by Sotia Lazu
Their joining didn’t hold the fervor their last time together did, and yet it lacked none of the intensity. Their lingering looks, their languid touches, were lined with desperation. Mike knew his came from fear of losing her again, but what was Ana desperate for?
Her eyelids fluttered, and she looked at him with such yearning, the answer was obvious. Ana was desperate for him.
After sex—lovemaking?—he pulled her close, her back to him. Her heartbeat echoed in his ribcage.
“I’m happy,” she said. “Didn’t believe I could be happy again.”
He didn’t want to ask the question, but he had to. “You really loved him, huh?”
She stiffened but nodded. “My dad picked me up from school one day, and on our way home, we saw a black cat lying on the side of the road. He’d been in a fight, and he was bloody. A mess. My dad tried to approach, to see if he could help the poor guy, and the cat hissed. He seemed feral, but his eyes held pain. I was six and not afraid of anything. I knelt in front of him, ignoring my dad’s warnings, and the cat stretched his neck, to sniff me.
“I stayed there, until he got up and rubbed his length against my knee. He left blood all over my favorite tights, but I didn’t care. I gathered him in my arms, and he went lax. Like that was where he always wanted to be. I must have squeezed too hard, because he scratched me—more a reflex than to hurt me—but I didn’t let go. I carried him home and nursed him to health. He hated everyone else, but he was my cat until he passed away from old age, years later.”
She turned to look at him. “I never told anyone this, but”—she paused and chewed on the inside of her cheek—“my ex-husband reminded me of that cat. Like he was feral at heart, but he was at home with me. When I got the pictures of him with another woman, I couldn’t believe it.”
She’d told Mike someone hurt her, but he’d assumed it was a boyfriend, not the man who’d promised to share his life with her. Anger choked him at the bastard who’d broken her heart. How could any man have Ana and ever want someone else?
He wanted to tell her again he wasn’t that man. Mike would never hurt her. Never betray her trust. Never not love her enough to be true.
He wanted to tell her he loved her—madly, completely, devastatingly. This wasn’t the time, though, so he kissed her, and then he kissed her some more, and then he spent hours showing her body what he couldn’t say out loud.
The early morning sun was finding its way through his living room curtains by the time he was satisfied he’d erased her ex’s memory from her skin.
Ana lay on her side and trailed her fingers through the sprinkle of hair on his chest. “Where do you go when I’m not here?”
Her question made no sense, but he answered anyway. “Nowhere. To work. Maybe a beer with friends.”
Her smile was sad. It made him fidget.
“I’ll make us breakfast.” He kissed her knuckles and sat up.
“You don’t have to.” She sounded drowsy, and her thick eyelashes were heavy with sleep and the exhaustion that came from multiple orgasms.
He shouldn’t let that go to his head, by the way.
“I want to,” he said.
“You don’t get it.” She closed her eyes and lay back, her pale hair fanning around her like a halo. “I won’t be here when you get back. I’ll be where I have to be, and you’ll go where you go when I don’t dream you up.” She was mumbling, probably half asleep and talking gibberish, but an icy finger slid down Mike’s spine.
He laughed it off, unwilling to let anything harsh his afterglow. “You’re not going anywhere. I’ll lock up, and you’ll stay here, and we’ll have breakfast.” And they’d talk more, and she’d fall in love with him, and they’d start doing all the sickeningly cute, couple-y stuff he used to make fun of before Ana walked into Arbore’s and stole his heart.
He felt stupid for actually bolting the door, but he told himself it was to keep bad elements out, not his lover in.
Snippets of their talk the night before came unbidden, to haunt him, as he scrambled eggs and thickened them with heavy cream. Ana’s ex had driven her to Mike’s arms, but Mike couldn’t find it in his heart to be grateful. No wonder Ana acted like she didn’t want more than casual sex. She was scared of going through the same shit again. He wanted to find the guy and wring his two-timing neck.
Before Ana, Mike’s heart had never run the risk of breaking, because he’d always kept it well hidden. And because he made sure the only part of him that formed attachments to women was his dick. With Ana, he was plunging head first in the darkness and hoping he didn’t crash and burn. She was worth the risk, but would she come to feel the same about him?
He spooned the eggs on a large plate and garnished them with parsley and homemade salsa. He put the plate on a serving platter, added a sliced-up ciabatta—buttered—and hand-squeezed four large oranges into two glasses. A rose would look good with that, but he had no flowers at home, and a sprig of thyme wouldn’t have the same effect. No problem. He didn’t need to go the whole nine yards with the rom-com clichés.
“Breakfast is served, my lady.”
The lack of answer made his gut clench, until he saw her sleeping form.
Of course she was still there. Where could she go?
He left the platter on the coffee table and knelt to pick her up. As he carried her into his bedroom, he was struck by such a strong sense of déjà vu, he nearly lost his balance. He steadied himself and continued to his bed. Ana rolled to the side the moment she touched the mattress, and he climbed in behind her.
Screw breakfast. He was too tired to eat, anyway.
He wedged one arm under her head, and she scooched closer. “I’d missed this,” she mumbled. “Our bed felt empty without you.”
She thought he was her husband. Mike should wake her up and take her again, to remind her whose body she was snuggled against. His chest hurt, and he realized he’d stopped breathing.
“Love you, Mike,” Ana whispered.
He didn’t care if he never took another breath.
Chapter Fourteen
The freaking alarm clock was getting on Bella’s nerves.
“Oh, shut up,” she said.
The thing kept making that annoying sound. Of course it did. She hadn’t spent the extra thirty for the voice-controlled feature. She reached out to turn the thing off, but her open palm made contact with something completely different than the flat surface she expected.
Something warm and yielding, that moved when she dug probing fingers into it.
A face. A man’s face, judging by the stubble.
Bella kept her eyes shut, as she went over last night in her head—her actual night, not the one in her dream.
She’d gone home alone after her drink with Cassandra, as she always did. She hadn’t invited anyone over. Did someone break in and drug her?
Sure. And then he tucked her in, rolled over, and went to sleep.
But this had to be it. The only other explanation was well above her usual level of everyday crazy.
She cracked open an eyelid and saw a too-familiar ceiling—that wasn’t her own.
No. This wasn’t possible.
A glance to her left revealed Mike, watching her. He was grinning, and her hand was still on his cheek.
“Good morning,” he said.
She recoiled so hard, her ass slid off the mattress, and she had to grasp his arm to keep from falling on the floor.
“Is my morning breath that bad?” Mike pulled her closer and tucked her hair behind her ear.
“You can’t be here.” She couldn’t, either.
“This is my place.” He frowned, but his eyes sparkled with mirth.
Bella sat up and pulled the covers with her. “I can’t be here. I can’t wake up with you.”
His face fell. “Is someone waiting for you at home? You said you were divorced.”
“I am. God. This isn’t happening.” She had to wake up. This wasn’t her life. Never before had her dream contin
ued after sunrise.
“Dog? Cat? Kid?”
“Huh?”
“What do you have back home, that you shouldn’t spend the night?”
“Nothing.” She had nothing worth going back for, and for a second, she entertained the possibility of staying here and starting over with Mike. Righting their wrongs from the first time around. Being herself within their marriage, instead of just Mike’s wife.
What if this wasn’t a dream?
She remembered their tryst behind his restaurant a lifetime ago, in this version of her past. If this wasn’t a dream, there was another Ana here. One who never met Mike and never got to sample his all-consuming brand of love. Bella didn’t know if she pitied or envied her, but she couldn’t replace her.
“Do you have to go now? Have coffee with me first. Maybe finally give me your number?”
She shook her head. “It won’t do you much good. We can’t have more than this, Mike, and I don’t even know for how long. It’s never lasted this long before.”
“And here we go with the cryptic shit again. I wish you’d just talk to me. Tell me the truth. Whatever it is, it can’t be worse than not knowing if I’ll see you again.” He sat up and dropped his head back, to land on the headboard with a thud.
This was a dream, and she’d wake up eventually. Which meant she had the luxury of talking to him about the insanity of their situation, without worrying she’d end up in the loony bin.
“Remember my ex?”
He snorted. “Hard to forget.” He shook his head. “I’m sorry. I ask you to open up, and then I’m a jerk. Thinking of how he treated you grates on my nerves. I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, well, he’s you.”
Mike arched a brow. “I told you before, I’m not him.”
“But you are. You’re him, sixteen years ago. For me. You’re him now for you.” And could she make less sense than that?
“Am I going to need a smoke for this?”
“Probably. I think you still have a pack in your nightstand. Second drawer.”
Yes, let’s scare the man.
“And you know this because…” He seemed remarkably composed, which meant he didn’t believe her.
Who cared?
“Because we were together for sixteen years. I even lived here with you for a while, before we got married.”
He fished his cigarettes out of the drawer and put one in his mouth, but he didn’t light it. “And that happened when?”
Bella sighed. “Let me take this from the top. In my reality, I’m forty-two—”
“You’re holding up well.” He sounded nonchalant, but she knew him better than that. The tightening around his lips and the way he rolled and unrolled one corner of the sheet betrayed his nervousness. For all he knew, she was a psycho who’d attack soon.
But she’d be gone soon. “I met you when I was twenty-six, almost exactly the same way we met this time. A couple months later, Derek made you a deal. He looked to expand overseas and wanted you to go to London. Head the restaurant there as his equal partner. I came with you. We got married, and you wrote a cookbook and then several, and opened your own restaurant there. In my present Mike Zaratino’s chain of restaurants is everywhere.” And she now owned the first one, because he deserved to lose it.
“I thought we were happy,” she said. “That you were happy with me. Then… You know. You never owned up to cheating, but we got a divorce. And I’ve missed you since. So much that I dream of you, some nights.” She caressed his cheek and was relieved when he didn’t withdraw from her touch. “I dream of us like this. Back when it was all about the sex and the love and the fun. It hurts when I wake up alone, but I always wake up alone. In my bed. Sixteen years from now. After you broke my heart.”
He let the unlit cigarette fall and kissed her inner wrist. “So this is dream.”
Was it this easy? Did he believe her?
“This isn’t real.” He threw the covers off the bed, exposing their naked bodies, and rolled her nipple between his fingers.
Bella arched into his touch, and he wrapped his other arm around her waist and pulled her in his lap. His cock was hard between her legs. He brought his mouth to her neck and worried the flesh there with his teeth, as he lifted her by the hips.
Bella tilted her hips, and led him inside her. Her cunt was still sore from last night and protested the intrusion, but his lips on her neck and his thumb on her clit made up for the discomfort.
He thrust with his hips, and she slammed hers down, to meet him. Again. And again. And again. Until her head was light. His fingers dug into the flesh of her ass. Probed lower. He coated a digit in her sleekness, where their bodies were joined, and pressed it to her puckered hole.
Bella bucked but didn’t resist. The pressure increased until he slid the finger inside her. Not one finger. Two. Burning and stretching her to the threshold of pain, as his cock pounded in her pussy. She didn’t control her body, and she didn’t care to. The buildup of her orgasm rose in waves, drowning out everything but pleasure.
“Tell me this isn’t real. Tell me my cock is a memory. That it’s not drenched in your arousal,” he whispered against her skin.
“You don’t believe me.” Unsurprising, but it pissed her off, so she rode him harder.
He pulled her head back by her hair and sought her gaze. “I believe you believe it. But I am real, Ana. I am real, and I’m not going anywhere.”
She was, though.
She came apart around him and pulled him after her. What he thought didn’t matter. None of it mattered. In the morning—her morning—it’d all fade away.
She flopped on the mattress next to him and threw an arm over her face. “It was all real once. And you loved me.” She didn’t mean to sound sad.
“I still do.” He covered her face with kisses. “I love you, God help me. We’ll figure this all out. I’ll prove we are real, and we can be so good together.”
She wished he was right.
He gave her ass a playful swat and stood. “I’m going to get that breakfast I owe you, and then we’ll talk some more.”
“Okay.” If she was still there.
She focused on staying awake, but the clanging of pots and pans from the kitchen turned soothing, and before she knew it—
Bella opened her eyes, panicked, but it was too late. The stark-white walls of her loft greeted her. She was fully clothed and above the covers. Alone.
She swallowed down the tears that threatened to spill from her eyes. She wasn’t a love-struck girl. She was a grown woman, and she refused to cry over something she lost forever ago.
She got out of bed and took off her boots. Her body felt sore and sated, and the memories from last night played in her head in Technicolor. Mike’s body. On top of her. Beneath her. Inside her. He’d kept saying this was real. That he was real, and with her.
The dream didn’t feel like a dream. None of them did. But what were they? Surely not time travel. She lived in reality, not a romance novel.
She went for a quick shower. All that talk about breakfast, and she still hadn’t had any. She’d go out. Maybe call Angie, see what she and Sarah were up to.
She forgot to remove her makeup before showering, and when she stood in front of the sink, her eyes were sticky with mascara. Technology had progressed by leaps and bounds, but Bella wouldn’t consider permanently dying her lashes or getting sparkly inserts like fashion dictated.
She lathered her face with makeup-removing foam and pressed the button for the mirror to heat up and defog.
When she raised her gaze to her image, it felt like an electric current ran her through, straightening her spine and making her toes curl.
She had a hickey where Mike nibbled and sucked on the sensitive flesh of her neck. Somehow, she’d carried it through the barrier that separated dream from reality. Through a timespan of sixteen years.
Her dreams weren’t dreams, and deep down she’d known for a while.
“God.” What was happenin
g to her? Was she living a parallel life with Mike? Was she losing her mind?
She got dressed and returned to her bedroom, thinking of the statue on her nightstand. She had placed it in the living room. She never brought it by her bed. Whenever she dreamed of Mike—or visited him, or whatever the hell took place in her sleep—she’d made a wish for it. And every time, Xochipilli was in the room with her.
Watching the chubby little figure as if it would move to attack her, she said, “I wish Mike never cheated on me.”
She didn’t know what she expected. That the last few months of her life would rewind and fast forward again, to a different outcome? Nothing happened.
“I wish Mike still loved me as much as he did when we got married.”
She berated the small part of her that wanted to believe in magic and wishes coming true. She huffed and fished in her purse for her phone. She’d call Angie. Not about magic, about breakfast.
But maybe she’d mention the dreams and put her cousin’s problem-solving genius to work.
The downstairs buzzer echoed through the large room, and she checked the screen by her door, to see a painfully familiar face.
Mike.
Bella’s heart skipped a beat. Had he followed her to her present? Her brain caught up to what her eyes had already registered—the shorter hair, the red-rimmed eyes, the haunted look. Not the young lover who couldn’t have enough of her, but the ex-husband who wouldn’t accept they were done.
She pressed the intercom button and said, “I don’t want to talk to you.”
“I’ll stay here until you let me in. I love you, and I have no problem yelling it for the whole world to know.” The words were slurred. Had he been drinking since he woke up, or hadn’t he gone to bed yet?
Not her problem anymore, but she didn’t want her entire building knowing her business. She buzzed him in and wrapped a scarf around her neck, hating herself for caring what he’d think about her hickey. Then she opened the door and leaned on the doorframe. He wouldn’t come inside. There was no place for him in her new life.
When he showed up, he stank of alcohol. It wasn’t like him to drown his sorrows, but that wasn’t her problem either.
