Read Online Smoke and Mirrors by Marie Treanor - Free Book Online Page B

moment was too long. She should have broken it before; she had to break it now. Why didn’t he? Unless he really meant to kiss her? Oh Jesus…!
    From his pocket came the muffled tones of a phone receiving a text message. His eyes acknowledged it, yet still they didn’t release her immediately. Instead, they grew more considering.
    “So what bothers you about these dreams? Why don’t you want to think they’re a ‘second sight’?”
    His fingers slid off her wrist so slowly she could almost have imagined he did it with reluctance. She could imagine so much with this man, as elusive as her dreams and certainly no more trustworthy.
    She drew in a shaky breath, which she hoped he didn’t hear. “Because I’m a realist. I know the difference between dreams and reality.” She took a sizable gulp of the whisky, relishing the steadying pain of its pleasurable burn down her throat. “Do you?” she finished aggressively.
    “Yes, but I can still dream.” Another flicker of his eyes to her mouth, a faint quirk of his lips. “So what did you dream of in my spare bed?”
    She tore her eyes free. “Nothing.”
    “Liar. You just don’t want to tell me. Why not? Did you dream about me?”
    She couldn’t will it away. A flush of heat suffused her body. “I didn’t have any nightmares,” she retorted, but he wasn’t fooled.
    “What was I doing?” he asked softly. “Was it sexy?”
    Oh fuck, yes. And yet even that wasn’t sexier than the real thing sitting beside her, not even touching her.
    “Hardly,” she said coldly, giving him her best glare.
    “Then you did dream about me.” His lips curved; his eyes had grown cloudy, like the dark of some tropical storm. Her pulse galloped so hard she could barely breathe. “And it was. Sexy. I can live with that future.”
    I can’t. She finished her whisky. “Unfortunately, it’s one of those alternative futures that never comes to pass in the real timeline. You know? Like in Star Trek .”
    “How do you know?”
    She set her glass on the table with a small clunk. “Because I still have free will.”
    “It was a serious question. How do you know the prophetic dreams from the ordinary crap that the rest of us see all the time?”
    “I don’t.” That much was complete truth, so she took the opportunity to sit back and look him in the eye once more. His face had changed again. The thrilling, hot cloudiness had faded to be replaced by something much sharper. And yet, the veils were down. He was hiding something.
    He was always hiding something, always pretending, lying. She had to remember that. And yet it was oddly exciting to think that she’d begun to know him, to be able to tell when he was being honest, even if she didn’t know why.
    He probably was being honest about wanting to take her to bed. Most men in her experience would fuck anything not physically abhorrent. And at least when she’d first seen him, she’d taken some care about her personal appearance. Even now, in Anna’s rolled-up trousers and sloppy sweater, she knew she didn’t look too bad, in an ultracasual sort of way. And why the hell should she be thinking about how she looked to him?
    “I wish we were in Zavrekestan,” he said, surprising her all over again.
    “I suppose you wouldn’t be being pursued by the police and drug lords,” she allowed.
    “That’s where you’re wrong. But I said ‘we.’ There’s an old lady in my village—the village where I was born—who could help you with your dreams.”
    “Oh, for fuck’s sake, I don’t need help with my dreams! I can’t help you find your sodding treasure, and frankly I wouldn’t if I could.” She stood up, aware it was more than time to end this tête-à-tête.
    “Even if you knew it was a good thing to do?”
    She jerked around, frowning. “I couldn’t know that, could I? I don’t trust you.”
    His lashes came down. “No, I don’t suppose you do.”
    The phone in his pocket emitted a well-known Russian folk tune.