Pleasures of the Night(30)

Lyssa.

He was assaulted by a variety of smells, some pleasant, some not. In dreams, this plethora of sensory input was muted or overlooked. Not so in actuality. The sounds of this world were many, a cacophony of voices and machinery that increased his nausea. He stumbled out the front glass doors with a desperate need for circulating air.

Using trial-and-error in tandem with the alarm remote on the key chain, Aidan located the early-model white Toyota Corolla, the interior of which smelled like something stale and burnt. Once he realized the hideous odor came from the ashtray, Aidan tossed the entire thing out the window. He’d shared postcoital cigarettes in dreams, but never had the true rankness of the habit been revealed to him.



Altogether, his first impression of the new world was not a positive one, which only made him long for Lyssa with a biting hunger.

A torn map, endless one-way streets, and drivers who couldn’t stay in their lanes made getting to the freeway beyond frustrating, but Aidan was determined, and he used every bit of memory Dreamers had given him over the years to get on his way.

Toward the woman of his dreams.



“That sounds wonderful, Chad,” Lyssa murmured into the phone while absently drawing doodles on her puppy-shaped notepad. “Really. But I’m not up for it tonight. I’m wiped out.” Glancing up at the clock on the kitchen wall, she noted the time—six o’clock.

“Okay, forget the movie. I’ll cook.”

Sighing, Lyssa rolled her tense shoulders and dropped the pencil to rub the back of her neck. “Dinner sounds great, it really does, but it’s been such a long day, and—”

The ring of the doorbell interrupted her.

“You work too hard, babe,” Chad chastised softly. “You need to learn to say, ‘Come back tomorrow. I’ve got a man who wants to be with me.’”

She smiled. He was so patient with her, never pushing her to give more than she was ready for. There were a couple of times she had been really close to inviting him to spend the night, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was…off.

Had she now developed a fear of intimacy? Did the certainty that she wouldn’t live to a ripe old age make her wary and standoffish?



“The mailman’s at the door.” Sliding off the stool at her breakfast bar, Lyssa stretched weary muscles. She was going to let Chad get close to her. No matter what. “Tomorrow’s Friday. Wanna take a rain check for Saturday?”

Chad’s frustrated exhale sounded across the lines that connected them. “Yes. Saturday. For sure.”

“For sure. I promise. See you then.” She set the receiver back into the cradle and crossed her small living room to the front door. Jelly Bean fell into step beside her while rumbling a low warning.

“Kick back, attack cat,” Lyssa scolded, knowing that JB would ignore her and hiss with his usual grumpy fervor.

The bell buzzed again, and she jogged the last couple of steps. “I’m coming.” Lyssa turned the knob and pulled the door open. “Do you need me to sign or some…th-thing…?”

Her voice stuttered into silence as her gaze lifted and met eyes of deeply intense sapphire brilliance. Well over six feet of pure, unadulterated, gorgeous male stood on her porch step.

She gaped.

He was so tall, so broad of shoulder, so overwhelming that he filled every inch of her doorway. The scent of his skin, something exotic and spicy and scrumptious, hit her at the same moment as the wickedly provocative curving of his sensual lips.

JB’s grumbling came to an abrupt halt.

“Holy shit.” Her hand clutched the doorknob with white-knuckled strength. She had to force herself to breathe. In and out.

His gaze slid along the length of her body as a hot, tangible caress. Her knees went weak. She stumbled, and he stepped into her personal space, catching her elbow and anchoring her upright.

“Lyssa.”

She blinked, the shock of that low-timbered voice with its soft brogue flaring across her skin. She’d heard that voice before, had heard her name spoken by it, and the heated awareness of his touch was near painful in its acuteness.

The man on her doorstep was delicious. Impossibly so. Dark hair with silver-streaked temples, winged brows over eyes that devoured her, a firm jaw, and masterfully etched lips. A pale blue dress shirt was parted at the neck, revealing a light dusting of hair on a bronzed chest, and an opal-like stone hanging from a silver chain. Strong arms were revealed by rolled-up cuffs, arms that pulled her closer to that mesmerizing, erotically charged stare.

I’ve kissed him before.

No. She shook her head. She hadn’t. There was no way she could forget a man who looked as he did. He was almost otherworldly handsome, a man who was too hard, too chiseled, too dangerously male to be truly beautiful. But he was damn close.