and my neck. I looked down to see my nightgown – plain white gauzy peasant gown that hugged my breasts, exposing twin points against the fabric from the cold. I rubbed my thighs together realising that I was bare underneath. And so were my feet.
‘Dream, dream, dream …’ I repeated. Noticing, of course, the group of three. Three of everything around these parts. ‘Three is the magic number,’ I whispered but the wind scooped up my words and tossed them away.
I ran to Deke’s house. He turned to me in a swirl of smoke and I knew I should be afraid, but instead, I was drawn to him. He was so … there. Intriguing. Sexy. Possessing. I shivered when he reached for me and said something I almost made out, but not quite. ‘You’ll love me,’ he said and when he smiled his teeth were so white and so big and … growing. And a forked tail whipped around from behind his back to stroke a lock of hair behind my ear.
I turned and fled.
‘Wake up, Farrell,’ I hissed.
But I knew I wouldn’t.
I slammed into Coop. Bounced off of him and let him steady me with his big hands. He glowed slightly.
Because he works for the power company, silly, I thought. As if that were the most logical thing in the world.
‘Hey, there. Where you going, little girl?’
His words terrified me and turned me on. I leaned in to kiss him, not feeling in control, but decidedly out of control. It was only at the last minute that I caught the whisper of whiskers on my face. I reared back seeing the long pink lupine tongue, licking his chops. Utterly wolfish chops.
‘You’re not a pig. You’re the wolf,’ I gasped, backpedalling so fast I stumbled and almost fell.
‘Back off, Coop,’ came the words just as the large arms caught me. Big forearms that wrapped to my waist and kept me from falling.
I turned into the white chef coat of soft-spoken, sadly serious Stephen. He smelled of cinnamon and sugar and the sharp pungent deliciousness of vanilla extract. He smoothed my hair back and took my hand. ‘Come inside, hurry.’
He tugged me in his gently commanding way and I followed, stumbling up his wide plank steps and sliding precariously across his porch. Inside, he turned and slammed the door. The entire kitchen was decorated with candy and tuiles of caramel and chocolate. His chandelier was spun sugar and gumdrops.
He turned to me, his face having grown dark – a frightening shade of greyish green – and pointed. As authoritative as I remembered, he pointed and practically hissed, ‘Get in the oven, Farrell.’
I sat straight up, head pounding with my pulse, wind banging a stray branch to the side window. I thought I’d heard myself scream or cry out. Instead, the sound of my fear piloted out of my mouth on a strangled puff of impotent air.
‘Fuck me hard,’ I breathed. ‘What the hell is with you and the fairy tales, you nutter?’
Even I couldn’t ignore the fact that when I pulled my hair back into a messy knot, my hands were shaking. I found a tiny bit of solace in the fact that it was morning, and I could get up and make myself a cup of coffee. And eat some pie.
But when I cut the pie, the sweetness factor, the gooeyness, reminded me of my pseudo male witch of the forest – Stephen – and I opted for the remainder of a bag of chips instead.
Breakfast of champions, kid …
* * *
What sounded like a shotgun went off when I was in the shower. The boom shook the small window and made me scream and drop the shampoo.
I clutched my heart, felt it hammering beneath my wet skin, and tried to suck in enough oxygen to not pass out.
‘This is like that movie about the house where everything keeps going wrong. What next? The tub falls through the floor?’ I muttered.
I rinsed my hair and the shower gel from my skin. I’d skip my normal ten minutes of simply standing in the pounding, hot spray. I needed to know if part of my house had just blown up or what.
Wrapping myself in a tattered blue robe, I shoved my feet into horrible fuchsia plaid mukluks that had been a gift from a fellow bartender last Christmas. I twirled my hair up in a towel and took the steps slowly so I didn’t trip over my own slippered feet.
‘What the fuck. What. The. Fuck.’
I opened the door to a raised hand – knuckles cocked to knock – and fierce green eyes. That unruly lock of raw honey-coloured hair was brushing sensually along his eyebrow and that cocky half-smile had taken over his mouth.
‘Hi,’ Coop said, putting his hand down, taking a step toward me.
I took a step back, clutching my robe to me for all I was worth. It had not escaped my notice that my heart was pounding again and my body was humming with an electric warmth. ‘Hi. What the hell was … that?’
He poked his head in, taking one more step up onto the threshold. Without thinking, I took a step back into the foyer, effectively inviting him in.
So he came in and I felt a tug of arousal in the core of myself. Crap.
‘That was a pot.’
‘What the fuck kind of pot sounds like that?’ I gasped, hands still shaking. ‘And whose pot was it? And how did a pot make that much –’ I cocked my head and felt a rogue strand of hair drip shower water down the shoulder of my robe.
In an almost surreal state, I watched him reach out and brush my soaking wet lock back. ‘It was a pot, up on the power lines. We need a new one. So currently, you have no power. But I’m guessing you were in the shower so you might not know.’
His finger trailed lightly over the shoulder of my robe where the water had darkened the fabric. It was as if he were touching me. My bare skin. My nipples spiked and my tummy tickled and my pussy gave over a slippery flood of juices.
For a split second I feared he could smell my arousal. Sense it. As if I were dealing with an animal and not a man.
‘That’s just residuals from the dream,’ I told myself.
‘Pardon?’
I cocked my head and then blushed. I had said that aloud. I hadn’t meant to.
‘Nothing. Not enough coffee,’ I said, willing myself to move back and going nowhere. ‘And I guess I won’t be getting any more now will I?’
I laughed stupidly – nervously – and cringed to hear it.
‘I can make you coffee if you want more,’ he said, moving past me, his boots thunking on my wide plank wood floor.
He moved like a force of nature. Big and bold but controlled. He made me feel hot and cold at the same time, being so close to him. It was awful. It was wonderful. It had me feeling on edge, like I might laugh or weep at any
