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by side with Butler, Mariella touched the shreds of her tank top and watched the thing in front of them open its jaws wide, wide, wider. Jagged teeth lined the gaping maw, and it would hurt like a son of a bitch when it bit them. Even though she knew the pain wasn’t real, she’d still feel it.
“Shit,” she cried. “This is not how I’d wanted to spend the night!”
Butler gave her another of those startled glances that told her he hadn’t planned on anything like this, either. Without a second thought, Mariella grabbed him by the hand and yanked him backward a step. Then another.
“Run,” she told him. “Run as fast as you can.”
And they did, leaving the monster behind them as the gravel road became grass and then sand and then dirt, and finally, rocks again as they reached the base of the mountains Mariella had never been able to get to before. There, a cave. Convenient, she thought, unsure if it was her will or his that had formed it, only glad for the chance to duck inside shelter and escape the horror that was chasing them.
Of course there was a small internal waterfall, the water cold and crystal-clear and lit by pale green phosphorescence. Of course there was soft moss on the cave floor. And of course when the two of them stared at each other, both of them panting, heat rose between them that offset any chill a real cave would’ve had.
“Let me take care of that.” Mariella pointed at his wounds. They were scabbing over, half-healed already. That was the way of dreams.
Butler let her strip him out of his tattered shirt, and when she dipped the cloth in the cold water to wash away the blood from his very, very warm skin, he shivered. They stared at each other in that weird half-light, and Mariella’s heart skipped two beats. This close, she could smell him. Rainwater. Dirt, but not mud. Butler smelled like a garden ready to be planted.
She put her hands flat on his chest to feel the thunder of his heart beneath her palm. He drew in a breath. Hers shivered out of her.
Of course, they leaned toward each other to kiss.
And of course, her alarm blared, waking her up.
* * *
Butler was late to the morning meeting.
He was never late to work, barring natural disasters or unexpected traffic that hadn’t been reported. This morning, however, he’d been so tired he must’ve shut off his alarm without realizing it. He’d woken twenty minutes late, rushed through his shower, skipped his morning coffee and daily newsfeed reading he normally did at his laptop while eating breakfast. Now he felt out of sorts, wearing a belt that didn’t match his shoes, and a shirt he hadn’t noticed was missing a button.
“Meadows. Glad to see you could make it.” This came from Lasenby with a smirk.
Like Butler was ever late. Ever. What a dick.
“Sorry,” Butler murmured as he slid into the empty chair next to Kacey. She must’ve saved it for him. He smiled at her. She passed him a copy of the notes.
It was barely worth his time to be there, since Lasenby had already covered everything for the week’s assignments. Of course he’d put Butler on a team that was most egregiously behind—allegedly to help bring the team up to speed, but mostly because Lasenby was a jerk who’d decided after the office holiday party last year, when Butler hadn’t laughed at his sexist jokes, that Butler needed to somehow be taught a lesson. It had been all shit assignments since then, along with snide comments on his work, even though Butler had never been marked lower than a nine and a half out of ten in any of his monthly evaluations. Still, Butler took the assignment with no more than a nod, not giving Lasenby the satisfaction of seeing him be upset.
“You okay?” Kacey asked on the way back to their cubicles.
Butler paused to look at her. “Yeah?”
“Well, you were late,” she said. “You’re never late. I wondered if maybe you were sick or something. I hope not. There’s some kind of nasty bug going around. I hope you don’t have it.”
“I’m fine. Didn’t sleep well. I had...weird dreams,” Butler said, remembering.
“What kind of dreams?” Kacey asked, but he didn’t want to tell her.
That was too personal, like revealing a secret. The idea of Butler being some kind of Indiana Jones was embarrassing enough, almost as bad as the time he’d dreamed he’d asked Kacey to marry him. He’d woken from that one bemused and definitely the opposite of turned on, unlike this morning with the memory of that woman still fresh in his brain. The gorgeous, auburn-haired woman, like someone out of a movie. No. A dream, he reminded himself. She was a dream.
“A nightmare?” Kacey persisted, coming so close on his heels that she bumped into him when he stopped walking. “Oops. Sorry.”
Butler shook his head. “No. Not a nightmare. Just one of those dreams you feel like you had all night, and you can’t quite shake. Hey, do you have that coding update binder? Lasenby was supposed to drop them off for everyone, but didn’t get me one.”
“Of course,” Kacey said sympathetically. “He’s got it in for you, huh.”
“Seems like it,” Butler said.
They stared at each other for a moment. Kacey seemed to be waiting for him to say something, but Butler didn’t know what it was. She smiled tentatively, and he returned it, a little confused.
“I’ll bring it by,” she said finally. “The binder.”
“Great. Thanks.”
She stayed there a moment longer, then looked back at him over her shoulder as she walked away. She waved just before she rounded the corner, and still unsure of what she wanted, Butler waved back. For some reason, that made her giggle, and shaking his head, Butler went into his own office.
* * *
The dream stayed with him all day, making it hard to concentrate on the work, which was as unusual for Butler as being late had been. Normally he’d finish every task he’d set himself for the day, but when 6:00 p.m. rolled around and he was still stuck on a piece of coding so simple it embarrassed him not to have completed it, he gave up and shut down his computer.
He went for a run, but that didn’t help. He stopped for his favorite dinner at the local Indian place, but the spicy red curry only made him remember the color of his dream woman’s hair. At home, showered and in bed, staring at the ceiling and giving an occasional glance to the chastising alarm clock, he tried to get his mind on other things, but all he could think about was how close he’d come to tasting her mouth.
Butler didn’t often remember his dreams, and the ones he did have were hardly ever as dramatic as the one from last night. He had the usual dreams about forgetting a test or being naked in public, or the bizarre dreams like the one about Kacey. Every so often, a childhood memory of almost drowning would show up in his nightmares. He’d had a few sex dreams as a teenager, but nothing like that recently.
Thinking of last night’s dream now, though, he was most definitely getting a semi. He remembered how her hair had flowed all around her, how her blue eyes had met his so boldly, the scent of her perfume...something exotic, like roses but also wet leather... The monster in his dream should’ve left more of an impression, but all he could really focus on was the woman.
And terrific, now he was hard as iron, with nothing to do but roll onto his belly and bury his face in the pillow and hope for sleep to take him over. That or take care of it. He thrust experimentally a couple times into the bed, unable to stop himself. He hadn’t been this horny in...well, a long time.
“Shit,” he breathed, rolling onto his back again. Dick still hard. Room still dark. Clock still frowning the time at him—super late. If he didn’t get to sleep soon, he’d have a difficult time waking up again.
He’d suffered from insomnia often enough to know when it was going to win. He got up and padded into the bathroom to take one of the sleep aids his