. . . and she had nothing to call him. Maybe she should just make up a name to call him—
The phone on the small table next to her rang.
An icy chill raced down her spine.
Blowing out a breath, she rose. If her knees had been left weak by those kisses, it was something else that weakened them now. It just wasn’t acceptable, though. She was tired of being afraid of this monster. Just telling herself to stop being afraid wasn’t exactly doing the trick, but damn if it didn’t piss her off.
* * *
THE sudden bolt of fear that shot through him wasn’t his.
All-consuming and breath-stealing, it took Joss a minute to figure that out, though. Hands wrapped around the metal railing, eyes squeezed tightly closed, he slammed up layer after layer of shields, trying to focus past that fear, think beyond it.
It was like trying to move through quicksand.
Finally, though, he managed to get it all under control, and he had that fear separated from his own mind.
Locking in on the source wasn’t hard.
He’d been vaguely aware of Dru ever since he’d laid eyes on her. He’d felt a rippling awareness course through her when she looked at him. He’d felt her dazed arousal as they kissed. He’d felt the same gut-deep recognition, even if she didn’t know why she seemed to know him.
It wasn’t hard to trace this back to her.
The hard thing was understanding just why she was suddenly so full of terror.
And then, just like that, it was gone—like she’d turned off a faucet, the fear was abruptly cut off, and once more, all he could feel was that vague sense of awareness.
Closing his eyes, he tried to strengthen that connection, but he couldn’t. This screwed-up gift was just too new. Too new, and too much. And the connection to Dru was definitely too new.
Sighing, he lifted his hands, ground the heels of his palms against his eyes, sucked in a deep breath. He needed to think about the job.
He was here for that. He wasn’t waiting until it was done to focus on Dru—he could multitask pretty damn well—but he had to focus on the job for now.
The job.
The fucking job—
“. . . a good one there. Too bad I can’t get merchandise while I’m here.”
That train of thought snaked in through the layers of shielding Joss had slammed into place, and slowly, he lowered his hands, turned his head. Tracking thoughts to their owner wasn’t quite the same as following a voice—they didn’t exactly leave the easiest sort of trail.
But thankfully, Joss was used to working with telepathic gifts. Considering how damn young Jillian was, she was a virtual artist with hers. It wasn’t too hard to home in as those erratic thoughts kept coming.
“Look at the ass, damn. Down here with some friends, too . . . would be so fucking easy. Maybe I could figure out where she’s from . . .”
Big bastard. Almost as tall as Joss was. Dark-haired. A friendly-looking sort. Managed to move, unnoticed, through the crowds as he trailed along behind a cute little coed. Joss shifted his position, tracking him, following the man’s train of thoughts, as they all fell into the line for one of the rides. It was in front of a big, old-looking house. One of the many themed rides here. Joss had already figured out there were nothing but theme rides here as he walked around, hoping to find her again.
He had known he wouldn’t.
But something wouldn’t let him leave.
Guess he knew what it was now.
He shot a cursory glance at the sign and pulled out his phone, pretended to glance around.
Don’t pay me any attention . . . I’m just looking for my girlfriend . . . sending her a text, he thought absently, watching the group, watching the guy who was watching the girl.
Even though he was a big, rough-looking piece of work, Joss was good at fading into the woodwork.
So was the guy in front of him.
If Joss hadn’t been trained to notice shit, if he hadn’t been on the lookout for something off . . . and if he hadn’t had that insane gift crammed into his head, he probably wouldn’t have looked twice at this guy.
Nobody else seemed to think anything was off with him.
He chatted with the group next to him. Even chatted with the group of college kids. Although not with the pretty girl who’d caught his eye.