Love Bites(20)

"You find me attractive?" Etienne asked, pleased.

"Oh, yes," she admitted airily. "It's the first time I've ever found a dead man attractive. Perhaps that's part of the reason for this dream too. It's rather weird to be attracted to a corpse, so maybe I had to give you life in this dream to deal with the fact that I found you so attractive." She tilted her head, considering. "Anyway, you are the most gorgeous corpse I've worked with."

"Really?" Etienne smiled. No one had ever told him he was a gorgeous corpse before. Of course, he wasn't a corpse and he should really explain, he told himself.

"Well," she sighed. "What do we do now?"

Etienne blinked. "Do?"

"Yes. What happens next in my dream?" She examined him with interest. "Is this a wet dream?"

"What?" He gaped at her.

"Sorry, I suppose you don't know any more than I do, since you're just a part of my mind symbolizing my attraction to the real you--but I'm not really sure how this works. I've never had a wet dream before. My friend Sylvia has them all the time, but I haven't... that I recall," Rachel said. She smiled wryly and added, "Too repressed. Catholic girl, you know. Confessing wet dreams to old Father Antonelli would just be too embarrassing." She frowned. "This one ought to be a doozy. Might give the poor old guy a heart attack."

"Er..." Etienne found himself suddenly incapable of speech.

Rachel wasn't. "So"--she glanced toward the bed--"since most of this has taken place in a bedroom, I gather it is a wet dream." Her gaze remained on the mattress. "And I presume the fun will take place in this bed. It seems pretty pedestrian compared to Sylvia's dreams, but I suppose that since this is my first one, I subconsciously decided to start slowly."

Etienne choked on his reply.

Rachel went on with a huff of breath, "Since you're not making any moves, you must represent my less aggressive side." She sounded disappointed, then perked up a bit as she added, "Well, at least this isn't a rape dream. I don't think I'd care for that."

"Uh," Etienne said.

"Oh, wait! This makes perfect sense. I'm a control freak. I probably need to be in control for a wet dream to work. That's probably the only way I'd be comfortable having one." She glanced at the bed again, then nodded. "Well, let's get to it. I can hardly wait to tell Sylvia. She's always so smug about her dreams. The guy does exactly what she wants, and it's always terribly exciting. The best sex ever. Real men can't compare."

Rachel moved toward him as she spoke but looked a bit at a loss when Etienne took a nervous step back. She spoke again, some irritation in her tone. "I know I have some control issues, but a little aggression wouldn't go amiss."

"I don't think--"

"Don't think, then," she suggested. She leaned up to kiss him.

Etienne froze at the feel of her soft lips moving over his. Hunger rose in him, but he didn't dare act on it. Rachel was confused, thinking she was asleep. He had to convince her otherwise--as much as that sucked.

"I've figured out I'm supposed to be the aggressor, but a little help would be nice," Rachel muttered against his lips. Giving up on kissing him, she grabbed his hand and dragged him to the bed. "Perhaps it would help if we were horizontal."

"I..." Etienne's words died in a surprised gasp as she tugged, then pushed him over. He barely bounced once on the mattress before she climbed on top and settled down on his groin. She immediately leaned forward, obviously intending to kiss him again.

Fending her off with a desperation born of the fact that he didn't want to fend her off at all, Etienne grabbed her shoulders and stopped her forward progress. "No! Wait. It's not really a dream."

"Sure it is," she countered. "You're my dream guy."

He weakened a bit. She leaned closer, but he caught himself and stopped her again. She broke free, and he struggled to ignore the hands that ran busily over his chest then set to work on the buttons of his shirt. "No, really. I--Oh, you're good at that."

Rachel had his buttons undone and his shirt already open. Her cool hands ran greedily over his chest.

"Lots of experience," she explained. "Often we just cut clothes off, but sometimes we have to undress our corpses. Wow, you have a great body," she commented.

"Well, thank you. Yours is very nice too," Etienne said. His eyes fixed on her straining chest as she slid her hands over him. The top three buttons had come undone and a good deal of cl**vage was showing. It was nice cl**vage. Very nice. His tongue slid out and ran along his lips when what he really wanted to run it along was the swell of those br**sts.

"Well, I don't know if you had such a nice chest in real life," she commented, "but in my dream I definitely gave you a perfect one."

Etienne was congratulating himself over the fact that she found his chest perfect when he felt her hands move to his waistband.

"You must be really hung too. Let's see."

"No!" He let go of her shoulders and grabbed her hands.