Smiling faintly to herself, Holly headed out of her room only to pause again as she stepped into the hall and found it in darkness. Everyone else had obviously gone to bed too, which was rather surprising to her. She’d thought vampires were night people and that she would naturally fall into that pattern too once she’d got more regulated. But it seemed she was wrong. The house was as silent as a tomb, and as dark as the cemetery had been the other night.
Not wanting to turn on the hall light and wake everyone, Holly reached for the wall and began to ease carefully toward the end of the hall, feeling her way when she got close to where she thought the steps were. Once she reached the top of the stairs, she grasped the railing to make her way cautiously down those as well. It was a relief when she reached the main floor without breaking her neck, and she moved a little more quickly along the hall to the kitchen, where she turned the light on the moment she pushed the door open.
Bright light immediately poured down over her and she slid into the room with a little sigh. The idea of returning upstairs without light was not a pleasant one and Holly decided that after she’d eaten she’d search the drawers for a flashlight or one of the candles Justin had used at dinner the other night, so that she’d have light for the return journey. With that problem solved, if only in her mind, she headed for the refrigerator and the fried chicken waiting inside.
She had removed the food, set it on the counter and was just reaching into the refrigerator for the potato salad when her gaze caught on the can of spray whip cream. Grinning, she grabbed that instead, the idea of the sweet, creamy foam doing more for her appetite at the moment than either the chicken or the potato salad. Probably because it was one of those things she’d had to avoid in the past. When she was mortal and diabetic, she’d had to be very careful of what she ate in an effort to keep her sugars balanced. But now . . .
Not even thinking first, she popped the plastic lid, tipped her head, aimed the spout into her mouth and shot a wad of lovely whipped cream onto her tongue. She’d just lowered her head and closed her mouth on the sweet treat with a moan of pleasure when the kitchen door opened.
Lowering the can to her side, Holly spun guiltily in the open refrigerator door to see Justin entering the kitchen. He wore a pair of low slung, red plaid pajama bottoms and nothing else. His feet were bare, but more important, so was his chest, and she found herself gaping at the sight. Holly had thought the man was good-looking from the start, and the tight T-shirts he wore showed off that he had a nice figure, but not nearly as much as nakedness did. Dear God, the man was all sculpted pecs and rippling abs as he entered the room.
Realizing that her mouth had dropped open and the wad of rapidly dissolving whipped cream was in danger of drooling out, Holly closed her mouth and swallowed guiltily just as he took note of her presence.
“Hi,” he said, his voice husky from sleep.
“Hi,” she responded weakly.
“I see I wasn’t the only one who was hungry,” he added wryly, moving toward her.
Holly muttered something that even she found unintelligible and instinctively backed up a step as he neared. But she came up short when she bumped into the open refrigerator door. Fortunately, her action made Justin pause a couple of steps away. Or maybe he’d planned to stop there, she acknowledged as he surveyed the chicken on the counter.
“There’s potato salad too,” he announced, turning his attention to her again.
“I know,” Holly said and then just stood there . . . staring at his chest. It was obvious the man did not sunbathe. His skin was pale enough she doubted it had ever been exposed to the sun’s rays, but that didn’t take away from the beauty of it. Justin could have posed for Michelangelo or one of those other artists who sculpted the male form. He was perfect, with large, hard-looking pecs above a stomach that bragged an eight-pack rather than six and rippled down to the start of a V that disappeared under the waist of his pajama bottoms. In that moment, Holly thought that she would have given a lot to see what those plaid pants hid, but then she remembered that she was married and closed her eyes to try to banish the temptation along with her vision of him.
“Are you all right?”
Holly blinked her eyes open at that question, and sucked in a breath as she realized that he’d closed the small space between them and was reaching to touch her face. Obviously, he’d completely misconstrued why she’d closed her eyes, she thought and opened her mouth to assure him that she was fine, only to pause again with surprise when his fingers lightly grazed her cheeks and her stomach seemed to jump in response.
“I . . .” Holly breathed the single word and that was it. Nothing followed it into the silence in the room. Whatever she’d meant to say had flown from her mind, leaving her simply standing there, a brainless twit.
“You are so beautiful and sexy,” Justin said solemnly and her eyes widened incredulously at the claim. She was without makeup, her hair no doubt a ruffled mess from her tossing and turning, and she was wearing flannel pajamas with dancing bears on them, for cripes sake. And they had tutus on no less. She couldn’t imagine anything less sexy than dancing bears.
He moved another step closer, removing the last inch of space that had separated them and Holly bit her lip on a gasp as his chest brushed lightly against the flannel that covered the tips of her nipples. The resulting riot that caused in her body had her eyes widening and her hand clenching around the can of whipped cream she still held.
“I—” she repeated, and this time stopped there because his mouth was suddenly covering hers. The heat that poured over Holly then was a familiar one from that morning, but this time it seemed to catch fire even faster than it had then. There was no questing, or nibbling at her lips to gain entry. Her mouth was already open and Justin took full advantage, plunging his tongue in to explore her depths. Holly stood completely still, her conscience battling with her body’s response, and then Justin broke the kiss and shifted to nibble at her ear before whispering. “It’s okay. It’s a dream.”
“It is?” she asked with confusion.
“Look. It’s a dream,” he assured her, and she forced her eyes open to look around.
They had magically moved from the refrigerator to the kitchen table. Instead of standing, she was now seated on the table and he stood between her spread legs while his hands busily worked at the buttons of her flannel top. And while she still clutched the whipped cream in her hand, the chicken was no longer on the counter and the refrigerator door was closed as if she had never opened it.
“A dream,” she realized with bewilderment. It had to be. He couldn’t have got her over here and set her on the table without her noticing—
She was distracted from that thought when he suddenly tugged her pajama top open, revealing her bare chest.
“How did you do that so quickly?” she gasped with amazement, automatically reaching to grab the edges of her flannel top to pull them closed again.
“A dream, remember?” he chuckled. Letting her hold her top closed like the ninny she was, he clasped her face instead and kissed her again.
Holly didn’t fight him, but she didn’t respond either. While passion poured over her in waves, she was struggling to sort out if it would be cheating if it was a dream, or if it even was one. It was possible he’d just used immortal speed.
When she felt his hand clasp her breast through the flannel of her top and lightly pinch her nipple, she moaned and broke their kiss to gasp, “But I’m married.”