Page 41 of The Diamond in the Rough

“Real life?” I repeated.

I had to pretend I was a part of his dream. That I wasn’t the one whose mind had formed the landscape around us.

I could hear water gurgling, but I couldn’t take my eyes offhis face, the play of light and shadows over his features as the wind ruffled his hair.

Another laugh, soft. Unfiltered. Un-self-conscious.

I wanted to hear him laugh like that outside of the dream world.

He reached out and brushed a strand of hair back, tucking it behind one of my ears, sending a tingle through my entire body.

“Yeah,” he said, and it took me a second to realize that he was answering my supposed question about real life. “You know, real life. At work. Where we’re working on a murder case, not going for walks out in nature.”

“Do you like to go for walks out in nature?” I asked him.

Another smile. “I do. Obviously, or this wouldn’t be in my head.” He looked around. “Not sure where this specific place came from, but—” He shrugged. “I’m also not usually aware of my dream as a dream, either. But the human mind is weird.”

“It is,” I agreed.

Except that this was my mind, not his.

This was wrong.

“So tell me,” he said, stepping even closer—close enough that I should have been able to feel the heat coming off his body, but, of course, neither one of us was actually here. “What are you doing in my head?”

Horror hit me. He knew. He had to know.

Around us, the wind kicked up, and Raj laughed. “I guess you have me pretty worked up.”

“I do?”

He had me worked up. But I couldn’t tell him the wind was my psyche, not his. I didn’t dare.

“Yeah,” he said, reaching out and running a hand through my hair. My breath caught.

Nobody ever touched me.

But he just had.

And I wanted him to do it again.

“Is that okay?” he asked softly.

I nodded. It was more than okay.

His hand slid around behind my head. “This?”

I nodded again.

And then he kissed me.

And I panicked.

I don’t know what happened to Raj when I shoved us both out of the dream—if he woke up, or if he kept dreaming about something else, or if he kept dreaming about us, but it really was him in control of the whole thing.

I just… I had no idea what to do.

It wasn’t that I hadn’t wanted him to kiss me.