Chapter 2 - In Our Dream

“Jennah?”

She turned to see Dominic a few feet away from her.  She smiled.  “Hi.”

He strode over to her in long strides. “I thought it was you.”

She nodded and grinned again.  “Who else would be in my dream but me?”

He stared down at the floor for a moment and then smirked at her.  “You’d be surprised.”  He put his hands in the pockets of his dark jeans and flashed a sexy smile.  “I hoped you’d come back.”

She laughed.  “You have?”  At least the man in her dreams was happy to see her.

“I have.  I thought we could go skating.”  He looked her up and down slowly.  “Do you like ice skating?”

She bit her lip so she wouldn’t laugh loudly.  It was just a dream. Why not?  “I do, actually.”

“Perfect!”  He held out one large hand.  “We’ll get our jackets and gloves and do that then.”

Shaking her head, she took his hand and let him lead her.  “So, Dominic, I woke up last time when I asked if you were from around here...”

His laugh was deep, and it caused her insides to flush with a heat she hadn’t felt in a very long time.  “I’m not.  I’m in the area, though, and once I finish one last job I’m going to find some place quiet and relocate with a more peaceful line of work.”

She studied his darkly shadowed jaw and noticed the lines that only hard times could put on such a young man.  “One last job? What is it you do?”

Almost black eyes watched her seriously for a moment.  “I wish I could tell you, really I do, but there’s too much at stake and too many people involved to tell you...just yet.”

Jennah glanced up at the stern look in his eyes and nodded.  “Okay, I’ll just think of you as a non-British James Bond then.”  He laughed again.  “Can I at least ask how old you are?”

She hadn’t even noticed she was in her jacket with her white mitts on until he patted her hand with his black-gloved one.  “Is age a problem?”

“I like to think it’s not, most of the time.”  She stopped suddenly when she realized they were at a pond.  The snow had been pushed to the sides so the white ice was visible in the shadowed night.  She was beginning to like her dreams.

He motioned to a small bench. She sat down.  He knelt in the cold snow in front of her and began to take her boot off.  This was certainly a first. 

He grinned up at her.  “In life experience I’m much older than my true age, if that matters.”

She just sat there and let him slip her skate onto her foot.  “And your true age would be?” 

He grinned at her again. “Twenty-four.”

She frowned and tried not to groan out loud.  “You do look older,” she whispered.

He gently picked up her other foot and worked her boot off.  He knelt there, rubbing her foot in his big hands.  “Is that a bad thing?  That I’m twenty-four, or that I look older?”

She tried to ignore the warm feelings his hands were creating and sending up her legs.  “It’s not a bad thing that you’re only twenty-four. I’m just jealous.”

He chuckled.  “Why is that?”

She swallowed as his hand rubbed the back of her calf, and it tingled all the way up her leg.  “I’m twelve years older.”

He gave her a playful look.  “I don’t have a problem with that.”  He slipped the skate on her foot.  “And you don’t look your age anyway.”

When he finished lacing her skate and stood up, she was surprised to see he already had his skates on.  Dreams are much simpler than the real world, she thought.

He helped her walk to the ice and then glided backwards away from her.  She watched how smoothly he moved on the skates and hoped for a moment that she was going to look as graceful.  It would be her luck to glide out and fall on her face.

“Come on, Jennah,” he goaded her playfully.

She grinned and pushed with one foot to slide a few feet slowly.  She actually did like skating and was pretty good at it. At least she had been the last time she’d done it.  Lifting her head, she watched as he came back toward her.  Taking a few easy strides, she picked up momentum without any wobbling or unsteadiness. 

He circled her until he was skating backwards beside her.  He turned and— she couldn’t have ever done it as fast and fluidly as he did—his arm came around behind her and he was pushing her to keep up with his stride.  He leaned down so he spoke softly beside her ear. “It’s better with the night air brushing against your face.”

“Just catch me when I fall.”  Despite her words, she was smiling and couldn’t remember when she’d felt this relaxed.   As they neared the end of the pond, he turned quickly and held her waist as he spun her around to head back the other way. 

“I promise to cushion your fall if you do.”  He glanced behind them.

She clung to his wrist and jacket, but didn’t want him to slow down.  She’d never skated like this and it was like an invigorating dance.  Jennah peeked around him to see how close they were to the other end, and was just going to tell him they were getting too close when he slowed and began to turn the corner gracefully.  “I think I like dreams with you in them.”

He watched her for a few seconds.  “And if I told you it wasn’t exactly a dream?”

She raised both eyebrows.  “I’d laugh at you because I know it’s a dream. The last time I was sitting beside you at the library, and then I was in my bed waking up to my alarm.”

He smirked.  “That’s pretty convincing.”

Jennah nodded.  “Yep.”

He pulled her closer and grasped her hip, swinging her into the next corner until she’d gone around in a complete circle, all while clinging to him.  She was laughing while she grasped his arm tighter and let him lead her all over the glossy surface.  She could feel the cool night air on her cheeks, but didn’t care. Dream or not, she hadn’t had this much fun in a while.

Dominic lowered his head so his cold cheek touched hers.  “Can I talk you into coming back to my place for hot chocolate?”

She leaned back and gawked at him.  “Your place?  I thought you weren’t living near here.”

He grinned, his dark eyes filled with mischief.  “If this is a dream, I can get us to my place.”

She bit her lip and nodded.  This wasn’t like her at all, but it was just a dream.  He pulled her closer to him and stopped them in the middle of the pond.

“Close your eyes.” 

When she opened them, they were standing in the middle of a kitchen.  With her eyes wide, she looked up at him and then down at herself.   She was in her blue sweater and jeans. Her jacket and mitts were gone.  “That’s a neat trick.”

He laughed.  “In this place, if you can think it, you can do it.”

She smirked up at him.  “I’ll have to remember that.”  She stepped back from him and turned to look around.  It was a sparsely decorated apartment, very clearly one of a bachelors.  Turning slowly again, she noticed the photo on the wall. She walked over toward it.  A man stood in uniform with his arm around a male teen and a small, rounded woman.  They appeared to be very happy.  She leaned closer and studied the boy. It had to be Dominic with those eyes.  “Your father was a law officer?”

“He was.”

She turned at the clipped response to see him standing at the counter holding the kettle.  His jaw was clenched and his eyes were cold.  “I’m sorry...”

He shook his head and turned to put the kettle on the stove.  “Don’t.  He was killed while on duty.”

“Oh! I’m sorry, Dominic.”  She walked over and placed a hand lightly on his arm so he’d look at her again.  “I didn’t mean to bring up something that would upset you.”

He scowled for a moment, and then took a deep breath and let it out slowly.  “It’s not your fault. It’s just a sore spot with me.”  He flicked his eyes over to the picture and then back to her.  “I don’t have any good pictures without him in uniform...” He sighed.  “Look, I’m sorry. It was a very long, tense day and I thought I could keep it at bay.”

She examined his dark eyes to see they were tired.  “I understand.  My day was the beginning of Christmas chaos. And now that the official start has begun, well, let’s just say I will be ready to hide from reality very soon.”

He grinned.  “This is definitely hiding from reality.”

She laughed.  “I guess it is.”

He turned back to the counter and got two cups out of the cupboard.  “So, what is Christmas chaos?”

Jennah leaned back against the counter and crossed her arms.  “It’s hard to explain, but until the holiday season is gone, oh around January fifth, my quiet desk job is cancelled, and I have to help out with the fun and wonders of the public.”

He leaned back across from her and crossed his arms.  “Like?”

She blew out a breath.  “Let’s see, about a half hour after our library visit last night I was called to help get two nineteen-year-old males out from under an enormous snowball—their world record snowman’s bottom. They were half frozen to death and will now get to spend a few days in the hospital recovering.”   He smirked.  “I had to deal with snowbank property rights...” His eyebrows went up.  “One neighbor swears he shovelled the snow to the nice peak so he can use it in his Christmas outdoor display, but neighbor number two says it’s his snow and he doesn’t want it decorated.”  He chuckled this time and she had to stop and watch how appealing he looked when he did that.  His dark eyes lit up and then he appeared to be as young as his true age.  She wouldn’t think about his age right now.  “It gets more entertaining than that.”  He stopped and gaped at her.  “Bocco the Shih Tzu didn’t like practicing wearing his antlers and decided to flee into the street and help instigate a three-car accident.  I love angry people yelling over my head, really I do, but that spurred tiny Bocco into shouting his opinion and jumping from his owner’s arms, creating more mayhem, and me getting scratched to shreds by his too long claws when I finally caught up to him.”

He wasn’t laughing.  “And this is what you’re going to be doing until Christmas?”

“Let’s hope not.”  She turned her face toward him and grimaced.  “So, why was your day long and tense?”

He straightened and turned to the kettle.  “Really, nothing compared to yours.” 

“You don’t want to talk about it?”  She watched how stiff his back was.

“Not tonight. Let’s just relax.”

Did she want to find out more that badly, or did she want to relax with her appealing dream man?  Not a hard decision.  “Okay.”  She pushed up her sleeves and leaned a hip against the counter to watch him make the hot chocolate.

He turned to hand her a cup and frowned.  Setting the cup down, he grasped her arm lightly and lifted it to look at her wrist.  “Are these from tiny Bocco?”

She looked at the deep scratches.  “Yes, he was a vigorous struggler.”

He lifted her hand closer to his face.  “Have you cleaned them?”

Jennah was trying not to notice how her body was responding to his touch.  “Yes, they’re fine. It was through my shirt and one of his paws got my wrist.”

“Through your shirt?”

She could only nod when his voice dropped low.

“Are they as bad as this?”

Jennah shrugged.  “I don’t think so. They aren’t hurting much.”  She ran her hand over her collarbone where the scratches were. As his eyes moved slowly over her tummy and chest, her heartbeat sped up.  She just stood there, watching his eyes as he stepped closer to her.  If he’d asked her anything, she wouldn’t have been able to answer if she wanted to.

He released her wrist and reached to tilt her chin up further so he could look at the hidden marks.  Her sweater had a scooped neck so it wasn’t difficult if he wanted to look.  She felt his warm hand on the neckline of the sweater near her shoulder, and couldn’t stop looking at his face bent so close to hers.  She could feel his breath on her neck and it was sending sparks all the way through her.  The neck of her sweater was pushed off one shoulder, and not only was her throat revealed, but the swell of her breasts, and she could feel his breath there too.

“Were you trying to cuddle the damn dog?”  His voice was a rumbling whisper.

She shook her head.  “No, just trying not to drop it.”  She turned her head to look at him.  His eyes moved slowly over her face and then down to the claw marks on her skin.  She knew she was holding her breath when he lowered his head and brushed a light kiss over the top of one red mark. 

His mouth moved, lingering over one scratch, and she couldn’t have said it hurt in any way because the heat was slowly consuming her and causing her to tremble from his gentle touch. 

“It’s not right...” His mouth began to work its way back up.  “For such flawless skin to be marked in this way.” He placed his lips against the side of her throat and kissed where she knew there were no marks present. 

She closed her eyes when his arm slipped slowly around her and his lips burned a slow, sensual trail up to her jaw.  Her brain knew it was a dream, but her body didn’t care.  She could feel the heat from him and feel his breath against her skin, scorching her.  She wanted to feel his mouth on hers, wanted to see if it felt real.

He stiffened and lifted his head.  She opened her eyes and stared into his dark ones.

“I have to go,” he whispered, and she could see from his expression he really didn’t want to.

“Oh.”

“I’ll make it up to you, I swear.”  He kissed her lips quickly.  “Close your eyes and go back to your bed, Jennah...”

She opened her eyes and then bolted upright.  She was in her room.  Turning, she glowered at the clock.  It was only four in the morning.  Her heart was still trembling out a loud beat from his touch.  She touched her throat and could swear it felt as real as the mouth in her dreams had. 

Letting out a slow breath, she smiled and moved back onto her pillow.  So it was only a dream. Did it really matter?  It’s not like she was with one man and dreaming of another.  Nope, no man had been in her bed in a long time.  He could have stayed a bit longer, though, she thought with a smirk. “Happy dreams for me,” she whispered and closed her eyes again.

                                                                     ~

Dom opened his eyes and looked at the ceiling.  His skin was crawling and he knew something was wrong.  He wasn’t sure how he’d managed to pick up on it when his every thought had been on Jennah.  He listened and could hear the slow steps echoing in the corridor below.  Something was definitely going down. No one should be out and walking free at this time of day.  He turned onto his stomach and peered over his pillow to see if he could spot who was moving around.  The bunk moved slightly and he knew Slick was awake too, watching.

He closed his eyes and exhaled slowly, trying to block the images of Jennah from his thoughts for now.  A loud, yowling scream pierced through the silence and every hair on his body stood on end.  He had to get out of this place soon or he was going to be paranoid for the rest of his life.