Wildest Dreams

by Blake, Toni

  Unlike at night, no one stood guard at the door leading to the stairwell that rose toward the secret third floor. He took the stairs two at a time. He was winded when he reached the top, having to stop and catch his breath before pushing through the red curtains.

  All was still inside and his heart sank as he tossed his jacket and scarf on the bar. Stephanie, where are you? I need you.

  But then a blast of memory washed over him, and he took slow, silent steps toward the place where their passion had first ignited—the red room.

  He walked in to find her seated on one of the lush divans, her head in her hands. She wore denim shorts and a summery red top. Her pretty blond locks curled at the tips, falling around her face.

  “Hey,” he said softly.

  She looked up, clearly startled. “Jake.”

  “Been lookin’ for you, beb.”

  “I was looking for you, too.” She pushed to her feet, appearing a little confused, like maybe now that she’d found him she wasn’t sure why she’d been looking in the first place.

  He wanted to remind her without another second’s delay, so he took sure steps toward her until he could lift one hand to cup her smooth cheek. “I’ve ached for you every second we’ve been apart.”

  “Me too,” she murmured.

  He looked into her eyes, tried to let everything he felt for her pour from his gaze, then lowered his mouth onto hers in a slow, deep kiss.

  A shudder echoed through them both. “Mon Dieu,” he whispered. “I need you, chère.”

  He replaced that kiss with another, and another, until, just like the last time they’d touched, they were both trembling, filling the room with ragged breaths as they clung to each other. Her arms twined around his neck and his molded to her slender waist.

  But this wouldn’t be like that night outside her room. He needed more than that, and he had so much to give her now.

  Pulling back just slightly, he eased her top over her head, then ran his hands down over the delicate white lace of her bra. His thumbs caught on beaded nipples, so he stroked them—again and again.

  “More,” she whispered up into the silence.

  “Much more,” he said.

  She pushed his T-shirt up and he yanked it off before reaching deftly behind her to unhook her bra. Looping his fingers through the straps at her shoulders, he drew it down, letting his gaze feast on her lovely breasts.

  He didn’t know yet if this was the last time, if it was too late for him to save things. He didn’t know if this was a parting gift from her or a last plea from him. But he’d never thought he’d get to hold her, touch her, again—and he intended to soak up every second, every blessed nuance, of this liaison.

  He shivered when she reached for the button on his jeans, glancing down to watch her delicate fingers lower the zipper. He cupped her breasts and her pretty sighs grew labored when he sank his mouth to one turgid pink peak, licking and suckling her.

  “I feel that between my legs,” she whispered, and it nearly undid him.

  “Wanna make you feel so much more, beb,” he murmured, lifting a kiss to her forehead, then taking her in his arms to ease her down onto the same lush red sofa where he’d first touched her.

  Raining kisses onto her pale, perfect breasts, he undid her shorts and tugged gently at the waistband, pulling them off, along with the lacy panties underneath. He wanted her so badly he could barely breathe. He pressed another long kiss to her mouth as she pushed at his jeans and he shrugged free from them—underwear too—so that they lay completely naked together, as naked as the women in the paintings that seemed to float on the red walls above, as naked as Jake knew they were meant to be together.

  He rolled her to her back, easing between her parted thighs, pushing his way inside her. They both moaned and peered into each other’s eyes, and Jake watched her lovely lips tremble, watched her head fall back in passion, watched a single tear roll down her cheek.

  “No, no,” he whispered, reaching to blot it from her skin. “Don’t cry, beb. I love you.”

  Her eyes shone on him, warm and blue with shock.

  But he kissed it away, not wanting to talk anymore right now, just wanting them to move together like they’d been made to do.

  He pushed deeper and she met the pressure, lifting her hips, and they held like that for a long, quiet moment, until finally he closed his arms around her and sat up, swinging her up astride him with one swift move. He wanted to take her to heaven.

  She bit her lower lip, her eyes falling half shut with heat as she began to ride him. He nibbled at her breasts, roamed her lush body with his hands—he wanted to give her more, more, everything. Her fingernails dug lightly into his shoulders and her breath caught, making him murmur, “Oui, beb, oui. Come for me.” She thrust faster, moaning, moaning, until finally the ecstasy washed over her face for a few long, glorious seconds.

  That was all it took and he was gone, too, erupting inside her, losing himself in the profound, burying pleasure, and finally just holding her tight as the energy drained from him and he tried to recover from the sweetest few moments of life he could ever remember.

  Because this was different. This was freedom. Freedom to love her.

  When she eased back on him, their eyes met, and she looked wistful, sad. “I decided,” she said slowly, “I’d rather have one last time with you to remember . . . than to not have it . . . even though that’s scary for me.”

  He lifted his hand, pushing her hair back from her face. “Aw, chère—you’ve got no idea how much I admire the way you never let fear hold you back.”

  “Yes I do,” she argued softly.

  But he shook his head. “Not from findin’ your sister, no matter what it took. Not from puttin’ yourself out there in a dangerous situation with bad men, or even paddlin’ out after me in a leaky pirogue.” He cast a gentle smile.

  She returned it, saying, “I didn’t know it was leaky.”

  “It was still brave as hell.”

  And she relented, her body relaxing against him. He was still inside her. “Well, fear did hold me back from one thing. Sex.”

  “Not for long.”

  “Yes, for long.”

  He grinned. “Not for long once you met me.” He grazed his hands up her arms onto her face and she leaned forward until their foreheads met.

  “Stay,” he whispered.

  She drew back slightly. “What?”

  “Stay. Don’t leave me. I need you. You’re the only thing that’s made me feel good in a long time. What I feel when I’m with you—I want that every day. I want it for the rest of my life.”

  She quaked in his arms, and this time he hated it—because he wanted her to believe him, to understand that things had changed.

  “I’m in love with you,” he explained. “Desperately, wildly in love with you. I was just too afraid to say it. I lost so much with Becky, and felt I owed her so much, too. I was afraid—afraid of somehow sullyin’ her memory. And just as afraid, I suppose, that I’d somehow lose you, too. I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to take care of you.”

  She blinked, having mostly stopped shaking. “And now?”

  “Now I wanna be like you, beb. Brave, even though I’m afraid. I wanna love you. Take care of you. Do my very best to take care of you.”

  A slow smile spread across her face, reaching into those blue, blue eyes. Her gaze felt like sun shining into his heart. “I want to take care of you, too, Jake. And I like who I am when I’m with you.” She let out a pretty, trilling laugh. “I steal breakfast for two from Mrs. Lindman when I’m with you. I actually like having my underwear torn off by you. I walk out into the bayou naked without a care for anything in the world . . . except being with you.”

  He smiled, filled with pure joy. “Mon Dieu, chère, you make me happy.”

  She finally eased off him and they wor
dlessly lay back on the red sofa in a loose, easy embrace. “But this is . . . quick, Jake. In some ways, we don’t know each other at all.”

  He only cast his typical sexy grin. “But in other ways, we know each other intimately. I’m not afraid. The rest’ll come. I feel it in my soul.”

  He watched her draw in a deep breath, meeting his gaze. “I’m not afraid, either.”

  “I already knew that,” he said with a sure nod. “But still . . . what about your job?” It had just occurred to him how much he was asking her to give up. Her whole life.

  Yet she only shrugged. “I’ll get another one. Or maybe start my own little ad firm.”

  “Didn’t you work awful hard to get where you are?”

  “Yeah,” she said, “and it’s scary to go back to square one, but . . .”

  “You’ll be brave,” he finished for her. And then he swallowed, ready to lay something heavy on her. “I’m thinkin’ about rejoinin’ the force. Could you handle that? Danger every day?”

  To his surprise, the question brought a warm smile to her face. “Jake, you were born to help people. I’ve known that about you from the beginning.”

  And as he looked into her eyes and felt her belief in him, he knew he’d been wrong: He could save people. He’d saved Shondra. Maybe even Tina. Hell, maybe even Raven, in some small way. But mostly, he’d saved himself, by letting himself love the only woman who could breathe life back into him.

  And he knew that, finally, he wouldn’t be having any more sexy dreams. She’d made them all come true, so he’d be living them from now on.

  Epilogue

  STEPHANIE SAT ON the dock, listening to the night sounds of the bayou and eating a slice of the apple pie Jake had brought home for her the night before. Inside, he nailed up the crown molding he’d carved for the bedroom, the last touch in his refurbishment. It had turned into a place not for him to be alone, but a place for them to be alone together.

  She thought of the existence they’d built over the last year. Life was stressful some days in the Quarter—but her one-woman ad agency, where she could do the work she loved without the corporate atmosphere, was slowly getting off the ground. And even when Jake came home to their pretty little Royal Street apartment tired and wrung out from something that had happened on the job, she could see the satisfaction from his work shining in his eyes, and she could feel it in the sureness of his touch when they made love. So life was good in the city, but even better when they escaped out here for a few days and nights of peace and great sex.

  They’d married in Chicago—a big, no-holds-barred affair that her mother had loved planning and her sister had loved helping with. But they’d opted out of the traditional honeymoon and instead headed straight to their bayou house, where they’d made love for a week to the slightly scratchy sounds of Mamère’s old records. Jake had joked it was a damn good thing she’d gotten lots of lingerie at her bridal shower because, despite his best intentions, he was destroying panties at an alarming rate.

  If there was any dark cloud in their lives, it was enduring the arrest and trial of Robert Nicholson. But that was also a good thing, the last thing he needed, Jake said, to say good-bye to Becky. Nicholson had been sentenced to life in prison just last week.

  When the hammering ceased, she called to him. “Jake, honey, can you come out here for a minute? I need to tell you something.”

  A moment later, he exited the house with two cans of beer. As he popped the top on his, she only set hers aside unopened and looked out over the dark water. “There are angels in the bayou tonight,” she said.

  He grinned, sliding his arm around her shoulder. “That’s what you called me out here to tell me?”

  “No.” She shook her head softly, eased a forkful of pie into his mouth, and then passed him a booklet of New Orleans real estate listings. “I called you out here to tell you we’re going to have to start looking for a house a little sooner than we thought.”

  He glanced down at the book. “Why?”

  Setting her pie plate aside to place a hand on the worn denim that stretched across his thigh, she whispered, “I’m . . . a little bit pregnant.” They hadn’t planned to have a baby right now—they’d only talked of it as something for a distant future—and given the child he’d once lost, she wasn’t sure how he’d feel.

  He leaned forward slightly. “A little bit?”

  “Well, completely.” She smiled and rolled her eyes at her own silly wording. “I was just nervous to tell you.”

  He set his beer on the dock and lifted his hands to her face. “Never be nervous with me, chère.”

  “But we haven’t talked about . . . and I wasn’t sure how you’d . . .”

  His smile unfurled slowly. “Beb, I love you. And you’re havin’ my baby. And that’s damn scary. But also . . . perfect, and wonderful. You gotta know that.”

  “Deep down, I guess I did.” She bit her lip thoughtfully. “I was thinking, if it’s a boy, we could name him James, after you. And if it’s a girl, we could call her Meghan.” The names he’d once told her that he and Becky had discussed that fated evening over dinner.

  “Becky would like that.”

  “I thought it might . . . keep her alive for you a little or something.”

  “Mon Dieu, you’re sweet,” he said, bending to kiss her. “But Becky’s gone, and as much as that hurt, life is about me and you now, chère. Me and you and this little bébé inside you.”

  He pressed his hand against her abdomen and they exchanged soft smiles.

  “Now let’s look for angels,” he said.

  Did you fall in love with Toni Blake’s

  Wildest Dreams?

  Then you won’t want to miss out on her new series

  set in a beautiful small town with a lot of

  heart—and unforgettable people.

  Read on and fall in love all over again.

  Welcome to Destiny . . .

  An Excerpt from

  ONE RECKLESS SUMMER

  Jenny Tolliver’s been the good girl all her life, and now that her marriage has been busted up by her cheating ex, she’s decided it’s time to figure out what life holds in store for her next. She never dreamed the answer would be Mick Brody, Destiny’s #1 hellraiser. He’s exactly the kind of guy Jenny’s always kept her distance from . . . but soon the good girl and the bad boy are caught in a raw heat that’s out of control.

  For God’s sake—he’d really just had sex with her. With Jenny Tolliver.

  He’d known her name then, and he knew it now, too. He wasn’t sure why, either time, he’d acted like it was such a mystery. He just hadn’t wanted her to know, he guessed, that he’d even realized she existed. That he’d seen her, when they were teenagers, cheering at high school basketball games in that little red-and-white skirt. Go Bulldogs—ruff, ruff, ruff! That he’d seen her back then hanging out at the Whippy Dip, with guys who were much cleaner-cut than him but who were still probably talking her out of her panties on hot summer nights.

  He blinked, still shocked to remember that he’d just talked her out of her panties. Well, not talked—no, not that at all. But the result was the same, and something he would never forget. The police chief’s daughter, who had provided him with more than a few teenage fantasies, who he’d been certain would never look twice at him, had just done it with him in the woods.

  The wonder of that—and the horror of it—made him drop to his knees on the forest floor and close his eyes. He ran his hands back through his hair, frustrated.

  She couldn’t possibly understand what was at stake here, why what he’d just done could possibly be the biggest mistake of his life—and he’d already made more than his fair share. And—realistically—she probably couldn’t be trusted not to tell people she’d seen him, not to tell her father. Mick emitted a huge groan of defeat at the very thought.

  Then a
gain, maybe she wouldn’t tell her dad. To tell him the whole story would mean admitting to having sex with Mick without having hardly exchanged a word. And why that had happened—why she had let it—he’d never know.

  He’d never consciously made the decision to start kissing her, touching her—it had just happened when she’d tried to get past him. It hadn’t resulted from thought—but mere instinct.

  He truly hadn’t recognized her at first, but once he’d figured out who she was, something about her had brought out the animal inside him. And there’d been moments when he’d been sure she’d stop him, and other moments when he’d been much more sure she wouldn’t—but he still couldn’t believe the latter had turned out to be true.

  Although even if she didn’t tell her dad, she’d surely tell someone. She just didn’t have any reason not to.

  And then word would get around. And then her father would find out. And then everything Mick was trying to do here would fall apart. And he might go to prison, for all he knew—something he should have thought about before he’d agreed to this, but he hadn’t. He might go to prison, and that was only one lousy aspect of being found here.

  I shouldn’t have let myself be talked into this. I should be at home in Cincinnati, having a beer at Skully’s on the corner, or watching a little TV before bed.

  But it was too late for the shoulda-coulda-woulda thing.

  He supposed he should get back to the house. He’d only intended to take a short walk, get some air, clear his head from the troubles between those walls. And then he’d seen someone on the property and his body had gone on red alert—he’d closed the short distance between them without even thinking about consequences, his only thought that whoever it was couldn’t be here. And the truth was, he hadn’t been overreacting. The last thing he needed was a woman trotting around the woods with a telescope that could just as easily be pointed in a window as at the sky.