*64 - Fairytale Dreams

Her easy damn smile topped with dancing blue eyes were exactly what he needed.  They punctured Jon’s bloated ball of stress as effortlessly as a pinprick, allowing today’s anxiety to hiss silently away and leaving just… Cassidy.

“Your sister scared the shit out of me today,” he murmured as his hand fell away from her face so that they were no longer touching.  It created what could be considered a respectable distance between them – six inches, at least.

“I’m sorry ‘bout that.  She gets a little wound up sometimes.”

Somebody had needed to be wound up because Cassidy sure as hell hadn’t shown any concern for her own safety.  He appreciated her hair-trigger sister and, feeling as though he’d found an ally in the woman, Jon had invited Libby to contact him for help or anything else when her sister didn’t have the good sense to do it. 

“I’m glad she called.”

The bubble encapsulating their private world was popped by the subdued ruckus of David sliding back the piano bench to gather a glass and his phone as he stood.  “Clearly I don’t need to be here for this shit.  Cassidy, take the third room on the right upstairs and make him carry your suitcase like he’s got some fucking couth.”

His abrupt and colorfully commentated departure wasn’t sitting well with the Southerner, who turned away from Jon to frown prettily at the keyboardist.  “Now don’t go runnin’ off just because we’re rude, makin’ you feel out of place in your own livin’ room.  If you wanna stay, I promise we’ll behave better.”

“Speak for yourself,” Jon muttered under his breath, leaning one hip against the piano and crossing his arms.  He personally couldn’t wait to be alone with her so that he could…  Hell, it wasn’t even like he had a raging hard-on for her.  He just wanted to lose himself – to crawl inside her and hold tight until her presence drove away everything inside him that shouldn’t be there.

His friend patted Cassidy’s hand and kindly removed it from his arm.  “That’s very sweet, but I’m gonna go watch Fifty Shades of Grey and see if I can pick up any pointers.  If there’s anything good, I’ll send him a text.  You can thank me in the morning.”

Cassidy’s jaw went slack as she tried to decide whether he was kidding, and result was so animatedly comical that Jon couldn’t help but laugh.  He’d like to tell her it was a joke, but he really didn’t know if it was. 

“You’re a crazy fucker, Lema, but I still love ya.  Sorry about giving you hell earlier.”

His friend’s mouth wound into a smirk.  “You’re not sorry, you’re just playing nice for company, but never fear. I’ve already forgotten it.  Cassidy, I’m not a morning person.  If you are, help yourself to coffee or whatever.  My family will start descending for Lily’s birthday party about two.  You’re welcome to join us or hide from us.  Whichever.  Later, kids.”

With that and a careless wave, he strolled from the room. 

She was still watching his retreating back when Jon eased up behind her to work both arms around her waist.  With a gentle tug, she was completely enveloped in the embrace and her back flattened against the wall of his chest.  That nearness was exactly what he’d been searching for and Jon dipped his head for more, using lazy lips to nuzzle the curve of her neck.

 “Looking for some sanity, baby doll?”

The tender, knowing words prompted him to hold her tighter.  Sanity wasn’t precisely the right word tonight, but it would do as a synonym for what he was really after. She was the only one who could give him either.

“Yes,” he murmured against the fragrant flesh that carried no scent other than her own.

Ever so gently, she pushed at his forearms, urging him to break the embrace so that she could slide a palm against his and intertwine their fingers.  “Reckon we should go upstairs and see if you can find some, then.”

When she would have used their clasped hands to pull him along behind her, Jon dug in his heels.   

“Dixie.”

A fiery cloud of hair swished over her shoulders when Cassidy’s head swiveled in his direction, and whatever he’d been about to say was immediately lost in the bottom of wide, guileless eyes that met his.   Her hair was a mess, her makeup had all but faded away and the worn jeans and t-shirt she had on were hardly haute couture – but damn if she wasn’t still more beautiful than anybody he’d ever met in Hollywood. 

Inside and out.

Jon used their knitted fingers to draw her gradually forward until ruby shoes were sandwiched between his feet, and then slid his hand free to lightly cup her jaw.  Her pupils dilated with the realization of what was coming, but she didn’t realize.  Not really. 

Rather than delivering the expected kiss – one that crashed down on her with the full intensity of his need – Jon’s chin dipped so gradually that it felt as though he wasn’t moving at all.  They were suspended in time and space, and an immeasurable eternity of anticipation passed before his lips fluttered softly against hers.

The yearning feminine sigh flooded his gut with warmth.  It was without words yet sweetly begged for another pass of his lips, which he delivered and embellished with the slow swipe of his tongue.  The perfectly bowed mouth had scarcely parted with another sigh when he slipped inside with his own sigh – one of fulfillment. 

He only got this feeling with her.  Only she could bring sunshine into the dark corners of his soul, sweeping away desolate cobwebs with a cleansing peace. 

Only her.

He drank of her as he would the finest wine, slowly sipping and swirling her flavor on his tongue to appreciate the captivating individuality of it – and the woman in his arms.  The headiness excited him and well-placed pressure coaxed her to open wider so that he could guzzle like a wino deprived for far too long. 

The glide of their tongues was akin to a velvety red vintage.  Her breathy moan was a sweet white.  Her seductive writhing held the same beguiling allure as his beloved Pinot Grigio.  The way she flared to life in his arms was more intoxicating than an entire fucking vineyard.

His body – his mind – reacted to her in a way he hadn’t realized he was capable of anymore, and it spurred him to drink deeper.  To swallow every drop.  To taste the every delectable recess, nook and niche of her mouth.  He became greedy, taking everything she offered and demanding more until she whimpered at the fierceness of his possession.

Prying their mouths apart, Jon’s forehead came to rest against hers, and he used widespread palms to cradle her skull while he caught his breath.  While he willed his heart to calm the fuck down.  While he tried like hell not to stick a label on his bottle of unlabeled feelings. 

“Not that I’m complainin’,” she whispered while running fingertips through the short hair over his ears.  “But we coulda done that upstairs.”

“We still will.”

Cassidy didn’t know what thoughts were churning behind those baby blues of his, but they were deep and, based on his spellbound fascination with her face, they were all about her.  If this was her first rodeo, she could be enticed into believing those thoughts included flowers, hearts and romance.  That they held promises and plans for today and tomorrow.  That she was his everything.

This wasn't her first rodeo, though – or even her first with him – and she couldn’t let herself indulge in such foolishness. He had a caring nature that she’d been privileged to experience, but that caring had never slipped beyond the “unlabeled line” they’d defined and she had no reason to assume tonight was any different. 

“What ‘cha thinkin’ ‘bout, baby doll?”  Not expecting an answer of any substance, she spoke simply to quell the inner voice urging her to assume tonight was different. 

“You don’t wanna know.”

‘Lub-dub’.

She heard the heartbeat pound in her ears, quickly chased by another.  It took only one more for Cassidy to decide that he was right.  Whatever made his eyes cloud to that particular shade was either very good or very bad, and she didn’t have the gumption to handle either tonight. 

Right now, there was only one thing that invited her handling and it was him.

“Alright.”  Her hands stroked down his shoulders and back up again, until worshipful fingers could feather over his throat.  “Let’s go find you some sanity, then.”

With nothing more than expectant silence filling the air between them, they passed hand in hand through the foyer to get her bag.  They scaled the stairs without speaking, and Cassidy mentally counted doorways until her hand could close around the knob of the third one and push it open. 

Dark opulence registered in the back of her mind – dark brocade wallpaper behind a white headboard, dark curtains, ornate black chandelier, plush black area rug beneath the bed – but she didn’t stop to study any of it.  Later, she might be interested in the details of her accommodations for the next couple of days but, for now, her attention didn’t veer from the man who was placing her suitcase on the zebra upholstered bench at the foot of the bed.

“How long can you stay?” Cassidy inquired, needing to know but not wanting to hear the answer. 

Her head tilted back as he came closer, because she was unwilling to look away from the sculpted cheekbones that lent boyish appeal to a face superbly marked by masculine maturity.  He was simply… gorgeous in both body and soul.  

“A while.”

His vagueness was irrelevant when the same fingers that could make a guitar sing so magnificently pushed into her hair, tunneling through the chaotic mess that it must be.  Then he came back for another try at tidying it, and another, repetitively finger combing her hair while intently cataloging each arch, angle and shadow in her face.

“I’d like to feel your skin,” she murmured and he took half a step back, allowing her to access the buttons running the midline of his torso.  Only four were fastened and they soon parted so that itching palms could skate over the downy plane that was exposed.

A single masculine shrug transformed his shirt to a navy puddle against the hardwood floor, and Cassidy furthered her survey to cover muscled shoulders.  She traced the cut lines of his biceps and touched reverent lips to the base of his throat, dragging soft kisses to his Adam’s apple, the chiseled angle of his jaw, the clefted point of his chin...

Splayed hands blanketed her ears and his thumbs exerted gentle, yet insistent, pressure until her chin was properly tilted to receive his kiss.  Like the one downstairs, it was slow.  Lazy.  Tender.  Indulgent.

They’d touched lips uncountable times by now, but each kiss had been a point of interest on the journey to another destination.  Tonight, wrapped tenderly in his arms, Cassidy felt like there was no place else he’d rather be than lost in this kiss.

Don’t be writin’ fairytales.

“My sweet Dixie,” he breathed into her mouth between gentle lashes of his tongue. 

To Hell with that. 

With his heart-melting endearment still warm on her lips, Cassidy stubbornly decided to write whatever she damn well pleased.  She was entitled to romanticize one night out of a lifetime and, until he left, she gave herself permission to imagine that nothing existed beyond the dark cocoon of this room. 

That everything she desired could be hers. 

That Jon was hers.

Dipping her toe into the pool of romance, she let rose petal droplets splash all around while wading from the banks of reality into the magical place where he made ceaseless love to her mouth because he couldn’t stand not to.  She put in a forwarding address to the fantasy land where their clothes slowly faded away until their bodies were as bare as their hearts and souls. 

As meticulously as he made love to her mouth, he made love to every other part of her body.  His hands cherished her, his breath warmed a spot deep inside that she hadn’t known was cold, his quiet hum of encouragement let her dream, his kisses… 

Oh, his kisses.

They were as ardently consuming in her most intimate places as they’d been pressed against her lips.  He ceaselessly laved, suckled, lapped and worshipped until she crested not a mountain, but a dreamlike knoll that rolled down into flower-filled meadow where the fairytale sun kissed her just as sweetly as he did when merging their bodies into a single… mythical… splendid… entity. 

And when he cajoled her into rolling down that knoll again, this time with him, they were so tightly and intimately entwined that there was no distinguishing where she ended and he began.  He inhaled, she exhaled.  His heart beat, she was the pulse.  He touched her, they both shivered. 

In the enchanted realm that she had created, there would be nothing less.

It was hours later that they lay spinelessly braided together in the dark bedroom while there was still full daylight behind Cassidy’s closed lids.  In her mind, it wasn’t a mattress that cradled them, but that flower-filled meadow, and the outlook from here to eternity was blissfully clear. 

Waking up in reality tomorrow was going to hurt like the dickens because she’d let herself take this trip, but she didn’t care.  It was simply too beautiful to regret and she wouldn’t trade her journey for all the common sense in the world.

“Dixie?”  Her imagination likened his whisper to a butterfly floating from one flower to the next.

“Hmm?” 

She hoped he didn’t want to talk about deep and necessary things.  The strength of him under and around her felt so decadent and heavenly that she longed to stay immersed in it a while longer, and she snuggled into his chest with that intention.

“You asked me what I was thinking about downstairs.”  There was something about his tone that had her going tense and he soothed her with a gentle stroke.  “I didn’t think it was a good idea to tell you.  Probably still isn’t, but hell if I can keep myself from doing it anyway.”

Her head lifted of its own accord, seeking out his eyes in dim light to find the clouded blue had overtaken his irises again. 

Please, Lord.  Please?

“I love you, Cassidy.”