Dream a Little Dream (15 page)

‘He comes from a big family with not much money, whereas I’m an only child and both my parents are in reasonably well-paid professions. I think we each envied the other what he had. I wanted siblings, he wanted privacy and clothes that were new.

‘Our common interest was sport. We kept ending up on the same teams for athletics, footie and rugby. Then Mr Pryor arrived, a sports teacher who was interested in adventurous stuff like kayaking and climbing, and Ken suddenly found a use for school. We built our own kayak on a project Mr Pryor masterminded and he encouraged Kenny to do the stuff he excelled at. He also persuaded him to take a couple of exams and I helped him as much as I could. We were brothers-in-arms in everything except girls, because we liked the same ones. We adopted the “All’s fair in love and war” code. He took Tanya Rowlands off me, I stole Melanie Smith from him.’ He laughed. ‘Ken’s always so alive. It’s going to be great to have him around. You didn’t see him at his best, getting drunk and hitting on you.’

She guided the Jag around a long curve. ‘And now I’ve kind of been cornered into dinner with him and you and Rochelle. I was hoping you’d object.’

He made a balancing-the-scales movement with his hands. ‘I thought a foursome left us all with the most options. It’s light and non-committal. If I’d headed Kenny’s foursome idea off he would have pushed to take you out alone.’

‘Good point.’ Checking her mirror and slowing as the lanes delivered them to the lights of Middledip, Liza took Main Road then Ladies Lane to Port Road, passing Cleo and Justin’s house with all its windows dark, to The Cross. She managed to position the Jag tolerably close to the pavement without scraping the wheels. There was just about room for it without overlapping the Gatehouse frontage. Mrs Snelling had put a note through her door when Rochelle had dared to intrude her car bonnet into what Mrs Snelling saw as her air space. ‘There.’ She was surprised at her own satisfaction. Cars, usually, were just cars, but driving Dominic’s Jag had aroused her latent girlracer.

Dominic gazed out as garden shrubs tossed their wild hairdos in a surly autumn wind and spatters of rain crackled against the windows. The flimsy satiny fabric wrapped around his body didn’t look weatherproof. He grimaced. ‘I can’t believe I didn’t think of stashing a jumper or a coat in the car. That’s a criminal lack of forward planning.’

She shifted around uncomfortably on the rubber abdomen to face him. ‘Are you literally going to run back to Miranda’s? What if you meet someone? The village will seethe with tales of the devil riding out on Halloween. Babies born to Middledip women next July will be suspiciously examined for horns, tails and cloven hoofs.

‘I don’t have any clothes to fit you but I could lend you something to wrap up in, as I haven’t thanked you for helping me out, tonight. With Adam. I mean.’ She hesitated. ‘I’m conscious of the fact that, twice, when I’ve been upset, you’ve been a good friend. Even though we’re in direct competition for The Stables. And we’ve argued a bit. You helped me with Ben, too. You always seem to be there at the right time, for some reason.’

He turned his head her way. The streetlamps threw half his face in shadow, emphasising the line of his jaw and set of his mouth. He let several heartbeats pass.

‘C’mon, Liza. You really don’t know how much I want you?’

‘Oh!’ Liza felt as if his words were warm honey, pouring slowly down her body. Every nerve ending awoke and the old her, the pre-Adam Liza, was suddenly bursting to supply a smooth and reciprocally interested response – designed to get her into bed with Dominic. Soon.

But New Liza
had completely forgotten the script.
Too scary! Too sudden! Too much potential for disaster. She couldn’t vanquish New Liza’s demon of guilt that had possessed her for over a year. ‘I … um.’

Silently, he waited.

New Liza busied herself with her bag, flipped off her seatbelt and fumbled to open the unfamiliar door. Then, ‘
OW!
’, came to a sudden stop.

Dominic was holding on to her stinger.

‘Forget I said that, if it makes you uncomfortable.’ His voice was low, non-threatening. He kept to his own side of the car, apart from the hand that had the stinger. ‘But you’re not going to let Adam guilt you into never making love again, are you? Run away from sex for the rest of your life?’

‘Let go!’ She yanked the stinger resentfully from his hand. But she let the wind slam the door, closing them back in again, safe from the rain. ‘Making “love”?’ She tried to laugh but it was an angry sound. ‘Love. The L word’s a weapon, supposed to make you forget what you want. Make you want what they want. And if you don’t, well then “love” makes a handy lever.’

Gently, he took her hand, his expression intent in the harsh relief of lamplight. His skin was smooth, warm, his voice husky. ‘Love’s not the only route to great sex. It might not even be the best route. Sex is something other. An intimacy all to itself. Something fantastic. I think sex between us would be the best. If you’re letting what Adam did stop you enjoying a healthy physical life, you really are letting “love” be used against you. Make the “L” word “lust” instead.’

It seemed to sizzle through the air.
Lusssssst
 
…
She looked down at their hands. His was warm. Scalding. Old Liza prickled with heat.
Awarenessssss
.
Promisssssse.

Perhapssssss
 …

‘The thought of going back to trying to be what a man wants me to be makes my throat close up,’ she said, stubbornly.

‘You don’t need to be anyone but Liza. Reality check: I’m a man. I don’t need to love you to want you. I’m interested in sex.’

She laughed, unwillingly. ‘That’s an unusual seduction technique.’

‘Yeah, well. Call me Mr Truthful. Your self-imposed baggage and the whole Liza’s-the-only-person-on-the-planet-to-find-love-painful thing is crazy.’

‘Self-imposed!’

‘Totally. What happens between you and me, happens between you and me. What happened between you and Adam, happened between you and Adam. It was a terrible experience, but you don’t have to suffer pointless self-discipline to atone.’

She snatched her hand from under his. ‘Sorry if I’m being boring.’

He threw back his head and laughed, the sound loud in the confines of the car. ‘That’s one thing you never are.’ He took her hand back, lacing her fingers through the spaces between his. ‘It’s about time you started trusting your instincts.’

‘What? The ones that made me think I could be what Adam wanted? That he’d be good for me? Or the ones that made me say “no” when he proposed?’

‘Yes, those. That made you run from something that was obviously wrong for you.

‘You’re giving him the power, letting him make you miserable and take your sex life off you. You’re eaten up by your guilt and he’s using that. He probably doesn’t even realise it. He’s a poor, lovesick guy who’s having trouble moving on. And you,’ there was a note of apology in his voice, ‘you’re making it possible. You’re playing his game.’

Outrage began to bubble up behind her breastbone. ‘So, by going to bed with you for this “best ever” sex, I prove to myself that I’m not controlled by Adam? Another original seduction technique.’

He kissed her fingers and then let them drop. ‘It’s not as cynical as seduction.’

‘So if I suggested we go up to my bedroom now, you’d refuse?’

‘No way.’ He laughed softly, a rich, dark sound that trickled over her skin. ‘I’d sprint up there. But even if that’s not going to happen it doesn’t mean I’m wrong about Adam controlling you.’

‘When
I
resume
my
sex life, it’s going to be
my
decision,
my
call, and in
my
control, OK?’ she snapped.

‘OK.’ There was laughter in his voice. ‘Can I give you my number and hope it’s me you call?’

She snorted as she dragged her coat around her wings and stinger as best she could and flung open the driver’s door. ‘I’ll get you the sofa throw so you don’t get hypothermia.’

He still sounded amused. ‘I appreciate it. Though it doesn’t rate high as a consolation prize.’

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,
mmm
ing 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 admitted, 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.