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He tilted his head. “You think you’ve conjured me? Where do you think you are?”
“In my dream, of course.” She paused and looked down at her clothes. “I’m wearing what I wore to the wedding. Hmm.” Then she looked up at him once more, tilting her head. “My dreams don’t usually talk back. They just do what I want.”
His eyebrows twitched, and his surprise seemed to give way to something different. “And what is it you want? Usually?”
“You’re a curious conjuring of Lucian. I wish you were this curious in real life.” She grinned at him. “Sex, of course.”
This admission—which Brinna would never have said in her waking life, especially not to Lucian Uraiahs—seemed to stun him momentarily. He cleared his throat and shoved his hands into his pockets. “And how does that usually occur? Do you remove your coat first?” His eyes went to her hair and lingered there, then dropped to her hands as she unbuttoned her dark blue cloak.
His face was serious for the moment as he watched her, weighted with something new Brinna decided was desire. She could feel the tension, how sensual it felt to hear the slide of her clothing as she removed it. To feel the heft of his gaze. It increased the pace of her heartbeat, of the breath moving through her lungs. She drew the cloak from her shoulders.
“This feels more real than my other dreams. I don’t usually have to remove my clothes; they just sort of fall away. Perhaps this is one of those kinds of fantasies.”
His eyes jumped from the cloak in her hands to her face, and his intensity connected somehow to the beating of her heart, as if it were a power source increasing its rhythm which in turn heated her blood.
His dimples deepened as he spoke. “And what kind of fantasy is that?”
“The slow kind. The kind where we watch one another pleasure ourselves and–”
His eyes widened, and his hands came up in front of him. “Whoa,” he interrupted.
She draped the cloak over her arm and fingered the velvet. “I don’t think I’ve ever noticed the feel of fabric before. In a dream.” She lifted her feet and twirled a booted ankle. “The sensations feel–”
“Real?” Lucian asked.
Brinna straightened as she set her feet back on the floor and admired his form, though the gray jacket obscured much of it. “Exactly.” She stepped toward him until there was but a breath between them, then looked up.
His regard was as palpable as a touch. “And in these dreams,” he asked, his voice low and husky, “do you usually undress the object of your fantasy?”
“Well, no. Sometimes he undresses me. And sometimes his clothes are just gone.” She snapped her fingers.
“But it’s not the same in every dream?”
“Oh. No. I like variation.”
His eyebrows rose. “That’s–” But he couldn’t seem to find the words and swallowed, clearing his throat as he did.
“Keeps things interesting,” she said, then took a moment to look around. She frowned. “I can’t remember talking so much in a dream. Or being so aware of each moment. I feel like in the ones I like most, there’s very little talking.”
“You don’t like talking.”
“Oh. I do. I love it. Especially dirty talking.” She smirked and offered him a wink. “In my dreams, there’s more acceptance of forgoing that nicety, and just getting to the good stuff.”
He threw his head back and laughed, dimples deep.
She loved his laugh, like summer-day fun at the river. She noticed the line of his neck, the flow of it as it disappeared between the white collar of his shirt. Then she frowned again. This was a very strange dream. “We should probably get on with it,” she said, laid her cloak over the back of a nearby chair, and began rolling her gloves from her arms. “The worst kind of dream is getting all that way to the sex part, and then, utter disappointment at not getting the full experience because I wake up.”
He cleared his throat. “Full experience?”
“Right.” She waved her hand about between them. “When the head of dream man’s co–”
“Wait!” Lucian reached out and pressed his hand against her mouth, startling her. “Stop.”
His skin against hers felt so real. She tested the taste with the tip of her tongue: salty and earthy. She wanted another sample but he snatched his hand back, and she laughed, loving this dream.
“I may be a god, but there’s only so much I can take. I’m not that altruistic.” He paused and took a deep breath, his cheeks a tinge darker, then glanced at his palm before fisting his hand. “This is real. I’m real. You’re real.” He pointed at her, then swirled his finger around between them. “Not dreaming. Don’t you remember?”
It was her turn to laugh. “Remember what? None of that proves this is real. First, we barely know one another. Knowing those things only reinforces that you’re up here.” She tapped her head. “You’d never be talking to me like this in real life. You’re aloof, supercilious, and always leaving me behind.”
