DREAM LOVER (4 page)

He’d tried setting his alarm clock so it would go off every five hours, which should have been about the time she slipped into his bed, but it hadn’t worked.  He’d slept right through the alarm, usually waking to its loud clanging two hours
after
the time he’d set it for.  Changing his sleeping routine hadn’t worked either, nor had visualizing himself with a different woman before he fell asleep in the hopes of at least altering the dream to break the cycle.  As for lucid dreaming, something he’d been able to do before Rachel made her first appearance, he no longer seemed to have the capability.

Nic’s attention was suddenly drawn to the heart monitor when the rhythm began to pick up tempo.  Damn, she was waking up, which meant it would be another ninety minutes once she fell asleep again before she’d hit the REM state.  That’s when he noticed the changes in the readings from the other monitors.  He checked his watch, and then glanced at the clock on the wall to confirm the time.

“Impossible,” he muttered.

Rachel had only been asleep for two hours.  At this point she should be in the middle of the second stage and taking the next hour to work her way back down to stage four.  Incredibly, she was quickly advancing towards the REM again…or maybe she was being sucked down, Nic thought as he studied the readouts.  Eye movement was becoming more rapid, muscle movement practically non-existent, and her brain waves had slowed to a crawl.  She was definitely dreaming.

In all the years he’d been doing this, Nic had never seen anyone go into the REM state so fast, but there was only a niggling of concern because he knew it was too early in her sleep cycle to have the nightmare.  According to what Rachel told Luis, the nightmare was quite lengthy, her death a long drawn out process that ended when her spirit fled her body and entered her lover’s dreams.  Based on the amount of time it would take to get through the nightmare and the…mind blowing sex, as Rachel called it, she wasn’t likely to have anything but a few inconsequential dreams until close to dawn.

Having come to that conclusion through logic and experience, Nic was startled when Rachel let out a terrified scream that reverberated off the lab walls and sent an icy chill racing through him.

                    ***

Her throat was so dry it felt as if she’d swallowed sawdust and no matter how hard she tried there simply wasn’t enough air left her lungs to scream again.  She could feel her heart hammering in her chest, the fear so tangible it clung to her like a second skin.  So this was how it was going to end.  She was going to die all alone in a cold, dark room and the secret she’d carried around inside of her for the past two weeks would die with her. 

They’d broken her, but what did it matter?  He wasn’t coming.  Tears scalded her eyes but she wasn’t crying for herself.  Yes, they’d left her here to die and they’d taken away the future she and Nicolo had so often dreamed of, but there was something they could never take from her; the knowledge that he loved her.  Her tears were for him, because they would rob him of the belief that she loved him in return, and because he’d never know she’d sacrificed her life rather than denounce that love.

She closed her eyes and let herself fall sideways, a little stunned by how cold the stone floor was against her cheek but she was too weak now to do anything but lay there.  She thought of Nicolo and the way he’d kissed her this morning before climbing out of bed and it warmed her from the inside out.  She’d never leave him, never…

Nic bolted out of the observation room and all but ran to Rachel’s bed side where she lay rigid as a stone statue.  At first he thought there must have some sort of power surge that made all the equipment malfunction at once.  He’d told himself it had to be a problem with the power source because the readings couldn’t possibly be right. 

Her heart rate had suddenly plunged, her respiration became barely discernable and brain function had nearly ceased, and yet he could hear her murmuring, so obviously her brain hadn’t shut down as the readings suggested.  He’d turned the equipment off and rebooted everything but the results were the same; Rachel Delacourte was slowly dying right before his eyes. 

Nic leaned over and placed his fingers on her throat, feeling for a pulse and was relieved to find it was strong and steady.  His eyes moved to her chest which rose and fell evenly; further proof that his equipment had merely malfunctioned and that Rachel wasn’t in any danger.  His attention was drawn to her face when she whispered his name but when he saw that her eyes were still closed, Nic wondered if he’d only imagined it.

He took in the perfection of her lips, the high cheek bones, the delicate line of her jaw, her glorious mane of hair, his gaze lingering for several minutes before it slowly dawned on him that something wasn’t quite right about the way she looked.  A few more minutes ticked by as Nic tried to make sense of it, but there was no logical explanation.  He reached down and lightly grazed the flawless skin on her cheek with his fingertips, completely mystified as to how all the electrodes he’d so carefully placed on her head and face had been removed.

It couldn’t have taken him more than a few seconds to get from the observation room to Rachel’s bed side and even if she’d somehow managed to pull them all out, her skin would have been red and irritated from ripping them off.  Is that why the equipment had given false readings?  Or had she removed them before he raced out of the observation room and he just hadn’t noticed?  If she
had
removed them, she had to have done it in her sleep. 

In the dimly lit room it was impossible to tell how deeply she was sleeping, not without getting closer to see how rapidly her eyes were moving beneath her lids.  Nic leaned down, his face so close to hers he could feel the warmth of her breath on his lips.  It was distracting to say the least, but it didn’t take more than a few seconds to determine she wasn’t in the REM state. 

He didn’t want to wake her but without the electrodes attached he couldn’t complete the study, and since there was no way to get them all back into place without disturbing her sleep, Nic didn’t really have a choice.  He touched Rachel’s shoulder, intending to give it a gentle shake when her eyelids suddenly fluttered open.

“Nicolo,” she said on a sigh, “Where have you been?  I was so afraid I wouldn’t find you.”

Nic’s reply was lost when Rachel laced her arms around his neck and pulled his mouth down onto hers.  Somewhere in the back of his mind the voice of reason told him that what he was doing was wrong, that he was taking advantage of a woman who was groggy with sleep and probably didn’t realize who it was that she was kissing.  But the hunger inside of him was too great, the urgency of her kisses too demanding to ignore, and even if he’d wanted to Nic didn’t think he could have given up possession of her lips.

Somewhere between that first passionate kiss and the gentler ones that gradually followed, two disturbing thoughts began to push through his hazy mind.  When Rachel asked where he’d been and said she was afraid she wouldn’t find him...she’d spoken in French.  That in itself was odd, but the real kicker was that he’d understood her, and Nic didn’t speak a word of French, not a single word.

Nic woke with a start, too disoriented at first to realize he’d fallen asleep in the observation room.  Hunched over the desk with his head on his arms wasn’t the most comfortable position, his aching back was proof of that, but it wasn’t anything a couple of aspirin wouldn’t cure.  Letting out a groan, Nic sat up and rubbed the back of his neck to work out the kinks as the fogginess of sleep slowly lifted.  That’s when he remembered Rachel and the passionate kiss they’d shared.

Peering through the two way mirror, he was relieved to see she was still sleeping soundly.  He should have been just as relieved to see the electrodes were all neatly in place too; instead it made him decidedly uneasy because he had no memory of reattaching them.  For all that, he couldn’t seem to recall anything that happened after Rachel had drawn his mouth down onto hers.  He could only imagine what she was going to say about the appalling way he’d behaved and he’d be damn lucky if she didn’t file a complaint and get his ass fired.

Nic rose wearily to his feet.  He might as well get it over with and face the firing squad now rather than later.  He supposed he could claim that he was so surprised when Rachel kissed him that he’d momentarily taken leave of his senses, but they’d know he was lying through his teeth when they got a look at the video.  It would be pretty apparent the
momentary
loss of his mind had lasted a hell of a lot longer than it should have, even if she
had
taken him by surprise.  He only hoped he got to take a look at the video first so he could fill in the blank spaces about what happened after they’d kissed.

Rachel was just waking up when he entered the room.  She turned her head and watched him as he crossed the room, a sleepy smile on her face.  Was it possible she didn’t remember kissing him at all or was the smile because she
did
remember it?  Morality wasn’t all it was cracked up to be, Nic thought as he wrestled with his conscious, because he knew he’d still have to tell her if she didn’t remember what happened.

“How are you feeling, Miss Delacourte?”

“Tired, but not nearly as tired as you are I’m sure.”

Nic started removing the electrodes, stalling for a few minutes before asking Rachel if she remembered anything that happened last night.  She recounted the nightmare, which was pretty much the same as what she’d told Luis with the exception of a few minor details.  By the time she got to the part about dying he’d finished removing the last of the electrodes.

Rachel threw back the covers and swung her legs over the side of the bed before giving him an embarrassed smile.  “I…uh…dreamed about
him
again too.  I guess part of the reason it’s so unnerving is that it seems so
real
, as if I’ll wake up and find him lying in bed next to me.  Only last night…well, it seemed different somehow.”

Nic groaned inwardly.  “Different in what way?”

“I’m not sure I can explain it.  When the dreams first started he…welcomed me, but over the past few months I’ve had this feeling that he was a little sad, like he knew our time together was coming to an end.  But last night it was almost like the first time, like a beginning instead of an ending.”

“Miss Delacourte…”

“Please…call me Rachel.”

“Rachel, I was wondering if you’d like to have breakfast with me.  To talk about what happened here last night,” he added hastily.

Rachel’s heart tripped.  “I’d like that.  Just give me a few minutes to dress and run a brush through my hair and we can go.”

Nic hesitated for a moment before turning to go.  What he really wanted to do was ask if she remembered waking up and kissing him but in truth he couldn’t swear that she really
had
been awake.  And if she’d been asleep…well, maybe it wouldn’t be completely immoral to admit he kissed her but not elaborate on just how long or heated that kiss had been.  And if Rachel asked what happened afterwards, what would he say?  At least that was a mystery he could solve quickly enough.

If Rachel was like every other woman he knew, running a quick brush through her hair meant thirty minutes of primping before she came back.  He wouldn’t need more than ten minutes to search the recording, maybe less than that since he knew what time it was when he left the observation room and went to her.  Nic made a back up disk as he always did after a session then slipped the original into his computer and advanced it to a few minutes before eleven, which was about the time the equipment had started to malfunction.  Nic was still sitting there slowly advancing the recording back and forth when Rachel stepped inside.

“Sorry I took so long…” Rachel’s smile froze when Nic turned around and stared at her as if he’d seen a ghost.  “Dr. Covelli…is something wrong?”

“I’m not sure.”  Nic glanced back at the screen before pushing himself up off the chair, his legs a little unsteady as he approached Rachel.  “I need to ask you something, Rachel, and I need you to be completely honest with me.”

“Of course I’ll be honest, why wouldn’t I be?”

“Because what I’m going to ask might embarrass you, but it’s imperative that you tell me the truth.”  Nic could see he was worrying her and tried to ease her anxiety with a reassuring smile.  “I promise I’m not harboring a tape of you standing on your head and singing the National Anthem.”

“Good,” she smiled back, “because I couldn’t hold a note if my life depended on it.”

“Rachel…do you remember waking up last night?”

“Not that I recall,” she replied, but even as she said it a vague memory began to stir in the back of her mind.

“So you don’t remember talking to me?”

“No, but I suppose I could have been talking in my sleep.” 
Nicolo, where have you been? 
“I was talking to him…in my dream, is that what you heard?”

“In French?”

Rachel laughed.  “Maybe you interpreted my mumbling as a foreign language but I assure you the only words I know in French are what I picked up off the menu at Pierre’s.”

“That’s about the extent of my French too,” he said with a grin. 

“Why do I get the feeling there’s more to it than that?”