Dream Nights With the CEO

Dream Nights

with the CEO

a Secret Desires novel

Kathy Lyons

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Copyright © 2013 by Kathy Lyons. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.

Entangled Publishing, LLC

2614 South Timberline Road

Suite 109

Fort Collins, CO 80525

Visit our website at
www.entangledpublishing.com
.

Brazen is an imprint of Entangled Publishing, LLC. For more information on our titles, visit
www.brazenbooks.com
.

Edited by Stacy Abrams

Cover design by Heather Howland

ISBN 978-1-62266-780-2

Manufactured in the United States of America

First Edition May 2013

The author acknowledges the copyrighted or trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction: iPad, Jell-O,
ST: The Next Generation
,DC Comics, Spandex, World Wide Wrestling Foundation, McDonald’s, Hilton, Marriott, Google,
Ghost
,
Thor
, Ben & Jerry’s, Ripley’s Believe It or Not
.

To Liz P for her fantastic vision. And to Stacy A for helping get mine perfect.

Chapter One

Megan Bradford was trapped in a boring nightmare. She’d had this particular nightmare so often it had lost its ability to terrify her. Or so she told herself.

Sadly, that did nothing to change the situation. She was the engineer of a runaway train. It was the dead of night, and she (plus all twenty-seven passenger cars filled with people) was about to go over a cliff. None of the controls that she touched, kicked, pushed, or hauled on changed a thing. The train was going over that cliff, and she was powerless to stop it.

It’s a dream
, she told herself.

Despite her words, her heart was pounding and her hands were slick. The heat in the little engine room was suffocating, and sweat was dripping into her eyes, making them burn. She jammed her hands down on the controls, pounding on the big red stop button for all she was worth. It didn’t help. Truthfully, she doubted that trains even had a big red stop button, but that didn’t matter.

Seconds away from the cliff. She blistered the air with curse words, but it made no difference. It was going to be a slow-motion dive into the abyss while the air filled with screams.

And then the dream changed. Suddenly someone stood beside her. A man in a mask and a cape.

Seriously?

She had the vague impression of a chiseled jaw and massive height. Wow, this man was
tall
.

“Help me!” she screamed.

He said something. She didn’t know what. She couldn’t hear over the roar of the engine. Then he abruptly grimaced and grabbed her hands.

She had enough time to notice that his fingers were long and his palms really broad. He easily engulfed her much smaller hand. Something was familiar about that. It dinged in her mind completely outside of the nightmare, but there was no time to think about it.

He grabbed her hands and half pushed, half threw her sideways to a different control. A joystick. A
huge
stick that thrust up from the floor.

“Turn!”
he bellowed. Then he enveloped her in his massive arms and together they hauled sideways on the stick. Not stopping, just turning away from the cliff.

The wheels squealed, the controls seemed to buck before her eyes, but this man was strong—Hercules strong—and she felt the shudder that went through the whole train at his efforts.
Their
efforts, she realized. She had to be part of this, too, or otherwise it wouldn’t work.

This isn’t going to work anyway
, she told herself. This was a nightmare and it always ended the same way. But that little voice was far away. Her body was living the straining heat of pulling the joystick sideways. With a jolt, she discovered she was also aware of the erotic press of the man’s body. And she even felt the hot huff of his breath against her neck and his low grunt of effort.

“Not enough,” she cried. “We’re not enough.”

“We are!” he growled. And it
was
a growl, pulled up through his entire body. She knew because the rumbling sound seemed to start from his taut thighs where they pressed hard against her bottom. Then she felt the sound roll through his flat belly and even grind in the air beside her ear. “We can do it!”

Just hearing his words made a difference. He was big, he was powerful, and he
believed
. Which made her believe. So she put everything she had into pulling with him.

But they were out of time. Megan watched in horror as the end of the track appeared, drew closer, closer, and then…they were off the edge in free fall. The train began to plummet into the abyss. In the background, she heard people scream, shrill and piercing. Or maybe that was just her.

Until the train abruptly veered. She didn’t think it was possible. Right there in midair, the train suddenly took a right turn.

It
wasn’t
possible, but she wasn’t arguing. This was a dream, after all, and possible or not, she was taking hold of the miracle with both hands. Behind her the entire train followed her lead. A shift to the left and suddenly, the whole massive thing was headed somewhere else. Somewhere with bright lights and happy sounds.

She took a moment to look at where they were going. Then she double blinked. Yup, still there. “An amusement park?” she asked, her mouth gaping open. And then horror abruptly rushed through her. No longer an abyss—now they were going to take out an entire fairground.

She frantically hauled on the joystick again, trying to steer elsewhere. “We’re going to crash!”

His hands covered hers again, gentle and soothing as he pulled her off the stick. “We’re not crashing,” he said. And they weren’t. The train was slowing, slowing, slow…stopped. Right at the front gates of a fifties-style fairground.

She stared, but no matter how long she looked, she still saw roller-coaster rides, a trio of juggling clowns, a zillion booths filled with games and junk food. And of course, off in the distance, the Ferris wheel with all its pretty dancing lights. “Oh my fracking God…” she breathed.

“You don’t like amusement parks?” the man asked. His voice was still low—a gravelly rumble beside her ear that made her shiver, this time in awareness, not fear.

“No. I-I love them. My family used to go to one every year. It was the best part of the summer.” She glanced in her rearview mirror. And yes, some part of her knew that a train didn’t have a rearview mirror, but she wasn’t at the bottom of an abyss so she was going with it. There, she saw zillions of passengers pouring out of the cars. Kids, moms and dads, all of them jumping and laughing as they ran for the park.

She smiled as she watched it. “Everybody’s happy.”

“Really?” he asked. “Everybody?”

She blinked, suddenly hyper-aware of him standing behind her. It didn’t seem possible, but he felt scorching against her skin. In an amazing kind of way. Her skin tingled, her nipples tightened, and her breath caught in sizzling awareness.

He felt it, too, she knew. She heard him drag in a ragged breath while lower down, his thighs tightened as he pressed his erection into her bottom.

Nice,
she thought. Really nice, because it had been a while since someone was this happy to see her. He started to pull away, but she grabbed his arms—still locked on the joystick—to keep him close. Again she had that tickle of a memory in her thoughts. His forearms were big, the muscles granite hard.

They stood there, poised with him behind her, his body slowly easing forward. Her nightmare was shifting onto a very different track and she was all kinds of happy about that.

She felt his lips, soft and tentative at her neck. She moaned, letting her head drop to the side and her body melt backward into him. His forearms trembled and though her eyes were closed, she knew he was slowly releasing his grip on the joystick.

Would he touch her? Where? Her nipples were hard and her breasts heavy.
Please touch me
, she thought.
Please
.

He didn’t. His hands hovered in the air just in front of her. “Megan,” he said, the sound both a groan and a regret.

“You know me?” she asked breathlessly. Then she nearly rolled her eyes. Of course he knew her—he was a figment of her imagination. But that didn’t stop her from turning around. It was a tight circle there inside his arms, and he was practically dancing to keep from touching her as she turned.

“Don’t—”

“I want to see your face.”

“No!”

She wasn’t going to give him a choice, but just as she turned, he whipped his cape up and around them. The world went completely dark.

“That’s some cape,” she said, a little miffed that she was now blind.

She heard him chuckle and the darkness took on a warm, familiar feeling.

“Why can’t I see you?” she asked. “I want to thank you properly.”

Clichéd words, but what she said didn’t matter. She could still sense him in the total darkness. She reached out, connecting with his broad chest. Muscles in a huge expanse. No chest hair. She touched the tight buds of his nipples.

His gasp cut through the darkness like the sound of a massive stone breaking. She was getting to him, she thought with a smile. So she let her hands roam, one slipping lower, down across his flat abs and narrow waist. But she didn’t go where she really wanted. It was too bold, even in this dark place. So she leaned forward, pressing her lips to his chest.

She felt the beat of his heart, steady and hard against her mouth. “Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you for saving me.”

Finally his hands touched her. Just his fingertips as he gently stroked up and down her back. She raised her face to his. It was still pitch black. She couldn’t see anything at all, but she somehow knew he was bending to kiss her.

Damn, the man was huge, but they still found a way to meet. She stretched up as he bent down, and finally they kissed.

It was the softest of connections—lip to lip, on the very tips of her sensitized skin. He hesitated there and she wanted to curse in frustration, but that would have broken the spell.

“Please,” she whispered.

That worked. He pressed deeper, harder against her, but still so slow.

Her lips were parted, as were his. They breathed the same air. Sweet. Hot.

“Won’t you kiss me?” she asked. She hadn’t even moved her mouth, but the question quivered in the darkness around them.

“Don’t rush this,” he answered. “I’ve wanted it forever.”

She smiled. It wasn’t true, of course. He was a masked man come to save her doomed train. But she loved the fantasy, loved the idea of a man who wanted her. One who’d waited for her and wasn’t going to rush things even when she was already aching for something a lot more graphic.

“Now?” she asked.

“Yes.”

His tongue swept inside. Strong, forceful, and so damned commanding. He took her with his tongue with such power that her knees went weak. Her hands gripped his broad shoulders even as his arms tightened around her, lifting her slightly off the ground. Soon he was her only anchor, and she thrilled at the feel of his hard planes and shifting cords of muscles.

His tongue seemed to own her, touching every part of her mouth in a dizzying frenzy. He tickled the roof of her mouth then abruptly nipped at the edges of her lips. This was possible in dreams, and she was extremely grateful for it. The sensations built as his hands shifted to her breasts. Such large hands as they pinched her nipples, creating lightning flashes that made her blood sizzle.

More
. She so wanted more.

As if he’d heard her—and in this place, maybe he had—his hands slid to her hips, gripping her tight. Was he holding her in place? Angling her for a better position? He was sucking on her breasts now, making her body shiver and her blood pool in her belly. God, she wanted to be naked with him.

Suddenly, they
were
naked. All those fabric barriers just disappeared leaving nothing but smooth skin, flexing muscles, and him pressing hard and hot against her.

“Wow,” she breathed. In this dreamscape, her libido clearly had superpowers. Which somehow gave her permission to be as bold as she wanted. She slid her hands lower, taking his cock in her hands. Broad, thick, and so hot.

He groaned at her touch, his hands spasming on her hips. “Megan,” he said. Her name was more of a moan than a word. “Listen to me, Megan. We—”

Ding dong, bing bong. Ding dong, bing bong.

Her alarm.

Megan woke with a jerk, a curse on her lips and an ache between her thighs. She gripped the sheets as if she could hold onto her dream by sheer physical strength. It wasn’t possible, of course, and eventually she fell back onto her pillow with a groan.

The dream was gone. Her masked savior was gone. Just when it had really started to get good.

She lay in bed for a long moment, savoring the dream. It took her a while before she admitted to herself that the sexual frustration she felt was much better than the cold sweat she normally faced after her nightmare. Still, couldn’t she have slept just a few moments longer? Long enough to feel his thrust—

Ding dong, bing bong. Ding dong, bing bong.

Megan cursed again as she fumbled with her phone. It took her three tries before she turned off the alarm—snooze function and all. Clearly the universe didn’t want her enjoying her dream even in fantasy. It was time to start her day.

She looked at the clock, even though she already knew exactly what it read. She had thirty-four minutes before she needed to appear dressed and pressed in the hotel breakfast area. But her very first task was to text her boss.

Good morning, Mr. Monroe. Weather forecasts rain today. Temperature in the mid-fifties.

When did she become so perky, professional, and so very colorless? She rolled out of bed with a jaw-popping yawn. But even as she moved, she tapped the recorder app on her phone and spoke somewhat clearly as she shuffled to the bathroom.

“Miranda’s Place B&B, personal notes. Bed, sheets, and duvet are excellent. Interesting headboard.” She absently touched the intricately carved board. On first glance it looked like abstract bumps and swirls, but closer inspection made the flowing lines seem almost sexual. There was nothing explicit, just a vague impression that made her think it belonged in a honeymoon suite. Or a high-end brothel. Or maybe it was just the lingering remnants of her dream.

She headed for the bathroom, then winced as she caught sight of her reflection. Humidity equaled frizzy hair. Ugh.

“But humidity in St. Louis is annoying. Reminder to check for problems caused by dampness before Mr. Monroe buys this place,” she recorded.

She set down her phone and made an effort to pull herself together. It was unusually hard after that dream, but she had a job to do. Her boss was thinking of buying the B&B, and she needed to be sharp. They only had one day to physically inspect the place before they headed on. There were, in fact, six other B&Bs on the possible acquisition list, but something about this little inn had her rooting for it. She liked it, liked Cherry Moon, the historic northern suburb of St. Louis, and she liked the eclectic air here. The place had
character
, and so she hoped Mr. Monroe would pick it.