Shadow Dreams Read online

  “You need it as much as I do, don’t you?” he asked in a low voice. “You need to feel me fucking you as much as I need to do it.”

  “Please…” I gasped, unable to say anything else. There was nothing else in my mind now but my need for him, the need to be taken, to be filled, his body sheathed inside mine.

  “Spread your legs for me,” he said his voice low and commanding. I felt warm hands on my inner thighs and I did as he asked without hesitation. I felt the blunt, moist probe of his cock nudging against me and I clutched double handfuls of the sheet, trying to ready myself for his entry into my body.

  “Relax,” he whispered, still petting my body in long, slow strokes. “I won’t hurt you, but I need to fuck you now, Angelina.”

  I felt the head of his cock nudge against my slippery folds, rubbing slowly and deliberately against the swollen bud of my clitoris, making me bite my lip and clutch the sheet harder.

  “Spread wide for me now,” he said. “Good girl.” I felt his hands settle on my hips and then he was pushing slowly inside me, huge, thick and undeniably real.

  A dream, I thought to myself, even as he pierced me to the core, pressing the broad head of his cock hard against the end of my channel. Only a dream… But was it?

  I felt the tension in the big body behind me, the tightening of his muscles and it was the only warning I got. The next moment he had pulled almost all the way out and then he was ramming himself back into me, pounding against me, filling my wet sex with his thick shaft and driving everything but the pleasure of being well and truly fucked completely out of my mind.

  I bit my lip until I tasted the salty, metallic tang of blood. I hung my head, my vision obscured by the silky blond tangle of my hair and spread my thighs even wider, trying to be as open for him as he needed me to be. As I needed to be for him.

  “Oh God…” I moaned and I could feel my heart pounding against my ribs and smell the hot, musky scent of my lover as his fingers gripped my hips, the better to thrust deeply inside my body. I could feel myself stretching around him, trying to accommodate his thick bulk as he moved inside me. His breathing above me was deep and tortured as he rode me, rode my pussy long and hard with his thick cock.

  I began to feel a second, deeper orgasm growing inside me. The pleasure was cresting higher and higher and I knew I had to reach the peak soon or explode. Suddenly one of his large hands left my hip and I felt callused fingertips sliding expertly over the wet place where we were joined. It felt good but it wasn’t enough. I moaned and pushed back against him, wanting more. More of his shaft inside me, more of his fingers touching me, more of everything.

  He seemed to understand my need because his fingers became more aggressive, rubbing hard over the tight bundle of nerves at my center. At the same time I felt him drive hard into me, filling me with himself, the head of his cock kissing the mouth of my womb with the deep, penetrating thrust.

  “Come for me, baby. I want to feel you come now, Angelina.”

  And just like that I was coming, spasming hard around his invading shaft and crying out loud in wordless pleasure. I felt his answering spasms as he pumped into me thick and hot, holding me in place flush against his body so he didn’t spill a drop outside me. The full moon was in my eyes, round and golden and gorgeous, sinking in the sky outside my bedroom window as I lay gasping under him, trying to catch my breath.

  At last I felt him withdraw from my body, making me feel empty and alone. But instead of leaving he curled his long frame around mine, cupping my back to his front. Strong arms wrapped around me tightly and I could feel his warm breath on the back of my neck as he held me close.

  I was exhausted emotionally and physically. I could feel myself slipping towards sleep but I didn’t want to go. Didn’t want to lose this wonderful moment, this feeling of sweet completion.

  “Love you, Angelina,” he whispered into my hair and I felt a gentle kiss on the side of my neck, just where he had bitten me before. “This is my last chance. I need you to believe in me.”

  Stay with me, I wanted to say. Don’t leave. Be here when I wake up… But the words wouldn’t come. It was a foolish request anyway, wasn’t it? How can you beg a dream to stay?

  “Believe in me,” he said again.

  I wanted to so much. But as I slipped beneath the waves of sleep, I knew he would be gone in the morning.

  Chapter 11

  “Angelina? Angelina!” A hand was shaking me, a voice calling my name. I woke with a start. He had stayed! My dream lover was a reality, not just a fantasy or a dream after all.

  I opened my eyes to see an anxious face peering into mine, but instead of cinnamon-dark skin and the large brown eyes of my lover, all I saw was Barbara standing over me with a frown on her face.

  “Barb?” I asked, confused. I looked around the room but all I saw was Shadow lying at the foot of my bed, looking at me with big brown eyes that were somehow reproachful. My brain wanted to tell me that Shadow had somehow transformed in the night to become the man that was my lover. I shook my head groggily—crazy dream.

  “Jelly, didn’t you tell me you had a big presentation today?” Barb asked, glancing meaningfully at her watch.

  “Oh my God,” I said, sitting up in bed with the sheets tangled around my neck and forgetting the weird dream. “What time is it?”

  “Quarter to nine. What time is the presentation?”

  “Nine o’clock,” I moaned. “Phelps is just going to love this—he’ll finally have the perfect excuse to get me fired. I must have slept through my alarm.”

  “By the look of this room you didn’t sleep much,” Barb said, eyeing the wildly disarrayed bed critically. “What happened, you decided to redecorate in Early American Messy in the middle of the night?”

  I had a brief flash of memory—the dream again. Strong arms holding me, a deep voice in my ear, ‘Spread your legs for me, baby.’ I pushed it away. The notion that I had actually had a man with me the night before was absolutely absurd no matter what the state of the bed was. Probably I had just thrashed around a lot, caught in the throes of the extremely erotic dream.

  “I’ve gotta run,” I told Barbara, wrapping the sheet around me and pushing past her into the bathroom.

  “Well try not to drive too crazy,” I heard her say. “Remember it’s better to get there a little late but still alive than to wind up in an accident somewhere.”

  “Barb, I’ll be lucky to keep my job,” I yelled through the bathroom door, struggling to brush my hair, slap on some makeup and pull on a pair of nylons all at the same time. “My safe driving record is the last thing on my mind.”

  “Okay, hon. Well, I’ll just drop Shadow off at the vet on my way to the office. You call and let me know if you need me to pick him up too.”

  “Thanks,” I yelled. “I’ll do that.” I heard her coaxing Shadow to go downstairs with her and then the front door slammed.

  * * * *

  The ride to work was crazy and by the time I got there, thirty minutes late, I was a nervous wreck. How could I have overslept on today of all days? Because you were up half the night, a little voice whispered in my head. I pushed it away. Of course I had been up half the night, with Douglas and his rose stealing nonsense. The little voice tried to tell me that my ex wasn’t the only thing that had kept me awake, but I wasn’t buying it.

  The way I saw it there were only two possible explanations. One, I kept having an extremely erotic dream that was making me sleep poorly and tear my bed apart. Or two, I had somehow gotten a dog which was more than a dog—he was a man at night and he had made mad, passionate love to me the night before wearing me out so thoroughly that I slept through my alarm. In the interest of sanity I had to go with option one because option two was completely crazy. Wasn’t it?

  “Dean, you’re late.” The barking voice of my immediate supervisor, Ronald Phelps made me wince as I walked briskly into the meeting, trying to look professional when I felt anything but. I hated it when he called me by my
last name and I was pretty sure he knew it.

  “So sorry, Ronald, there was an accident on the I-10,” I lied smoothly. I slid into a high-backed leather chair at the long oak conference table and made apologetic eye-contact with the reps from the Bardine Corporation seated across from me. “Please continue,” I told him coolly, placing my notes in front of me on the table and looking at him expectantly.

  “As a matter of fact, we’d like to continue but we were waiting for you. I assume you’re ready to share the report on consumer consistency in preparation for launching Bardine’s new Ad campaign?”

  Ronald gestured with one freckled hand towards the head of the table, indicating I should take the stand. He was a weasely-looking man with carrot orange hair and a long, thin face. He probably had freckles over ninety percent of his body, or at least the parts you could see. I didn’t want to know about the freckle-status of the parts you couldn’t see, which was one reason my boss was doing everything in his power to make trouble for me. Forget sexual harassment—that was for amateurs. With Ronald Phelps, it was an all out war.

  I stepped to the front of the conference room with as much confidence as I could muster, feeling glad I had put in the hours on Saturday to finish the report he was asking about. That said, I had left a copy of it on his desk and he could have continued the presentation without me instead of making the clients wait until I showed up. But no, that would have been too easy.

  “All right, we’ve done extensive market surveys and testing…” I heard my voice launch into the prepared information and wished for the hundred-thousandth time that I was anywhere else, doing anything else. Then I immersed myself in the presentation and let it carry me away.

  * * * *

  “Let’s break for lunch and meet back here in an hour to discuss the new Ad,” Phelps said at last. I glanced at my watch, it was a quarter past twelve. Thank God for small favors. I spared a thought for Shadow and wished I could have gone with him on his first trip to the vet. Poor baby, I hoped he wasn’t scared. Thinking of my dog made me wonder how in the world my love-starved psyche could come up with such a crazy scenario in the first place. I frowned; the dream had been so vivid the night before. Not a dream, that little voice insisted in the back of my head but I shook it off.

  “Listen to me, Dean.”

  I turned to see the red, freckled face of my boss a lot closer to my own than I really wanted. His breath was heavy with stale coffee fumes. I tried not to wince.

  “Yes, Ronald?” I asked with icy politeness, pretending to stack papers while the Bardine reps filed out of the room. Business protocol might demand that I give him a little more respect and call him ‘Mr. Phelps’ but he certainly wasn’t extending much courtesy my way, so I didn’t feel the need to make nice in front of the clients.

  “You’ve got a lot of damn nerve prancing in here forty-five minutes late with a huge hickey on your neck, and some lame excuse about an accident on the freeway,” he hissed.

  “Hickey? What the hell are you talking about?” I said coldly. But my hand stole up to side of my neck before I could stop it and the voice inside my head whispered, No dream.

  He shook his head and snorted in disgust. “Whoever he was I hope he was fucking stupendous in the sack. If we lose the Bardine account because of you, I promise I’ll do everything in my power to see you fired.” His thin, freckled face was a mask of anger and outrage, but I knew the truth. His anger wasn’t over my tardiness but over the fact that he thought I was late because I’d been up late carousing with some man. Well, weren’t you? the little voice asked matter-of-factly.

  “Don’t threaten me, Ronald,” I said as calmly as I could, trying to keep my voice level. “And I don’t appreciate innuendoes about my personal life.”

  “Fine,” He threw up his hands in a gesture of disgust. “I’m taking the Bardine reps out to lunch and you can just stay here and work on the second half of your report. It had better be letter perfect, Dean. The whole damn account is riding on it.” He turned and stalked away.

  After he left I went to the bathroom and examined my neck critically. There was a red mark on it that you might have thought was a hickey if you had a dirty mind like Phelps. But it could’ve been caused by my tussle with the rose bushes last night—thorns had been everywhere. Possibly I had scratched myself and then rubbed it in my sleep…

  My stubborn mind kept showing me pictures of my dream lover touching me, sucking my neck, marking me… No! I shook my head, determined not to think about it. I live in a reasonable world, I told myself. There is no Santa Clause, pigs don’t fly and there was no way in hell my pet dog is actually a sexy Native American under … what did he say? Oh yeah, under a curse.

  I frowned at the image in the mirror and pulled up my collar to cover the mark on my neck which was (probably) a mark from the thorns of Douglas’s roses.

  Back at my desk I ate a sandwich from the vending machine and concentrated on getting the second part of my presentation letter perfect. The office around me hummed quietly as the few secretaries and interns that had decided to work through lunch went about their business. There was no way I could afford to lose my job now that I was living on one income, not that Douglas’s check ever lasted very long when we were married. Somehow it always seemed to be needed on accessories for his latest hobbies or home decorating trends.

  My cell rang just as the hour was almost up and it was Patty, smacking loudly on the other end.

  “I don’t have a lot of time to talk right now,” I told her, finishing the sandwich and tossing the wrapper into the trash. “I’m already in hot water for being thirty minutes late this morning and Phelps is gunning for me. The minute he brings back the clients I have to be ready to go.”

  “I’ll make it quick,” she promised. “Just wanted to know if you need me to pick up Shadow from the vet’s today. Barb called and said she’s got a late client she didn’t know about ‘till she got to the office so I might be on dog duty.”

  I grinned despite myself. My two best friends had to be the best in the world. “Geeze, talk about it takes a village,” I said, trying to organize my papers while we talked. “You guys are the best. But assuming I make it through this presentation alive I should be able to get him myself.”

  “Ah, nuts.” Patty popped a bubble loudly on the other end. “I kinda wanted to see the big fella. He’ll probably be pretty out of it anyway though.”

  “What do you mean?” I said, still shuffling papers.

  “Well, I mean I know it’s a pretty minor surgery but they still put ‘em under to do it, right?” The gum popped again.

  “Minor surgery, what are you talking about?” I demanded, freezing in mid-shuffle.

  “I mean he’s getting fixed today, right? That’s what Barb said, anyway.”

  “Fixed?” I said, wondering why there was suddenly a big lump in my throat. “You mean as in neutered?”

  “That’s what it usually means. Why, what did you think?”

  “I … don’t know,” I said, still feeling strange. “I mean, I guess I thought it was just some routine check-up.”

  “Nope, responsible pet ownership and all that,” Patty sang cheerfully. “Cheer up, Jelly. He may be a little groggy when he wakes up, but after a week or two he’ll forget all about it, ya know?”

  “Yes … I guess so,” I said, still feeling dreadfully uneasy. Just a dream, I insisted to myself, but what if it hadn’t been? Stop, I told myself sternly. Just stop it already.

  Just then my call waiting beeped. “I’ve got to go, Patty. Talk to you later,” I told her.

  “Later,” she hung up with a last juicy pop and I clicked over to the other line.

  “Angie?”

  I sighed, feeling like the day just couldn’t get any worse. “What do you want, Douglas? I’m at work and I don’t have much ti…”

  “What I want is to tell you to expect a law suit for last night, sweetheart,” he barked in my ear. I winced at the nasty tone.

  “
Douglas, I was simply protecting my house. You wouldn’t have a leg to stand on,” I told him. Glancing through the window to my right I saw Phelp’s bright red Hummer (a penis car if I ever saw one) pulling up to the curb outside. “Look,” I told my annoying ex-husband. “I really have to g…”

  “Mental cruelty and the emotional trauma Justin and I suffered as a result of your new friend’s brutal assault has nothing to do…”

  “What the hell are you talking about, Douglas?” I demanded. “My dog never…”

  “I’m not talking about the damn dog,” he nearly screamed. Outside the glass door I could see Phelps coming with an army of Bardine reps in tow and I knew I had to get off the phone, but Douglas’s next words seemed to freeze me to the spot.

  “I’m talking about that huge naked Indian…” He paused and I could hear Justin in the background saying something about his choice of terminology not being politically correct. “Fine,” Douglas snarled. “That huge, naked Native American who threatened to torture and kill us.”

  Phelps was coming in the door and when he saw me talking on the cell he made a violent throat-slashing gesture in my direction, plainly an order for me to get off the phone and into the conference room.

  “I’m sorry,” I said to Douglas, ignoring the dirty look Phelps was sending my way. “Could you repeat that, please?”

  “I said I may never be the same after some of the things your Native American friend threatened to do to me. Justin and I both were horribly traumatized,” Douglas insisted but the only words that made it into my head were Native American.

  Oh my God, it wasn’t a dream! I hung up the phone without another word, grabbed my purse and ran for the door, digging one handed for my keys as I went.

  “Hold it!” My arm was grabbed before I could make the front of the building, stopping me cold. I looked up from my preoccupied search for my keys to see Phelps looking at me angrily.

  “Let me go!” I yanked to get away from him but he held on like a bulldog.

  “You’re not going anywhere,” he announced in the same tone of voice a stern father might use with a wayward daughter.