Page 2 of If Only In Our Dreams

Especially because I happened to be nervous as hell.

This was my first time going to visit Miles—my baby brother—for longer than a few days. At least…since I’d left him in my early twenties, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, certain I was gonna fucking change his goddamn life. And now, I was returningwith my tail between my legs, years of neglected text messages between us and frown lines around the corners of my lips.

My publicist said they made me lookrugged. But I caught her telling the media dudes to photoshop them out, so I wasn’t all that optimistic about them. Not that I could be assed to care about that right now. Not when I was sleepy, well-rested, and had a face full of man meat.

Bicep smelledgood.

Because that’s whathewas, in my sleep-addled state. Not a fully grown, mountain of a man with dark auburn hair and a frankly sexy-as-hell stank face—he’d stared at me with a constipated expression when we’d taken our seats on the plane. No.Hewas simply a lovely, tight bicep—soft now because he’d finally relaxed.

Hesmelled like the cologne booths that populated the closest mall to where I’d grown up in North Carolina. Booths where the salespeople would accost you on your way to the food court and convince you to let them show you whatever fancy-ass-manufactured-money-in-a-bottle they had on hand.

Expensive.

Cultured.

Likehewas important, not because he’d fought tooth and nail for it—like a rabid raccoon like I had—but because he was simply the kind of man who’d always mattered.

He didn’t make me move.

Maybe because he could feel the way I sunk into him. And see the way my phone fell to the carpet where it remained abandoned because I was too damn tired to pick it up. I didn’t even pause the latest raunchy werewolf book I was listening to. Just let the narrators croon in my ears as I drooled on man-muscle, and thanked whatever god that had goddamn listened, that I was here—on this flight—with the best fucking pillow I’d ever had.

It was a long flight.

L.A. to Vermont.

Eight hours, give or take a storm or two.

And I slept the whole fucking time.

At the end of the flight, I stirred, too groggy to care that I was drooling, but more than a little pleased to find my phone in the pocket in front of me, and the stranger’s quiet snores rumbling beside me. He’d fallen asleep too, and his warm breath ruffled my hair in a weirdly soothing way.

Kinda like a metronome.

Puff, suck, exhale.

Puff, suck, exhale.

Puff, suck?—

“Welcome to Vermont,” a woman’s voice echoed through the cabin, and both of us startled awake. Stranger made this loud snorting sound that should not have been cute, but totally fucking was.

He straightened, on high alert, his toffee-colored eyes blazing.

His irises were too light to truly be called brown. They were the color of melted caramel, or the toffee Nancy always bought me for my birthday. I’d call them hazel, but there wasn’t an echo of green inside them. Could eyes be hazel without green? I wasn’t sure. Either way, they were...seriouslypretty. I’d been too tired earlier to really appreciate him, but I certainly did now for a few brief, sleepy moments.

I tried not to stare, I really did. But he was impossible not to stare at.

All broad shoulders, lean frame, and a resting bitch face that was as hot as it was intimidating. A dark dusting of stubble coated his cheeks—like he’d shaved earlier and it was already growing back. It clung to what had to be the sharpestcheekbones I’d ever seen, and an upper lip that was maybe too thin, but somehow perfect anyway.

There was something…calming about him, grumpiness aside. A soothing energy that when paired with his devastatingly sharp jawline and the gray at his temples was like fucking catnip to a starved man like me.

I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been this attracted to another person. Maybe never? And that thought was sobering as it was intimidating.

I peeled my head from his arm, embarrassed once again to find that I’d left a drool spot there.

Godammit, Robin.

I didn’t look at him again.Couldn’t. My cheeks were way too hot, and the humiliation was finally settling in. Especially after I realized just how goddamn hot he was.

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