DREAM LOVER (25 page)

Feeling a little restless, she wandered outside and tipped her back to admire the star filled sky.  She’d been dreaming of Nic again, something that happened quite frequently, but she didn’t mind because they inevitably ended with him making love to her.  She was just about to go back inside when Nic came up behind her and curled his arms around waist. 

“I’m sorry, did I wake you?”

He pressed a kiss to her temple.  “A dream woke me.”

Rachel shivered when he nuzzled her neck, his warm lips dancing over her sensitive skin.  “I had a dream too, would you like to hear about it?”

“Does it have anything to do with murder plots or being chased through the woods?”

“No, sleeping with you has cured me from having nightmares. This one started out you and me kissing in the gardens.  I dreamed we got married then spent two wonderful weeks on a tropical island where we made love all night and half the day.  Then we came back to the mansion and start refurbishing it with antique pieces that have been in the Covelli for generations.”

“I like this dream,” Nic said.  “Is that where it ended or is there more?”

“There’s a little more.”  Rachel turned in his arms, a soft smile curving her lips.  “We’re blissfully happy and over the course of the year I continue to work on the mansion while you form a partnership and move your sleep study clinic to the Lucisano Research Building.  Then one night as we’re standing out on the balcony, I look into your eyes and say…”

Nic arched a brow.  “Don’t tell me that’s when you woke up!”

“No… I’m in your arms just like I am now and I say,
I love you Nic Covelli
. 
I didn’t think anything could make me happier than being your wife, but even that can’t top having your baby.”

Nic’s heart slammed against his chest.  Everything she’d told him up until that point had already happened; their wedding and the honeymoon, refurbishing the house and moving his clinic to the Lucisano building.  And if all of that was true… then Rachel really was pregnant with his baby.  He was too emotional to say anything, but he was grinning from ear to ear as he scooped her up in his arms and carried her back to bed.  It was nearly dawn before he rolled away from Rachel, exhausted from the hours of love making, but still unable to keep his hands off of her.  Turning onto his side, Nic splayed his fingers across her flat belly, his heart surging with love for his unborn child.

Rachel smiled in the darkness, happier than she’d ever been in her life.  For quite some time after she and Nic found each other again she’d been obsessed with proving that what they’d experienced had been real.  Had they both merely shared the same dream about Rochelle and Nicolo, just as they had shared the erotic nights as dream lovers?  Monica swore she’d never heard of Nic or the sleep study clinic before, and since he hadn’t moved to the research center until after they’d gotten married, it seemed more plausible that it had all been a dream.  Except for one small thing; Rochelle’s locket. 

She could buy into the reasoning that she and Nic had formed some sort of mental link when they dreamed because it explained how she knew what the mansion looked like.  If their minds were joined, she’d see the mansion and the gardens and even Celia in the same familiar way he did.  But how could they explain the locket?  How could either of them of have dreamed about it if they’d never even known of its existence?  In the end, she gave up trying to figure it out because it didn’t seem to make any difference anymore.  Nic was alive, he was real, and that’s all that mattered.        

Rachel inched over and tucked herself in the curve of his arm.  “You never told me about your dream.  Was it a good one?” 

“Oh yeah, it was a good one,” he said softly.  “It was about you.”

She closed her eyes and tried to stifle a sleepy yawn.  “Was it really about me?  Because I’m not above being jealous over some slinky, blonde dream lover.” 

Nic chuckled. “All of my dreams are about you, Rachel, even the ones that happen when I’m awake.”

He pulled her closer in a possessive embrace and held her that way long after she’d drifted off to sleep.  If someone had asked him a year ago what a dream was, Nic would have launched into a speech about it being nothing more than a succession of images conjured up by the subconscious mind.  And if he’d been asked if dreams can come true, his answer would have been an unequivocal no.  But he knew better now; the proof was in the woman who lay nestled in his arms and the child she carried in her womb. 

The love they shared was magical, beyond anything his mind could ever have imagined, and every minute he spent with Rachel was a dream come true.