I started pacing again. I’d been dreaming about him since I was three, and I was now convinced I was somehow seeing the real Roane. I literally watched him grow up in my dreams. I watched him blow out birthday candles and take his first driving lesson and get his first tattoo. And those visions, while fleeting, were crystal clear. I knew the boy. I knew the man. But I was confused. If he was the same boy I’d watched grow up, why didn’t I recognize him the instant we first met in my grandmother’s kitchen?
I chewed a nail as I paced, turning the questions over and over in my mind before an answer came to me: because I’d only seen parts of him. His strong hands when he tied his shoelaces. His sculpted jaw when he shaved. His sparkling eyes when he looked into the rearview. As though I was seeing him through his eyes. Watching his life unfold through his vision. His hearing. His sense of smell and taste and touch.
Especially touch.
From the time I was seventeen, I’d had dreams of a delicious lover. The epitome of a schoolgirl’s fantasy. As I got older, I just thought I was having very vivid, very wet dreams. I’d climaxed more in my sleep over the last twenty-seven years than I had with both of my exes combined. Not to mention the handful of boyfriends I’d collected throughout my life.
But lately, I began to wonder if the dreams were not all connected somehow. Were they him? This boy who grew up in my dreams? This lover who stole into them?
I sank on the edge of the chair, my head bent in thought. Even if it was him, even if he’d dreamed about me as much as I’d dreamed about him, did we really know each other well enough to consider the M-word?
“Roane, you don’t know what you’re asking.”
“I’m certain I do.”
“No, I mean, with me.” I turned to him and pleaded. “I… I have horrible luck when it comes to marriage. Can’t we just table the M-word and have sex for the next few years? We can always revisit the idea in the future.” I let my gaze slide past him as my marriages, both of them, flashed before my eyes. “In the very, very distant future.”
His expression gave nothing away as he took a long moment to consider my offer, but his piercing gaze never wavered. “You’re more like your grandmother than I thought.”
I gasped. “I am nothing like… wait, really?” I asked, realizing that was a huge compliment. My grandmother was amazing.
“Am I going to be like Houston? Hanging around for forty years until you decide to accept my hand?”
Police Chief Houston Metcalf had apparently been proposing to my effervescent grandmother for decades before she finally accepted his hand a few hours ago.
In all honesty, I had no idea why they didn’t get hitched sooner, other than the fact that, like my two, her first marriage went horribly, horribly south. Like deep south considering she and her coven had to kill her estranged husband with some kind of witch fire when the black magics he’d been using consumed him. The fact that he’d asked her to kill him made the mental image a little easier to bear. And Percival had stuck around and had essentially become the house we were in now.
Whatever the reason, I was certain my grandmother had her reasons. I set my jaw. “I think their relationship is complicated.”
“I think every relationship is complicated.”
He had me there. “You do know I’ve been married twice, right?”
“Third time’s a charm.”
“It’s just…” I stood and started pacing yet again. “Both times were absolute disasters.”
“You told me about that asshat who took everything from you.”
“Yes. Everything besides the Bug, my vintage mint-green Volkswagen Beetle.”
One corner of his mouth tilted up. “Everything besides the Bug. But you never told me about your first marriage.”
“That’s my point! We’ve only known each other for a few days. We haven’t had time to talk about all of the things men and women talk about.”
“I’m not discussing china patterns no matter how long we’re together.”
I stopped in front of him and crossed my arms. “I just meant there is so much we don’t know about each other. The fact that you didn’t know about my first marriage proves that.”
He stretched out a leg and braced an elbow on the arm of the chair to lean his head against a thumb and two fingers. “I said you didn’t tell me about your first marriage. Not that I didn’t know about it.”
“Fine, you googled me.”
“No. Well, yes, but you know damned well we’ve been in each other’s lives a lot longer than a few days. Do you think I wasn’t there for your wedding night? Swimming in your memories of it while you slept? In your… disappointment?”
I sat again and asked hesitantly, “Do you remember me in your dreams like I remember you in mine?”
The penetrating gaze that traveled over me spoke volumes, and I found myself tugging at my hem again. “I do.”
Holy crap. “What…” My voice broke, and I cleared my throat before continuing. “What did you see?”
“What did you see?”
I picked invisible lint off my tee. “I asked first.”
He thought a moment, then said, “I saw your first bite of chocolate.”
“Heaven,” I said, thinking back.
“Your first day of school.”
“Scared out of my wits.”
“Your first kiss.”
“Oh my God.” I scrubbed my face in embarrassment. “Wait. Are you counting the time Harold Pesci kissed me on the playground after throwing dirt in my face? Because—”
“No. Your first real kiss.”
“Ah. Gibby Saldana behind the gym.”
“Was that his name?”
Even the kiss had been a disaster. I’d had braces. He’d had very chapped lips. As brief as it was, it did not end well.
Still, did he remember more? Did he remember stealing into my dreams and giving me impossible expectations? Because no man had ever measured up to the apparition who seduced me in the darkest corners of my imaginings.
“I remember everything,” he said, as though reading my thoughts.
Heat pooled in my abdomen, and I pressed my knees together. “I have to admit, I feel like part of the reason my marriages failed was because I was cheating on them with you every night.”
“Right. It had nothing to do with the fact that both of your husbands were assholes.”
“My first one wasn’t,” I said in Martin’s defense. “He was just—”
“Malicious.”
“Misguided.”
“Self-absorbed.”
“Lost.”
“Narcissistic.”
I gave up. “We married too young.”
My dads had tried to tell me. Naturally, I didn’t listen. I’d wanted more. I’d wanted to hold the man making love to me. To get to know him. To laugh and cherish and savor the little moments. While my nights were filled with unimaginable pleasures, my days were empty in comparison. A shell of what I’d come to crave. But I quickly discovered my dream lover had tainted my ideals of what most men were capable of.
I decided to keep that little chicken nugget to myself and changed the subject. “You didn’t recognize me when we first met?”