thoughts.
Ian went on his knees, one on either side of her legs, and kissed Bree, closing his eyes to savor. He kissed her neck, burying his hands in her silky hair, and breathed in her scent. She smelled exotic, like spices you'd find in the pantry, and he licked her shoulder, sucking her clavicle.
Bree made a small sound of surprise, but Ian didn't look up at her face. He cruised down to her breasts, which rose and fell in time with her quickening breathing. Reaching behind her back, Ian undid her bra and slid the straps down, pulling the whole thing to her waist and wrists. Bree was swallowing hard, her body moving restlessly, and he suspected it was nervousness, so Ian only allowed himself a brief glimpse at her rounded, pale breasts before covering a dusky nipple with his mouth.
He felt like he already knew her body in a weird sort of way since he had made love to her over and over in his dreams, so he went on instinct, the familiar tug and suck and pull garnering the same reaction from her in reality that it had so many nights in his sleep. Bree dug her fingernails into his back and made delightful moans of encouragement that spurred him on, and he switched from one breast to the other and back again until her nipples were shiny and taut from his attention. His erection was bumping against her inner thighs, and she moved against him, lifting her hips to grind them together.
Instead of giving her what she was asking for, he pulled back so they were no longer in contact, and he had the pleasure of hearing her disappointed mewl. But the sound cut off when he took her panties and peeled them down, then spread her legs by pushing her knees apart. He paused a moment then, just to check his control, and to look at her. She had her arms above her head, her eyes half-closed, her full lips open, black hair tumbling over her pale skin. When he bent over and kissed her, right on her clitoris, she jerked a little on the quilt. Glancing up the length of her, Ian moaned himself when he saw she had taken a finger and was biting the tip, the black fingernails of her other fingers splayed across her jaw.
She was the sexiest thing he had ever seen.
"I find you so beautiful," he said, and before she could reply, Ian buried his mouth between her thighs.
He stroked across her warm, moist flesh, and dipped his tongue inside her, the way he knew, just knew she would like.
When he pulled back, she said it just like she did in his dreams, "More. Please. More."
He could do that. He could do this all day and all night, taste her tangy sweetness and listen to her rhythmic cries of pleasure. When her thighs tensed, he pulled back, preventing her from an orgasm. Then he went back, licking and sucking, his body taut with desire, aching with the urge to possess her, but his control holding him back. He wanted to take her there again and again, so that she was insensible with want, then only then would he push inside her body. The floor was hard on his knees, a cool draft wafting over them, raising goose bumps on Bree's dewy skin, but he just pulled the quilt around her sides and kept going.
There was no awkwardness, no holding back, no first-time fumbles or strokes that caused zero reaction. Everything he did turned Bree on, and every sound, every move she made heightened his own arousal. They did know each other, they knew the steps to this dance, they knew where they were going and how to get there. Ian didn't stop to think about it, but just felt, just let it go, just focused on her body and its reaction and how to make the most of her acute pleasure.
When her moans were trailing off, her breathing and arousal so intense that her voice was raspy and losing projection, her thighs trembling, her eyes closed, arms slack against her sides, head turning restlessly from side to side as he ate at her, Ian knew it was time. Shucking his boxers, he used one hand to stroke her and the other to clumsily unroll the condom.
Then as he poised over her, he spoke the only words he ever remembered saying in his dreams. "Open your eyes, Bree. Look at me."
She did, her eyes a midnight blue, darkened with desire, glassy and bright in the waning afternoon light. "Ian," she said, voice husky.
Something about the way she said his name, the way she looked up at him, with trust and desire, twisted things inside Ian, and he felt a wave of possessiveness roll over him. This wasn't about just now, this was about him and Bree, being together, starting something powerful and intimate and sensual. He wanted her, in all the ways that mattered.
And it was real.
Bree's breath caught at the look on Ian's face. He looked fierce, a thin sheen of sweat on his forehead and upper lip, his biceps taut from holding himself over her. He had a sense of power about him, a control, a primal warrior quality about him. She never would have thought that, but now that she saw him, knew him on an intimate level, she knew it made perfect sense. He was successful because of those qualities, and right at the moment he was dedicated to driving her insane with want.
She didn't know how, or maybe she did in its unbelievable way, but he knew her body, understood what she liked without her speaking a word, and he had her primed and on the edge. If he had let her, she would have come six times already, but he had pulled back, kept her from an orgasm over and over, so that her body felt oversensitive, her mind liquid puree.
When he pushed inside her with a hard thrust, Bree knew it was over, that she couldn't stop it any longer, and she shattered, her back arching, her body clenching around him. He lengthened her orgasm by stroking in and out at the perfect pace, not too fast, not too slow, so that she could close her eyes and enjoy the pulsing ecstasy on and on, until she was fairly certain she had stopped breathing, had died, and had risen above her body to another plane of existence.
Could someone say holy shit? Bree pried her dry eyes open and stared up at Ian, her body jellied and slack on the quilt, his erection still hard and intimate inside of her, sparking little postorgasmic tremors. He was biting his lip, which she found endearing, and because he had done so right by her, Bree spread her legs farther and tipped her hips, so that he would go deeper.
In appreciation for her efforts, he gave her a low moan, then thrust harder, sliding her backwards on the quilt. She knew when he was going to come, saw it on his face, felt it in his pause inside her, understood that for whatever reason, she knew this man sexually, had a connection that was raw and intense and loaded with passion. When he collapsed on her chest, she welcomed his weight, enjoying the way he panted in her ear, and stroked her hair back from her face.
He stayed inside her while they both fought for air, and Bree tried to restore her heart rate to something less than a hummingbird's. She had no idea what to say, but the silence didn't feel uncomfortable. She could actually feel his smile, even without looking. It was there on his face, and she could feel it and hear it, and it made her smile in return.
It was three in the afternoon, and she was naked on the hardwood floor in front of her Christmas tree with a man she barely knew, and she felt nothing but contentment and a sensual satisfaction.
"Ow," Ian said, pulling out of her:
"Ow? Don't tell me that hurts."
"Well, it does, figuratively, but the reason I said 'ow' is because your cat just walked across my ass, claws out."
"Are you serious?" Bree tried to glance around Ian's shoulders for Akasha. "I didn't feel anything."
"That's because she walked on my ass, not yours." Ian kissed Bree's forehead and rolled onto his back next to her with a sigh.
Bree spotted her cat then, down by Ian's feet, looking up at her calmly, the mistletoe in her mouth. "Oh. She wanted what has become her new favorite chew toy."
"She definitely has a thing for mistletoe."
"I think I do now, too." Bree grinned at Ian. "It seems to be working for me."
He grinned back. "It's doing really positive things for me as well."
Bree would have been content to just lie naked with him for a while, but it was December, and she lived in a drafty old house. A wicked breeze was whistling in from the nonfunctioning fireplace and rushing over her flushed skin, making her shiver. The quilt was no protection since she cou
ldn't pull it fully over them or they'd wind up on the bare floor. She was about to give in to the inevitable and tell Ian they needed clothes or a bed or a hot shower, when he spoke first.
"I'm sorry, you're cold, aren't you? Here, stand up, and we'll wrap you in the quilt." Ian stood up, giving her a hell of a view of his tight butt, and reached his hand out to help her up.
It was such a small thing. Such an obvious thing. He knew she was cold, felt her shiver, wanted to fix it. No big deal. Common courtesy, the sign of an observant man. It was no big deal. Yet Bree could count on one hand the number of times the men she had dated had paid attention to her needs or wants on that level. It just showed her that her baby sister was right—she had definitely been dating the wrong sorts of men, and no matter what happened with Ian, he had shown her that she was done fixing broken men. She wanted a partnership, a mutual respect in a relationship.
"Thanks." Before she could even consider the fact that she was standing naked in front of him and her giant picture window facing Main Street, Ian had her bundled up in the quilt papoose style, disregarding his own lack of clothes.
"Should we finish my tour of the house or do you want to go get that late lunch I promised you?"
He was holding the front of the quilt closed and dusting little kisses on the side of her mouth. Bree felt herself warming up, from the inside out. He was seriously cute, and she liked that he wasn't trying to run out on her now that they'd had sex. She was hungry, but somehow the idea of leaving her house with Ian, going out in public minutes after they'd touched each other in such intimacy, made her feel weird.
Which meant she needed to get a grip and just do it. She was a grown woman, and dating—if they could call it that—a lawyer from Chicago was not a dirty little secret. "Food is good."
"You're good." Ian gave her a searing kiss, the tangy taste of sex still in his mouth.
Bree freed her hands from the blanket and placed them directly on his bare butt. Nice and tight. She squeezed lightly, and he bumped forward against her.
"Can I pick up some stuff and spend the night here?" he asked. "Do you mind?"
Hell no. "I'd like that."
"Good. Now get off my ass or we'll never get out of here."
Bree pulled her hands away with a grin. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Sure you don't." Ian turned and reached for his boxer shorts. He was holding them in his hand when he glanced back at her. "Hey, Bree?"
"Yeah?" She had no idea what he was going to say, but she wasn't worried. She trusted Ian, for whatever reason. "How do your dreams end?"
"They always end right before, well, right before I have an orgasm." She refused to blush.
He studied her for a second, then nodded. "Mine too. So I guess we're on our own from here on out."
"Guess so." The reality of being with him felt too satisfying to worry about it though, and it was so much better than dreaming.
"Reality is definitely more satisfying than dreaming."
Bree felt that shiver run up her spine again as his words echoed her thoughts. She didn't understand what had happened, was happening, but she was too much a believer in signs to deny it or back down.
This, whatever this was, was meant to happen. "Yes, it is. Infinitely more satisfying."
Ian pulled the condom off of himself with a wince. "Though messier."
Bree laughed. "True. But I'm willing to get a little messy if you are."
"I am. I absolutely am."
The look in his eyes was so fierce and sensual that Bree stepped back before they got messy all over again. She would spontaneously combust if he touched her again without a recovery period.
"Good."
And hopefully that one word would convey everything she was feeling, confused and mysterious and overwhelming as it was.
Chapter 5
Ian wasn't sure why he had ordered eggs and hash browns at four o'clock, but it just seemed like the appropriate thing to eat at a place called the Busy Bee Diner. The booth was sticky, the portions huge, and the waitresses sassy and efficient. He drank his coffee black and smiled across the table at Bree.
She still had a tousled look to her, her cheeks flushed and her hair erratic. He liked to see her this way, liked knowing he had satisfied her.
"This isn't exactly the fine dining you get in Chicago," she said, glancing around the restaurant.
"No. But I grew up in a town like Cuttersville, so I'm comfortable here."
Bree looked at him in amazement. "You did? I have a hard time picturing that."
That's because he had tried so damn hard to shed the dust of Prairie, Illinois, from his feet. Too hard. "Yep. I was the town poor kid who never fit in because we didn't live by the rules of a small farming community. We had a farmhouse but had no acreage. My mother had two kids by two different men without ever being married. She was an eighties hippie, growing our own food and living off welfare. None of those things were particularly acceptable to the locals."
"I can see that." Bree gripped her coffee cup. "I'm sorry, Ian. It doesn't sound like an easy way to grow up."
He shrugged. "It was fine. My mother loved us, and she taught us how to survive on our own. I owe a lot of my success to her lessons in tenacity." He really didn't look back on his childhood negatively, despite the poverty and the disapproval from adults toward his mother. If anything, he had been a cosseted town favorite because people had felt sorry for his lack of a normal life, as they deemed it. Ironically, though, his mother had been a better mother than any of them could have ever grasped. "In fact, in some ways I think I'm still a small-town boy at heart. I've tried to convince myself I love the city, but I get claustro-phobic. I was actually thinking about buying a house in the suburbs and commuting downtown just to have some space to myself."
"I can't imagine not having my own yard or porch. Whenever you want to be outside you have to share it with other people."
Her grimace gave her opinion on that. Ian smiled. "You don't like to share, do you?"
"Not particularly. I like people, I want them around me, but I like the peace and quiet of being outside by myself. I like my big old house and my space. I like this town, in all its quirkiness. And I like that no one thinks anything of a Murphy girl being a witch. It's sort of expected."
Ian wasn't sure he wanted the answer, but he was too curious not to ask. "So what does being a witch mean exactly?"
Bree laughed. "I can hear the skepticism just dripping from your voice. It's kind of funny actually. But the thing is, I'm not professing to be capable of what characters in Harry Potter can do. Witchcraft is just harnessing the magick within all of us via spells . . . it's a nature-based religion that practices goddess worship. I was born with a sixth sense though. I can sense people's feelings and see their auras."
Yeah. He really hadn't wanted this answer. Auras weren't logical. "I'm trying to understand this, Bree, I really am, but I'm struggling. What the hell is an aura exactly, and how can you possibly see it?"
He didn't mean it as a slur, and she didn't take it that way. She just smiled. "I bet your mother knows."
"Probably. But unfortunately, she died two years ago. Cancer." And now there was a lump in his throat, damn it. His mother would have liked Bree, no doubt about that.
"Oh, I'm sorry." Bree reached across the table and put her hand over his. "That must be really difficult for you."
"It was. Is." Ian laced his fingers through hers and squeezed. "But I'm serious . . . what does an aura look like?"
"It's the energy that surrounds everyone. They're in colors, which indicates mood to me. Together with the emotion I can sense from their feelings, I can usually tell what mood someone is in and what they're generally feeling."
"What color is my aura?" Ian resisted the urge to pat the air around him.
"Right now it's white. You're content."
Now that was kind of cool. He was content. Relaxed. Enjoying the moment. "Very true. What was it when you met me?"
> "The first time? In the coffee shop? You were radiating disapproval. You didn't like my nail polish."
Ian couldn't believe she even remembered meeting him, it had been so brief. But so very significant for him, setting off his year of erotic dreams. "That's not exactly accurate. It wasn't disapproval toward you, it was toward me. I was instantly attracted to you, and that didn't fit into my plan, so I was annoyed with myself."
"What was your plan?"
"To focus on my career and date corporate women who know their way around a boardroom and who understand my lifestyle." Now he wasn't even sure why he had thought that was a good idea. It wasn't really even who he was, and the idea of a high-profile romance with chichi dinners and expensive vacations held zero appeal. "You forced me to look at my plan and realize it was never really what I wanted."
"What is it that you want now?"
He wanted to say "you," but he had already said that to her once that day. And it wasn't the true, full picture. "I want to slow down. I want to have a life outside of my career. I want to date a woman whose company I enjoy, who is a friend, who appreciates the small things, and when I'm with her, I don't have to pretend that I grew up upper middle class." He thought Bree fit the bill, and that did crazy-ass things to his insides. "What do you want?"
"What do I want?" Bree held.her coffee in front of her chin and sniffed it. "I want a relationship with a man who respects me as a partner. I want my part-time job at the library to be full-time, because I love working with the kids. I want just enough money to pay my bills but still have enough free time to be with my family, to take care of my house. That's not so much, is it?"
"No. It's not." And listening to her, Ian was having insane lunatic thoughts. Like maybe they could combine their goals and be together.
"Why did you come back to Cuttersville?" she asked. "You didn't really need to give me that offer on the house in person, did you?"
Busted. "No. I wanted to see you, to convince myself that the you in reality couldn't live up to the you in my dreams." Ian stroked her fingers. "I was wrong."
Bree's eyes had darkened. "When I opened the door and you were standing there, I was just about knocked out by the sexual intent rolling off you. I knew you wanted me."
Great. "Was it the erection that gave it away?" he asked ruefully.
She laughed. "No. I didn't look. But there was instant chemistry between us. You can't deny that."
"No, I definitely can't deny that." Ian was about to say something about them dating long-distance, having a future, and probably scare the complete shit out of her with his overeager aggressiveness, when the waitress saved him from himself by plunking a plate of eggs and hash browns down in front of him.
Bree had a chicken salad, which she didn't look all that interested in. While he shoveled eggs into his mouth to appease his completely empty stomach, she just played with her fork.
"Ian, why do you think we've been sharing the same dream?"
That was the million-dollar question to which he had no answer. "I don't know. I don't understand things like this, Bree. I've never been . . . spiritual." It was something he had neglected and ignored, frankly, in the need to pay the bills and achieve corporate success.
"But you're not close-minded to such things, are you?"
Ian thought about that. "No. No, not really. I have a hard time wrapping my head around it, but I do realize there are some things we can't really explain. They just are."
Like his rapidly growing feelings for her.
Bree studied Ian's face. He looked sincere, and he had been amazingly open to her discussing being a witch. He was definitely different from what she had assumed he would be like, and she was enjoying his company. It was odd how they weren't the polar opposites she had assumed based on each of their appearances. In fact, they had a lot in common when you got down to the basics, and she liked him.
Really liked him.
And she was about to say something crazy that maybe she shouldn't say, but she figured she acted out of emotion, always had, always would, and if he was going to be with her in any way, he would have to accept that facet of her personality. So she might as well come out of the gate being true to herself, and he could take it or leave it.
So she opened her mind and told him what had been rolling around in her head. "I think that the reason we've been sharing this dream in our sleep state, is because we're sharing a dream in our daytime lives."
His forehead furrowed. "What do you mean?"
"I mean that we have the same goals, essentially. We both want to hit the pause button, enjoy family and a house and a relationship. We're both lonely and looking for something with someone. With each other."
There it was. All laid out on tire table in the Busy Bee. Everything she'd been thinking. If he thought she was a flake now, well, she'd save herself some time and potential heartache. If he agreed, then maybe, just maybe, it could be the start of something wonderful.
Ian did look like he'd taken a two-by-four in the face, but he wasn't running out of the restaurant screaming.
What he said was, "Maybe you're right, Bree. After today, I'm willing to believe just about anything."
"Really? You don't think I'm insane?"
He shook his head solemnly, setting his fork down. "No. I think you're amazing."
She'd take that.
* * *
Ian was holding her hand as they walked up her driveway. It was new and strange, but in a giddy, exciting sort of way. It was her house, and they were going to it, a messenger bag filled with his overnight things slung over his shoulder. It was easy and comfortable, like they were a couple, and he did this every weekend.
Her elderly neighbor Edith waved to her, myopic eyes wide with curiosity as she checked out Ian, studying their linked hands. Wonderful. The gossip that Bree Murphy was hooking up would be all over town by morning. Not that Bree cared, exactly, but it would mean a phone call from her mother, and unlike most mothers, there would be no censure. Instead, her mother would be gleeful that Bree was finally getting some, and she would press for details. Bree loved her mother, but she did not want to discuss her sex life with her. She didn't want to discuss her sex life with anyone except the man she was having sex with.
To that end, she glanced up at Ian and said, "You're making me the subject of town gossip."
He looked amused and even had the nerve to wave to Edith. "Do you care?"
"Yes," she lied. "So you had better make it worth my character defamation."
"Sort of like if everyone thinks you're being thoroughly debauched, I really should thoroughly debauch you?"
"You have to admit there's a certain logic to that," she told him as she fished in her purse for her house key.