Page 97 of Harnessed in Gold

“Oh,” he says.

“Yeah. Oh.”

A crooked smile tugs at his mouth.

I groan between giggles, “God, I hope that wasn’t my great-great-great-grandfather I saw naked.”

Leo’s smile erupts into a laugh.

“Stop!” I give him a playful swat on the arm. “It’s embarrassing.” I cool myself with another sip of wine. “Well, not embarrassing, really. Just weird. I had him completely wrapped around my finger. It’s like I was some sort of siren or something.”

Leo stops chuckling and blinks at me. “You said you could tell how he was feeling.”

“Yeah, I didn’t have to think about it, I just knew he was sad and lost and that I could fix it.”

Leo’s eyes narrow. “Fix it how?”

Seriously? He’s jealous of a dude in a vision? “How do you think?”

He rises and crosses the room to set his empty glass on the dresser, even though his nightstand is closer. When he turns his attention back to me, his expression is neutral. “The fact that you were swimming isn’t that weird, you know.”

“It’s not? I hate swimming. You know that.”

“Yeah, but water is the element of emotion.”

“So?”

He has his thinking face on, eyes distant, bottom lip between his teeth. “Tell me again why you hate it.”

Just imagining going for a dip has my heart pounding. “When I’m in water any deeper than my knees, I feel completely overwhelmed. Like I’m just waiting for some huge wave to knock me over and drown me.”

He shoots me a meaningful look through his lashes. “You feel like you’re drowning.”

“Yeeeesss.”

“Betts—” He’s waiting for me to make some sort of connection. One, judging by the shine of his eyes, he’s just made.

I mimic him, “Leo?—”

He smiles. “What does it feel like when you pick up too many emotions? Or when they’re too intense?”

For a split second, the world freezes.

Stunned, I breathe, “I feel like I’m drowning.”

“Water and emotions have the same energetic frequency,” he explains. “Water overwhelms you because emotions do. Because you’re clairsentient.”

“Holy shit.” I knock back the rest of my wine.

“And I’ll bet once you master harnessing, you’ll be able to swim, just like you were doing in your meditation.”

“I was like a fish,” I say, recalling the joy I felt in that river. “Completely at home in the water. I don’t even remember worrying about breathing.”

Leo goes still, for such a short beat I almost miss it. Then he asks, “Have you ever swum in a river before?”

“No. That’s the weird thing about it. Only in pools. And the ocean, sort of. That’s it.”

He nods, thinking.