off on her own to negotiate her unique life without any tools? So selfish of him.
Her pain. His pain.
“—it’s totally my fault, okay I admit it, for not having kept an eye on the timer. I know that. I shouldn’t have been relying on Vik and—”
This woman, so accustomed to apologies, to such needless self-recrimination. She had no idea of her own strength.
“Miss Cross.” Gideon took her by the shoulders, pulling her closer to try and calm her. She broke off her sentence, looking up at him in question.
He thinks I’m crazy. He’ll never let me back into his world. Oh God, his music is so…
His head jerked back as if he’d been slapped. What the fuck? That wasn’t just a flash of imagery or wash of emotion. Those were her thoughts. Word for fucking word. Like a bloody conversation. Gideon was not a telepath; this was all Lexi.
It was true that closely bonded lovers could usually hear one another’s thoughts, often with conversational clarity, but he and Lexi had only known each other for…
Oh yeah, she had power. And no clue.
I wish he’d say something. His eyes, they’re killing me. Green and grey, a perfect storm. I want…
God damn, this intimacy. Like a bloody shot of desire straight through his veins.
His lust. Her lust.
His skin suddenly felt tight, his body far too finite to contain two sets of emotions. He was overflowing. Rock hard.
He stepped closer, his hands sliding down from her shoulders to her elbows as he did so, pulling her to meet him halfway. They stood a breath apart now, his face several inches above, but dangerously close to hers. “Who are you, Miss Cross?”
She had to tip her head higher to hold his gaze. “Call me Lexi.” Her throat worked on a swallow as her eyes searched his face. “Please.”
Her chest rose and fell. Her eyes burned with questions and desire. He felt it all. “Please call you Lexi?” He lowered his head, and whispered near her lips. “Or just… please?”
She blinked those sapphire eyes as he pulled back an inch and gave her space. Then she went up on her toes, rounded her lips in response, touched her mouth to his… and faded out of existence.
Gideon was still staring at the empty space in front of him, one hand touching his lips as if trying to hold the brief sensation of her there, when Vik and Alana burst into the room, both out of breath and white as sheets.
Vikkras spoke first. “Brother, we’ve got a big fucking problem.”