Dream On (Stories of Serendipity #2) (15 page)

“I don’t know, we sort of got distracted during the plan-making part of the date.”

“Ah, so now it’s a date.  Well, he’ll probably call you to make plans.  Let me know how it goes, okay?”  Summer listened to the silence on her end while Alyssa digested that last little bit.

“Ummm.
 I kind of forgot to give him my phone number.”

“What?
 Well, maybe he can look you up.  You’re listed right?”

“Not since Jessica’s grandmother called me at home and bawled me out for failing her sweet baby one Sunday afternoon.
 I didn’t get off the phone with her for and hour and a half.  I had my number unlisted after that.”  Alyssa sighed.

“Well, y’all will figure something out.
 Maybe he’s listed?  His parents?  This will work itself out.  Y’all are meant to be together.”  

“I’m not so sure about that.
 We are so different, I’m not sure I can do this, Summer.”

“Of course you can.
 Some cosmic force somewhere is making y’all dream of each other.  It’s meant to be.  End of story.”

“Whatever.”
 

“Now who sounds like a teenager?”
 Summer laughed at her.

“I’ll call you later, okay?”

“Okay, let me know when y’all go out again.”

After hanging up with her friend, Alyssa fixed herself a glass of wine and a hot bubble bath and got in to soak and replay her date with Dalton.

To her eyes, he acted differently with her than he had in interactions with oth
er women.  With the other women he was confident, almost arrogant.  Today, he had seemed nervous around her, unsure of himself, as if he was as nervous as she was.  Alyssa wasn’t sure what to make of that.  It endeared him to her, and ultimately, it was why she had agreed to go out with him again.  

Until the kiss...She wasn’t sure what had possessed her to kiss him like that, but wow.
 All traces of nervousness on his part disappeared, and he had kissed her passionately, with urgency.  He had touched her the way she longed to be touched.  For a moment, she had known what it felt like to be wanted by a man.

What had surprised her the most, though was the way she had reacted to the kiss, so shamelessly..

At the memory, her breasts grew heavy, and her nipples stood erect.  She smoothed bubbles over them, tickling the tips.  The dull ache that had been with her since she left the bakery suddenly sharpened, and she felt an intense desire to do something to relieve the ache.  Alyssa ran her hands down her breasts, over her stomach, between her legs.  She closed her eyes, leaned back in the tub, and began to rub herself.

The ringing telephone interrupted her ministrations.
 Annoyed and out of breath, she sat up in the bathtub, sloshing water onto the floor.  She listened to the phone ring, waiting for the answering machine to pick up.

“Alyssa?
 It’s Dalton...”  His low, smooth voice carried into the bathroom.

She jumped out of the bathtub, grabbed a towel, and raced to the telephone, not caring about the puddles she left in her wake.

“Hello?  Hello?”  She gasped into the phone.

“Hi, Alyssa.
 Did I interrupt something?  You sound out of breath.”

“I was in the bath.”

“Oh...”  Dalton’s voice was suddenly husky.  He was silent.

“Hello?”
 Alyssa blushed, imagining he was probably imagining her in the tub.  He had probably dreamed about her in the tub.  Mortification didn’t begin to describe what she felt.

“I-I’m here.”
 His voice cracked a little, and he cleared his throat.  “I was calling to see if you wanted to go out to dinner on Friday?”

“Sure.
 What time?”  Alyssa was still breathless.

“Seven?
 Does that sound alright?”  His voice sounded tentative, unsure, and Alyssa enjoyed the fact she could make this confident man so insecure.

“Yeah.
 I don’t have a football game this week, so that would be fine.  Where do you want to meet?”

“Let me pick you up.
 We’re dating, remember?  I want to pick you up and pay and everything.”  He sounded more confident, now that he had a set of unwritten rules to go by.

Alyssa sighed.
 “Okay, I’m in the pink house on Link Street.  Behind Dogwood Diner.”

“Thank you.”
 He paused.  “I’ll let you get back to your...bath.”  She detected a smile in his voice.

“I was just finishing up.
 I’m done.”Alyssa had a sudden thought.  “Um...Dalton?”

“Yeah?”

“How did you get my number?”

He laughed good-naturedly.
 “My mom has never thrown away a phone book.  We have them going back to 1968, when they first moved here.”  

“Oh.
 Okay.  Just wondering.”

“So, I’ll see you Friday at seven?
 The pink house on Link Street, behind Dogwood Diner?”

“Yes.
 Sounds good.”

“I’m looking forward to it.”
 She definitely heard a smile this time.

“Um...me too.”
 The butterflies in her tummy started swarming again.

“Sweet dreams, Alyssa.”
 His voice was husky again, quiet.  She wondered what he was thinking about.

“You too, Dalton.”

“Goodnight.”

“‘Night.”

After hanging up the phone, she went into her bedroom to put on her pajamas.
 She opened her nightstand drawer and withdrew the glittery purple vibrator.

“I really don’t know if I can ever use you.
 If I’ve ever had a time in my life, now would be it.  I am so turned on my Dalton, and I don’t know what to do about it.”

The vibrator glittered at her conspiratorially.

“I mean, it’s like there’s this spring inside, and it’s coiled up really tight, and I need him to unwind it for me or something.  Does that make sense?”

The toy just sat there
staring at her.

“Well, it wouldn’t make sense to you.
 You’re job is unwinding those springs, I guess.”  Frustrated, she groaned and threw herself back on the bed. She turned on the vibrator, and felt the pulsing, vibrating vinyl, as it undulated in her hand.  She rubbed the device over her breasts, feeling the nipples harden into peaks, thinking about Dalton and that kiss.  She closed her eyes and let her memories drown out the noise of the vibrator.

Chapter 13

“Holy fuck!”
 Dalton awoke in a bed of sweaty, twisted sheets on the couch at his parents’ house.  He had never experienced anything like that before.  Sure, he had had wet dreams.  What teenaged boy hadn’t?  But nothing like this.  This was an orgasm to beat all others.  His toes were still cramping from the overwhelming muscle spasms that had wracked his body.  And he still had tingling sensations in his cock.  His entire being had clenched with that powerful climax.  It had been like an incredibly agonizing ecstasy that made his whole body shudder uncontrollably.  

Trying to make sense of it,
he shook his head.  In the past his orgasms had been pleasurable but nothing like that.  He tried to remember the dream more clearly, what had happened to cause the earth-shattering climax.  All he could come up with was a weird buzzing noise and familiar sheets.  He looked around his bed.  Not these sheets.  Suddenly, realization dawned.

He hadn’t been dreaming of Alyssa since they met, but the only explanations for this particular dream had to do with her.
 Either he had dreamed of this orgasm in anticipation, or she had actually had one, and he had just experienced it.

Chuckling to himself, he laid back in the bed with his hands behind his head.
 He looked over at the clock.  It was ten thirty.  When had he ever gone to sleep this early?

“Good for her.”
 Dalton felt extremely relaxed, and as the tingling sensation subsided, and his muscles relaxed, he drifted off to sleep.

When he rolled out of bed the next morning, he felt like a different person.  “No wonder women like their vibrators so much,” he grumbled to himself.  “How’s a guy supposed to compete with something like that?”  He strode into the shower, memories of last night’s experience still fresh on his mind.

In the kitchen
he found Renae sitting at the table, clutching a cup of coffee.  

“Where’s Kelly?”
 

“She’s still getting ready for school.”

“I’ll take her, and then I’d like to go spend some time with Dad today.  You can take a break.  Do some stuff you need to do, relax, whatever.”  Renae had put her life on hold for their Dad these past couple of weeks.  Dalton admired his sister.  She was a single mom, like Alyssa, and living so close to their parents, she took the brunt of looking after them when they needed it.

“Thanks, Dalton.
 I appreciate it.”  She walked around the table, kissed Dalton on the top of his head, and zombie-walked out of the kitchen.  Dalton hoped she was going back to bed.  She looked like she needed some more sleep.

After dropping Kelly off at school, and trying unsuccessfully to see Alyssa out by the car riders, he went on to the hospital.
 Walking into the hospital room, he caught his mother coming out of the bathroom in her robe.

“You sleep well, Mom?”
 He went to her and kissed her cheek.

“I suppose.
 It’s kind of hard to really sleep with the nurses coming in to check on him every hour, and all that beeping...”  She wiped her hands across her face in a gesture of defeat.  “It’s beginning to get under my skin.”

“Well, get dressed and go down and have some breakfast.
 I need to talk to Dad about something.”  Dalton squeezed his mother’s hand affectionately.

Mary gave him a funny look.
 “Alright.”

When she had left the room, Dalton sat in the chair next to his dad.

“Hey, Dad.”  He looked at the pasty shell of a man who lay in the hospital bed.  “I’m really going to miss you, but I know you’ll be at peace, wherever you go.”  He ran his fingers through his hair.  

“I don’t think you can probably hear me, but I’ve got to talk to someone about this woman, and you are the only on
e who could get it.”  He paused and took a breath.

“I met her.
 She’s real.  The girl I told you I had been dreaming about?  She’s a real woman, and she lives here.  In Serendipity.”  Dalton shook his head sadly.  “I really wish you could talk back at me, Dad, but since you can’t, I’m just going to talk, okay?”  

Not getting any response, as he knew he wouldn’t, Dalton continued.

“She’s really amazing, Dad.  I’ve only actually seen her a couple of times, but I’ve been dreaming her life for a month, and I feel like I know her.  In fact, I know I know her better than if we’d been dating for a month because I’ve seen things she wouldn’t normally let me see.”  He felt the need to stand and pace the room.  “So, she’s probably seen things I wouldn’t let her normally see, and she still wants to go out with me.  We’ve got a date Friday night, and I’m really nervous about it.  I’ve never felt this way about a woman before, Dad, and I wish you were awake to explain it to me.”  He stopped pacing and looked at his dad.  The incessant beeping of the monitors filled the silent room, and his dad continued to lay there, unmoving.

“A couple of weeks ago
at church, the preacher talked about the parable of the virtuous woman, and all I could think about was Alyssa.  That’s back when I thought she was a figment of my imagination.  I wanted to have a family with her.  But, now I know she’s real, I’m confused.  I’m not sure what I want, except I know she’s smart, funny, strong, and gorgeous.”  He ran his hand through his hair again.  

“I’m not sure why my feelings are different, knowing she’s real.  But they are.  She’s so real.  Everybody else I’ve ever been with has been pretending to be someone else, and Alyssa doesn’t do that.  I can’t explain it.  It’s like, since she’s
real, we can’t ever be together because we’re so different.  I have to figure out a way around that.”

Dalton continued his pacing around the room.
 “So, our first date is Friday, and since the first time I really saw her in real life, I haven’t dreamed about her.”  He wasn’t about to tell his Dad, conscious or not, about last night’s experience.  “I miss her every night.  And I have absolutely no idea how she feels about me, except I know she’s scared of me...well, she thinks she’s scared of me, but I would never do anything to hurt her.  I want to help her.  She’s so busy with her life and her kids.  I want to be there for her.”  

He stopped talking and sat back down, grasping his dad’s papery hand in his own.
 “I’m just scared of screwing things up, of my history coming back to her.  Although, she knows about my history, she’s been dreaming of me too.  Which is why she’s scared of me, and I can’t blame her.  She’s so...pure.”