Wildest Dreams

by Blake, Toni

  But hell, hadn’t that dream of the masked woman made it clear? His body was hungry for sex—that’s all this was. Quit overthinking it. Go home. Go to sleep.

  “Got a quarter?”

  The voice drew Jake’s eyes to a skinny young girl with a creamed-coffee complexion, long hair falling straggly around her face. She huddled in a narrow doorway, her knees pulled up to her chest like she was cold. Even in the dark, he could see her white T-shirt was dingy.

  Stopping, he reached in his pocket and found a five-dollar bill—he’d shoved it in there instead of his wallet, a late tip just before closing. He leaned down and let it drop to the cracked sidewalk beside her as he fought a nagging sense of worry. Against his better judgment, he spoke. “It’s dangerous out here on the street.”

  “Tell me somethin’ I don’t know, Einstein.”

  He flinched at her sass—it didn’t match the rest of her. She tried to talk “urban black girl” tough, but he wasn’t buying it. “Where’d you run away from? You should go home.”

  He sensed more than saw her roll her eyes. “Mind your own damn business.”

  When he’d been a French Quarter beat cop, he’d talked to street kids all the time, and had gotten a hell of a lot worse from them than this, but her attitude still irritated him. “You’ll get killed, or worse, out here,” he informed her.

  “Thanks for fillin’ my day with sunshine, dude.”

  Much to his surprise, he let out a small laugh.

  “You think somethin’s funny about this?” she snapped.

  He shook his head. “No, I just think you’re a pretty funny kid is all.”

  Another eye roll. “Yeah, I just did Letterman last week.”

  He sobered. “You really don’t have a way to get off the street, someplace better to sleep?”

  “If I did, would I be here, fool?”

  “Speakin’ of sleep, kinda late for panhandlin’, isn’t it?”

  She cast a quick glance up before lowering her gaze. “Easier to sleep in the day. At night—gotta keep my eyes open, you know?”

  Jake sighed. Keep walking, man. Just like you told Miss Chardonnay, you don’t need anybody else’s problems. He couldn’t quite make his feet move, though. Just like he hadn’t quite been able to let Miss Chardonnay walk away tonight, either.

  “There’s a place in the courtyard where I live—you could sack out there if you want. It’s nothin’ great, but safer than this.”

  For the first time, she deigned to actually tilt her head back and meet his eyes. “You for real?”

  He gave a short nod.

  Suddenly, her back went rigid. “What you want for lettin’ me sleep there? ’Cause if you playin’ me, mister, tryin’ to get in my pants—”

  He held up his hands and took a step back. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, ’tite fille. I’m just tryin’ to be nice, no? You wanna come, follow me. You don’t, don’t.” With that, he turned and walked on.

  “Hold up.”

  He stopped, looked back. “What?”

  She hesitated slightly. “Gotta get my stuff.”

  Fishing out half a roll of mints, he put one in his mouth, then shoved his hands in his pockets and leaned back against an old brick wall, watching the girl reach through a hole in the building’s foundation. As she got to her feet, a ragged backpack hoisted to one shoulder, he noticed rips in the knees of her blue jeans, dark skin peeking through.

  “Sure you ain’t after nothin’?” Her eyes narrowed even as she moved toward him.

  “Hell yeah, I’m sure!” Peter, Paul, and Mary—what the hell had he done to deserve this? He had things to be guilty for, but damn. He spoke firmly. “You’re a little girl. And I’m not that kinda guy. Got it?”

  She pursed her lips, nodding shortly.

  Without another look in her direction, Jake started toward his place again. He heard her padding along behind him, but didn’t slow his stride. He regretted this already. Damn it, he’d done it again, without even realizing. First the blonde, now this. When would he get it through his head that he couldn’t change anything, couldn’t save anybody?

  A block later, he led the girl through a wrought-iron gate that had seen better days and into a neglected courtyard. A broken fountain jutted up amid chipped, jagged bricks and dilapidated concrete. Four sagging wooden staircases flanked each side of the yard, leading to second-floor apartments. Jake strode to one where he knew somebody had discarded an old mattress. “Here ya go,” he said, pointing.

  She nodded, spoke gently. “Thanks.”

  He tried not to hear the softness in her voice. “Don’t think this is the start of anything, though. You’re still on your own.”

  Her next quiet nod made him feel like an ogre. “Your neighbors gonna go callin’ the cops on me?”

  Was the girl blind? He shook his head. “Don’t have those kinda neighbors.”

  He didn’t look back as he crossed the worn brickwork to the stairs that led to his place. He was ready to call it a night. No more mister nice guy, he scolded himself. It never paid. Never.

  As he slid his key in the old lock, something raked up against his ankle, drawing his gaze downward. He found the scruffy little dog that had been hanging around the building for days, bugging whoever happened to be coming or going. “You again?” The mutt was an aggravation.

  As he opened the door, he used one shoe to shove the dog away before stepping inside. Turning the lock brought a sense of relief, the isolation he cherished.

  Heading to his bedroom, he stripped down to underwear, walked to the bathroom, and splashed cool water on his face. He looked at himself in the mirror, studied his eyes, thought about the empty feeling low in his belly. He was used to putting on a show, being polite at Sophia’s, but it wasn’t real and it tired him. Miss Chardonnay had tired him tonight, too—even if something about that had been disturbingly real.

  It would suit him fine if he never had to leave the run-down apartment again. But then, if he didn’t have to work at all, if he truly didn’t have to go anywhere to make money, he’d head out to the old house on the bayou and just stay there. The idea made him look forward to his days off, when he could go home for a couple nights of solace.

  Out there, there was no Miss Chardonnay worrying him with her pretense or tempting him with her innocent blue eyes. There was no homeless girl who thought he wanted to get in her pants. Out there was the one place he could truly forget, truly withdraw, even more than he already had.

  Returning to the bedroom, he pulled back the covers and lay down. He closed his eyes and tried not to think or feel, tried to shut back down into that place of least pain.

  But it wasn’t working. The events of the night kept flashing through his mind unbidden, leading right up to the most recent. “Mon Dieu,” he muttered as he flapped the sheet back.

  Getting to his feet, he walked to the kitchen, where he pulled a shallow plastic dish of microwave mac-and-cheese from the fridge. He padded to the door and set the bowl outside, glancing up the breezeway to see that annoying dog come running.

  Re-turning the lock, he shook his head at his insanity. Jesus, when would he ever learn?

  A dorm room, a candle’s glow turning pale yellow walls golden. Her top is off, blue jeans too. Jason is kissing her breasts, turning her inside out—his hands are in her underwear. He’s trying to pull them down, but she’s saying, “You know we can’t.”

  “Yes we can, Stephie.”

  “We can’t. We don’t have a . . . you know.”

  He’s kissing her neck, then whispering. “Yes we do. I bought some, just in case.”

  “Really?” Why hadn’t it occurred to her that it was that simple, a walk into a drugstore?

  He nods against her neck, molds her breasts in his hands. She feels it between her legs. And it hits her that they really can do it, if she decides it’s okay. A
nd the big sex mystery will be over, at last.

  She’s afraid—but she wants to. Her heartbeat echoes through her whole body.

  This time when he tries to lower her panties, she doesn’t stop him. Biting her lip, she runs her hands down his chest and reaches for the snap on his jeans. She is saying yes. Yes.

  It should have been a good memory, but it wasn’t. Stephanie pushed it away.

  Still, the power of the recollection remained jolting as she lay in bed, covers pulled to her waist. The quiet room in the quaint bed-and-breakfast just beyond the French Quarter felt like her safe hideaway from the decadence taking place on the streets nearby. She absently listened to the laughter of a romantic couple, watched their shadows move past her window, but her mind was back at DePaul on the night she’d given up her virginity. Maybe the last time she’d felt such overwhelming passion that she’d lost herself in it—until tonight.

  It was strange to suddenly realize she had once understood the power of sex, yet had somehow stopped understanding somewhere along the way. The encounter with the bartender had apparently brought back a lot of little slices of her past that she hadn’t thought about in a very long time. Slices she’d actually forgotten—experiences she’d somehow tricked herself into believing she’d never had.

  Upon returning to the room, she’d traded in her sexy clothes for the silly cotton pajamas Tina had given her last Christmas—a blue background dotted with black and white sheep. A desperate bid to get back to her simple life, the simple self she knew. Unfortunately, though, that hadn’t stopped the uncontrollable sensations assaulting her. Same as if she were still in that sinfully red room with that sinfully sexy man, her breasts ached and the juncture of her thighs felt heavy.

  She wanted to keep telling herself it was just about the situation, the strangeness of pretending she was there to sell her body. And maybe that was what had started it back in the red room, but what she felt now was nothing manufactured, nothing made up to get her through the night. If anything, it had almost not gotten her through the night.

  The man was downright intriguing with that smooth, steady voice and the way he managed to seem distant and aloof even as he nearly seduced her. She couldn’t help thinking he was something of a bastard, but she also couldn’t deny the desire she’d suffered for him—that deep, deeper, deepest desire she’d not quite believed she was capable of feeling. She closed her eyes in an effort to blot out the moment when she’d realized it was only a game.

  It was the first time in her life she’d ever gotten that intimate with a total stranger, the first time she’d ever wanted to have sex with someone she’d just met. Desire had taken over, becoming the biggest part of her, that quickly. God, she didn’t even know his name.

  Thank goodness she’d found the strength to spill the truth and stop the insanity of his hands, creeping up her body. It was the first time, and the last time, too, she promised herself. She needed to get back on track and think about Tina. Her sweet, impulsive, go-with-the-flow sister.

  Tina, Tina, Tina.

  Sometimes Tina seemed far younger than her twenty-five years, but sometimes Stephanie felt older than her thirty—widening the gap between them even more. Once upon a time, they’d been close—when Tina was little, the baby sister whom Stephanie had coddled and cooed over, passed clothes down to, helped with homework. But somewhere along the way Tina had begun to suffer from the belief that Stephanie was the family’s golden child, the achiever who garnered all the praise, and that Tina was the neglected daughter, always coming in second place.

  The truth was, Tina had never worked as hard as Stephanie. She lacked ambition and made poor choices, and following her last boyfriend down here was just one example. Tina had refused to see that part of Russ’s decision to accept a job in a new city was because he wanted to break up—even Stephanie had detected that, yet Tina hadn’t.

  Now, though, Stephanie couldn’t help wondering if things would be different if she’d been more supportive, and less judgmental. If she’d been more constructive rather than just critical. She’d thought the bartender had acted superior tonight, but had she unknowingly acted superior to Tina for all these years?

  Despite the fact that they’d not been close for a while now, Stephanie could scarcely imagine her sister out there somewhere selling her body. What must it be like? What had driven Tina to such a place? Her phone calls had been so cryptic, simultaneously cheerful and sad. Where was she right now? Having sex with a stranger? One of the rich, smarmy men Stephanie had met tonight? Or . . . she closed her eyes, unable to even give words to her worst fears, that something had happened to Tina, something awful. She couldn’t possibly give up her search simply because she hadn’t gotten any leads tonight—no matter what the unhelpful, know-it-all bartender said.

  And as for what had occurred with him, it was an aberration, that was all. An aberration best forgotten, put away somewhere in the back of her brain where she filed anything that threatened her sense of control. Where she’d apparently buried all her encounters with passion.

  It was vital she have full control over herself if she were to find Tina. And if the bartender wouldn’t help her, she had no other choice but keep looking for her sister in the same circles she had tonight. It seemed the only way to bring Tina home.

  Interlude

  YOU FLOAT ON dark bayou water, your skin moist with the humidity hanging heavy in the air. A heron calls in the distance and you hear the deep, plunging splash of a caiman tumbling in from the marshy bank. The musty scent of arrow arum wafts past as tall cypress trees rise up like arms to hold you. You are home.

  But you see a new shape on the landscape, pale and curvaceous. A woman. Naked and lovely, soft white skin that strikes you as vulnerable in such a harsh environment. She is marked by the only real color in the gray-and-green film of the bayou—a pink hibiscus juts from her hair, the large petals shading her face.

  Although when you look closer, trying to see more clearly, she somehow blends with the trees and foliage, hidden, gone. And in that silent moment you understand that vulnerable is the last thing she is. She is a chameleon in the forest, using her defenses with confidence and ease.

  You scan the moss-draped banks, searching the low, gnarled branches and cypress knees, before catching sight of her once more, a vision of beauty tucked into your world as naturally as if she’d always been lurking, waiting to make herself known.

  Dipping your oar into the water, you row toward her, hungry, anxious. The need presses on you as if it were a boulder weighing down your chest. You have to reach her. But as you approach the bank where she’s been standing as still as another tree, she vanishes again, lost to you in the gangly greenery.

  “Where are you?” you call out.

  A hint of pink draws your attention and your next glimpse of her comes beside an ancient oak flung with Spanish moss—you spy the curve of a white breast, the stretch of a slender thigh. How can she merge and mingle so well with the trees and moss and earth here? How long has she been waiting, watching, thriving here, like some beautiful bird or rich, lush plant?

  You row furiously in her direction—you have to have her, press against her—but one blink and she’s gone, an apparition. Perhaps a thing you want so badly you’ve imagined her?

  But then, no—

  Because in an instant everything changes—

  She is beneath you in the pirogue, all wild, welcoming flesh, and you are in her, deep, tight.

  Her arms and legs curl around you, her body nimble and as eager as yours.

  You thought it was hot in the bayou, but no climate could compare to the solid wall of heat rising within you, wrapping around both of you as you thrust into her warmth. You rain kisses on her glistening skin—mouth and face, neck and breasts—a man starved for what she can feed you.

  You drink her in, soak her up, greedy, needing every last drop of her.

  A
nd only when you come inside her do you realize— this is home.

  Chapter Four

  THE NEXT MORNING, Stephanie resolved to put the previous evening behind her, sexy bartender and all. Her heartbeat skittered a bit at the memory of his warm hands, but she consoled herself by thinking, What else would you expect? It’s the first time you’ve been touched that intimately in a while, and the first time you’ve ever been touched by a man like that. Dark. Dangerous. Another skittering heartbeat, damn it.

  After returning from a hearty breakfast prepared by Mrs. Lindman, the sweet gray-haired proprietress of the LaRue House B and B, she moved to the small desk near her window. She tried to focus as she flipped open her laptop, but strangely, she found herself noticing things about her room that she hadn’t before.

  Fringed lampshades. The lush brocade of the armchair she’d pulled up to the desk. Vibrant purple throw pillows on the bed that she’d carelessly shoved aside when crawling beneath the sheets, so anxious to escape the night.

  The light of day was making her realize that what had happened the previous evening had left her more sensitized, aware. Of everything. Mrs. Lindman’s sausage links had seemed spicier this morning, the orange juice tangier. The very act of eating had felt . . . bizarrely sensual.

  What else have I missed? she wondered as she studied the bold colors and luxuriant textures surrounding her. Is the whole world like this and I’ve just never noticed?

  Taking a deep breath, she murmured, “Get hold of yourself,” and turned her attention where it belonged, onto her computer screen.