Once Upon a Dream

by Sierra Simone

  And yet walking into this kitchen with these two—Snow in her fuzzies and Liam in borrowed pajama pants—feels like the most important moment of my life. It feels like coming home, like destiny, like some part of me was constructed at birth to be in love with these two people—and I’m so, so aware that I know fuck all about Liam, but that doesn’t seem to matter. Not to the balloon of hope expanding inside my chest.

  Liam clicks off the stove, tucks the kitchen towel in a neat fold over the oven handle, and then takes the plate of bacon to another counter, where he has bread and peanut butter waiting.

  “What about eggs?” I ask, because I know we have some. Snow and I had stocked up for well over a week’s worth of food.

  “It’s too late in the day for eggs,” he replies, as if that settles it, and then he makes us all peanut butter and bacon sandwiches, which he serves with a tall glass of milk and a cup of coffee. It’s not exactly a fluffy omelet covered with diced cilantro and perfect crescents of avocado, but as we sit around the table eating his bear-man food, I think I can’t be happier.

  Snow

  I decide just to say it.

  Liam’s in the kitchen, cleaning up after his meal, and Scarlett and I are sitting on the counter. Scarlett’s drizzling syrup onto her finger and then sucking it off, and Liam’s pretending not to notice.

  His massive erection tells a different story, however.

  “I want you to stay longer than another night,” I say quickly. My words seem to puncture the easy—if palpable with sexual tension—energy we’ve had going this morning, but I don’t care. I’m the only one brave enough to actually say what I want, and so it’s my job to get this straightened out.

  “I know at some point we’ll have to take you back to your place, and I know you probably have all sorts of things that need tending to, but we’re not going back to Texas until Christmas and I think we’ve been having a lot of fun together and—”

  “Yes,” Liam says. He turns to look at us both, taller than us even as we sit on the countertops. “I want more. I want to stay.”

  Scarlett is so engrossed in his response that the syrup she was about to drizzle onto her finger misses and ribbons thinly over her bare thigh.

  He sees it—and with a growl and a duck that serves to showcase his perfect shoulders, he licks it off her skin.

  In true Scarlett fashion, she lets out a delighted giggle and then deliberately drizzles more syrup on her other thigh. Liam follows, licking her clean.

  “More,” he says simply when he’s done with her thigh.

  Scarlett’s eyebrow makes an impish arch as she obeys—and allows the syrup to drip all over the waxed vee between her legs. With a grunt of approval, Liam drops to his knees, slings her legs over his shoulders, and licks her to a shuddering orgasm.

  He hands the syrup bottle to me once he’s satisfied Scarlett’s been seen to, but I have different plans.

  I urge him up to his feet and pull him into a long kiss. He kisses differently than anyone I know, like every kiss is the last kiss he’ll ever have and he needs to savor it completely. Take it fully and leave nothing unseared by his need. We’re both breathless when we break apart, and his usual gruff expression is softened when I look up at him.

  He looks down at me the way a man who cherishes a woman would—like he wants to fold me into his arms and never let me go, like he wants to fight battles for me and provide for me and spend the rest of his life with me. I mean, I consider myself fairly evolved when it comes to gender politics, but I’m shocked at how good it feels to have him looking at me this way. It’s almost like between him and Scarlett, I can have every type of adoration I ever wanted from a lover, and types of adorations I didn’t even know I wanted.

  So when I carry out my little plan and tug the waistband of his pajamas down to drip syrup onto his turgid cock, it’s not with the same arch playfulness as Scarlett had, it’s with something serious and careful and aware. Our eyes don’t break from each other’s, even when I slide off the countertop to my knees, and I hope he sees in my gaze that I see him. That I see what he wants from us and I’m ready to give it to him.

  That I think we could all fall in love with each other if we gave it a chance.

  7

  Liam

  Snow is looking up at me with everything I’ve ever wanted.

  Intelligence and desire and tender concern.

  Cold nights on the mountain wouldn’t be so cold if I had angels like these to come back to, I decide. And I also decide that I’m going to do everything in my power to make these angels mine—or convince them to make me theirs. Life’s too short to throw away gifts like the one the three of us share.

  Scarlett follows Snow to the floor, and then I have two tongues slowly cleaning my aching cock, lapping at the syrup and sucking it off my skin. Scarlett fondles my balls as she cleans me, her clever fingers pressing behind my sack and finding all sorts of places I would have sworn weren’t for pleasure.

  But in her hands, they are; she acts as if everything on my body and Snow’s body are for her pleasure. Like everything can be fun and delicious if only we’re brave enough to try.

  Mine.

  Or theirs.

  Whatever it has to be so that I don’t have to let them go.

  “Gonna come,” I grunt in warning. “Gonna come for you.”

  Snow laces a hand through Scarlett’s hair and feeds the head of my cock past Scarlett’s lips. The moment I feel the wet heat of Scarlett’s mouth—so slick and silky against my bare flesh—my head falls back and my hips ram forward, shoving to the back of her throat as my balls clench and then semen erupts from my cock. I feel her swallowing around me, an exquisite squeeze as I pump her mouth full of come, and Snow’s hand on Scarlett’s head is relentless, forcing her to take more and more and more until finally I’m finished using her mouth.

  “Fuck,” I mumble, sliding free from Scarlett’s lips and stumbling back. She looks up at me with wet eyes and a smile that would make the devil proud. “Holy fuck.”

  She licks her lips. “I don’t know about you, but I think I’m ready for a shower. Snow?”

  They help each other to their feet and then, arms laced around each other’s backs, pad gracefully back to the bedroom, their pert asses moving so temptingly beneath swaying hair.

  With a muttered curse, I follow, undressing as I go, already getting hard again.

  Later that day, after we fucked in the shower and again in the bed, we lie watching a fresh shower of snow move in under the cover of dusk. We’re lying in my new favorite position, with Scarlett curled into one side of me and Snow into the other, and I’m stroking their shoulders in the comfortable, snow-blanketed silence. Earlier we talked of many things—I told them about my ranch, inherited from a grandfather who didn’t give a shit if I lived or died but wanted his cattle and sheep to live on. They told me about their work in Austin, teaching restless artistic types art history. We danced around what would happen after they went back to Texas—even Snow seemed too shy to broach the subject, and she’s the bravest of us. And now that we’ve snuggled into this quiet moment, it seems harder than ever to speak about.

  But I can’t bear not speaking of it. Not for another moment.

  “You saved my life,” I finally say. “I would have died.”

  Snow makes a noise like it hurts her to think of the possibility and burrows closer into my side.

  “You saved me, and I want to give you more than sex,” I continue. “More than until Christmas. I want to be something to you both because you’re already something to me. Montana is a long way from Texas, but I’ve done harder things, and it will be worth giving you what I want to give you.”

  “And what do you want to give us?” Scarlett asks.

  I glance between the two angels cuddled naked and warm next to me, and then I sigh heavy and content, like a bear in truth.

  “Everything,” I reply. “I want to give you everything.”

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  And you can read an excerpt right now…

  I couldn’t see the man in the shadows. It was nothing but dark out here, and then there was the red flare of a cigarette to my left, and I stepped back. Embarrassed and shaking, I tripped over my shoes. “I didn’t think anyone was here. I’ll go—”

  “Don’t,” he said.

  “Don’t…what?”

  “Don’t leave.” Just that. And I was getting bossed around plenty in the house behind me, but no one managed to do it so plainly. It was all dressed up in manners. I was wrapped in chains of politeness. I didn’t know what it said about my mental health, but I liked the fact that he didn’t ask. And he wasn’t polite.

  This whole situation was fucking me up.

  He didn’t step forward to introduce himself, and I stepped away from him keeping my name to myself, too.

  “You were just about to do the fifty-yard dash in a ball gown,” he said.

  “Not…really.”

  “Then you weren’t about to scream, neither.”

  “No.” The lie came easy. So quick. Second nature now.

  “Bullshit.”

  “You know, you could leave. Give me some privacy.”

  His low laugh rippled out from the shadows, putting goosebumps up and down my arms. “Could I?”

  “It would be polite.”

  “I’m not much for polite,” he said and took another drag of his cigarette. “I like screaming better than running, though. Gets the blood up.”

  “The blood up?” That sounded very Braveheart. Truthfully, I liked it.

  “For fightin’ and the like.”

  “I’m not much for fighting,” I said, and it was so true, so funny and true and awful all at the same time I had to put a hand over my mouth so a weird laugh/scream thing wouldn’t come tearing out of me. And my chance to run was years behind me.

  He made some speculative sound in his throat. Which could be agreement or disagreement or some kind of mix of the two, and it hardly mattered. He hardly mattered. This moment on the patio hardly mattered.

  It was why I was still standing there.

  Everything inside, every word I said, every drink I had, every person who looked twice at me – all that mattered. It got rung up someplace and added to the price I had to pay.

  And I just needed a minute.

  “You all right?” He asked.

  Terrified.

  “You working the party?” I asked, changing the subject. It was always easier to talk about other people.

  “You making small talk with the help?” His brogue was so thick it took me a second to make sure I got the words right.

  “If that’s what you are, then yes.”

  “Well, I’m not sure what I am, to be honest with you.”

  “Yeah, me neither.”

  “In that dress, sweetheart, you are not the help.”

  I pressed my hands to the skirt of my ball gown, gold embroidery and sequins over blush gossamer netting. I felt naked under all the layers, if I was being honest.

  “You look beautiful,” he said, like he could see my doubts.

  “Thank you.” The compliment bounced off me. When people called my sister beautiful, she cut off all her hair and painted her face. Me? I said thank you and did what they asked of me.

  “It came in a box,” I said, stupidly. “Like in the movies. A box with a big red bow.”

  “Proof that you shouldn’t be out here with me, Princess,” he said.

  He was right. 100%. There were people inside who, if they found out what I was doing, would be pissed. But the rest of my life was going to be spent trying to not piss those people off, this might be the very last second I had for myself.

  “Are you a Morelli?” I asked.

  “A who?”

  “A member of the Morelli family.”

  The worst thing he could be was a Morelli. He could be a murdering son of a bitch, and being a Morelli would still be worse. Elaine, Caroline’s daughter, got caught up with Lucian Morelli at Tinsley’s birthday, and it was as if she’d fucked the devil himself.

  This guy wasn’t the devil. He was a waiter having a smoke. And I wasn’t a Constantine. I wasn’t even going to be a Waverly for much longer.

  “No, I’m not a Morelli,” he said.

  “Then we’re okay.” The night seemed to breathe. The party sounds faded. The scream in my chest was gone.

  We’re okay.

  “Why are you out here?” he asked.

  “There are a lot of answers to that question,” I laughed.

  “You always go for a run during a party?”

  “I do,” I nodded. “I’m in training.”

  “For ball gown racing?”

  “Yes, it’s a very obscure event. But I’m ranked.” I was being ridiculous. The nerves were making me ridiculous, and I was only ever ridiculous with my sister.

  “National or international?” Oh, he was playing along. It made me want to cry for missing my sister.

  “International, of course.”

  My feet were cold and naked in the grass, so I put on the shoes.

  “What are you doing out here?” I asked.

  “I haven’t been invited inside yet.”

  “Really?”

  “No.”

  That did make me laugh. I liked this shadow Irishman with the quick wit, and maybe it was the grass I could still feel between my toes or that my world was coming down around me in ways I couldn’t stop, but the truth just came out of me.

  “Adolescent on-set schizophrenia. That’s why I’m here. That’s why I’m… everything.”

  It was wild to say that out loud. We never talked about it. We never gave the words air or sound. Or light. They lived in shadows, dark and unsaid. Alone and festering.

  From the shadows he held a flask. “Here. You look like you could use a drink.”

  “I shouldn’t,” I said. I needed to be clear. Sharp. Tonight was like throwing myself into a sea of piranhas. For the rest of my life.

  “Your hands are shaking.”

  Honestly, I couldn’t see him. At all. The glow of that cigarette, the gleam off the flask and the white of his shirt at his wrist. He had nice hands. A jagged scar ran along the side of his thumb down to his wrist.

  “What happened?” I asked, and I couldn’t believe it myself, but I touched his hand. My fingertip brushed the raised pink skin of the scar. The insanity of that made me light-headed, and I quickly took the flask. I cupped it in my cold shaking fingers like a flame.

  “Jumped out a window,” he said, flexing his fingers out wide and then curling them into a fist. “My hand got caught on an eaves-shoot. Tore it open, like.”

  “Why’d you jump out a window?”

  “Because someone who wanted to hurt me was coming in the door.” He said it like a joke.

  I took a sip from the flask. The booze burned down my throat and exploded in warmth in my belly, and I gasped. Another sip and the same effect until I could feel my feet and my fingers. Another sip, and my face was warm. Yep. This was what a person needed for a few minutes before jumping into the pool of piranhas. To feel alive. Warm. Bloody and real.

  And another sip, the flask lighter in my hand.

  “Slow down there,” he said and took the flask from me. His fingers didn’t touch mine, but I could still feel the heat of them. “I reckon you haven’t eaten.”

  “That,” I said. “Is a fair point.” When was the last time I’d eaten? Last night? Two days ago
? I couldn’t remember being hungry or full. It felt like I was very tiny inside of my body.

  From the shadows around him came one of the china plates from inside. There was cheese there. Little quiches. Asparagus in prosciutto. “Have something,” he offered.

  “What else have you got over there?” I joked.

  “You probably don’t want to know. But if you’re hungry.” The plate came closer. I reached for a piece of cheese but in the end didn’t touch it. My stomach was in knots.

  “No, thank you,” I said.

  “Suit yourself.” The plate disappeared, and I was suddenly ravenous.

  “Where are you from?” I asked.

  “What makes you think I’m not from here?”

  Laughter again. But this time, thanks to the flask, it didn’t hurt. It didn’t sound half like a scream.

  “Something about your voice.”

  “Northern Ireland.”

  “Belfast?” That was the only town I knew in Northern Ireland.

  “Eventually. Derry, too. I was born in a cow pasture you never heard of.”

  “How long have you been here?” I asked.

  He sighed, and I tried again to see him in the shadows, but they were too dark. Too complete. “Five hours.”

  “I meant the States.”

  “So do I. I flew into LaGuardia five hours ago.”

  “And you’re here? At this party?”

  “Do you know Caroline Constantine?”

  “I do,” I thought with a laugh. My mom’s best friend and a fairy godmother out of the dark when my dad died. We were in her house right now. I slept in her pool house. The net keeping us safe–she’d created. “Did she bring you?”

  “In a sense.”

  “Wow. Well, welcome.” It was comforting a little bit. If Caroline was a friend of his, he was one of the good ones. There were rumors around Bishop’s Landing that the Constantines were bad news, but those rumors were mostly started by the Morelli’s who were actual bad news, so I didn’t listen to them. And if this guy was attached to the Constantines, being out here in the dark wasn’t nearly so scandalous.