Remember the Dreams (6 page)

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Toni's last conscious thought had been of Kyle. More specifically, the status of their renewed friendship. The ease with which they had settled into each other's life surprised her. And every day she forcibly reminded herself that she must think of him as nothing but a brother.

He barely resembled the man she thought she'd once known. A lot of his old cynicism was gone, yet she still sensed a remoteness that she wished she could understand. She also wished she could understand why she couldn't stop thinking about him. Her thoughts had a way of drifting into very dangerous territory, and her dreams weren't helping much either.

Something warm and feather-light trailed over her cheek. The sensation was pleasant, and in her dreams she imagined Kyle gently moving the tip of his finger over the fullness of her bottom lip. So many times she'd fallen asleep wondering what it would be like, just once, to feel his lips against hers.

"Oh, princess," she heard a deep voice whisper. A faint flutter of breath seemed to touch her forehead.

She knew she was dreaming. Just as she was dreaming that Kyle's fingers were tenderly pulling the pins from her hair and laying the heavy waist-length mass over her shoulders, smoothing the corn-silk-colored tresses along her arms.

It was a wonderful dream. Kyle was lifting her, cradling her slender form against the solid wall of his chest. She could almost feel those strong arms holding her so tightly, his unhurried movements as he carried her away.

Her head lay against the smooth cotton of his shirt, her hair cascading over his arm. Her breath mingled with the faint scent of brandy and spicy clean musk. She could hear his heart beating a little too rapidly, and her hand seemed to move to where it echoed in his chest. He felt warm and she snuggled deeper against him.

Not wanting to break the illusion, she fought the thick fog of sleep. Strange sensations kept intruding though, and her eyes fluttered open.

This was far too real to be a product of her imagination. But it was also impossible to comprehend what she was seeing.

For a moment, those floating images tried unsuccessfully to meld with reality. Then senses sharpened. She was staring at black curls emerging from an open collar, and she could see the tiny pulse beating at the base of his neck.

This was no dream.

Kyle was holding her.

And he was standing in the hall between their bedrooms.

The situation was incomprehensible. Her greeting sounded ridiculous. All she could manage was a very bewildered, "Hi."

There was a fair amount of hesitation reflected in Kyle's shadowed features. "Hi, yourself," he said quietly. Then, not moving a muscle, he added, "I suppose you wonder what I'm doing?"

Through the thin fabric of her caftan, she could feel the heat of his hard body. She was also aware of the fact that he was making no effort to put her down. "The thought had occurred to me," she replied, almost certain that she must still be sleeping.

Something else just occurred to her. Her hair was no longer in its usual coil. Kyle had taken it down. She hadn't just imagined it after all. Had the slight pressure she'd felt on her cheek and on her lips also been real? She'd thought it had just been his fingers trailing so lightly, but. . . "Kyle?"

"Hmmm?"

"Did you . . . ?" Her voice, still thick with sleep, faltered. Why couldn't she just ask? If he'd kissed her, she wanted to know it. But if he hadn't, she'd feel like a fool for asking.

"Did I what?"

Deciding that the question was no more foolish than the fact that they were carrying on a conversation with him holding her like some maiden he was in the process of rescuing, she drew in a preparatory breath. She hadn't made a fool of herself in a long time. Undoubtedly, she was due. "Did you kiss me?"

His lips parted slightly, and his chest expanded against her as he drew in a lungful of air. The motion crushed her breast tighter, and it was impossible to tell whose heartbeat had just increased the most. "No," he said, the mysterious depths of his smoky gray eyes revealing nothing. The lines bracketing his mouth seemed to deepend as he studied her closely. "Not yet."

"Not. . . yet?" Was he implying that he planned on doing just that? Certainly she must still be dreaming.

He watched the myriad of emotions play over her flushed face, and the corners of his mouth tilted upward. "I was definitely tempted, but I thought I'd wait until you were awake. That way you'd have a chance to tell me off."

She couldn't begin to fathom what he was talking about. Why would she want to tell him off? Obviously some critical part of her brain was refusing to function.

Catching the faint scent of brandy suddenly put everything into perspective. So that's why he was acting like this. "You've been drinking," she accused flatly. She should have known that only something like being under the influence would make him notice her as something other than his buddy.

"A little," he admitted, moving the arm supporting her back up a bit. He'd had a glass of wine with dinner and then the brandy at Maggie's. But he was far from being affected. "And to answer the question you're about to ask . . . yes, I know what I'm doing."

Toni seriously doubted that. He didn't look or sound drunk. But he had to be to be acting like this. "Put me down," she ordered mildly, "and I'll go fix you some coffee."

"I don't want any coffee."

"Then let me go get you some aspirin."

"I don't need any aspirin."

"Well, put me down anyway!"

"Why?"

"Kyle!"

The slightly frantic note in her voice had more to do with the way her body insisted on reacting to his than any great desire to be released by those strong arms. It didn't make any sense. But at the moment, nothing did. Least of all Kyle.

When he'd repositioned his arm behind her back a moment ago, his hand had come precariously close to her breast. That hand now moved upward, and she could feel it lying just below the fullness.

Willing herself to sound calmer than she felt, she repeated her request that he put her down.

This time, he complied.

Releasing his arm from beneath her knees, he let her legs slip to the floor. The arm around her back stayed right where it was, holding her loosely against him.

Tilting her head back, her white gold hair tumbling down her arms, she flattened her hands against his chest and gave him a tentative shove.

He didn't budge.

"Look," she began, wondering if she'd misjudged the situation. Maybe he hadn't had too much to drink. Maybe he did know exactly what he was doing. Immediately she dismissed her doubts. He wasn't drunk, but he had to be at least slightly inebriated. "I really think you need some coffee."

His clear gray eyes clouded, and she felt the pressure of his arm around her waist lighten. "You don't want me to kiss you, do you?"

There was a certainty in his words that made them a statement, not a question. And beneath that certainty was a touch of disappointment. Was it disappointment she was seeing in his otherwise shuttered expression?

Despite the hard set to his jaw, he looked terribly vulnerable. She had never known Kyle to look anything but completely unaffected.

Her first assessment had to be right. Hard telling how much he'd had to drink to allow her to see that.

Neither one of them had moved. Toni held his gaze steadily.

This was her chance. He was handing her an opportunity she couldn't pass up. If he kissed her, she wouldn't have to wonder anymore if bells would go off in her head like she'd always heard they would. Toni had never heard bells in all of her twenty-seven years. Faint tinkles. But never bells.

She could feel the tension in Kyle's body. From the stillness of his features, she knew that he was waiting. The next move had to be hers.

A thousand little uncertainties skittered through her brain. But she shoved them away. Her bottom lip was caught between her teeth as she hesitantly curved her arms around his neck.

Her fingers brushed the silky black hair above his collar. Delighting in its crisp, clean feel, she moved her fingers upward through its softness. Her hand cupped the back of his head.

Kyle's eyes widened slightly, but he didn't move.

She hoped that they were good enough friends to withstand this little experiment.

Feeling his hard body aligned so intimately to hers was already causing her to have second thoughts. She was going to be practical about this though. Telling herself that she probably wouldn't react any differently to Kyle's kiss than she had to any other man's, she leaned a little closer. It might be pleasant, or just interesting. Or maybe she wouldn't feel anything at all.

The tingle that had started in her breasts and was spreading downward told her that the latter wouldn't be the case.

"Yes," she whispered. "I do want you to kiss me."

For a moment, she thought that he hadn't heard her. Or that what she'd said hadn't registered. But then she felt his hand wending through the heavy hair at the nape of her neck.

In his eyes she could see a question, and desire.

"You sure?" His voice was deep, threaded with a huskiness that made the quietly spoken words deliciously intimate.

"Yes," she returned, not even sure that any sound had passed the knot in her throat.

With a gentle tug, he tipped her head back and brushed his lips against her softly parted mouth.

His touch was firm and cool, and a little like brandy-scented velvet. Increasing the pressure a little, he coaxed her bottom lip down with the tip of his tongue, but took no advantage of the entrance she had just allowed him. Slowly he traced the outline of her mouth, savoring its delicate texture.

Toni felt her fingers clutching the steely cords of his neck, drawing him closer. Just when she thought he would deepen the contact, allow her to taste the warmth she so suddenly craved, he lifted his head.

His fingers tightened in her hair, and there was no mistaking the unveiled need in his questioning eyes.

It wasn't enough. "Again," she breathed, already aware of an odd heat radiating through her.

There was nothing tentative about the way he claimed her this time. His tongue slipped inside her mouth, tangling with the sweet warmth of her own. Teasing, seducing.

The romantics had lied. It wasn't bells she heard. It was a rushing sound, like her blood pressure had just reached its absolute limit. Sensations more exquisite than she'd ever known coursed through her, enlivening nerves that burned in foreign places. Forgetting everything but the man drawing her into that mindless whirl of feeling, she allowed her body to flow against him, her soft curves molding to his hard planes.

His hand was pressing into the small of her back, urging her to feel the extent of his arousal. As his hips tilted forward, tantalizing his rigidity against her stomach, she twisted against him, unconsciously imitating the motion he was teaching her.

The low moan that made its way past the rushing in her ears could have been his, or hers. She couldn't tell. Nothing mattered except the feel of him. No matter how well she knew the reasons why he was so wrong for her, she had just passed the invisible line she had drawn for herself.

He had only wanted to touch her. To hold her. And taste that beautifully seductive mouth. But the feel of her—the gentle roundness of the small breasts his fingers ached to caress, the sleek line of her back where his hand moved in slow, deep circles—was even more fantastic than he had imagined. Even more incredible was that she had invited the kiss he'd been so certain she didn't want.

Though he could sense her willingness, she had taken no further initiative. Her hands hadn't moved from where they clutched him so tightly. He wanted to feel those slender hands roaming over his body, to feel her lips on his neck, his chest.

He wanted more than that.

He wanted to part those long legs and bury himself in the moist heat he knew he'd find there. To feel her surround him and forget for a while the emptiness that could never be filled. He could never have what he wanted, what most men took for granted.

Kyle knew that he wasn't being fair—to either one of them. If this were anyone but Toni. . .

Desire erased conscious thought. Never had he ached so badly to possess a woman.

There had been a certain shyness in Toni's touch. But Kyle didn't acknowledge it. Convinced that she knew exactly what she was doing with that sweet tongue of hers, he didn't doubt for a minute that she possessed the knowledge to drive a man out of his mind. Toni always put her heart and soul into everything she did. He was certain that her skills as a lover had been perfected with that same passion.

Gently lifting the weight of her breast, his thumb rolling over the hardened nipple, he trailed a line of hot kisses down the arched column of her throat. She tasted so good; So good.

"Perfect," he rasped, his palm folding over the gentle fullness. "So firm, and so perfect." Her rigid bud burned against his hand, the point growing harder as he pressed the thin fabric of her caftan against it in a slow, erotic circle.

A tiny gasp lodged where his lips pressed at the cleft between her breasts. Something warm and liquid had coiled in her stomach—a feeling so intense that Toni couldn't even identify it. Unprepared for the torrent of sensation Kyle was eliciting, she tried to fight the sensual web tangling about her. It was a half-hearted struggle, and she lost. Though he had just been given the total extent of her knowledge, she knew that he wanted more—that she wanted to give more. But he would have to tell her how.