Free to Dream

by Tracey Jerald

  I need to get out there.

  “Gotta go.” I abruptly hang up on Keene saying, “Caleb, tell her…”

  I toss my cell on the counter and make my way outside to Cassidy. She doesn’t even glance up when I walk out.

  Shit.

  I maneuver myself carefully between the glass of wine I poured her earlier, the arm of the lounger, and get behind her. She’s stiff at first, but finally rests against me. I comb my fingers through her hair, trying to relax her, and eventually, her curves yield into the planes of mine. She shifts slightly, placing her head against my heart.

  I pull the blanket up and tuck it tighter around her. “I’m so sorry, Pixie.” There’s not much else to say. I sent Keene there not only to bring her lunch, but to maybe see her in her element and thaw toward her a little bit.

  Not bring devastation to one of her places of solace.

  She sighs, tipping up her head to rest her chin on my chest. “You had no idea he would go there, Caleb. Even if you were trying to force Keene into playing nicer with others.”

  “Still, if it hadn’t been for that, you never would have been in that position,” I counter quietly.

  I had come clean to her earlier about my reasons for sending Keene to her office. I wanted to push my lifelong best friend to see the woman I loved for everything she is.

  Too bad I couldn’t push myself to be as forthright about other things.

  Moving aside her hair, I kiss the center of her amaryllis tattoo. “You’ve never told me about this.”

  Surprised, she half turns and says, “Haven’t I?”

  I shake my head. It’s making me nauseous. I’m lying even as I’m trying to give her comfort. I know all about her beautiful tattoo.

  She reaches up to touch it and smiles before tucking her head back down on my chest. I resume my grazing of the beautiful artwork on her neck with the tips of my fingers.

  “Phil was researching flowers one day for his classwork and came across the Greek myth of Amaryllis. He fell in love with it. So did Em and I once we heard it.” I feel her smile against my chest. “I assume, Harvard, you know the story,” she teases. I squeeze the back of her neck. “Yes, but only because it popped up when I was looking up your company website.”

  Her laughter is soft, and I feel the tension leech from her. I’m suddenly glad I asked her this. “So, family ink? Since I can’t see Phil’s, I assume not everyone’s is in the same spot?”

  She shakes her head no. “We all chose somewhere that meant the most to us personally. For me, with my anxiety, I tend to rub my neck a lot. I want to be reminded of what the tattoo is supposed to represent when I feel stressed. I need to be reminded of what Phil told us our family is meant to represent; pride, determination, and beauty. No matter what happens, I have that. Some people over the years have refused to do business with us because they’ve seen the one on my neck, on Ali’s foot, or on Phil or Holly’s wrist. Em and Corinna’s are the only ones not typically visible. We won’t change who we are. We can’t change our past. We’ll always have that.” She goes silent with those words.

  I’m meanwhile seething on the inside, knowing some of those individuals are likely in the same social set of my birth vessel. I know she’s awaiting some kind of reaction to what she just told me.

  I lean down and kiss the center of the tattoo and she sighs. We sit in the quiet solace of the night for a few minutes before she says, “I’ve been having dreams.”

  I squeeze my eyes closed. I don’t want to imagine what they’re about, but I’ll gladly bear this burden if she wants to talk about them. “Do you want to talk about them?”

  She nods. “At least this one I do.” Her voice is confused, hurt.

  My arms tighten. “Go ahead”

  “There’s a little girl in them. She’s so happy and giggling. And there’s a woman there. I’m pretty sure it’s her mother. At first, the mother’s happy, really happy, then she gets so sad. I think…”

  Knowing her ear is against it, I try to keep my heart regulated, but my mind is running a mile a minute. “What do you think, Pixie?”

  “I think the little girl in the dream may be me,” she whispers sadly. “I think it’s a memory.”

  “So why are you so sad about it, baby? It sounds beautiful.” I’m confused. Why isn’t this in her file? Why hasn’t she shared this? Shouldn’t there be a sketch of the woman somewhere?

  “Because of what Keene said today. Maybe I’m blocking what happened to me because maybe my family gave me away to those monsters like Ali, Corinna, and Holly’s families did. Maybe it wasn’t like Phil not knowing who his parents are or Em’s parents dying. Maybe someone didn’t want me and wanted that to happen to me.” Tears start cascading down her cheeks. “What if it’s the woman in my dream? For years, I’ve thought that dream only came because I was happy. Maybe it’s some kind of subconscious warning? I don’t know, Caleb. I just don’t know.” She’s so frustrated, its palpable.

  I tread carefully. “Do you want to talk to someone about it?”

  She shakes her head emphatically. “No. At least, not now. I have too much going on to go there. I can’t open myself up to that right now.”

  Nor could she handle the knowledge of what I’ve been holding back.

  “Later then. Whenever you’re ready.”

  She fidgets for a second before taking a deep breath. “Will you be there?”

  I respond past the huge lump in my throat. “Always, if you’ll let me.”

  That’s nothing more than the simple truth.

  28

  Keene

  Her eyes.

  Her hair.

  Her heart-shaped birthmark.

  No memory of her early childhood.

  “Au Clair De La Lune.”

  It keeps cycling on repeat through my head on a loop. I’ve thought of nothing but Cassidy since that morning in Caleb’s kitchen, and then after that catastrophe at her office.

  Two weeks before Ryan and Jared’s wedding, I decide. I pick up the phone.

  “Hello,” the grumpy voice on the other end of the line mutters.

  “Charlie? It’s Keene. I need you to come into work early tomorrow.” Taking a deep breath and a huge gamble with the only family I have left in the world, I add, “I’m going to need the full Freeman file.”

  Silence.

  “Charlie?”

  “Why?” Suddenly, his voice is alert and suspicious. Good for you, old man. And this is why Caleb authorizes your huge-ass salary.

  “Because…” I almost choke and swallow hard.

  “Because…” he prompts, still suspicious.

  “Because, there’s a possibility Cassidy Freeman may be Riley.”

  I hear him suck in a huge breath. “Oh my god, Keene. Have you said anything? Are you sure?”

  “No and no. That’s why I need the file.”

  He swallows so hard, I can hear it over the line. “I’ll meet you there at seven.” He quickly hangs up.

  I put the phone down, pick up my glass of Scotch and start humming “Au Clair De La Lune,” the familiar tune coming back to me as if I had sung it yesterday instead of twenty-five years earlier.

  29

  Cassidy

  We’re eight days from the Lockwood-Dalton wedding. It’s crunch time. Not even one of us has a free day or evening from now until the wedding itself.

  It’s well after normal business hours at the office. Otherwise, I know we’d never have a client again after the way my siblings are bickering back and forth. When we pull late nights like this, they tend to forget we’re not at the farm. I just hope this time they remembered to lock the door.

  Phil is bitching about the lack of sex he and Jason are having. I hear Em yelling at him to shut up because it’s been months for her, and when he’s gone that long without, he can start talking about dick rot for all she cared.

  It’s a good thing I get to spend one night in the city with Caleb tomorrow because I have a late afternoon meeting wit
h Ryan and Jared, which could go several hours. Caleb managed to swing his schedule so we could have lunch. I’ll go to my meeting and I’ll stay over with him before heading back to Collyer early the next morning.

  Trust me, Phil has already managed to find a way to bemoan this fact when we were discussing this at the morning meeting. Ali nailed him with a muffin and told him not only did his husband come home and climb into the same bed every damn night, it wasn’t my fault if Jason’s rotation at the hospital was off so he could be in the wedding. And if Phil wanted to sit at the nice table with me, he needed to shut his trap.

  Yep, that’s right. Jason is in the wedding. When Caleb told me Jason was asked to be the other groomsman standing up for Ryan, tears of joy slid down my face. I was so overwhelmed Jason and Ryan had repaired their friendship. Caleb said Ryan was just as nervous about asking Jason as he was about asking Jared for his hand. He was kidding, but it was reflective of how much he wanted his other brother with him on his big day. Not only did my siblings all side with Caleb that I would sit with him during the reception, but so would Phil.

  Phil was prancing around like a queen until he was told he needed to keep his earbud in for any emergencies. That squashed his Lifestyles of the Greenwich and Famous moment.

  I chuckle as I quickly type an email with a pen between my teeth. The caterer wants confirmation on the final number of 528. I review my planner and find we still haven’t received 20 RSVPs. I quickly pull the contract over, scanning for the section on final decisions within fourteen days of the wedding. Finding the section on catering, I confirm the language. I mutter out loud, “So long as the excess of outstanding invitations doesn’t exceed ten percent of the guest list.” Got it. I finish the email to the caterer, upping the final count to 548.

  “Damn, you look so sexy right now.”

  I jump, startled and thrilled to hear his deep voice. Caleb’s standing in the doorway in his Joseph Aboud custom-made suit. I bite my lip and remember the outfit I have on. I’m in leggings and a University of Charleston sweatshirt. He’s in a Ermenegildo Zegna tie and shoes. I’m wearing another pair of Uggs. “Sexy, huh?” I sit back and grin at my man. “Now you? You look good.”

  He walks into my office and closes the door. Leaning against it, I hear the very definitive snick of the lock.

  Hmm, interesting.

  He smiles at me, his eyes radiating heat despite their humor. “Do you know your siblings are arguing about sex?” He pushes away from the door and prowls toward me.

  “So I overheard.” I move to untwist my legs from my chair, but he holds up a hand. I stay where I am and decide to play with my man a little. “Is there a last-minute problem with the wedding, Mr. Lockwood? Something you or one of the other grooms may have overlooked?”

  He shakes his head at me, his eyes glittering with even more humor. “Never going to let me forget that, are you?”

  “Nope. Gonna let me forget I threatened to chop off all of Phil’s hair that day?”

  “No, but that was just hot.”

  I laugh as he lowers himself closer for a kiss, and it’s one hell of a kiss. By the end of it, my legs are wrapped around his hips, and his arms are boosting my ass into his erection. He lowers his forehead to mine. “I got off early today.”

  I roll my hips and smirk. “Doesn’t feel like it.”

  He squeezes my ass in retaliation and I moan. I have a new appreciation for my brother’s bitching—I’ve been too long without my man as well.

  “As I was saying, I got out early today and figured I would come to you. I even convinced Keene to take most of my early morning meetings tomorrow, so if you can arrange your schedule tomorrow so we can leave for New York an hour earlier than you had originally planned, I can stay over tonight and drive us both in tomorrow.”

  I quickly think about what’s due tomorrow, but I can no longer concentrate when I’m nestled up to Caleb. “Put me down for a second and let me check.” I turn and bend over toward my computer.

  Caleb groans behind me.

  Looking over my shoulder, I find him staring right at my ass so I give it a shake. “Down boy. If you want an answer to your question—” I moan as I feel his strong hands slide up the insides of my legs. When they reach the apex, they slide back and forth in between, rubbing the seam of my leggings against my barely-there T-back panties. My breathing quickens as I hear him drop into my desk chair behind me. “Caleb.” It’s a long, drawn out sound.

  “Cassidy,” he murmurs. “Anything wrong with me doing this?”

  I know he’s checking to make sure he’s not triggering any flashbacks, but I manage to get out, “No desk sex.”

  He pauses what he was doing, so I push my hips back. He didn’t have to stop everything. “Why not?”

  I’ve obviously wrecked his little fantasy.

  “Because I have contracts and plans for your brother’s wedding spread out. I really don’t want to be here half the night putting everything back in order when I can be home in bed with you,” I reply tartly.

  “Great answer.” He spins me around. “Really great answer. And because it was such a great answer, you get to choose. Wall or chair? We’ll do desk another day.”

  I giggle at his good mood promptly restored. Then I study him sitting in my desk chair. How would that work, exactly? He sees the curiosity cross my face and says, “Chair it is!”

  My giggle erupts into full-out laughter until he strips my leggings and panties down my legs. “Caleb!” I’m half laughing, half mortified. My blinds are open for Christ’s sake.

  “Sorry, but…”

  “Not sorry?”

  “Pretty much,” he says cheerfully. He’s already unbuckled his pants and is working on the zipper. By the time we get him unzipped and slide on a condom, we’re both laughing hysterically.

  “We have way more finesse than this, baby.” I’m out and out laughing. It’s true, we do, but I can’t bring myself to care.

  As if on cue, Big and Rich’s “Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy” drifts from my computer speakers, and I double over laughing. I can’t help it. Caleb looks at me with complete disbelief. “You have this on your Spotify playlist?”

  “I wouldn’t be a good Southern girl without it.” I can’t help but sway back and forth to the bar theme music of the South. I self-consciously realize how utterly ridiculous look. I’m naked from the waist down and I’m shaking it in front of my office desk.

  Caleb is strangely silent. His face is rigid with sexual tension and entirely focused on my swaying hips. His hands are clenched on the arms of my chair.

  Whoa, Nelly. What just happened there?

  I hesitate. “Cal—”

  But before I can get his name out, his hand clasps me around the back of my neck and his mouth is clamped down on mine. His tongue is pushing hard and deep. “You have no idea…hot… lap dance—” before his mouth crushes onto mine again.

  When he lets me back up a few minutes later, my lips are swollen and I know I’ve now left wet, damp marks on his pant leg. Somehow, I just don’t care. Neither will he.

  Standing up, I let the heat of his kiss flow through me and decide to make my man’s night while trying not to look like a complete ass.

  I push him back in my chair as I pull my sweatshirt over my head. The wheels allow the chair to move him about six inches back. I sway my hips back and forth as I slip my sweatshirt off slowly, letting it fall to the floor carelessly.

  I’m caught in the stratosphere of the sexy song that’s come on next and feeling like a complete idiot when I notice Caleb’s face. My desk is about to be decimated unless I do something. Shucking my bralette, I saunter over to him. I’m still trying to figure out the logistics of chair sex when he quickly spins me around to sit on him, my back to his front.

  His cock nudges against my dripping folds. With one swift push while rocking my chair forward, he’s fully lodged.

  “Ahhhhh,” I moan, reaching back to stabilize myself against the sides of his legs. My ch
air rocks backward, creaking beneath our combined weight.

  In the space between the reality of where my body and where my mind has gone, I hear our panting.

  This is not sweet, tender lovemaking. My man is taking me.

  And it feels amazing.

  My head is tipped back over his shoulder, and because my legs are closed, the penetration is deep. So deep. At this angle, Caleb’s girth is stretching me while the curve of his cock is nailing my G-spot, putting continuous pressure on it. When he bottoms out, he grunts. After a moment of letting us both adjust, Caleb uses the rocking motion of my chair to quickly get us moving.

  He rocks the chair back and my inner walls try to clasp him as he partially retreats. He sits more forward, and I clamp down on him tighter. On one rotation, he slides his hands from my hips to my inner thighs, and quickly spreads my legs by pulling them on either side of his thighs. I have to lean forward to grab a hold of his knees for purchase.

  I’m quite literally riding him in my desk chair.

  I’m never getting rid of this chair.

  Just as I have that thought, one hand slides up from my legs to my breast and tweaks my nipple, while the other slides over to my clit to do the same.

  I’m panting, “Caleb!” as the final squeeze he gives my clit pushes me over the edge and into oblivion. My hands clench against his knees and my head tosses back, raising my breasts into his waiting hands.

  Caleb is maybe a half a heartbeat behind me. Holding onto both of my breasts, he thrusts, once, twice, three times before grinding his hips tightly to mine and screwing in. I can feel his release jettison in short bursts.

  He collapses his head against my spine.

  I feel like I was just run over by a herd of stampeding horses and snicker to myself.

  Caleb’s hand slides from my breast to rest over my heart. “What’s so funny, my love?”