Only in my Dreams

 

Time is a dream ... a destroying dream;

It lays great cities in dust, it fills the seas;

It covers the face of beauty, and tumbles walls.

- Conrad Aiken

 

 

RISKE

 

I couldn't sleep last night.

I woke up in my hotel bed, harder than I'd ever been, because for half of the night, I'd been having bad dreams, good dreams... wet dreams... of nothing but Kat.

I'd been tortured by visions of her for years, but nothing could compare to what I'd seen just a few hours earlier when she was standing there, wide-eyed, in front of me—looking more edible than ever before.

I was a fucking idiot to let her walk away from me. Scratch that... let her fucking run. And instead of following her, I watched by the pool's edge, willing an erection that could start a building demolition to go down beneath my soaked blue trunks and a small white towel that barely covered the bulge threatening to take a peek.

That towel wasn't the only nuisance that had separated us.

The other nuisance was me.

When Kat looked up into my face, her bright blue eyes full of wonder and surprise, memories I had shoved into the back of my mind resurfaced, bringing me back to other times when she had gazed at me openly like that.

Like that night she was beneath me, my body sliding smoothly into hers. That day at the ice cream shop. And the last time, that evening in the parking lot of the baseball field, when she found Christy and me...

In a warm hug and embrace, a position too compromising to be explained.

It was those moments that resonated with me most, that left little tears on the inside of my soul, ones that had solidified into scars. Those scars were still with me two days later after the Summit as I sat at my newly built oak office desk, running through the why’s and how’s, wondering what it was about her that I couldn’t get rid of—didn’t want to get rid of.

Kat Lexington felt like a broken record, repeating over and over in my broken soul. But then a sudden ringing cut into the music bridge that my body was building towards. I glanced at the number on the display. I didn’t double-take. I knew who was calling the minute I heard the sound.

I answered the phone. “Hello, Boss.”

My father’s voice was gruff. “Don’t fucking ‘Hello, boss’ me, you son of a bitch. Greg tells me that you dropped the deal.”

“Greg’s right… for once.”

Dear old dad practically broke into a growl. “We had a deal, Brendon.”

“And now we don’t. We’re not touching A Whole New World. Not anymore.”

The other line went deadly silent, and I imagined that my own dad was coming up with ten different ways to plot my agonizing death. I didn’t care. I gave no fucks that he owned the parent company. This was my company. I was the motherfucking CEO, and if he had a problem with that, then he should have thought twice about the position he’d put me in. A position he practically pushed me into, by his complete negligence.

It was only fitting. All my life, my father had been trying to make me his carbon copy, his clone, and none of his efforts actually worked. It was his lack of effort that was the clincher that sealed the deal, and I knew nothing he did would ever make me forgive him.

For cheating on my mother. For waylaying me. He’d had another son with his sycophant of a secretary, a year before I was even born, and it was a decision, more than two decades later, I still wanted to make him regret. We were stuck in our silent stalemate over the phone when a soft-sounding rapping on the door made me look up.

I placed the phone on my shoulder. “Come in.”

A shiny black shoe appeared through the crack in the door, and soon the vision of my always-anxious assistant was filling up the doorway. He cleared his throat, coughing quietly before stuttering out a response.

“Sorry to interrupt…”

“No problem, David. What’s happening?”

“You have a visitor, sir.”

My brows created a straight line. “A visitor? Was anybody scheduled on my calendar?”

“Uh, no, sir. This looks like a bit of a surprise guest.” He hesitated. “A woman.”

“A woman?” I felt like a parrot, but I was genuinely confused. I had no meetings set up today, no appointments. I’d purposely cleared up my schedule so that I could sulk in peace, putting off even Chris and Griff just so that I could recover from the shock of seeing Kat and everything being in her presence entailed.

David nodded. “Yes. She seems very urgent about meeting you. I told her to wait in the sitting area, and I would see if you were available.”

I could tell my father caught that part. His breathing quickened. Impatience never looked pretty on a Foxx. I knew more than most.

I inhaled. “Return in ten minutes. And we’ll talk.”

He crept back out from where he came, closing the door behind him. Placing the phone back at my ear, I allowed my father to assault me with every comeback, every insult he had in his repertoire, but I refused to be fazed. He could go fuck himself for all I cared. The only thing that mattered was the woman I was now promising myself I wouldn’t hurt again.

Once was enough. Twice might not kill her, but it would finish me.

The lack of response on my end infuriated my father more than I’d heard in years, but I held the line, never letting myself get worked up. He was just on his fortieth ‘fuck’ when another quick tap sounded against my new office door.

I sighed, only guessing what nervous version of news David would have for me. But as my gaze traveled to the opening in my office door, it found not a shoe, but a heel… attached to a mile’s long worth of leg.

Fingers curled around the edge of the frame and I found myself staring into a pair of blue eyes, dark enough to dive into. The wide look of want she gave me couldn’t betray the additional hard lines that had been added to her face by time. It was a look I recognized… and had hoped to never see again.

Christy.

She slid through the widening chasm in my doorway with expectation on her face and a long black trench coat wrapped around her waist. Tightening the belt around her whittled middle, she sauntered inside my office as if she owned it, closing the door behind her.

My stare narrowed.

“Dad… Let me call you back.”

“Call me back?” he bellowed. “Have you lost your fucking mind?  I’m not going to…”

He couldn’t finish the sentence. I cut the call, replacing the phone on the receiver. The relaxation I just felt flew out of my body and my shoulders hunched as I stared at the former vixen in front of me.

Her pretty face showed nothing but determination.

“I’m sorry to drop in on you like this…” She sure didn’t look sorry. “But…” she started. “I had to see you.”

I bluffed, hoping she would balk when met with my resistance. “I see. Well, you’ve caught me at a bad time. We’re not looking to bring on any business, Christy. Sorry.” I shrugged.

She strolled forward. “Well… ‘business’ isn’t exactly the reason I came here today.” Her dark blonde eyelashes fluttered. “At least, not this kind of business.”

I decided to lie. “Wish I could help then. I’m all booked up for the day.”

She looked up at me, her deep blue eyes turning deeper. “You mean you don’t have time for… this?”

She untied the tie of her thigh-length coat… to reveal nothing but underwear beneath, a bra and panty set sheer and flimsy enough to make the strongest of men forget how to talk. Dark pink nipples beaded through the thin material and with one quick glance, I realized that I could see everything.

The goosebumps over her skin. The self-tanning lotion. I figured if I looked closer, I might see the desperation as well, seeping from her tiny pores, streaking down the heavily perfumed expanses of her still-lithe body. I glared, fighting the urge to gape.

This was worse than the stripper situation.

At least with the other blonde, I had paid her to come… and leave. Her making me come was an unexpected extra that I could have done without, and like the black curtained encounter with the seductive dancer, this was a mistake I didn’t want to make.

I straightened my tie, taking a step.

“Christy, understand this.” I took two more, letting my footfalls thud over the hardwood, the emphasis on an already hardened point. “My time is very valuable, and in order for me to make it for someone, they would have to be very special…”

She smiled, letting my words sink in. I drove the dagger home.

“Unfortunately, that someone isn’t you.” I got close enough to touch her. I thumbed the ring on her third finger. “Now, go home to your husband and his new promotion. We’re done here.”

I turned my back… but the feel of her body, her hands splaying across the front of my chest shocked me and when she wrapped her arms around my chest to press hers against the grooves of my suit, I spun in her arms, grabbing her.

Roughly.

“Is this what you want? To make me react?”

She gasped, smiling at me. “I thought you’d never ask.”

My fingers dug into the skin above her elbow, ready to remove Christy from my sight. But the sound of a footstep across my threshold made me stop.

A second set of eyes peered over at me, and we both froze, reliving a moment from my memory that I’d sooner forget. The woman in my arms had nothing on the woman currently taking all of my attention. The new intruder was as beautiful as ever—Hell, she’d always been, but her eyes were hard. Unforgiving.

Because it was nine years later—same scenario. Same set of women. The one I loved… and the one she’d “caught me” with.

I stared between the two, everything inside of me tightening and twisting.

I was in so much fucking trouble.