Dream a Little Dream

by Sue Moorcroft

  She could feel him behind her as she hurried through the rain and into the house. Snapping on the sitting-room light, she grabbed the faux-fur throw from the back of the sofa, shaking it out as a barrier between them.

  The teddy bear gold of it was like his hair. She glanced at him. He hovered just inside the door, watching her hands, twirling his trident pensively. His cloak hung not quite closed, so that she could see the crease in the centre of his chest. His eyes lifted to hers, full of light. Silver and gold, she found herself thinking. Eyes, hair. He smiled. Slowly, lazily.

  Whoah … fire ripped through her. Old Liza wondered suddenly what the hell she was holding out against. It didn’t matter how many times he butted heads with her over the lease, how much of his plain speaking she didn’t want to hear, she’d spent the last year circling in an emotional desert and he was the only man who’d made her notice that she was thirsty. And she’d really noticed. Now he was offering to slake her thirst. And he was single. And she was single. And he was hot and wanted her. You really don’t know how much I want you? he’d said. And the right kind of flirtatious answer suddenly floated into her mind. The same way I want you?

  What she was feeling wasn’t the wispy threads of desire. It was full-on, getting-painful lust, the kind Old Liza used to feel, only to be satisfied by hot banging sex.

  Old Liza let the throw slide slowly through her fingers and pool on the sofa back. ‘Shall we go up to my bedroom?’ The words hung on the air for several moments.

  And felt suddenly clumsy, badly timed. Before she knew it, damn, New Liza had jumped back in, glancing down nervously, smoothing the throw back into place.

  He cleared his throat. ‘All of a sudden, I find I’m in no condition to sprint.’

  She laughed, but it was shaky. Why had she just blurted the words out when they hadn’t even kissed properly? Panic prickled. She gazed at the yards of carpet between them. She should have offered him coffee. Offering coffee was a ritual with a purpose. It got rid of yawning spaces. They would have been seated together on the sofa – after she’d done something with her stinger and wings – and wafting closer.

  ‘Um, I’m—’

  ‘Out of practice?’ His voice reached across the room like a helping hand.

  Flushing, she nodded, shooting him a glance under her lashes. He was crossing slowly towards her, bringing the hunger in his eyes. He ought to look ridiculous in horns and a tail, but he didn’t. He looked purposeful. Intent. She stood absolutely still, watching his face, uncertainty fading as she read his desire and felt the power that came with knowing that she’d put it there.

  By the time his body was close, her face was tilted up to his.

  Then his lips were soft on hers. Moving on to her cheekbones, her eyelids, questing, questioning, checking that she was OK with him. With them. With what was happening. Was going to happen. Long kisses. Approaching the green light with caution in case he screamed up to it and she switched it suddenly to red.

  The air left her gently, out, out, like a yogic breath, emptying her of everything that was stale and bad. And it was Old Liza who took the next, joyous inhalation, blood roaring in her veins. She reached up to slide her arms around his neck and make their bodies touch.

  He pulled her up against his hardness, up onto her tiptoes, his cloak tangling between them. He scrabbled for the fastening at his throat, yanking, thrusting aside the yards of material so that overheating flesh met overheating flesh, his kisses hot and hard and hungry.

  He was breathing like a bull. ‘I need to get you out of this costume. One of the places I most want to touch you is shielded by this damned abdomen, your wings are scratchy and trying to stick me in the eye, and that elastic looks like it’s just waiting to cut off my circulation. How does it come off?’

  ‘I wriggled into it, so I suppose I have to wriggle out. It’s incredibly tight.’

  ‘I defy it to defeat me.’ He ran his palms slowly, soooo sloooowly, up from her waist, over her breasts, until he could hook his fingers in the banding at the top. ‘Wow, it is tight.’

  The fabric stretched just enough for him to break her breasts free but she had to waste her first deep breath for hours on, ‘Ow-ow-ouch! Something’s digging in my back.’ She began to turn, which, as Dominic had goals of his own, meant her wings dragging across his face, making him swear. ‘Sorry, but it’s really hurting!’

  She held still, while he, muttering darkly about delayed gratification being severely overrated, eased what felt like a small dagger from just right of her spine and coaxed her costume to her waist, his warm hands guarding her flesh from the spiteful wire that attached the wings to the fabric.

  ‘You’re scarlet. It’s been scratching you all evening.’ He kissed her neck, drifting on down to the sore places, licking them to make her first hotter then cooler, as his hands gripped and eased the fearsome elastic tube of a dress over the curve in of her waist, the curve out of her hips. She let her head tip back and breathed deeply in relief at having enough space for her lungs to function.

  He bunched and inched the recalcitrant folds that just wanted to ping back into place. ‘I loved this outfit, earlier, now I hate it. It’s like trying to squeeze you out of a tube of toothpaste.’ Finally, he grabbed and hauled, almost pulling Liza off her feet as the elasticated sheath sucked its way past her bottom and snapped down around her knees, taking her knickers with it. ‘Phew.’ She kicked free, catching herself a parting slap from the stinger. Then hesitated.

  Suddenly, she was scared to turn around to face him. It was so long since she’d had a first time.

  She was naked and he still was half-dressed, though Lycra leggings and a tail didn’t leave a whole lot to the imagination. And nor did his hardness, pressing against the small of her back.

  He froze, too, and it was as if the White Witch of Narnia had turned them into statues. Then he cleared his throat and squeezed her waist. ‘Yes.’

  She found she had to clear her throat, too. ‘Yes …?’

  ‘Yes, I do have condoms.’

  ‘Oh!’ She laughed, relief hitting because, although he’d picked upon the wrong anxiety, he’d known she needed reassurance. Mentally passing his outfit under review, she found herself diverted. ‘Where?’

  ‘Wallet,’ as if she’d asked a stupid question. ‘You didn’t think I’d be wearing one just in case, did you?’ Having allayed what he obviously saw as her anxiety, he slipped his hands around to her breasts, mmming deep in his chest when his smooth hands made contact and she jumped. Pressing against her, he set his teeth gently against her neck.

  Her breath skipped and hopped as he brushed over her with his fingertips, but her mind wouldn’t quite let go of the logistics. ‘So you seriously have a wallet and a phone on you?’

  His laugh was a breath that collided hotly with her nape. His teasing hands trailed down, over hips and waist, up, back to her breasts. ‘You can search me, if you want.’

  Old Liza knew that kind of game well, and being good at it involved taking her opponent by surprise. Reaching one hand back, she slid it up his thigh, over the smoothness of the Lycra. And cupped him. ‘Is it here?’

  ‘Jeez!’ He bucked against her. ‘How the fuck am I supposed to hide anything there?’

  She pressed her back against his chest, liking his heartbeat pounding against her. ‘I remembered that film, The Dreamers, when the guy carries a photo of a woman between …’

  ‘A photo I can just about believe. But a wallet and a phone?’

  She let her hand drop with a sigh of mock-disappointment. ‘Then you’d better show me.’

  ‘It’s boring in comparison.’ He turned her around, stooped, delved in the cuffs of his boots, and emerged with his phone in one hand and his wallet in the other, like a conjurer.

  She laughed as he balanced both on the back of the sofa, released straps on the boots and kicked them off. ‘Boy scout.’

  ‘Am prepared as hell, right now. And getting more prepared by the moment,’ he admitte
d, battling his way out of his costume, evidently unabashed by nakedness or first times.

  Liza hardly had time to feel more than a gush of heat at the glimpse of hard flesh and downy hair before he swooped her up and balanced her on the back of the sofa beside his wallet and phone. Open against him. ‘Whooh,’ she breathed, clinging on to the breadth of his shoulders as the scalding heat of his erection sent shockwaves through her. ‘That’s prepared.’

  His lips moved in a butterfly dance across her face. ‘Getting there.’

  She tilted her hips, hearing his long groan of pleasure as she moved against him. Celibacy was enticingly near its end and she was beginning to want urgency. She’d explore him at her leisure, later. ‘We need more?’

  ‘Lots.’ His mouth made a hot trail of butterfly kisses across her face, then he settled his hands behind her shoulder blades, kissed her hard on the lips, licked her throat and tilted her back so that his mouth could find her breasts. The room wasn’t warm and the draught from under the front door trickled across her body like invisible fingers. But the places where Dominic touched made her blood boil beneath the skin.

  A colossal case of goosebumps whooshed up from her toes and she arched to meet him, excited by the sensation of empty air behind her. The sofa rocked alarmingly but she wound her legs around his waist, hanging from him as he explored her with his lips, his tongue, his teeth. The latex devil’s horns were still stuck in his hair, giving her the sudden wild sensation of auditioning for Rosemary’s Baby. She forgot to breathe. Her entire body was about wanting, wanting him inside, wanting to touch what she’d been watching across the room all evening.

  ‘How many condoms do you have?’ She squirmed and shuddered, leaning back further, harder against him. If he let go of her now, she’d probably get whiplash.

  He adjusted his stance to balance her out. ‘Two in my wallet, three in the car.’ One arm was looped securely around her waist, the other hand was stroking high, higher as his mouth sucked harder.

  She clutched at his arms, digging her fingers into the muscle and sinew that had corded to support her weight. ‘Let’s sacrifice the first. Now.’

  He lifted his head to smile, heaven in his eyes, hooded and heavy with sex. ‘Let’s make it worth the wait.’ And he dipped his head to lick her stomach.

  She rolled her head back and let the wanting build, moving against his hand, his mouth, prevented from taking the initiative by her position in mid-air while he strung her out to whimpering point.

  But then he straightened. ‘Got to … Where’s my damned wallet gone?’ searching urgently between the sofa cushions, until, finally, she had to cling onto him as he found what he wanted. She heard the tearing of the packet as his hands worked behind her back. Then he was smoothing the condom on and, suddenly – inside her. Hard. Harder. Harder.

  Then he got control. Kept it, rocking her on helpless waves of pleasure, lovely and lean and fluid, supporting her, holding her from falling. ‘Good for you?’ His voice was raw.

  ‘Good!’ she gasped. Then was flung beyond conversation as she rose up on a switchback of pleasure. Intense. Teetering on the edge of more.

  She knew what the more was and that she needed it right now. ‘Dominic!’ She ground urgently against him so that he groaned and gasped and kicked up several gears, giving her what she craved, hotter, stormier, until the waves were crashing and wild.

  And carried her away.

  It seemed a while before she floated dizzily back to shore. Catching her breath. Savouring the final ripples of pleasure.

  Slowly, he pulled her upright so that they could prop each other up, damp skin against damp skin, as they remembered how to breathe. She was almost surprised to find herself still perched on the back of the sofa because there had been a distinct sensation of plunging, flying, whirling through space. She ran her lips lazily along his jaw line: firm, lean, just asking to be tasted.

  Dominic pulled her close, as if trying to absorb her, rumbling against her neck. ‘Wow. That was hot. Best ever.’

  And whilst she didn’t actually disagree … she wondered how he could be so undisguised.

  ‘Air Berlin bravo echo romeo three five three five, please monitor tower one two three decimal eight … Topswiss echo zulu sierra five zero seven, pushback and start-up approved to the bravo east line …’

  Liza hadn’t checked the time that they’d finally gone to sleep, but it had been late. They had been exhausted, sated, plastered nakedly together, Dominic’s horns and trident discarded on the bedside table alongside his wallet and phone. She’d plummeted into oblivion, rather than drifted.

  So she’d definitely had some sleep.

  But now she was wide awake because Dominic was talking to the darkness. ‘Jetset Foxtrot Charlie Alpha four three two seven, Stansted delivery, slot time fourteen-thirty, cleared to … Clacton8romeo departure, squawk six four two two … Topswiss echo zulu sierra five zero seven, taxi via charlie holding point sierra one runway two two.’

  In the pauses, she imagined dream pilots answering a Dominic once again seated in the light, high above Stansted Airport, the runway rolled out below the air traffic control tower. She wondered how it had felt to be up there, to understand the phrases streaming into her ears, to know how to work the equipment, to leave no room for error. To live in a world where sleek metal monsters roared up into the sky only when you said they could, like a giant child dictating some complex game of who could and could not play with his toys.

  And how it felt to have lost that.

  She wriggled onto her side, sliding her arm across to stroke his neck and the silky skin just below his ear. ‘Air Berlin—’ The stream of words faltered. She fitted herself to his side and let her hand drift over his chest. It was delicious to have a warm, pulsing, breathing body in bed with her again.

  He sighed and shifted. Drowsily, he freed an arm to loop around her and settle her head against his shoulder. ‘I often don’t sleep well in an unfamiliar bed.’ He was mumbling, almost slurring, but there was a note of apology, as if aware he’d probably been doing something that would keep her awake. He kissed her hair.

  ‘I thought that you’d sleep the kind of sleep that nothing could wake you from.’

  He yawned, began to move his hands over her, gradually wakening. ‘Mostly. Not always.’

  ‘So will you suffer for this, tomorrow?’

  He shook with laughter. ‘Suffer? I might feel sleepier, but to hell with that.’ He stroked her buttock, following the smooth curve from back to thigh. ‘What about you? Do you have to work tomorrow? Today?’

  She groaned. ‘Yes. I’ve got a nine o’clock start so I’ll need to get up in about four hours. But now I’m awake.’ Her hand traced the ridge of his collarbone, over the plates of his chest to the softer flesh of his abdomen, testing the wiry hair with her fingertips. Man. She’d almost forgotten how to enjoy the shape of a man. ‘I do know a great way to get back to sleep, though.’ She twisted and slid her body over his until she was on top, skin tingling as it pressed against his.

  He groaned; a deep, contented thrum. ‘The rest of the condoms are in the car.’

  ‘Don’t need them.’ She began to kiss down his body, flicking with her tongue, down and down.

  And she took a refresher on all the softness and the hardness, the silkiness and the coarseness that was a man’s body. And then they slept.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  PWNsleep message board:

  Tenzeds: Amazing what a difference it makes to energy levels when I have purpose in my life.

  Girlwithdreams: I’ve just read about a diet high in protein and amino acids helping with energy. Alcohol might have a detrimental effect on energy, too … Loading with water might help.

  Tenzeds: Give me a break! N is bad enough without giving up everything good. Wtf really wants to drink water instead of beer? Not even any caffeine involved! I live with someone who only eats healthy. (Sorry. Frustration talking. I know you’re right.)

  Finding
himself in an unfamiliar bed made waking easier and also reassured him that making love to Liza hadn’t been a dream. He fought to stay at the surface, to orientate himself. The other side of the bed was empty and cool. From the bathroom, he could hear the splashing of the shower.

  It was still dark but his phone told him it was after six. Way early. But if Liza was up already …

  He heaved himself around so that he was sitting on the side of the bed, waited for a bit more clarity, located his wallet and, from the zipped pocket now empty of condoms, fumbled for his emergency stash of one yellow tablet, one white. Then he got his legs under him and made it to his feet, checking for balance.

  In a moment he was opening the door into the tiny bathroom, stepping over the side of the bath and insinuating himself into the warmth and steam behind Liza. He tilted the showerhead so that the water slapped him in the face for a few seconds, then turned the stream back on her.

  Eyes closed, she tipped her head to rinse her hair. ‘You’re up.’

  ‘Naked soapy women tend to have that affect on me.’ He pressed against the back of her. Her shower gel was lime, sharp on the moist air, and he put his lips to her shoulder as if to taste it, smoothing his hands over her skin.

  ‘I’ll take you back to Miranda’s before I get ready for work.’

  ‘That’s a big hint that I should stop touching you, is it?’ He didn’t stop touching her.

  ‘We do need to get going.’ But she rubbed her behind against him, which did a great job of getting him going, but not in the way she’d meant. ‘I’m going to spare you the walk of shame.’

  He laughed. But he got it. She wanted to drive out the devil under cover of darkness.

  Twenty minutes later he was creeping into Miranda and Jos’s house. He clicked the front door slowly, carefully – but, from upstairs, Crosswind burst into a volley of ‘Welcome home, boss!’ barks. Cursing, Dominic ran lightly up the stairs to reach him before the racket woke up the household.