Fran Lee
Out of Her Dreams
Out of Her Dreams Copyright © 2009 Fran Lee
To John, David and Christina.
You have been my inspiration all your lives. Thanks for all your love and support.
Acknowledgements
My thanks to my wonderful editor, Helen Woodall, for her patience and perseverance in attempting to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.
Trademarks Acknowledgement
The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction:
Armani: GA Modefine S.A. Corporation
Embassy Suites: HLT Domestic IP LLC Ltd. Liab. Co.
Hummer: General Motors Corporation
Hilton: Hilton Hotels Corporation
Nike: Nike Inc.
Pilates: Joseph Hubertus Pilates
Science Channeclass="underline" Discovery Communications, LLC
Sharpie: Sanford L.P., A Newell Rubbermaid Company
Sheraton: Sheraton Hotels, Starwood Hotels and Resorts
SportTix: SportTix, Wordpress Entries Inc.
Superman: DC Comics.
Teflon: DuPont Corp.
TV Guide: TV Guide
Twilight Zone: CBS TV
UFC: Ultimate Fighting Championship, Zuffa LLC
Chapter One
“I can’t even begin to imagine how you came up with this hero you’ve put into your books, Ms. Hastings! The man is incredibly sexy, sensitive and wonderful!” the woman standing before the book signing table gushed as Samantha signed her book with a flourish and handed it back to her with a smile.
Sam was used to this comment. She smiled mysteriously and said, “I dream. He is right out of my dreams.” And how. “Thanks so much for buying my novels.”
“You must have some pretty hot dreams,” the woman sighed, moving away so that Sam could sign the next book.
Another book, another buck. So far today she had signed over two hundred books. Not a bad day for a book signing. She glanced up at the girl standing in front of her and took the open novel from her hands, poising her Sharpie over the flyleaf page. “Hi. What’s your name?”
“Angie. Just say something like, ‘Dear Angie, friends forever, love Samantha Hastings’.” The blonde was biting her bottom lip as she waited eagerly for her wish to be granted. At times Sam felt like she’d just popped from an old bottle in a puff of smoke. Granting wishes was her forte. One more wish coming right up. Too bad she wasn’t so good at getting her own wishes granted. But then, you couldn’t have everything you wanted in life. Right? And Samantha Hastings had some pretty graphic wishes she’d love to see come true.
Sam smiled and wrote exactly what the young woman had asked her to write and handed back her purchase, giving the girl a brilliant, genuine smile. “Thanks for buying my book.” Her face ached from smiling for hours but who was she to complain? She was making money here. And she truly was grateful to the women who bought her books. A little pain was worth it at times. And she was no stranger to pain, was she?
She reached for her water glass and took a desperately needed sip, before flexing her fingers and reaching out to take the next book dangling in front of her from its owner’s hands. Her fingers collided head-on with warm skin and she winced. “Sorry.”
She could just read the tabloid headlines now-Author of Lurid Romance Books Attacks and Wounds Customer at Book Signing.
Boy. She needed a break and soon. She was as tired as hell and her wrist and hand ached. But this was just another part of the job. You wrote books, you helped sell them at book signing parties. For the past two years there had been no time to rest. It felt as if she’d been sitting here for five days instead of five hours. After checking her nails for possible blood from her customer, she pasted on another big smile as she opened the book to its pristine flyleaf and asked, “What’s your name?”
“You tell me, Ms. Hastings.”
The voice was husky. Deep enough to send some pretty gnarly tingles along every nerve she possessed. She blinked at the lean, masculine hand resting on the table and bit the corner of her lower lip. Her eyes moved appreciatively upward toward the face of the person whose book she was about to sign-and her mouth went suddenly dry.
Her eyes had to travel a considerable distance up the front of a massive, tall frame, over a powerful, Armani-clad chest that would have been hell to stretch a shirt across, to the face she had seen in her dreams for so many years. The same face, with the same night-dark eyes and high cheekbones and chiseled mouth. The very same crookedly sexy smile with the exact same amazingly white, beautiful teeth that flashed as he slowly smiled down at her. Oh. My. God!
She was hallucinating. She had to be.
Nope. No giant, intensely sexy hallucination, that. The fingers that had collided with hers were warm. Warm and very solid. She felt a shot of primal heat reverberate though her belly. She couldn’t quite get her breath. Her head felt oddly light and she realized numbly that everyone was looking from her white, shocked face to the giant of a man who stood before her, intently waiting for her to speak.
“It’s him!” a voice squeaked somewhere to one side and Sam swallowed hard.
“My God, that’s got to be him!” another voice gasped. An excited murmur arose all through the store and she was dazedly aware of people pressing closer.
It was suddenly claustrophobic. Mingled perfumes from a hundred female pulse points almost overwhelmed her senses but not quite enough to cut out the hot, clean scent of man. The tangy, heady essence that lightly tickled her nostrils and tongue as fantasies of licking that massive chest danced through her wildly heated thoughts. Memories of dreams left unfinished, needs left unsated, and fantasies left unfulfilled stormed her mind and left her body in absolute turmoil. And in the middle of her search for something-anything-to say, one of the pressing bodies lifted an open book to the apparition and squealed excitedly as she bounced on the balls of her feet.
“Can we have your autograph too, Chance?” Another woman to the left of the table suddenly held her book up to the man as well but his eyes never left Sam’s white face. Obsidian eyes. Hot, hungry eyes that burned into her and made her breathlessly aware of the heat pooling between her legs and the odd little fluttery threads of lust unfurling inside her belly as she sat glued to her chair. The tips of her fingers still tingled from his brief touch. Every sense was heightened. Every thought was sizzlingly unrepeatable. And she realized with a start that he was reading those X-rated thoughts loud and clear when his gaze dropped to her mouth as she wet her lips nervously.
With a superhuman effort, Sam attempted to clear her suddenly tight throat and scrambled to gather her thoughts as she placed the tip of the Sharpie on the flyleaf and quickly wrote,
To the man of my dreams.
Samantha Hastings
She handed him back the book then rose stiffly from her seat and excused herself, unable to believe she had just written that. Run, Sam, run!
“Sam, what’s wrong?” her business manager, Phyllis Sharples, asked with a worried look as she brushed past her to hurry wordlessly to the stockroom, where she could try to catch her breath and check her sanity. She could feel Phyllis’ confused gaze on her back as she retreated.
What’s wrong? What’s wrong? There was really a man out there who looked exactly like the hero in her series of best-selling romance novels, that’s what was wrong!
“Nothing.” She croaked the strangled one-word response as she picked up speed.
She managed to get all the way to the privacy of the stockroom before she grabbed the wall and leaned heavily, closing her eyes and dragging in deep breaths of air to keep herself from fainting. Dear God. Even the fans out there had seen it. The similarity. The incredible, uncanny likeness to the imaginary dream man she had sketched for the artist who had designed the cover art for her novels. She put her shaking hand over her mouth and tried to imagine how on earth it had happened. Had she maybe seen him somewhere, not realizing it, and had begun to fantasize about him?