Chapter Fifteen
Cady lay on an unfamiliar bed, under a canopy of white silk, sheer enough to see the stars through. Hard, gray stone covered the floor, worn smooth from years of exposure to the elements in the open air boudoir. Pillars sheathed in the same stone marked the edges of the platform, and there were stone stairs visible below, stretching impossibly far. The bed itself was draped in black satin and crepe, a mound of pillows propping her up in a semi-reclined position.
She wore something gauzy and filmy that stirred with the breeze, only barely covering her body. Despite the height and the open air, Cady wasn’t cold, but the sudden press on the bed made her shiver. Reclining beside her was a man, both familiar to her and not. Clad in black satin pajama bottoms and nothing else, he gave her a crooked smile. Tattoos marked his shoulders and arms, heightening the bulge of muscles there with a burst of color. But despite the fighter’s body he didn’t look at all brutish.
“You,” she breathed, unable to shake the idea that she’d met him before.
His smile stretched wider. “As you made me.”
As she’d made him… it reminded her of a dream, though she couldn’t quite recall all the details. Was she dreaming now?
The man leaned forward, his eyes focused on her lips. “Do you accept me?”
Her hand came up to press against the wall of his chest. “Not so fast, I don’t even know you.”
“You know me.” Her light touch stopped him, but his neck craned, lips seeking her skin. “You’ve felt me above you before.”
“I don’t think so.” She dodged the kiss, pressing more firmly. “I’m pretty sure I would have remembered that.”
He chuckled, the sound reverberating around them like a cloud. “I could show you, if you like. Perhaps that might jog your memory?”
“Maybe some other time.” Cady scooted away from him to sit on the edge of the bed, peering over the edge of the platform to where the stairs disappeared into nothingness.
“Is this not romantic enough for you?” He frowned, propping his head up with one hand.
“It’s beautiful,” she admitted, pulling her knees up to her chest as she found the skimpy top of her negligee too see through for her tastes. “But it feels a little like a Bugs Bunny cartoon. You know, that one with the opera music before it gets to the Kill the Wabbit part.” His head canted to one side, clearly confused by her reply, and she shrugged. Maybe he’d never gotten into classic cartoons the way she had.
The sky above looked swollen and bruised, choked with inky clouds as if it might rain at any second, cloaking the moon in velvety darkness. Hadn’t it been clear and starlit just moments before? “I don’t think we should be up here if it starts to storm. We might get struck by lightning.”
“No harm will come to you here, I promise you that.” He slid across satin sheets to press a kiss to her bare shoulder and Cady shivered again, gooseflesh covering her skin. “I only want to know you,” he purred, the words teasing the edge of her memory.
“No, you only want to do me. God, even in my dreams guys only want one thing,” she muttered in disgust before the realization struck. If this was a dream, that meant she had control of it too. The roiling night sky was quickly replaced with pale blue, the sun blazing overhead. The silken bower disappeared and the rolling green of a public park came into view, a wooden bench beneath them instead of the soft bed.
A groan came from the man by her side. “This place again,” he muttered. “Your fascination with it escapes me.” The black pajama pants were gone, replaced by jeans and a t-shirt that strained to fit around his biceps.
It struck Cady that he really did seem familiar. “We have met before, haven’t we?”
“More than you know.” In the direct sunlight she could see just how blue his eyes were, and the pucker of a scar on his forehead.
“There’s something about you…” she sighed, giving up on placing it. “But you’re not real, are you?”
“How do you mean?”
“This is just a dream.”
“How can you be sure?” The lopsided smile was back, and she could see his bottom teeth were crooked. Her kryptonite, and pure proof that it had to be a dream.
“Because if this were real life I wouldn’t be talking to a guy like you.”
“Why not? Am I not pleasing?”
“That’s not what I mean. I’m done with men, especially ones that seem too good to be true.”
He didn’t lose his smile. “If that’s what you prefer…” The air around him shimmered, and he morphed into a stunning woman with long, dark hair and a body made for sin. Not that she’d ever had leanings towards the same sex, but the woman was tempting enough to almost make her consider it.
“Whoa,” Cady gasped. “This is one freaky dream.”
“Don’t you like this form?” The woman’s hand slid over supple curves to edge toward her knee and Cady scooted back six inches.
“It’s great, but… when I said I was done with men, I didn’t mean…”
“Ah, I understand,” she nodded pleasantly, changing back to his original form. “Is this better?”
“I guess so.” Cady felt oddly off balance, though he hadn’t moved any closer to her even after she pulled away. What was she so jumpy about?
“You like this body?” Muscles bunched and flexed, drawing her eyes.
“It’s a nice body alright,” she admitted, and he leaned forward, capturing her gaze with his.
“You want me, don’t you?”
It was so over the top, such an attempt at “bedroom eyes” that it had the opposite of its intended effect. “God, what a line,” she laughed. “You ought to be careful, if your head swells any bigger you’ll fall over.”
His brows drew together into a single line. “I don’t understand it. How can you resist my charms?”
“Hey, don’t take it personally,” she sobered. “It’s not that I don’t find you all kinds of sexy. Maybe if I wasn’t so...”
“So what?” He leaned forward eagerly, hanging on her every word, but she didn’t have the words to explain why she couldn’t let go.
“I don’t know. Like I said, this is a weird dream. I can’t usually tell I’m dreaming when I’m in the middle of one.”
“Then if I were to sweep you off your feet?”
His hopeful expression made her laugh, the vulnerability there relaxing her. “I don’t know, maybe. But, fun and games aside, I’ll be honest with you. I’m not into sex without love. I’ve seen what it does to people up close and personal. It’s not for me.”
“Love?” he blinked, as if she’d said a foreign word.
“Yeah, you know – love is all you need, love makes the world go around, love is the answer – all that good stuff.”
“I don’t see what one has to do with the other.”
“Hence, another reason why we’re not going at it right now.” She nudged his shoulder with her elbow.
He fell silent for a few minutes, processing that, or possibly thinking about baseball, it was impossible to tell. The sky above darkened as clouds gathered, and Cady frowned, the sun returning after a few seconds of concentration. When he spoke again, it startled her, she’d been so intent on her task. “Tell me about love.”
“Tell you about love?” She let out a long breath. “Where do I begin? Love is… all encompassing. You feel it not just with your heart, but all the way down to your toes. It’s dizzying and electric, exciting… there’s nothing else like it.” Cady paused for a breath, gratified to find him hanging on her every word. “You can’t think, can’t eat, can’t sleep, can’t do anything without wanting to be near the one you love. You’d do anything for that person, no matter what it costs you.”
“Sounds unpleasant.”
The disgruntled expression on his face made her laugh. “It can be, but mostly it’s the closest we come to magic.”
“It sounds so
… vulnerable.”
“Sometimes, but that’s what makes us human, right? Besides, if you’re lucky, that other person loves you right back, and then it’s all worth it.”
“And what if they don’t love you back?”
Her thoughts turned to Ethan and the sting of his rejection. Was that love? It was too fleeting, she barely knew him. But there was something, or at least the potential for something.
“I didn’t mean to upset you,” he said softly, when she didn’t reply.
“It’s fine. Caring about someone and not having them care about you does suck. It can be really lonely.”
“I know about loneliness.”
“You do?” It struck her that he had a lot of idiosyncrasies for a dream lover.
“I do. I’ve always been apart. I know what obsession tastes like, but not love.”
A curious way of putting it. “Well, hang in there, maybe someday you’ll find it.”
“Could you love me?”
The question caught her off guard. “I… this isn’t real, this is only a dream.”
“All dreams have a seed of reality to them. Were I to come to you in the world, would you love me then?”
“I don’t know, you seem very nice. But I guess I’d have to get to know you better.” God, what a weird dream.
“Know you better than this?” he doubted, head tilting to one side. “I already know all I need to.”
“You know, love at first sight doesn’t really happen,” she laughed. “I don’t know anything about you. Where you’re from, what your name is, what kind of beer you like to drink, if you have brothers and sisters.”
“All that is necessary for love?”
“Not all of it, I guess, but it helps.”
He fell into silence again, and Cady turned her attention to the kids playing in the park.
“Who do you wait for?” he asked after a while.
“What? Who says I’m waiting for anyone?”
“You come here and sit. Last time there was food, but you didn’t eat. What are you waiting for?”
“I… don’t know, I like this park. I used to come here as a kid with my brother and my father.”
“And the food?”
“It’s a picnic. Or it was supposed to be.” She shook her head. “It’s stupid.”
“Tell me.” His voice was gentle as he touched her chin, drawing her gaze to his, and Cady found herself unable to look away.
“We were supposed to meet for a picnic. I packed a huge amount of food, but you should have seen how much Ian and my dad could put away. Anyway, Ian was here, but definitely more interested in a blonde nanny by the playground than hanging out with me. I didn’t care though, it was a gorgeous sunny day, and I found a nice shady spot under that tree,” Cady pointed.
“I waited and waited, fending off attacks from ants and yellow jackets, but Daddy didn’t come. Eventually I fell asleep, I guess. Finally, Ian remembered me and woke me up, helped me pack things up to go home. We weren’t that worried, because he had to work crazy hours all the time, being a cop. But he didn’t come home that night either, and he didn’t answer his phone.
The next morning we had a visit from the Captain. He’d been shot and killed the night before.” It didn’t hurt to say the words anymore, nearly ten years had passed, but they still made her sad, reflective.
“Why would you wish to return here?”
“That was the last afternoon I had where I hoped to see him again. Sometimes, he comes back, in my dreams. We sit and talk, eat the food I brought. He calls me Cady-bear and yells at Ian to stop sniffing after that girl and come join the party. That’s why I still come here.”
“Doesn’t it bother you that it isn’t really your father?”
“I don’t know, most of the time I’m not conscious of the fact that I’m dreaming, I’m not analyzing it as I go. Mostly I just find it comforting. Besides, maybe it is him, in a way, coming to me in my dreams.”
“No, he isn’t here. He’s moved on.”
“You sound pretty sure of yourself.”
“I am, I would have felt him lingering,” he said with absolute conviction.
“Um… okay,” she replied, not sure what to say to that.
“I could comfort you,” he offered out of the blue, and she smiled, patting his hand.
“You already are, in a way.”
“I could make you feel much, much better.” His fingers turned her hand over, lightly tracing the lines that crossed her palm.
“I told you, I don’t um…” It was hard to form words when his fingers grazed up the inside of her wrist, circling the butterfly tattoo before continuing up towards her elbow.
“But as you say, this is only a dream.”
“That’s true…”
“So where is the harm?” He smiled that crooked smile, devoid of the smarmy come on, and she found it particularly difficult to resist.
“I, um…” Cady licked her lips, trying to find the right words. What were her objections again?
“Do you accept me?” He closed the distance between them, eyes focused on her lips, and this time Cady didn’t move away. She let him kiss her, his lips surprisingly full and soft. If he’d pressed for more she might have shied away, but he seemed content to continue the slow, drugging kiss. Fingers brushed across the curve of her neck, following the collar of her shirt, and electricity danced across her skin in their wake. “Do you accept me?” he whispered against her lips, and Cady made a sound, something between a yes and a no. She hardly knew what she wanted anymore.
It was a dream, where was the harm?
“Do you accept me?” His voice reverberated through her mind, though his lips were busy.
“Yes.”