She had to remind herself she was dreaming. She tried. She did, but she still felt ecstatic. This was comparable to the holy grail for environmental biologists! These birds were extinct, had been extinct for more than two hundred years, and here they were, flying around—well, in her dream, but still she’d never had a dream about any extinct creature in her life. This was amazing.
“If this were real,” she gasped out, her gaze never leaving the two creatures she’d somehow conjured into her dream. “Why couldn’t you two be real?” She sighed, wondering if she would soon wake up and be disappointed by the fact she’d only dreamed of this.
“They are exquisite, aren’t they?”
The voice was so close to her that Cassie scrambled away, forgetting she was still on her knees, and ended up flat on her back, with her legs bent awkwardly under her body. It was not a comfortable position.
Deep male laughter touched her ears, moments before the same accented voice commented, “If that isn’t the picture of elegance…?”
She rolled onto her side and quickly pushed to her feet, spinning to confront this new addition to her dream. Yes, she appreciated the addition of birds, but Cassie wasn’t one to have dreams about guys. Most of the guys she knew were either forever entered into the category of friend or seriously disliked for some reason or another. Chauvinistic, whorish, condescending, and so on.
As she drank him in, she decided to excuse herself, just this once.
Who wouldn’t want to dream about a man that looks like him?
Standing over six feet tall and wearing dark blue swim trunks, the man was perfectly muscled with golden blond hair and light, alluring eyes. What color was that anyway? Gray? Silver? Green? Pale blue? And his face…his face reminded her of the ones she saw on billboards, airbrushed to take away the slightest flaws, except this man was real, as real as he could be in her dream, and without visible fault.
Cassie swallowed the lump in her throat and blinked before focusing on him again. Even the tan he sported seemed natural. Her eyes dipped down his body, pausing at the slight vee under the ropes of muscles revealed by the swim trunks. Recognizing that she was checking him out, even if it was a damn dream, Cassie lifted her eyes hastily to his pale ones.
As if he knew what she was thinking, a smile split that already perfect face, and he tilted his head. Cassie said the first thing that came to mind. “What are you doing in my dream?”
“Your dream?” he replied easily, looking down to the bed where the birds still played. Leaning forward, he placed a large hand onto the sheets and Cassie watched in envious fascination as the two birds leapt into his palm. He lifted them to his eye level and murmured, “It’s a shame they’re extinct.” His mouth curled for a moment on a snarl before his face relaxed and he raised his hand higher. It was all the invitation the birds needed. They rose into the air, and after flitting around the man for a few moments, flew off.
“Wait!” Cassie screamed, close to hysteria. “What are you doing?”
“We have more important matters to discuss, Cassandre.”
She tensed for a second. Right, she was dreaming. Of course he knew her name.
“You’re sleeping, but you are not dreaming.”
She scoffed and glared at him. His beauty still affected her but the initial shock had worn off. Plus, he wasn’t real.
“Sure, I’m not dreaming.”
“You’re not,” he cut in immediately, his eyebrows lifting as if daring her to challenge him.
Cassie’s lips tightened and she drew herself up to her full height. It was sad he wasn’t shorter, like most of the scientists she worked with. For if he was, she was sure she could intimidate him. Well, come very close.
“I am dreaming, and you, tall, blond man, are a very weird figment of my subconscious imagination,” she retorted, glaring down her nose at him despite his superiority in height.
God, but he really is beautiful, she couldn’t help but think. Maybe this was her body’s way of telling her she needed to get laid. She chuckled inwardly.
“I promise I am no figment of your imagination, though that would be some imagination,” he replied in that sensual and deep voice of his.
What a self-obsessed, cocky shit. Why had she created him in her dream, anyway? Couldn’t she have created a brains-over-brawn guy? Or a brawny guy who didn’t speak? Or better yet, a hot vet or biologist? This man might look like every woman’s wicked fantasy, but that didn’t mean he could do simple math or knew who the current president was.
“I’m much smarter than I look,” he offered with that same teasing smile on his face.