by Sofia Grey
A thrill bubbled in the pit of my stomach. This was so unlike me. Not only was he a complete stranger, but also completely out of my league. Six foot tall Adonis’ didn’t make a beeline for me. They paired up with Barbie dolls, in my experience, or cover-model look-alikes. My nose was a little too big, my freckles too ginger, and my hair a dull brown. I was spectacularly ordinary.
Levi squeezed my hand, and caught my attention. “How big is this place?”
His voice scrambled my thoughts, and it took me a moment to respond. “I read somewhere, there’s three miles of covered walkways, with all the shops and cafés.”
He gave a low whistle. “You could walk the length of Wellington in less than that.”
“And you’d stay dry here.” I glanced up at him. “And out of the wind.”
This drew a laugh. “You’ve got me there.” We strolled another couple of steps before he spoke again. “You like it here? With all these people?”
“It’s one of my favourite places to shop. There’s nothing like it in New Zealand.”
“No, there isn’t.” He tugged me to a stop, and I peered up at him. “It doesn’t have this though.”
Chapter Five
I blinked, and everything changed. Instead of pretty tiles beneath my feet, there was now forest floor. Giant trees formed a dense canopy high over my head, lush vines twined around a nearby branch, and sunlight filtered through the treetops. It was noisy. A myriad of birds called and chattered, as they flitted above us.
Levi held my hand still, and I slowly turned to him. “Are we in the jungle?”
His eyes crinkled in the corners when he laughed. “No, it’s the Rimutakas.”
I recognised the name—the mountain range north of Wellington. I’d driven through the area, but it hadn’t looked anything like this.
“We’re well off the beaten track,” he continued. “Few people have ever walked this path.” He eased me closer, and then turned me to stand with my back against him, his hands caging my hips. “This is one of my favourite places.”
I breathed in the scents of the forest, and gazed at the scenery. I’d never seen anything so wild, so prehistoric. I half expected a dinosaur to amble into the clearing. “It’s beautiful,” I said.
Levi rested his chin on my shoulder. “So are you.”
It was just a line, I knew that. I also knew it was a dream. In the real world, hot guys like Levi didn’t look twice at me. I determined to enjoy the moment, and when his hands shifted to rest on my stomach, I leaned back into the embrace.
His chest was firm, his abs flat and hard, and warmth poured from his body. He smelled good, of pine and green leaves, with a salty tang, as though he’d been standing in the sea. Delicious. Could he be any more perfect?
I yawned, my eyelids growing heavier by the second. “This is nice,” I murmured. “I hope I dream of you again, Levi.”
“You will, gorgeous. Look out for me.”
****
I opened my eyes to find we were circling above Bangkok. The next hour was a flurry of leaving the plane, and traipsing through the airport to my connecting flight. Every step taking me closer to home.
I looked forward to seeing my family, and my dog, Charlie. He’d been my best friend since I was seven years old. In my head he was still a bouncy, lop eared puppy, intent on chewing my shoes and school bag at every opportunity. He was now a grizzled, grey-haired pensioner, in dog terms, but Mum assured me he was still fine. I’d missed him. It would be good to take him for a long walk in the woods near home.
In a flash, I remembered. Walking through an ancient forest with Levi. I couldn’t help smiling. My subconscious had obviously been hard at work, mixing together a hot guy, and the weird talking dog, and throwing them together into a colourful dream. It had been so real. I’d felt the springiness of the forest floor, heard the raucous birds, and smelled the mossy, green-leaf fragrance all around me.
The dog couldn’t have been talking to me. That was crazy. I must have been over-tired. Stressed. I’d had a moment of madness where I’d released a dog from the pound, and then taken it home. I’d been out in the sun too long.
****
The flights finally over, I stumbled down the exit corridor at Manchester Airport. The past thirty-six hours all merged together and it was only when I stepped into the Arrivals hall that I realised it was daytime. To me it felt like the middle of the night. My sleep patterns would be screwed for days.
I hugged Mum and let her welcoming chatter wash over me as we headed for the car park. “Sorry.” I smiled while fighting another massive yawn. “It feels like I haven’t slept in days. I’m convinced any minute I’m going to wake up and find myself back on the plane.”
“You doze on the way home, love. We’ve plenty to catch up on, but it can wait until you’ve rested.”
I’d emailed home every few days, Skyped weekly, and talked on the phone a few times. There wouldn’t be any big news that I hadn’t heard already. I knew about my cousin Sheryl’s upcoming wedding, my friend’s new baby girl, and that Jack Harper had stepped up his campaign to buy my dad’s shop. What else could there still be to tell me?
I’d crushed on Jack for years, ever since school. I had a succession of pencil cases with our initials doodled on the outside. Jess and Jack—it sounded good. Mrs. Jess Harper had a nice ring to it. Only trouble was, he’d never seen me that way. To him, I was the shy, pig-tailed girl at the front of the class, while he hung in the back row with the cool kids. On the rare occasions he spoke to me, I either babbled like a lunatic on a full moon, or lost my tongue completely.
My big hope was that twelve months of living thousands of miles from home, would have made me interesting in his eyes.
When the steady movements of the car lulled me asleep, I thought briefly about Jack.
But it was Levi who greeted me in my dream.
Chapter six
“Hey. There you are.” Looking exactly the same as in my previous dream, Levi pushed himself away from the wall he leaned on, and stepped to my side. “We haven’t finished the tour yet.”
“Tour?”
White teeth flashed in a beguiling grin. “Three miles of shops.” He spread his arms, and then hooked both thumbs in his pockets. “We haven’t walked one mile yet, let alone three.”
We were back in the Trafford Centre. The same wooden bench.
“This feels a little like déjà vu,” I murmured. “Haven’t we been here before?”
“Yep. You said we were going to see a tree, and then I distracted you.”
I had to smile. “I think your tree was better than mine.”
“Yeah?” He held out a hand. “Where else should we go then?”
He was difficult to resist. I didn’t demur when he laced our fingers together. The excited thumping of my heart softened at his touch, and like last time, he smelled divine. “I like dreaming about you, Levi.”
“Same.” He cocked his head to one side, and sniffed the air. “Hang on. Can you smell popcorn?”
I shrugged. “The cinema is just down the mall. We could get some, if you like?”
“Really? I love popcorn. What are we waiting for?” He tugged my hand and with a giggle, I let him sweep me along. “Do you live near here?”
“Not too far. I live in a suburb called Stockport.”
We queued up with the movie-goers, and inched closer to the busy popcorn dispenser. The questions continued, tossed so quickly I couldn’t reply to them, before he asked the next.
How long had I spent in New Zealand? Why had I gone there? Would I go back? What did I usually do at Christmas? Did I have a boyfriend? Did I have a big family?
I couldn’t help laughing, and he turned to me, a quizzical look on his face. “What?”
“I don’t know what to answer first.”
The part of me that recognised this was a dream, noted that we were no closer to the front of the line than we’d been a minute ago. The rest of me didn’t care. I buzzed with the thril
l of his attention, utterly enthralled by the novelty of having him by my side. People moved around us, endlessly shifting, like the incoming tide, and we stood still in the centre of it all. I stared at his face, wondering again about the brilliance of his eyes, the devilment in his smile. How would it feel to kiss him?
It wouldn’t be real.
He doesn’t exist outside my dream.
Unthinking, I licked dry lips and saw his gaze focus on them.
“The boyfriend question.” Levi’s voice rumbled, deeper and even more dangerous. “Answer that one first.” He leaned forward, and placed his hand on my arm.
“Here we are, love.”
I opened my eyes to see Mum’s smile. Where was Levi? I blinked and the world reasserted itself. We’d parked on the street outside our house. I’d been asleep in the car. It had been Mum touching my arm. I’d never been jetlagged before, never travelled far enough to cross several time zones in one journey, and now I understood why people hated it. I felt disoriented, as though I’d really been there at the Trafford Centre, and had been dragged back to wake here.
I yawned, and then got my ass moving. Grabbing my bags from the car, I followed Mum up the path to the neat brick terrace house where I’d grown up. A typical Victorian build, it may have been narrow, but it was deep, and spacious inside. Everything was familiar, from the untidy heap of shoes by the door, to the fridge full of homemade food. I’d enjoyed travelling, but it was good to be home.
Checking the time, it was only two in the afternoon. Dad wouldn’t be home for ages, and Charlie with him. That was one advantage of having their own business: my parents could take the dog with them to work. They owned and ran a small hardware store, and it’d been in Dad’s family for three generations. He liked to say that Morgan’s Hardware still had the same values as when his grandfather first established the business, and he was probably right. Sometimes I feared it still carried the same stock.
Morgan’s Hardware would be my legacy when they retired. I’d spent afternoons and weekends behind the counter since I first started school, and would do my homework in the back room while my parents served customers. The shop was as big a part of our family as Charlie. That’s why it was so amusing that Jack was determined to buy it. Dad would never sell.
At one time I didn’t mind having my future mapped out, but these days I had my doubts.
Mum went back to work and I went for a long and blissful shower. That was the plan. I only meant to lie down on my bed for a few minutes, but I couldn’t keep my eyes open. Next thing, I was back in the Trafford Centre.
Chapter Seven
Levi sat on the bench this time, sprawled as lazily as before, and his welcoming grin was a thing of beauty. “Sure is hard work having a conversation with you, Jess.”
He didn’t look put out, and I smiled back. I felt absurdly relaxed with him, as though I’d known him for ages, and it seemed natural to sit down on the bench at his side. He scooted closer, his arm brushing across my shoulders.
“So,” he rolled the word. “Boyfriend? Yes or no?”
“Persistent, much?”
“Where you’re concerned, babe, that’s my middle name.”
Babe? That was cute. I liked it. I decided to ask a few questions of my own. “How come I keep dreaming of you? And why do you keep asking about my, uh, status?”
He quirked his eyebrows. “I asked first.”
Maybe he was my subconscious trying to tell me to have the guts to talk to Jack, to flirt with him. I took a rapid breath, and smoothed my damp palms on my jeans. “There’s a guy I like.”
“Uh huh.” His fingers tapped a gentle pattern on the top of my arm. “And?”
“And I don’t know how to talk to him.”
“You’re doing just fine as you are.” His voice was silky, seductive and dangerous at the same time, and made the hairs on the back of my neck prickle.
“His name is Jack. And he’s never even noticed me.”
Levi went amazingly still. “Jack?”
“Okay, this is going to sound weird. I know you don’t exist, and so I can say anything to you, without getting embarrassed. I can use you for practice.” His eyes narrowed, but I pressed on. “I can pretend you’re Jack, and you can tell me how I do.”
There was a long pause, and then he rubbed his chin, as though thinking hard. “What’s he like? Jack. Why do you like him so much?” There he went, asking me a cluster of questions all at once again.
“He’s not as tall as you, and he’s fair, to your dark. He’s, uh, smart.”
Levi made a circling gesture with his fingers. “Smart dresser, or smart in the head?”
“Both.” Damn, this was difficult. “He’s popular. Attractive.”
After a moment, Levi’s fingers resumed their touch on my arm, stroking a gentle pattern, back and forth. “Ever kissed him?”
My cheeks heated. “No.”
“Dated him?”
My face burned, but I didn’t look away from his gaze. “No.”
He blinked, and his jaw softened, a tightness easing away. “Let’s start with a kiss.”
My heart stuttered and my mouth dropped open, before I realized and snapped it shut. “I don’t think, I mean, I’m not sure…”
“Don’t think,” he murmured, and leaned into me, impossibly close. His eyes sparkled. They were so bright, I wondered if I could see my reflection in them. “Shh. You’re thinking again.” He lifted his hand and brushed his thumb across my lower lip. I felt the shockwave down to my toes. “That’s better.”
There was that delicious forest and sea fragrance again, as he dropped his head and pressed the tiniest of kisses on the corner of my mouth. I just had time to draw a breath before he covered my lips with his own. Awareness flooded me, every nerve and cell in my body leaping to attention. He slanted his mouth, and the pressure increased on my lips. This wasn’t a kiss, it was a full body massage in disguise. I went limp, melting into his arms, wrapped tight around me. He kissed with precision, as dangerous and intoxicating as I’d imagined.
Then his tongue flicked against mine. I tasted green mint and something sweet, and I moaned, unable to hold the sound back. If I died now, I’d be happy.
All too soon, he withdrew. I was left gasping, my fingers clutching his T-shirt, and my brain in freefall. I didn’t remember moving my hands, but I hung on to him now with a death-grip. Speechless, I noted the satisfied smirk on his face.
I lifted shaking fingers to my lips. They felt bruised, but in a good way. I needed to say something, but all my words were jumbled in my head. If I tried to speak it would probably come out as a series of grunts, and so I stayed quiet.
Levi rubbed his stubbled cheek against mine and set a new fire raging in my nerve endings. When had stubble ever been so sexy? How would it feel if he went down on me? My panties dampened at the thought.
“How far is it to Snowdonia?”
His question could have been in Swahili for all the sense it made. I ran a cautious tongue over my lips and then cleared my throat. “Snowdonia? Umm, a hundred miles. I think.”
“Yeah.” He leaned back on the wooden bench, creating a space between us, and my hands fell to my lap. I wanted to pull him back, but I wasn’t sure I really had control of my body back yet. If I kissed him again, I wouldn’t be able to stop.
Levi chuckled, and gave my hair a playful tug. “You weren’t listening.”
He’d been talking? I blew out a breath and tried to concentrate. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”
“Can we go to Snowdonia? I’ve a friend who comes from there and I’d like to see it.”
Chapter Eight
A wave of sleepiness crashed over me, and I couldn’t hide my yawn. “Can’t you take us there? Like you took us to the Rimutakas?”
“Naw. I’ve never been to Snowdonia.” Lifting one hand, he cradled my cheek, and I rubbed against his palm. “You want to sleep, don’t you?”
I tried to deny it, but another yawn gave me away,
and he smiled. “Come here, babe. Let me hold you.”
Other boyfriends had cuddled either when they wanted sex, or as a brief treat afterwards. Neither of them had wanted to just hold me, and so I grabbed the chance with Levi. Of course, since he only existed in my imagination, he would be perfect. Amazing to kiss, and fantastic to snuggle.
I burrowed into his warm embrace, and couldn’t help feeling sad. He was too good to be true. It’d be impossible to ever find a real guy like this.
****
The sound of the front door banging woke me, and I sat up in bed, trying to figure out where I was. My old bedroom? Yes, I was home.
“Jessie?” My dad’s voice rose up the stairs and I scrambled to my feet. I knew as soon as Charlie saw me, he’d bound up the stairs to greet me, only he didn’t. Dad stood in the entrance hall, one hand on the banister, peering up, with Mum next to him. As I trotted down the stairs, I looked for my dog.
“Come here, Jessie-Bell.” Dad swept me into a giant bear-hug. “We’ve missed you, little girl.”
I hugged him back. “Lovely to see you, Dad, but where’s Charlie?”
“He’s here.” Mum beamed at me.
I stared at my hound. Sitting on the mat by the front door, he cocked his ears and gave me his usual doggy grin, but didn’t leap forward, didn’t try to knock me over. His tail thumped, but in a subdued fashion, as though it was just too much effort. He was thinner than I remembered, his once-black muzzle now completely grey.
When I crouched, he licked my hands with all his usual enthusiasm, and slowly stood. Every movement looked stiff. I’d been gone a year, but my dog looked as though he’d aged ten.
“What’s up with him?” I tried to keep the panic from my voice.
Mum came to fondle his soft ears. “He’s getting old, love. Arthritis, bit of kidney trouble. He’s seventeen now.”