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She knew she walked a fine line, but had to ask, “Were you outside my house last night?”
His jaw clenched. His casual demeanor, which she realized had been his way of trying to put her at ease, turned stiff.
Jade gazed brazenly at him. “Do you possess special powers?”
Such as the ability to manipulate images in one’s mind?
He didn’t say anything for a long spell, which added to her apprehension. She was stepping all over protocol, she was sure. Stomping on it, actually. But she needed to know the truth. Couldn’t live another day without it, so what the hell?
She threw caution to the wind and took several steps toward the king. “Please,” she said in as much of a non-assuming voice as she could muster. “I’m not being impertinent. I saw tracks on the opposite bank of the river where my cottage sits. I heard a horse last night when I came out of the tavern. I know something…or someone…follows me. Is it you?”
Darien slipped from his perch on the desk and stood, towering over her. Panic snaked through her insides, but Jade didn’t back away.
“By your own command,” she dared to say, “I have the right to know if I’m being tracked.”
He glared at her, but her feet remained rooted where they were. Her heart hammered as she stood mere inches from the magnificently built man who’d made love to her the previous evening in her dream.
No, he’d done so much more than make love to her. He’d turned her world upside down by proving what true passion and desire were all about. But how had he accomplished such a life-altering feat?
An alarming thought suddenly occurred to her. “Can you read minds?”
“On occasion.”
Her jaw fell slack. Oh boy, that was the last thing she needed to hear.
Composing herself, she asked, “What sort of occasions?”
His expression was grim as
he said, “If you think I’ve been reading yours, you’re wrong. At least, not in a long time, as a rule.”
“Not last night?” she asked.
“That would be the exception.”
Jade’s body tensed, for all the wrong reasons. A forbidden thrill chased away her panic, once again leaving her all too aware of the sinfully delicious man standing before her and the wonderful way in which he’d pleasured her.
“I had a dream about you,” she said, suddenly breathless. “A man I’d never met. And yet the image in my head was true to form.”
“I did that,” he admitted, though his dark features hardened, as if he was tormented by his confession—or the fantasy they’d woven. “I can control the visions in a human’s mind, though I don’t do it on a regular basis. I don’t read your thoughts in particular because they’re…extremely painful.”
He turned away.
Jade stared at his broad shoulders and wide back. Last night, he’d given her a very good idea of what it was like to be naked with him, and her body ached with the reminder. And the yearning to have him fulfill all her burning needs in reality.
But she was balancing on the tip of a sword with her errant thoughts. The fact he wouldn’t tap her brain because of the usually insidious and grisly memories that haunted her was a relief, yet he’d still crossed a human boundary by hijacking her dream.
“You knew I was thinking of Michael and you insinuated yourself into my subconscious mind so I wouldn’t fantasize about him.” Another revelation hit her. “It was you outside the tavern. When he was about to kiss me.”
His impossibly large shoulders visibly bunched beneath the black shirt he wore.
Facing her again, Darien said, “He hurt you once before. I don’t want it to happen again.”
She took a step back as uncertainty skittered through her. “How do you know so much about me if you’re not in my head, as you claim? And what does my relationship with Michael have to do with any of this? We’re getting completely off track. None of this makes sense. All I want to know is—” The big picture suddenly appeared before her. “You are stalking me.”
“Yes,” he finally conceded. “In various capacities.”
“How many can there be?” she demanded, incredulous.
