Holly stiffened. “What are shared dreams?”
“They’re just what they sound like, dreams the life mates share,” he said simply, and then seeing her bemused expression, explained, “If life mates sleep within a certain distance of each other, their minds sort of merge in sleep and share their dreams. It’s the only time, aside from sex, when life mates’ minds open to each other.”
Holly sucked in a breath at this news, her mind whirling. Shared dreams? Her wet dreams? Like the one where he’d screwed her up against the wall of a nightclub? Or in a car? Or—dear God, did he actually know what she had dreamt? Was he dreaming that stuff too? Or, she wondered suddenly, was he making her have them?
“You put those dreams in my head,” she accused, suddenly furious.
“No,” he assured her. “It doesn’t work like that. Our minds merge; one doesn’t dominate the other. I couldn’t make you do anything you don’t want to do in the dreams. We are both contributing to them subconsciously.”
Holly stepped back with dismay, her mind racing. Oh God, oh God, oh God. That had to be cheating. It was certainly more cheating than just having those dreams by herself. And he’d known all along what was happening. Dear God, he’d actually been a party to it when she’d invited him to screw her up against the wall in the nightclub, and then in a car, and then—Oh God, he’d laid her out on the table like a feast and then gone at her like he was eating a quarter slice of watermelon. And that was after she’d acted like he was her own personal pogo stick and then tried to swallow his sausage whole on the freeway.
It was one thing when she’d thought they were just her own mind trying to work through what might be a subconscious attraction, but if they were both there, doing those things, even if it was in dreams . . .
They might not be able to arrest you for dreaming about a robbery as a rule, but what if you woke up with the bags of money in your bed? Because she’d woken up drenched from orgasm after orgasm, and she knew from the dreams that he’d reached completion too. They might not have physically touched each other, but they’d had orgasms together and that had to be cheating. Where did one draw the line?
“I’m going to be sick,” Holly muttered, pushing past him to stumble out of the bathroom.
“Holly.” Justin followed, concern in his voice. “Honey, shared dreams are a normal part of being a life mate. They’re natural.”
Suddenly furious, Holly turned and slapped his face. “Get this through your thick goddamned skull, Justin. I’m a married woman. I have a husband I made vows to that I plan to keep. We can never be life mates.”
Whirling away then, she rushed into the ladies’ room to escape him and slammed into the first open stall. In the next moment she had the door locked and was perched on the edge of the toilet seat, sobbing into her hands.
She’d cheated on her husband. She hadn’t thought she was cheating, and her mother had assured her that the dreams she was having weren’t cheating, but they were. They weren’t normal dreams. Justin had been right there with her, in mind if not body. She was a cheater. A slut. A two-timing ho-bag.
“Holly?”
Stifling her sobs, Holly tried to regain control of herself at the sound of Gia’s voice and after a moment managed to sound relatively normal when she said, “Yes?”
“Can you come out here, piccola?”
“No,” Holly moaned, and then had to fight to keep from bursting into sobs again.
“Please don’t force me to make you, piccola,” Gia said gently.
“You can’t,” she sniffled. “You have to see the person to control them.” At least she’d learned something useful the last two weeks. Well, besides the fact that she was the whore of Babylon.
“I can see you through the crack, Holly. I can take control. Please don’t make me,” Gia said grimly.
Her gaze immediately shot to the space between the door and the stall wall, and Holly saw that Gia could indeed see in. Certainly, she could see a sliver of Gia through it. Cursing under her breath, she pulled a wad of toilet paper off the roll on the wall next to her, blew her nose and stood up to unlock the stall door.
“What?” Holly muttered resentfully as she stepped out.
“Are you okay?” Gia asked.
“What do you think?” Holly said bitterly, throwing the tissue in the garbage and moving to the sink to turn on the tap. “I just found out I’ve been having an affair on my husband and didn’t even realize it.” Whirling suddenly, she glared at her. “Why didn’t you tell me about shared dreams?”
“It wasn’t my place to tell you. Justin—”
“Oh, like he’d tell me,” she snapped, and whirled back to the sink. “Thanks for nothing.”
Gia hesitated, and then straightened her shoulders and added, “And because I thought you might try to put an end to them and—”
“Of course I’d have put an end to them,” Holly growled, splashing cold water on her face.
“And,” Gia repeated, “I thought it would be better for you to have them.”
Face dripping, Holly whirled. “What?”
Gia sighed and shook her head. “Holly, whether you like it or not, you are Justin’s life mate.”
“Possible life mate,” Holly snapped. “Possible, but since I’m married it’s not possible.”
“It is when your marriage fails,” Gia said quietly.
Holly gaped at her. “You want my marriage to fail?”
“No, piccola, of course not,” Gia said gently and stepped forward to hug her. Rubbing her back, she added, “But I fear it will.”
Holly stiffened and tried to pull out of her arms, but Gia tightened them grimly and continued, “I have lived a long time, piccola. You are not the first married mortal who has been turned for one reason or another.”
“You mean because they were a possible life mate to an immortal,” she muttered into her shoulder.
“No. There are other reasons. There have been mortals in the past who have saved the life of an immortal, or even many immortals, and who have been turned for their selfless act.”
“Really?” Holly asked with surprise, pulling back slightly. This time Gia let her so that she could see her nod.
“Si. It is very rare, but it has happened,” she assured her. “And in the two cases I know of, the mortals were married to other mortals. Those unions did not go well after the one was turned. The new immortal could read their partner, and even control them once trained. For one of the two new immortals, they could not bear what their mortal mate truly thought of them. It was too hurtful to hear their thoughts all the time.” She paused briefly to let her absorb that and then added, “The second new immortal could not resist controlling her mortal husband and making him do what she wished. He became little more than her puppet, and she hated herself for doing that to him. In both cases, the unions ended badly, and the new immortal had to go on alone.”
Hugging her again, she patted her back and said, “Fortunately, for you it can be different. You are Justin’s life mate, and he gave up his one turn for you. The fact that you have had shared dreams with him proves that you are life mates, and the fact that you enjoyed them so thoroughly—”
“How would you know I enjoyed—You read it in my mind,” Holly asked, and answered, her own question.
“Yes,” she said unapologetically. “And you did enjoy your shared dreams with Justin. You are attracted to him.”
“But I’m—”
“Married,” Gia finished for her dryly. “Yes, I know. And I know you will not just accept my suggestion that your marriage may not now work. You need to go home and see for yourself.” Releasing her completely, she stepped back. “I suggest you do that now.”
Holly blinked. “What? Now, now? Like this minute?”