She put her hands flat on his chest to feel the thunder of his heart beneath her palm. He drew in a breath. Hers shivered out of her.
Of course, they leaned toward each other to kiss.
And of course, her alarm blared, waking her up.
* * *
Butler was late to the morning meeting.
He was never late to work, barring natural disasters or unexpected traffic that hadn’t been reported. This morning, however, he’d been so tired he must’ve shut off his alarm without realizing it. He’d woken twenty minutes late, rushed through his shower, skipped his morning coffee and daily newsfeed reading he normally did at his laptop while eating breakfast. Now he felt out of sorts, wearing a belt that didn’t match his shoes, and a shirt he hadn’t noticed was missing a button.
“Meadows. Glad to see you could make it.” This came from Lasenby with a smirk.
Like Butler was ever late. Ever. What a dick.
“Sorry,” Butler murmured as he slid into the empty chair next to Kacey. She must’ve saved it for him. He smiled at her. She passed him a copy of the notes.
It was barely worth his time to be there, since Lasenby had already covered everything for the week’s assignments. Of course he’d put Butler on a team that was most egregiously behind—allegedly to help bring the team up to speed, but mostly because Lasenby was a jerk who’d decided after the office holiday party last year, when Butler hadn’t laughed at his sexist jokes, that Butler needed to somehow be taught a lesson. It had been all shit assignments since then, along with snide comments on his work, even though Butler had never been marked lower than a nine and a half out of ten in any of his monthly evaluations. Still, Butler took the assignment with no more than a nod, not giving Lasenby the satisfaction of seeing him be upset.
“You okay?” Kacey asked on the way back to their cubicles.
Butler paused to look at her. “Yeah?”
“Well, you were late,” she said. “You’re never late. I wondered if maybe you were sick or something. I hope not. There’s some kind of nasty bug going around. I hope you don’t have it.”
“I’m fine. Didn’t sleep well. I had...weird dreams,” Butler said, remembering.
“What kind of dreams?” Kacey asked, but he didn’t want to tell her.
That was too personal, like revealing a secret. The idea of Butler being some kind of Indiana Jones was embarrassing enough, almost as bad as the time he’d dreamed he’d asked Kacey to marry him. He’d woken from that one bemused and definitely the opposite of turned on, unlike this morning with the memory of that woman still fresh in his brain. The gorgeous, auburn-haired woman, like someone out of a movie. No. A dream, he reminded himself. She was a dream.
“A nightmare?” Kacey persisted, coming so close on his heels that she bumped into him when he stopped walking. “Oops. Sorry.”
Butler shook his head. “No. Not a nightmare. Just one of those dreams you feel like you had all night, and you can’t quite shake. Hey, do you have that coding update binder? Lasenby was supposed to drop them off for everyone, but didn’t get me one.”
“Of course,” Kacey said sympathetically. “He’s got it in for you, huh.”
“Seems like it,” Butler said.
They stared at each other for a moment. Kacey seemed to be waiting for him to say something, but Butler didn’t know what it was. She smiled tentatively, and he returned it, a little confused.
“I’ll bring it by,” she said finally. “The binder.”
“Great. Thanks.”
She stayed there a moment longer, then looked back at him over her shoulder as she walked away. She waved just before she rounded the corner, and still unsure of what she wanted, Butler waved back. For some reason, that made her giggle, and shaking his head, Butler went into his own office.
* * *
The dream stayed with him all day, making it hard to concentrate on the work, which was as unusual for Butler as being late had been. Normally he’d finish every task he’d set himself for the day, but when 6:00 p.m. rolled around and he was still stuck on a piece of coding so simple it embarrassed him not to have completed it, he gave up and shut down his computer.
He went for a run, but that didn’t help. He stopped for his favorite dinner at the local Indian place, but the spicy red curry only made him remember the color of his dream woman’s hair. At home, showered and in bed, staring at the ceiling and giving an occasional glance to the chastising alarm clock, he tried to get his mind on other things, but all he could think about was how close he’d come to tasting her mouth.
Butler didn’t often remember his dreams, and the ones he did have were hardly ever as dramatic as the one from last night. He had the usual dreams about forgetting a test or being naked in public, or the bizarre dreams like the one about Kacey. Every so often, a childhood memory of almost drowning would show up in his nightmares. He’d had a few sex dreams as a teenager, but nothing like that recently.
Thinking of last night’s dream now, though, he was most definitely getting a semi. He remembered how her hair had flowed all around her, how her blue eyes had met his so boldly, the scent of her perfume...something exotic, like roses but also wet leather... The monster in his dream should’ve left more of an impression, but all he could really focus on was the woman.
And terrific, now he was hard as iron, with nothing to do but roll onto his belly and bury his face in the pillow and hope for sleep to take him over. That or take care of it. He thrust experimentally a couple times into the bed, unable to stop himself. He hadn’t been this horny in...well, a long time.
“Shit,” he breathed, rolling onto his back again. Dick still hard. Room still dark. Clock still frowning the time at him—super late. If he didn’t get to sleep soon, he’d have a difficult time waking up again.
He’d suffered from insomnia often enough to know when it was going to win. He got up and padded into the bathroom to take one of the sleep aids his doctor had prescribed for use during the worst times. Swallowed it with a glass of water. Gave himself a few strokes standing at the bathroom counter. Butler liked to jack off in the shower—no mess and easy cleanup, but he’d already showered tonight. And now, with the pill working in his system, all he wanted to do was get back into bed...
Where he promptly fell asleep with his hand on his dick.
* * *
“Well, hello,” the woman said, looking him up and down. It was the same woman, he was convinced of that, though tonight her platinum-blond hair tumbled in curls to her shoulders, and her blue eyes had gone dark. “Fancy meeting you here.”
Butler tripped forward onto a smooth span of black sand. He caught himself, looking down, certain he’d find himself naked and mortified, but he wore a pair of jeans, low on his hips. Bare feet. Bare chest. No belt!
That’s how he knew he was dreaming, for sure.
“This is a dream,” he said aloud but to himself.
The woman’s eyebrows rose. “Yes. You know that?”
“Well...” He passed a hand in front of his eyes, slowly, half expecting to see something like trails of light following the movement. But nope, just a hand. He looked at her. “It is, isn’t it?”
“You know the best way to tell?”
“How?” He looked around at the black sand, the dark purple sea. The sky overhead looked weird, too. But, unlike the night before, nothing here felt scary.
She laughed and held out her wrist, where she wore an old-fashioned watch. “See if you can tell the time.”
“I learned how to tell time in kindergarten.”
“See if you can,” she repeated softly.
Butler looked. The watch looked okay. The numbers, the hands, the glass face. And yet...something was off. He tried to look at the hour hand, but it went wobbly and wiggled. The minute hand spun. He looked at her. “What??
??
“You can almost never tell time in dreams. Or read,” she added. “If you’re ever worried about whether or not you’re dreaming, try to read something. You’re Butler.”
So it was the same woman. “You remembered me.”
“How could I forget?”
They stared at each other, silent and assessing.
“Why would I ever worry about if I’m dreaming or not?” Butler asked, wishing he were smoother. That he had a line of some kind. Did he need one, in a dream?
She laughed. “You never know.”
“This is a dream,” Butler repeated, looking around, then again at her. “And here you are. Again.”
“Here I am,” she agreed with a slow smile.
He returned it. “Hi.”
“Hi,” she said. “So. What do you want to do?”
“I get to choose?”
“It’s a dream,” she pointed out, moving closer. “And now that you know it, sure. You can choose. You can shape it, if you try.”
The woman made an expansive gesture, and a breeze followed that kicked up the sand. In front of them, the beach became a patch of lush green grass dotted with crimson and yellow flowers. In the center of it, a four-poster bed made up with plenty of pillows and hung with gauzy curtains appeared.
Startled, Butler took a step or two toward it. Over his shoulder, he looked for the ocean that had been there seconds ago, but saw more grass and flowers. He looked at her.
“Did you do that?”
“Yes.” She looked him up and down again. “Butler, don’t you want to kiss me? You don’t even have to wait until we’ve escaped from a monster, and I promise you, that bed is a lot more comfortable than the cave.”
He shivered, not chilled but feeling quivery inside just the same. “I don’t even know you.”
“Does that matter? It’s a dream.”
The bed was closer; either it had moved or they had. Did it matter? He supposed not, just that he liked to know how things worked. Butler swallowed. Did he have to swallow? Did he need to blink or breathe, for that matter? It was a dream...
“Butler,” the woman whispered against his ear, sending another round of shivers all through him. Her fingertips trailed down his spine and the palm of her hand came to rest on his bare back just above his waistband. “I want you to kiss me.”
He kissed her.
Sinking his hands deep into her hair, Butler kissed her. Softly at first, then harder at the soft murmur of her moan against his mouth. Suddenly she was kissing him, too, and there were teeth and hands and tongues and the press of her belly against his groin, and oh, shit, that felt so good when she reached between them to cup his cock that Butler pulled her hair by accident.
“More,” she said against his mouth, her hand stroking, stroking. “Oh, fuck, yes. Harder, too.”
And that’s what convinced him, more than the watch, that this had to be a dream. No woman had ever said something like that to Butler. Not ever. He kissed her again, just the way she’d asked.
Harder.
* * *
If there hadn’t been a bed, Mariella would gladly have let him take her on the ground. That was what Butler’s kiss had done to her. And yes, it was a dream and in dreams things were always better (or worse) than they could ever be in the waking world, but this...oh, God. She shuddered at the taste of him and the way he wound his fingers in her hair, pulling, and at how hard he was against her hand.
“This is mine,” she muttered, squeezing and stroking him through the denim. “Say it’s mine, Butler.”
“It’s yours.” He sounded hoarse, voice raw. He pulled away to look into her eyes, and his had gone glazed. His mouth thin, almost grim. He pushed himself into her hand, thrusting. “Please, yes. It’s yours.”
“Kiss me again,” Mariella said as she led him toward the bed, her fingers working at the button and zipper on his jeans, though all she really had to do was push a little bit with her will, and they could both be naked in seconds. More fun this way, though. Slower.
He kissed her, following. When her knees hit the bed and she moved back onto it, Butler crawled up after her. He knelt between her legs, then pushed her thighs apart. But slowly, slowly. And she was naked, all at once, and she knew she hadn’t done that.
Well, well, well.
Dreamers shaped, of course. Everyone who entered the Ephemeros did. The difference between a dreamer and a shaper was that dreamers almost never knew how to change things on purpose, and shapers always did and could change things for others, too. Not only themselves.
So maybe Butler wasn’t just a dreamer. Maybe he could shape, too, and simply didn’t know it. Which would make all of this that much more interesting, though she would figure it out later. Now, all Mariella wanted was his hands and mouth on her. And that beautiful prick she saw peeking out from his open jeans. She wanted that, too.
Butler looked down at her as he pushed his jeans over his hips, where they dissolved into nothing. He stroked his cock in his left hand, slow, slow, palming the head and then down while he bit his lip. His eyes never left hers.
Mariella tipped her hips a bit. “Kiss me.”
And oh, how he did. His mouth found her clit with flawless accuracy. His tongue, swiping. Lips sucking gently. The pleasure was immediate and intense and glorious, and she gave herself up to it.
If her alarm went off, or the neighbor’s dog barked or the phone rang, she was going to break something. Or someone, she thought as Butler went to work, making magic on her cunt. If she woke up before she got off, there would be hell to pay.
“You taste so good.” He slid his hands beneath her ass to lift her to his mouth. Feasting. His tongue moved over her, which was lovely, but when he used his teeth, pressing, it was amazing.
Mariella gave herself up to the pleasure. Riding it. When he blew a puff of hot breath over her clit, the first spasms of her orgasm shot through her like lightning. Fireworks literally exploded over them and all around as she came crying out his name.
“Wow.” Butler’s hair was endearingly rumpled. His mouth, wet from her. The sight sent another shivering round of desire through her.
“Again,” she demanded, and he bent back to her pussy as though he’d been born to eat her all day and night.
Her orgasm crested higher and higher, like waves on that black dream sea that was her infinite entrance point into the Ephemeros. Pleasure filled her, crackling through every nerve and leaving behind the marks of it on her skin the way lightning will scar in a pattern like the roots of a flower. She was made a flower in this ecstasy, unfurling beneath Butler’s mouth and hands until everything was light and wonder.
She cried his name.
He moved up her body and filled her, fitting inside her as though he’d been made for it. They moved together, the bed rocking on what had been grass and flowers but had now become water. Not the ocean, ever rolling, but a lake as deep and clear as glass. Who’d made it, and did it matter? Not to Mariella, who arched against the bed’s flowing white sheets, clutching them in her fingers as she rolled her hips in time to Butler’s slow, achingly perfect thrusts. He shuddered against her, his fingers digging into her skin as he held her close.
He kissed her, over and over, and the pleasure of their fucking was delicious, but this kissing sent her over the edge. It had been so long, so long since she’d had a lover’s kiss. And though they were strangers, when she looked into his eyes she felt as though she’d known him since before either of them had been born.
It was a dream, Mariella reminded herself as she lost herself again to desire. It felt so right because it was a dream. As all of it ever was, every night when she walked this other world so different from the one in which she lived.
Butler cried out, low, and collapsed on top of her for a moment before rolling to the side.
The bed beneath them rocked slowly. All around them, tiny golden fish leaped and flew. Neither of them spoke.
They would sleep in the waking world, after a lovemaking session like that. But of course they were already sleeping and dreaming, so this could be no more than a dream within a dream, Mariella thought as she let her eyes close for a second or so. Beside her, Butler’s comforting weight and warmth didn’t change.
She rolled to face him. “You knew me tonight. Though I look different.”
He stroked a hand down her hair. “How come? I liked your hair the other way. I liked the way you looked.”
“Because I can,” she said. “And thank you.”
“I like this, too.” Butler’s hands moved over her lush figure, the full breasts and hips and ass Mariella had enhanced in this representation. “A lot.”
She laughed. After a moment, so did he. And that was as magic as his mouth had been between her legs, that easy connection.
She touched his face. “Who are you, Butler Meadows?”
Mariella meant in the waking world, though of course he couldn’t know that. She leaned to kiss him again, suddenly aching for that intimacy that was so easy in here and seemingly impossible everywhere else. His mouth was warm and soft. The stroke of his tongue sent a shiver of delight all through her, and she sighed, wishing as she always did that there was more time in the Ephemeros where the clocks never ran the right way and everything lasted both forever and for only a blink at the same time.
“I’m yours,” Butler said.
He was starting to fade. Mariella sat up. The bed rocked. She took his hands, holding them tight.
“Listen to me, Butler. You’re going to wake up, or I am, any second. I’m not sure. Maybe we both are. But I want you to listen... Don’t forget me, okay? Come back to me tomorrow night, if you can.”
He frowned, fingers linking in hers. “What if I can’t find you? How do I do it?”
“You have to wish for me.” Mariella was fading, too. She wasn’t awake just yet, but something was tugging on her consciousness, and soon she’d be thrust out of the dream world and into her big bed. All alone. “Know that you’re dreaming and wish for me, okay? No matter where I am, I’ll feel it. You have to pull me toward you. And I’ll be looking for you, too, okay?”