"What difference does that make?" she asked with exasperation, but Jeanne Louise just shrugged. Shaking her head, Lissianna said, "We can't just go traipsing up there. It's dawn. He's probably sleeping."
"That's okay; we only want to get a look at him. He doesn't have to speak to us," Mirabeau announced, getting to her feet.
Lissianna gaped as her cousins ail hurried to ioüow suit. When they started determinedly for the door, she scooted off the bed herself, saying, "Oh, all right, but we mustn't wake him up."
The blackout curtains on her windows were drawn, leaving the room in inky darkness when Lissianna and the others entered. Still, she turned with a hiss of irritation when the light was nicked on.
"We came up to see him, Lissi," Mirabeau pointed out. "It helps if there's light."
Lissianna let her irritation drop away at the reasonable words and turned to move cautiously up to the bed. She was relieved to note that the light hadn't woken him, though it did make him stir sleepily, she saw, as the group spread out around the bed.
"Wow," Elspeth breathed, peering down on the sleeping man.
"He's cute," Julianna sounded surprised.
"Totally," Victoria agreed.
"Yeah," Mirabeau said. "For some reason I thought all psychologists looked like Freud, but he's a babe."
Julianna and Victoria both burst into giggles at this pronouncement and Lissianna shushed the pair, then glanced back to Greg in time to see Mirabeau lifting the edge of his suit jacket. Her eyes widened incredulously. "What are you doing?"
"Well, he isn't wearing fake tan," the other woman said calmly. "I just thought I'd see if his jacket was padded."
"It isn't," Lissianna informed her grimly. "Those are his shoulders."
"How--? Oh, right. You were kissing him and stuff." Jeanne Louise grinned.
"Yeah, and from his reaction to her kisses and stuff, we also learned the man isn't sporting a cucumber either," Thomas announced, making Lissianna groan with embarrassment as she recalled the erection that had been very much in evidence when her mother and Thomas had entered earlier... and how it had deflated. She really didn't want to explain his comment to the others, but could tell by their expressions that an explanation would be demanded and decided right then that Thomas was no longer her favorite cousin.
Greg was generally a deep sleeper, but with light plucking at his eyes and whispering going on around him, he found it difficult to remain buried in the warm comfort of sleep's arms and felt himself reluctantly dragged toward consciousness. When he finally gave in and allowed his eyes to drift open, he found himself staring blearily at six gorgeous women standing around his bed in the sexiest damn baby dolls he'd ever laid eyes on. His first thought was that he must still be dreaming... and a sweet dream it was, too, he decided, taking in the bountiful flesh revealed by the skimpy nightwear... until his gaze finally landed on the seventh person standing by his bedside.
"'Spider-Man?" he murmured with confusion.
'"Dammit! See, now you've woken him up."
Greg's gaze slid to the speaker, and he smiled faintly as he recognized Lissianna. It wasn't the least bit surprising that she should feature in his dreams. His last thoughts before drifting off to sleep had been about the things he'd like to do with her. The woman was turning him into a mass of sexual frustration. The worst part was, she wasn't even trying to do so. He was managing it all on his own, with his own imaginings.
"You'd best not let Aunt Marguerite hear you talk like that, Lissi," Spider-Man taunted. "She'll wash your mouth out with soap."
"Oh stuff it, Thomas. I'm too old for that," she said grimly, then turned and bent slightly to address Greg. "I'm sorry. We didn't mean to wake you."
He smüed benignly, and said, "It's okay. You can step into my dreams anytime."
"Oh, isn't that sweet. He thinks he's dreaming us," a woman in a lavender baby doll said with a smile.
"I don't know about sweet, Jeanne Louise. Either he does have a cucumber in his boxers after all, or he thinks his dream is a wet one," a woman in mint green announced, and Greg blinked in surprise as he noted the color of her hair. Short, spiky black hair with fuchsia tips wasn't something he would normally have thought was erotic and he briefly wondered what she was doing in his dream, then he noticed the silence around him and glanced around to see that everyone's attention had turned to his groin.
Greg lifted his head and peered down at the erection he was sporting.
"Definitely a wet dream," a pretty brunette in red pronounced solemnly.
"Maybe we should check and make sure it isn't a cucumber." An auburn-haired young woman in a blue baby doll made the suggestion and turned to share a wicked smile with another girl who was her mirror image. The second one--dressed in peach--nodded, and said, "Oh yeah."
Greg blinked in surprise as he realized the pair were young, teenagers, he'd guess, and was almost horrified to note how well they filled out their baby dolls. When had teenagers started looking so un-teenager-like, he wondered with distress.
"Oh, cut it out," Lissianna snapped, then turned her gaze to him. "You're not dreaming. We're really here. And I'm sorry we woke you, but the girls wanted..."
"We wanted to see her birthday gifts," the woman with fuchsia-tipped hair finished when she hesitated. "Which includes you."