*57 - Don't Dream It's Over

Cassidy was having the nicest dream.

She was floating, naked, in a pool of water – an oversized Jacuzzi, perhaps, since its warmth soothed her like a freshly drawn bath.  The gentle waves rocked her with the most delightfully calming motion, but someone must have just turned up the thermostat because she was getting hotter.  The water temperature was rising, heating her from the outside in and her blood pressure rose accordingly.  She was reduced to shallow breaths and, when the searing tide lapped over her chest, breathing was no longer an option. 

The wet heat persevered in its effort to poach her alive until Cassidy’s lungs ached from lack of oxygen.  When she could stand it no more, she involuntarily sucked in a gasping breath of air – and that audible noise was loud enough to wake her.

“Easy, baby,” Jon’s sleep-roughened voice washed softly over one breast while a massaging hand tenderly kneaded its mate.  That searing tide lapping at her chest was him and, while it surprised her that he was initiating sex in the middle of the night, she wasn’t going to question it.  Orgasm first, answers later.

“Mmm…”  Cassidy arched into the intense suction that coaxed her nipples from attentive to aroused and purred with drowsy delight.  “This is better’n any ole Jacuzzi.”

A rumbling chuckle vibrated the tongue that was now bathing her sternum on its journey toward the other nipple.  The hand that had been kneading now skated seductively southward over her ribs, caressing the indentation of her waist and fondling the feminine curves until a scorching hand slipped between her thighs.

“Open up.”

Happy to oblige, she settled her bottom more comfortably into the mattress and spread thighs that quivered under the attention of his hardened fingertips, but the teasing scrape of callus over tender flesh was disappointingly brief.  It lasted only long enough to trigger her mewled frustration when it ended, freeing Jon to crawl between her legs.  A happy sigh then replaced the frustration and she reveled in the masculine weight that covered her like a heated blanket. 

Stretching lethargic arms to cradle his head, Cassidy was sure it was the black of night magnifying the tickle of hair across her palms.  Under normal circumstances, it wouldn’t feel as sinfully decadent.  Under normal circumstances, his heavy breathing wouldn’t be so daggone erotic. 

Under normal circumstances, he also wouldn’t be cursing under those breaths, and it told Cassidy why she’d been awakened tonight – Jon was on the hunt.

“Lookin’ for your sanity again, baby doll?” she murmured as he planted his knees wide, forcing hers even wider, and dragged a thumb through folds that now wept for him.

“Yeah.”

Cassidy had already been warm, but when his searing flesh pressed into her…  The bed became an oppressive dry sauna that once again stole her breath, and she struggled to pull in a puff of air while restless fingers dug more deeply into Jon’s hair.   

Unaware that she was suffocating under his custody, Jon ruthlessly steadied her hips to receive the full impact of his initial invasion and then followed it up with short, hard thrusts.  Each of those thrusts professed his desperation to fully consume her, despite the satisfying sex they’d shared only hours ago. 

Whatever haunting ghost had woken him, he was trying his damnedest to chase it away with the escalating inferno he stoked.

She gulped at the thick air, unsure whether it was asphyxiation making her dizzy or if it was his expert manipulation of ultra-sensitive nerve endings.  One or the other was determined to steal what remaining oxygen she had as the bundled nerves at her core were exquisitely tortured, throbbing with the same beat as his rhythmic assault and primal grunts.    

Slickness not only saturated their point of union, but it eased the resistance in every spot where flesh met flesh.  The outside of his thighs glided effortlessly over the inside of hers.  His damp chest slithered provocatively over sharp points of arousal on her aching breasts. 

Cassidy’s heels couldn’t find a grip in the small of his sweaty back, so she pulled sleep-limber legs high to grant him full access to what he so diligently sought.  She opened herself fully, inviting him to take whatever it was he wanted – whatever he needed – and he accepted without hesitation, driving her knees to her shoulders and shamelessly pummeling Cassidy with a deep growl of approval.

It was almost more than she could stand.

“Ohhhhhh!” 

Jon burned her neck with a sweltering string of profanities.  He bit out words that she wouldn’t repeat, that she didn’t understand the basis for.  Was he filled with anger?  Frustration?  Was he emptying himself of both by unleashing the duo of his tongue and the boiling rush she expected to soon scald her womb?

It didn’t matter, she decided, bowing up to meet his strokes.  He was going home today and she was running away again.  Cassidy didn’t know when – or if – she would see him again.  There may never be another opportunity to provide the solace he sought and it was beyond her to deny him now.

“That’s it, baby doll,” she whispered into the night, and then gurgled with pleasure as he hit the spot that catapulted her over the top.  “Mmmnnnggghhh!”

His battering became more aggressive.  His swearing more bawdy.  His breathing more ragged. 

It wasn’t ten seconds later that…

“Mnhf!”

… he found what he was looking for.

Jon slumped over her accommodating body for only a moment before sliding away and flipping onto his back.  There was nothing but blackness where the ceiling should be, but he peered at it in earnest and eased his hand closer to the panting woman beside him, until he could tightly knot their fingers. 

“Better now?” she asked quietly.

“Yeah.”

Surprisingly enough, it was. 

He had been dreaming about a hodgepodge of Confederate soldiers, horse thieves and modern day rednecks.  In the beginning, it was just weird.  They were all amicably having drinks at some dive bar, but Jon somehow knew the guys were all there to cause trouble for Cassidy and it kept him coiled with tension throughout their endless rounds of beer and pool games. 

His tension was proven well-founded when the older redneck lost the last game of pool to one of the soldiers while the horse thief looked on and mocked him.  Visibly pissed, the redneck pulled a double-barreled shotgun from under the pool table and Jon thought he was going to take aim at the soldier, but that wasn’t what happened.  He actually swung the gun on Cassidy, who had inexplicably appeared behind the bar to serve drinks, and demanded that she give up the gold or he would blow her head off.

Jon immediately filled with rage and moved forward with the intention of taking the shotgun away from the guy and breaking his kneecaps with it, but had awakened before being granted that satisfying crunch.  Upon realizing that the woman he’d wanted to protect was safe in bed beside him, he had been overwhelmed by the need… for her. 

He hadn’t really been expecting to find his so-called sanity tonight, seeing as she was the one troubling him, but Cassidy transcended all logic and worked her magic once again.  There was still an underlying sense of unease inside him, but it was overshadowed by the inner peace that came from being with her – a peace that he couldn’t liken to any other. 

A peace he wanted to hold onto as much as he wanted her to be safe from rednecks and Confederates.

“Come with me to New Jersey tomorrow.” 

And maybe stay.

Her soft sigh wasn’t the sign of a positive reaction to his unplanned proposition and Jon silently swore at his lack of restraint.  At least he hadn’t verbalized the add-on that he couldn’t help but think.

Just like he’d lain here earlier, while trying to go to sleep, and couldn’t help but think about the months of his life immediately preceding Cassidy.  Bleak was a fair assessment and he sure as hell didn’t like the person he became during that time.  Reverting back into a withdrawn man with little interest in anything held no appeal for him, and keeping her nearby would go a long way toward preventing it because he could get his “fix” whenever he needed it.   

Because it’s all about you.

Okay.  So he was thinking of himself first, but he considered it to be comparable to the damn airplane safety instructions – secure your own oxygen mask before assisting others.  That’s all he was trying to do.  He would secure his happiness and then make sure hers was similarly secured. 

Jon wasn’t exactly sure what that was going to entail beyond assisting with this gold shit, but he would come up with something.  There was always music.

This afternoon, he taught her some basic guitar and, during that songwriting “lesson”, the chords and lyrics she pieced together were catchy.  She showed promise that he could help foster, at the very least.  If she chose not to pursue a professional vocal career, maybe she’d find a niche in songwriting and sell them to supplement her nursing paycheck.

Hell, maybe she could be his new songwriting partner.

Maybe.

It was a thought, anyway.

“Baby doll, you know I can’t do that.”

He was right.  The sigh hadn’t been a good sign. 

Fortunately, her sigh and his lack of foresight weren’t insurmountable roadblocks. Jon may not have consciously planned to do this, but he could think on his feet – even while lying flat on his back – and had come up with some of his best ideas in the middle of the night.  There was something about the darkness and the quiet that made anything seem possible.

“The plane’s a private charter.  Nobody’s going to be looking for you on a charter and I can probably smooth talk my way around the ID thing altogether if I need to.”

The mattress shifted under her slight weight as Cassidy turned onto her side while still holding his hand.  The other hand came tentatively up to search out his jaw in the darkness and cup it gently. 

“That’s not the only reason why and you know it as well as I do.”

The last time he’d asked her to Jersey, her objections had centered on staying at Jon’s house and possibly running into Dorothea, so he naturally assumed those protests were rising to the surface again.

“I don’t mean stay in my guesthouse,” he clarified.  “One of the guys will let you crash at their place – or we’ll find a quiet hotel.”

The hand cupping his jaw slipped down to pet his chest hair.  “There just no good reason for goin’ up there to impose on your friends and pussyfoot around your wife.”

Her safety was a good fucking reason, in his opinion, and it was heavy on his mind since the damn dream that had just woken him.  Jon wasn’t going to live in her pocket if she came to New Jersey, but it would comfort him know that she was close in case, God forbid, something happened and she needed someone.  If she stayed with Dave or Obie, all the better because they or their wives would be close at hand most of the day and night.

But Jon was a Jersey guy with enough ego and balls to keep him from admitting his fear – and fear for her.

“Why do you have to be so goddamn motherfucking stubborn?” he grumbled. 

Her quiet laughter was a soft, warm breeze against his cheek.  “It’s part of my charm.  And if I had to wager a guess, I’d say you don’t find wishy washy women appealin’.  So if I wasn’t stubborn, I wouldn’t be here in the first place.  Right?”

Fuck if she wasn’t right.  Jon had always been attracted to an independent woman, which was why his marriage had lasted so long.  Dorothea did her thing and he did his, but sometimes – every once in a while – it helped his masculinity to think that he was needed. 

Now was one of those times that his manhood could use some reinforcement.  He wanted Cassidy to need him – just a little bit – but at the same time, he was pleased that she didn’t.

“Yeah,” he huffed and then draped his free arm over to haul her close.  “But that doesn’t mean you get to be the boss in this relationship, so listen to me very carefully.”

“I’m listenin’,” she murmured in the midst of a kiss to his chin.

Jon gave Cassidy a slight jostle to get her full attention.  “I mean it.  Listen to me.”

“Okay, okay.”  She held very still in his arms to display her obedience.  “I’m really listenin’.”

Now that she was fully attuned to him, he chose his words carefully.  There was an art to walking the fine line between being Jersey and being a man who cared about a woman and he needed to get it right for his own peace of mind.

“You need to go someplace for a few days.  That’s a given, but the fact that you want to go alone bugs the shit out of me.  Your greedy-motherfucker uncle is a loose cannon waiting to fire and I can’t get that out of my head.”

“Honey-“

“Be quiet until I finish,” he instructed.  “I’m aware that you started this… adventure alone but I’m involved now.  You do what you’ve gotta do, but goddammit, you will check in and let me know you’re okay.  A quick text is fine, but more than once a day.  Understand?”

Cassidy was… overwhelmed with emotion.  His gruff command touched her as poignantly as a sonnet full of flowery words about fondness and adoration.  Yes, he’d told her he had feelings, but this was concrete evidence of it and it was so very, very difficult not to take a big, black mental marker and fill in that label on her feelings. 

Don’t do it.  You’re leaving tomorrow and so is he.  There’s no reason to torture yourself this way.

“If I agree, can we go to back to sleep?”

Lord, it’s me again.  If I could impose upon You for the teeny tiniest favor…  Please don’t let him notice that I’m a little choked up over here.  Let him just think it’s just sleepiness.

“If you agree, yeah.”

Her nostrils flared slightly as Cassidy inhaled the warm, masculine scent of him that had nothing to do with cologne.  She cataloged the restless wiggle of his foot that relayed how hard it was for him to be still.  She memorized the way his splayed palm felt in the small of her back.  She savored the sensation of his flesh warming hers.  She cherished the deep, steady rhythm of his heart beneath her palm.   

All of it – all of him – she committed to memory and thanked the Lord above for this precious slice of her life and for Jon.

“I promise to check in, baby doll,” she whispered into the dark night, grateful that he couldn't see her face.  “Every day.”