In that small chaos, compounded by an arguing couple from 3C coming out of the elevator, brushing past the cluster of kids in their red and green puffy coats and their sniffling noses, heels clicking on the tile floor and crackling over the candy wrappers littering the hall, I forgot about the dream. If only for a second.
Until I saw Willow at the mailboxes.
Until I realized I couldn't walk away from her.
She didn't look much like the woman in my dream. Her hair was not red, but light brown. The redhead's had been thick and bone straight. Willow's was wild, all over the place, as though she could never get it under control.
The woman in my dream had been thin with barely a hint of curve to her shape. Elegant, graceful like a ballerina. Willow was all dips and bends, luscious, her legs strong with well-defined muscle, and a wide, wondrous ass.
Suddenly the rest of the world receded and there was nothing but the movement of Willow's hair as she dug the mail from her box, the rhythm of her limbs as she swatted at that thick mass of hair, the swoop of her jacket hem against all those round, perfect curves as she turned, her attention on the envelopes in her hand.
The smell of her skin, the jasmine in her hair, seemed to billow around me as I stood motionless in the lobby. She was everywhere, familiar and yet unknown. A stranger/not stranger I had held at arm's length, but still far more real than my dream, than the memory it was trying to evoke.
Willow stopped short as she noticed me, pausing with the mail held against her chest, a frown appearing on her face. I knew that expression from the last time I saw her, when I lied and told her I didn't want her, when I had spoken promises that even then I knew I'd never keep.
"Nash." There was a bite in her voice, the clip of my name, as if she was trying to sound disdainful, yet her voice still held an undertone of something that, if it had a flavor, would have tasted like honey.
And then the dream, that sweet, stinging memory crashed over me. It wasn't the first. It wasn't the last. There was no girl called Sookie, no boy named Dempsey who loved her. This time, I'd watched, not knowing who I was; a voyeur in someone else's life, but someone who felt so real to me. Someone I knew better than myself.
Déjà vu and fantasy and nonsense I did not understand hit me like a fever, and I was lost. The redhead kissed my neck. The hint of her soft, liquid tongue against my skin, tugging on my ear, wanting me with a fierceness no one ever had before, overwhelmed me, and I had to close my eyes to keep from being dragged under.
"What's wrong with you?" Willow's voice reeled me back in, and I opened my eyes to see her sweet, concerned expression and the curve of her mouth, the fullness of her bottom lip.
Then Willow... she took the back of her hair in one hand, twisting it into a braid-the smallest gesture that I'd seen her do a dozen times-and suddenly I realized: the woman in my dream had done the same thing. The same motion, the same movement. Just like Willow.
A sharp intake of breath-that was me. Willow had backed up a half step, her face confused, conflicted, and despite what I'd said before, I reached out and slid my fingers tentatively to touch her face, guiding her chin up so I could look into her eyes.
"What are … "
She made the smallest noise, something that sounded like a moan and a laugh at the same time. It transformed, deepened to a growl when I kissed her. Yet even as my mouth found hers, as my tongue slid along her lip, begging an invitation, one thought consumed me, something I didn't believe was left over from my dream. One thought that made me brave, made me hungry: this woman belongs to me.
Nash
She was winter. The cold, cool stretch of emptiness that you think will consume you. The frigid bite you think won't ever leave your bones, the one you try to pretend isn't there, but can't keep out of your head.
She was fall and the scent of a fire, the crackle of heat, the coming of change you try to pretend won't come, but does anyway, that you wait for the whole year, that you wish away when it finally comes.
She was summer and the scorching warmth of sun and sin, the slick feel of lotion and the spray of ocean water, the salt of that taste on your tongue and the cool, crisp relief that comes over you when you dip inside the bottomless water.
She was spring, the fresh sweet smell of jasmine and the honeysuckle temptation of light and love and beautiful rebirth that cannot be ignored. Willow was the phantom spark of all those things I loved and hated. The things that tested me. The things that healed, all wrapped up in that tempting silhouette, in the sweet surrender of her body pressed against mine and the whisper of a tease in every syllable that formed my name from her full, thick lips.