Incubus Among Us #1 (Shifter Romance)

  Chapter 4

  But all good things come to an end, and that wonderful dream was no exception. My end came with the incessant beeping of an alarm. I sat up and my eyes swept around the room looking for my lover. There was nobody. I was alone except for the bouncing, blaring machine on my nightstand. I slammed my hand on the button and the alarm silenced.

  Time to get up for work, but all I wanted to do was sit there and hold on to the memories of that sensual dream. It had felt so real, so magnificent. His arms wrapped around me, the feel of him inside me. I glanced down at myself and saw my shirt was bunched up over my breasts. There was a distinct wetness between my legs to remind me how sweet was the dream. Then the little voice in my head reminded me that nothing that extraordinary would never happen to me. I needed to forget it and move on with my life.

  I glanced at the clock and my eyes widened. I'd sat there daydreaming for half an hour. I was going to be late for work.

  I jumped out of bed and raced through my usual routine. Shower, dress, feed myself, then the race down the stairs because the elevator was taken by the overweight people on the upper floors. The apartment building had its own small parking lot nearby. The prices were so high I had to sign over my first-born to rent a spot, but the joke was on them because I never expected to have a child. I drove to work, strategically breaking the speeding limit where I knew I wouldn't be caught, and arrived at the forest of cubicles a full minute before the clock struck time.

  Unfortunately, Lenin's watch ran fast and when I reached my cubicle I found him waiting there for me with one foot tapping the ground. "You're late," he commented. He ruled it with an iron fist as efficiently as any Third-World dictator.

  "I'm sorry, I-"

  "Don't give me excuses, give me results. I want the documents for the coming board meeting on my desk in an hour," he snapped.

  "Yes, Mr. Lenin," I replied. Emphasis on the Gulag.

  He marched off and I dropped into my chair with a sigh. I hated my life, and I really hated dealing with jerks like Lennon. Why couldn't more people be as grateful as that one guy I picked up last-oh crap. I straightened and my eyes widened. I forgot to check to see if that guy was still in the rec room. Hell, I didn't even know if the guy was alive, much less still in the building. Maybe he'd been hurt worse than we thought and lay dead on the couch aspiring to be mulch.

  I anxiously awaited the lunch hour, all the while glancing at my phone on my desk wondering if at any moment the apartment manager would ring me up and tell me to get my things packed because I'd broken the rules by letting a stranger into not only the apartment building, but into the rec room. The call never came, and at noon I rushed from the office to my apartment building. I ran into Tiffany in the lobby.

  "What are you doing here?" she asked me. Her workplace was only a few blocks away from our building while I had the ten-block drive, so she always came back for food and I rarely did.

  I glanced at the front desk. The apartment manager sat behind us with his eyes on a newspaper, but I suspected his attention was on us. My eyes flickered to the rec room doors and back to Tiffany. My voice was a little more high-pitched than was usual for me. "I forgot something."

  Her eyes widened and she whipped her head to face the rec room. "The-" I jumped forward and clapped my hand over her mouth.

  Ackerman looked up from his paper. "No rough-housing in the lobby," he scolded us like we were two kids about to have a tussle on the hard linoleum floor.

  "Um, sorry," I apologized. I dragged Tiffany over to the rec entrance and into the room. Once safely inside I released her and we both looked to the couch. Empty. Not even an imprint of a body. I was both relieved and disappointed. There went the object of my wet dreams.

  Tiffany was only relieved. "He must have snuck out of here before Ackerman woke up. That makes a lot less trouble for us," she commented.

  My shoulders slumped. "Yeah, a lot less trouble," I repeated with a lot less enthusiasm.

  My friend glared at me. "He was bad news," she insisted.

  I shrugged. "I still don't see what was so wrong about him."

  "Then you're lucky because he gave off creepy enough vibes to chill me all night. I could barely sleep," she told me.

  The topic of sleeping, or lack thereof in my case, wasn't what I wanted to talk about. "Well, creepy or not he's gone, so I'll just get some food and get back to work." My voice sounded as dreary as a funeral on a rainy day in a depressing graveyard.

  Tiffany grabbed my shoulders and gave me a shake. "How about you and I go out tonight? Maybe we can pick you up a guy that doesn't scare me," she suggested.

  I shook my head. "Nah, I think I'll just stay in tonight and read a book."

  My friend rolled her eyes. "And that's why neither of us will ever find the right guy," she mused.

  My stomach grumbled and time ticked on. "I'll see you later," I told her, and hurried to appease my appetite, but not my heavy heart.

  As I drove back to work I pondered my melancholy mood. Why was I so sad over some strange guy falling into my life and slipping out of it just as quickly? It wasn't like he was the one who I'd made love to last night. That was all a figment of my overly stimulated imagination, with a little help from his beautiful, gorgeous eyes.

  "Get a hold of yourself, Liz," I scolded myself. "It's not like he's coming back into your life."

  On that cheerful thought I returned to my cheerful job and sloshed through my cheerful work until I was all cheered out. The five o'clock call to evacuate came and I was swept into the stampede that rushed out the door. I made it back to my apartment building and was ambushed by Tiffany on our floor.

  "Boo!" she cried out when I reached our floor.

  I blinked at her. "How many times did you have to do that before I came?" I asked her.

  Tiffany shrugged, but her impish grin warned me she was going to be modest about the number. "Just once on Ackerman, but it was worth the wait to see a smile on your face." She pulled me out of the elevator and stretched my cheeks so I smiled. "See? You already look better," she teased.

  I pushed away her hands and sighed. "I'm not really in the mood," I told her.

  Tiffany frowned. "It's that guy again, isn't it? You didn't go see him behind my back, did you?"

  I rolled my eyes. "How can I see him when I don't even know where he lives? Hell, I don't even know his name," I reminded her.

  Tiffany craned her neck toward me and rubbed her chin. "I don't know, you're pretty sneaky," she commented. She pulled back and the mischievous light was extinguished and exchanged for a curious expression. "You know, now that I think of it you do kind of remind me of that guy."

  "How?" I asked her.

  She shrugged. "I don't know, just something about you. Like you're from another world or something." She grinned and wagged her eyebrows. "That's probably what attracted me to you. You're so moody, mysterious, and-"

  "-tired. I could use a really long nap after last night," I told her.

  She frowned again. "What was wrong with last night? We've stayed up that late lots of times."

  The color drained from my face. "Um, well, it was a really heavy job dragging him here and, well, I'm still a little sore," I told her. The truth was my dream had left me with some sapped energy, or maybe I was lying to myself and wishing to get to bed to see if I could replace the dream.

  "Oh, yeah, that. He was pretty heavy. Even my shoulders are sore," Tiffany agreed as she rubbed one shoulder. "Anyway, how about we hang out tomorrow? I could take us to a new Italian restaurant I know of, my treat," she offered.

  "Yeah, sure, that sounds great," I replied. Anything just to get to my apartment and rest.

  She crossed her arms. "Don't sound so excited, you're embarrassing me," she quipped.

  I sighed and ran my hands through my medium-length brown hair. "Sorry, Italian sounds great. What time?"

  "Dinner time, but I'll w
ait for you at the bottom of the stairs when you get off to work in case you're so lethargic you need someone to hold you up when you want to go up," she teased.

  I managed a smile. "Sounds great. See you tomorrow," I told her.

  I hurried past her to the sanctuary of my apartment and breathed a sigh of relief when I closed the door behind myself. The calm, quiet serenity of my lonely apartment greeted me. I tossed my purse on the couch and glanced in the direction of the bedroom. I was overcome with an irresistible urge to see if there was someone waiting in there for me, and I practically ran into the room.

  Nothing. The room was dark and the bed lay empty. I hung my head and returned to the bright living room. Time to make dinner for myself and not think about dreams that weren't going to come true.

  Or so I thought.