"Nothing else, my love. Nothing else at all."
And then he came to me, and took possession of me, and moved so deeply and so fully in me, that there was nothing else at all.
Later, when even the crickets had set their song to something low and tired, I lay next to Isaac feeling boneless and surreal. He felt like a mountain against me, the hard planes of muscle, the sharp twist of ligaments and bone that pressed into me, hard where I was soft, but tender and sweet. His breath had gone slow and even, and I knew he slept, the quick movement of his eyelids fluttered as he dreamed. Yet even while he slept, he held me, set me to fit just under his chin with the slick feel of his sweat moving with mine. We'd moved together like a dance, bodies gliding to fit a perfect rhythm, a perfect life that once again made me feel a loss that was not mine. Next to this man, my man, there was only peace, only the sense that we were beginning … we had only started to know what that meant.
Nash
It was the dream. The waking dream again.
There was something tied up in that dream-a memory, the life I knew but had never lived. That was the only explanation.
The dream crawled inside my skull like a centipede. It stayed there, burrowed itself so deep inside my brain that imagination got squashed. Nothing was fantasy anymore. What had been figments of my imagination had grown to something real, something I couldn't beat away. Something I couldn't ignore.
It had me jerking awake. None of the others had done that. Not when Sookie ran from some asshole trying to hurt her. Not when I knew the danger she headed toward was starting to take shape.
This one was different. This one was realer than anything I'd ever felt.
The woman, somehow my woman? She'd been so real. So much. And I shuddered, I called out in the idle of that dream and woke with sweat dotting my forehead and slipping down my back, and ready, so damn ready to finish what was started in that dream. It made me want something that wasn't mine.
The dream stayed with me during the investors' meeting, as Duncan talked about projections and media outreach. He spoke and I watched his face, focused like I understood the meaning behind the noise, the unrecognizable words his mouth made. I knew he was expecting me to weigh in with some technical spin, but it was all I could do to keep from completely drifting away.
Lucky for me, he liked the sound of his own voice. Even Duncan and his slick CEO arrogance didn't distract me from the dream. The sound of his pitch, that salesman shine he thought might impress the investors didn't do a damn thing to erase what I'd felt. What I'd seen. What I remembered.
The dream stayed even as his nagging turned into a whining drone that made my teeth ache.
"What the fuck was that? You just tuned out. You weren't engaged at all."
No. I hadn't been. Still wasn't as I fed him some line about a migraine.
"I'll catch you later, man. I gotta jet."
He didn't buy my excuse. Duncan's eyes narrowed and I swear I felt his stare hot on my neck as I stood waiting at the elevator. I kept my head down, wondering for the umpteenth time how I'd gotten messed up with someone like Duncan in the first place.
Ah. Right. I had a program and no cash. Duncan had deep pockets and was looking for someone's coattails to ride. One plus one is always two.
Didn't much care if he bought the migraine excuse. I felt something right at the base of my skull. A pressure, a dull ache, but I wasn't sick. I was high.
My brain went into autopilot as I left Manhattan, grabbing the A train to get me to downtown Brooklyn. And the whole way home, with the rocking of the train, the funky smell of the city getting fainter with every stop, and the even worse body odor of all the compressed bodies, the ache in my head-threatening to turn into a migraine for real-grew the closer we came to my stop, that weird memory nagging at me.
That shit wouldn't let me be.
Over and over in my head, as I huddled tight behind my jacket in the unseasonably chilly weather, the memory came clear as a raindrop.
Me and her. Me and the woman I didn't know. Me as a man I'd never been.
The smell of roses. The hint of dust and coffee.
The feel of worn book bindings and the scrap of metal chairs on wood floors.
The taste of honey on my tongue.
The woman wrapped around me, holding tight, like I was her lifeline. Her red hair between my fingers, her nails pulling at my collar. Feeling needed. Feeling free.
A gust of wind blew off my hood, had my eyes watering as I jogged the rest of the way toward my building, barely acknowledging the people grouped around the front entrance. But then the sound of kids screeching cut into my brain, and I finally noticed that Old Man Walker was handing out Jolly Ranchers from the top step; for his grandkids and the others bouncing around, he couldn't get the wrapped candy out of his pockets fast enough.