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Her mind spiraling deeper down, Carla sucked in a sharp breath as she edged onto her side, barely aware now that she strained the white tabs glued to her scalp, along with the wires running across the floor to Tobias….
There was something disturbing about the photograph, she thought now. But what was it? As she stared into the picture, the streets came alive. Businessmen in old-fashioned suits walked along Liberty Avenue, sidestepping horse-drawn buggies, carrying bags containing their second shirts, ones they’d don when they reached work since the smoke-choked skies would always ruin the first. Her breath quickening, Carla trailed her gaze over the building that was under construction. Unusual scaffolding formed a makeshift staircase that ran the length of the block, from the topmost floor of what would later become DiDolche’s, to the ground floor of Gato and Gambolini’s. Apparently, this allowed construction workers access to all the floors of the connected buildings. The block-long staircase must have been removed when the building was complete….
Suddenly, everything turned dark. Her pulse quickened. Her heart missed a beat, then slammed back into action, beating a fast tattoo against her ribs, making her breath shallow. Where was she? She looked around wildly, but she could see nothing, only impenetrable inky blackness. The air was stuffy. Enclosed. Cramped. Claustrophobia claimed her. She had to get out of here!
But she was trapped. Stairs ran every which way. Some went upward. Some down. Some sideways. But how could steps go sideways? That was impossible. Horizontal steps didn’t exist….
Except in dreams.
She tried not to panic. Surely, she was just asleep. Surely, she’d wake up soon. Yes, that was it. She was sleeping and this was a very bad dream.
Wringing her hands in the darkness, she told herself to think, and yet she couldn’t. If only she could force herself to wake up. Open your eyes! she told herself.
And then the image vanished. It was replaced by the dark room she’d seen so many times before. Or was it really a room, after all? Darkness faded into the corners, seeping against the walls, obscuring them. Hidden in the shadows, she reached out her hand and touched something metal and cold. What was it? Where was she?
And who was the man seated at the desk? Terror gripped her. He was huge and burly. His massive shoulders were hunched, so he could better see whatever was on the desk. An overhead light seemed to move slightly, accentuating the weak, watery beam that shined down on a head covered with what might have been black hair. But it was hard to tell. It was too dark, the illumination too faint to work like a spotlight.
She watched as he slowly lifted something. His beefy fingers, she realized, were hooked around the sides of a metal object. Gold glinted—just a flash of it—then she realized his index fingers were curled around a waistband. To golden underwear?
Nothing made sense. But slowly, gently, he lifted a pair of golden underwear higher into the air, and she could hear his breath catch in the dark with an emotion that felt sinister. She had to do something! Run! Wake up!
But she was rooted to the spot.
And then everything changed again. The man vanished, and now he was nothing more than hot breath against her neck and a raspy voice sounding at her ear saying, “If you marry, you will die.”
Her pulse accelerated, ticking in her throat, making her feel weak from the adrenaline rush. The taste in her mouth was acrid, and sweat beaded on her forehead. She was desperate for this to end! Instead, the dream started over. She knew she’d never escape. She was alone in the dark again, wringing her hands. Stairs went upward. Downward. Sideways. She turned her head—this way, then that—but everywhere she looked, inky blackness stretched to eternity. There was no way out—
She felt a jolt.
What was that? It wasn’t unpleasant…no, not at all. In fact, sweet relief seemed to slide through her body. All at once, the dream was gone. There was no trace of the man or of the darkness that surrounded him.
Light filled her mind. The mustiness she’d previously smelled vaporized. Soft, sweet-smelling summer air infused her instead, tantalizing her nostrils and filling her lungs. An explosion of beautiful pastel colors followed—dreamy blues and lilacs. Translucent pinks and yellows that were the color of a gorgeous day’s first rays of sunshine.
She felt another jolt, pushing pulsing electricity through her body. The pleasure was almost orgasmic. Her nerve endings hummed. Music played from somewhere far off. Close by, water gurgled, and in tandem with the sound she realized she and Tobias were on a bench in the garden of the Sloane mansion.
No…now they were standing. Everything was moving swiftly, the pImages** disjointed, the way they so often were in dreams. One more little jolt of inexplicable pleasure zapped her. It was as if someone was injecting her with a drug designed for love. Slowly, she ran her tongue across her lips.
“Let’s do it right here,” Tobias said.
Eyeing him, she knew she wouldn’t need much coaxing. At some point, he must have reached down, grabbed the hem of her new emerald-green sundress, and lifted it off, over her head. There was nothing beneath. She just so happened to be naked, which was going to work out quite well. Tobias’s dreamy brown eyes closed to half mast, the gaze turning smoky with lust as it swept over her. Hers traveled down his bare chest, settling on his belt, then dipped lower where worn denim curved over an obvious erection, cupping him like a gloved hand. Just looking at him, knowing he was ready to love her, she felt her tummy jump.
“We shouldn’t be doing this,” she managed to say, her voice catching. They had a past, a history. She’d left him at the altar, after all.
But right now, he didn’t seem to mind in the least. He tried to look innocent. “Do what?” he teased.
“Make love.”
“Why not?”
“Because of what I did to you.”
He merely grinned, his eyes flicking once more down her naked body. “I remember a lot of things you’ve done to me, Carla DiDolche,” he said. “Leaving me at the altar was only one of them.”
“But…”
Just as she started to offer some sort of apology, he silenced her with a deep, wet kiss. His mouth felt so impossibly good that it sent shivers coursing through her, racing through her limbs, settling at the core of her. All her nerve endings seemed to bunch into knots, and her lower belly felt as if it was melting into her thighs as he deepened the kiss, using his tongue to part her lips, time after time. Wonderful sweet scents from the garden mixed with something hotter, something more dangerously male. As he flicked his tongue with increasing urgency, gliding its silken side along hers, she forgot the past and responded, arching toward him and gasping as the smooth, long-tapered fingers of his hands glided up her rib cage.
“Touch me,” she urged as the pads of those practiced fingers teased her, lingering just beneath breasts she wanted him to cup and knead. She wanted him so badly. Shutting her eyes tightly, she rode the sensation wrought by the kiss, and she dreamed about the coming minutes, when he’d be inside her, stretching and filling her.
And then the magic came. As he captured her mouth more firmly, locking his lips tightly over hers, he closed both his huge hands over her breasts. Using his thumbs, he circled the already taut peaks, roughing the tips, making then tighten even more. As he pushed her toward the edge, she moved her hips, cradling his as she rocked against him, making him moan.
He was still dressed, and as a blaze of fire raced over her, she damned the jeans that covered his lower half. Reaching a hand between their bodies, she continued kissing him, thrusting her tongue deeply as she slid a hand downward, then over the hard ridge beneath his fly. He was so long…so thick. Her heart hammered.
“Yes…yes,” he panted.
“You’re so ready,” she whispered between kisses. So painfully, deliciously hard. Pushing out her chest, she offered her aroused nipples, and she could only suck in a quick gasp of longing and gratitude when he leaned back and angled his head downward. When the assault of his mouth began, she was totally lost. Blackness crowded into her mind, and she had no choice but to lean back her head in surrender. Over and over, she thrust her breasts for him…
He was panting softly. He gasped when her hand flexed on his jeans, closing firmly around his length. Sliding along the shaft, she explored every hot inch. Her thumb massaged ridges, her fingers, the head. She missed Tobias so much, she thought as she stroked him. Why hadn’t she married him? Why had she run like a fool? What the hell was she scared of? “I’ve needed you,” she moaned. “Needed this.” He was supposed to be hers forever. Her husband, her lover. The man who shared her bed every night, and to whom she awakened every morning.
He was still swirling his tongue, the sensations unbearable. Just like she remembered…but better. Yes, so much better, she thought illogically, as his mouth closed hard on a bud. His tongue flicked the nipple like a vibrator, then he suckled deep, pulling the excited tip into his mouth until it seemed to rest against the pure wet silk of his cheek.
She was wet elsewhere, too. Shamelessly, she’d melted. She was dripping, her hips arched and begging. Her hand closed more tightly over him, feeling every inch of hot steel through the silken worn denim. Somehow, her shaking fingers pulled down the zipper, freeing him. Quickly, she pushed down his pants.
And then the jeans were gone. Suddenly, he was naked. She didn’t know how he got that way, only that the dream fast-forwarded, and now he was standing before her without a stitch of clothes. He looked like a god. She’d forgotten how incredibly endowed he was. And how incredibly handsome. Or maybe she’d wanted to forget. Because if she’d remembered, she’d have had no choice but to drop everything and run to wherever he was. She would have begged him to forgive her for leaving him at the altar, just as he’d forgiven her in this dream. She would have asked him to please take off his clothes and let her…
Her eyes dropped hungrily. Time stopped as she took in every inch of a male body that just wouldn’t quit. The male nipples were tight, like hers. The broad chest was covered in a tangle of yellow-gold silken hair that tapered, narrowed, and arrowed down to…
She shuddered as her eyes settled, then she slowly took in each nuance. He sprung from a nest of impossibly soft-looking curls—so big, so hard, so ready. A pinkened head was tipped by moisture, the shaft covered with ridges that promised to take her to a climax she’d never forget. Her mouth went dry, but only for an instant because he quickly leaned in for a kiss. His mouth, already wet, slammed hers….
And the image vanished. In a poof, it simply disappeared, and they were lying on a bed of grass so soft that it could have been velvet, or the silken strands of a mermaid’s hair. They were shuddering and shaking, their skin damp, and Tobias was hovering over her. He raised himself on an elbow as he slid a hand between her legs saying, “You feel so good.”
Whimpering, she cried out. “Oh, yes…please.”
He’d been preparing her, making sure she was ready before he entered her, but now he paused to glide his hand over her folds. Using a finger, he opened the slit. “Oh,” he moaned, his voice rough with need. “You’re so wet.”
She said nothing. She couldn’t, not when he parted her once more, thrusting a finger deep inside her. Then another. But it wasn’t enough. Her skin was glazed with heat, her mouth dry from panting. She wanted more. Him…inside her, not this maddening, teasing, thoroughly annoying finger that kept thrusting and withdrawing, then lazily traced circles over her clitoris. “No wonder I didn’t marry you,” she muttered in hopeless frustration.
He merely laughed. “Bothersome, aren’t I?”
And how! Arching, she felt the fire inside her gather force. It was out of control. She was burning up! Every inch of her burned. Deep inside, she was aching. His thrusting finger seemed to touch her womb!
He had to stop.
Senseless words tumbled from her lips. She was begging him. But he wasn’t going to stop, of course. No more than she was going to stop her own hand, which found his silken length once more and stroked until he gasped. “Tit for tat,” she whispered, wanting him to give up…to make love to her, properly. I want you inside me, she thought. I need…
Please.
His finger was too much. She exploded. The sweet spasms of release were still rocking her when he knelt between her legs. Hot and smooth, the tip nudged her opening. She parted instantly, and he slid inside, each ridge pushing her back toward the edge she’d just visited. Yes. She was going to come again. Tobias was going to make her come and come, and never stop coming.
She closed around each thick inch as he pushed. Each glorious ridge caught on the insides of her slick tunnel, until he’d tossed her off a cliff, into a blissful state of joy she’d never imagined existed, not even with him…
And then she was simply riding him, moving and shaking, her legs wrapped tight around his waist. Her full breasts were bouncing, the taut tips brushing the silken hairs of his chest. He was loving every second, too. Shuddering, he curled his hands on her backside, his fingers stroking as he urged her up and down…
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