Brenda's Dreams
Chapter Eleven

Brenda longed to reach out to Jax and shelter in the warmth of his embrace. How strange to feel that safety and danger lay in exactly the same place.

We could share a goodnight kiss, she told herself. One kiss.

That's not all you would wind up sharing, another part of her warned.

She sighed again and turned away from him. She *was* tired, and she *did* need sleep. Clear your mind Jax had suggested. If she stopped thinking about him, maybe the rest of her would stop wanting him. She would try some breathing exercises that she had learned in her meditation class...

Brenda ran naked along a corridor, the lush tan carpeting caressed her bare feet. She breathed in a faint sea smell mingling with the jasmine scented air. To either side of her, closed doors led to many different rooms, but she knew none of them were meant for her. The joyous anticipation of reaching the room where she belonged quickened her breath.

"Br-r-ren-nda." Her name echoed down the corridor, speeding her pace, for she knew who called her.

She was an invited guest in this place that needed no name. She wasn't afraid because nothing would harm her. Her fingers brushed against velvety gray walls pulsating with welcome. Because *he* waited here the wonder of love flowed as smooth and sweet around her as honey on the tongue.

Only the two of them existed in this special place, created for them alone. It had always been here, but until she found *him* she couldn't enter. Now the way was open to her, and it would always be waiting for her.

"I'm almost there," she told him silently, feeling how his eager impatience matched her own.

There was her door, his door, their door at the end of the corridor. Theirs was a golden door of promise, of fulfillment, of happiness. As she flowed through it on winged feet, the door swung open, and she slowed to savor the sight of the man who stood with his arms outstretched.

His hair surrounded by a golden light, a beacon of welcome to her. The blue/green eyes invited her to enter the heaven created when they embraced. His beautiful strong body waited to offer the ultimate pleasure he alone could give her. She belonged here with him as he belonged her with her.

Brenda melded into his arms. He gathered her to him, and the door closed, shutting them away from everything but each other.

They lay entwined on soft robes with his warm lips nibbling at her throat, at her ear, at her mouth, teasing and promising. She ran her fingers through the silky thickness of his hair and down along his broad shoulders, exploring the smooth warmth of his skin. Desire collided, waiting, inside her, but there was no hurry. Time had stopped.

His mouth possessed hers, tenderly tasting and caressing. She felt his excitement. She knew her own and couldn't tell one from the other. Her lips parted beneath his and their kiss deepened.

"Jax," she muttered

Jax waited for Brenda behind the shining door, aware of her running along the corridor. His restless impatience made him call to her because there was so many other doors between them. He feared she might choose the wrong one.

At the same time he was certain she would come only to him; she knew he waited here in their special place. He had never seen the room before, but he belonged here. Not alone. He and Brenda, together.

When he opened the door and saw her beauty, he forgot his restlessness. If ever a woman was worth waiting for, she stood before him now. Aroused to distraction by the sight of her, by her enticing scent, he held out his arms. There was nothing in his world except for Brenda.

No words could describe the feel of her hair, her skin, her lithe body. He tasted the soft wonder of her lips and was no longer impatient. Since time did not exist he was content to savor her slowly. They had forever to make love to one another, a fusing of their bodies while their separate life forces intermingled.

Everything that had come before Brenda didn't matter. His life until this moment had been merely waiting. For her. Now each of them would be complete. Complete in themselves and, when they came together, a whole greater than either.

His fingers traced the curve of her breasts, caressing the firm nipples, and within himself he experienced her arousal and pleasure as well as his own. While he discovered her most sensitive places, he thrilled to her eagerness to learn all the secrets of his body.

He felt her blood flowing in his veins, his feelings flickering along her synapses. Her need was his; his desire was hers...

Loving arms enfolded Brenda, and warm lips nuzzled her breast. She cradled his head against her, moaning at the sweet agony of his tongue circling her nipples. Through half-closed eyes she saw the play of firelight on the ceiling, and in her mind a question stirred.

Didn't she remember a corridor with a shining door?

Grandma's house had no such door. She was in Grandma Quartermaine’s house in front of the fire. In Jax's arms. Where she belonged.

She wasn't dreaming; Jax was arousing, excitingly real. But hadn't she had a dream...?

His mouth covered hers in a deep, demanding kiss that wiped everything from her mind but the compulsion to respond as she was driven by an urgent summons towards fulfillment. She pressed closer to him, hugging him to her in a frenzy of wanting.

They breathed in unison, rapid gasps of air that mingled as they exhaled. His masculine scent filled her nostrils, and the taste of him tantalized her tongue. Though she didn't recall shedding her nightshirt, her bare breasts still tingled from the remembered touch of his lips and from the provocative rubbing of his chest hair. Flesh to flesh, heart to heart.

And something more, an elusive sensation of inner sharing she'd never experienced with anyone. Almost as though she was inside Jax's mind and he was inside hers.

"Brenda," he murmured and the thrilling wonder she felt echoed in his voice.

She ran her hands over the breadth of his shoulders and down his back, aware of the powerful muscles under the sleekness of his skin. She was aware, too, of how her caresses inflamed him. Now, now, her heartbeat insisted. Her nails dug into his back as she tried to urge him closer.

Instead, Jax pulled away slightly and she moaned, first in protest, then in pleasure as he trailed kisses along her abdomen. She arched to him when he approached her erotic center. Then bright waves of sensation battered her, and she gasped his name.

He rose above her, positioning himself. She reached and touched him, and his involuntary cry of pleasure joined hers when he entered her. He eased in and out with an incendiary rhythm that set every cell in her body ablaze. She moved with him, around him, until he thrust deep and hard, faster and faster.

Shinning waves broke over her head as she and Jax drowned in a surging storm of rapture, a passionate fury beyond anything she ever experienced or even dreamed could happen.

When they ultimately drifted to shore on the gentle after-surf of release, still in each other's arms, the empathy remained with Brenda. She kept her underlying awareness of Jax's emotions, knowing he also understood hers. With such a powerful bond between them, words were superfluous. His fingers caressed her upper arm with feather strokes, and she sighed drowsily, happily.

"I dreamed about this." Jax's voice was a soothing lullaby, and it took a minute before the sense of what he said sank in.

Brenda tensed.

"I waited for you in a strange place. A room with a shining door."

She raised her fingers towards his face, preventing herself at the last moment from covering his lips to silence him.

"You ran down a corridor to me, ignoring all the other doors." Jax spoke huskily. "Then you were in my arms, and when I woke up, you really were. Dreams *do* come true."

"N0!"

Jax eased away, raising himself on one elbow to look down at her. Brenda started to sit up, but remembered her nakedness and clutched the blanket around her instead.

"Brenda, what is the matter?" Jax asked.

She stared at the ceiling. "I don't want to hear about your dream." Her voice rose. "Don't tell me anymore."

His hand on her cheek turned her face toward him. "If my dream has upset you I want to know why. If it's something other than the dream, I want to know why, too."

His eyes showed his puzzled concern. Brenda bit her lip. She couldn't tell him. She didn't even want to think about it.

Jax's fingers brushed a strand of hair from her forehead. "We shared something special here. That's why I ask."

"I didn't want to share a dream!" she cried.

Jax blinked.

Brenda sat up, a blanket clutched around her. "I didn't want to ever have the dreaming happen again. Never!"

Jax sat, too, his blanket falling to his waist. Brenda straightened, willing herself not to be further bemused by the magic of his body.

"I hate double dreaming." She flung the words at him.

He stared at her for a few minutes before speaking. "Are you telling me you had the same dream I did?"

"Corridors, doors, a special place, you waiting behind a shining door. Taking me in your arms. Holding me. The feeling..." she sighed and shook her head.

"The feeling we belonged together," he said quietly.

Brenda drew in her breath. Exactly.

"The night you arrived," Jax said softly, "you stood in your bedroom watching me from the beach. I couldn't see you, but I knew you were there."

She hugged the blanket closer, as if that would protect her from his words. "I shouldn't have come to the Cape," she muttered. "I was here the other time."

"The other time you dreamed with someone? Who was he?"

How does Jax know I dreamed with a male? She wondered, frantically trying to think of a way out. She couldn't bear this discussion of dreaming.

"I can't talk about that. It was a long time ago, I was a child." She shivered.

Jax slid over and put an arm around her shoulders. She stiffened, but he persisted, drawing her closer, stroking her hair. "Don't be upset. I've read about the same thing happening in the sleep labs where they test brain waves. A dreamer sometimes influences other sleepers around him to have dreams similar to his. One explanation is that certain people have more potent electrical fields and affect others nearby." He smiled at her. "You and I were certainly close enough to be on the same wavelength while we slept."

"But the dreams we shared came true."

His smile broadened into a grin. "We dreamed of something we both wanted. At least I did."

Despite herself a smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. She had wanted him every bit as much.

He leaned in and kissed the tip of her nose. "Making love was inevitable, dream or no dream."

Could the double dreaming actually have been a coincidence, as he was trying to convince her? They both had denied their need, had tried to ignore their desire as they slept side by side.

"In fact," he went on, "I *still* want you."

A responsive thrill undulated through Brenda.

"I told myself I wasn't going to touch you. I reminded myself the last thing I needed was any kind of involvement. It was an uphill fight to convince myself, but once I kissed you...bam, all the way down again."

She looked into eyes warmed by desire, pleased his struggle was as unsuccessful as her own.

"I'm going to toss a couple of logs on that fire..." he nodded his head toward the hearth "...then do my best to convince you that dreams have nothing to do with refueling ours."

He stood, scorning the blanket while he added the logs. Flames shot up around the new wood, illuminating the magnificent power of his naked body and casting a golden glow around him. Even as Brenda felt the throb of need begin deep within her, she knew this firelit image of him was being irrevocably etched into her memory whether she wished it or not.

Standing with his back to the fire, Jax watched Brenda. Her face, raised to him, was rosy and flushed from lovemaking, but the rest of her was hidden.

"Drop the blanket," he said softly.

Her eyes widened, and the beginning of a frown creased her brow.

"Please," he added.

Slowly she eased her grip on the blanket and it slipped from her enticing pink-tipped breasts. He held out his hands, mutely urging her to rise and come to him. She hesitated, then stood up. In his eyes she was unflawed, with a pure and natural beauty from her becomingly tousled hair to her graceful feet.

Brenda's gaze traveled over him, increasing his already potent arousal. The curves of her hips beckoned to his yearning hands, but he forced himself to wait because he wanted her to make the choice to come to him.

"This isn't a dream." She spoke breathlessly, her voice and her dilated pupils revealing his own desire, though she didn't move.

"The heck with dreams," he growled, aching with his eagerness to hold her.

"Yes, you are right. To heck with dreams. Its silly to let them bother me." Brenda smiled at him, a smile of such utter sweetness and trust that his heart turned over. She held out her arms and walked straight into his.

The feel of her under his hands combined with the scent of her drove him wild. He kissed her hungrily, and her passionate response throbbed through him to increase his urgency. Two impulses fought for supremacy: to lingeringly make love to every inch of her or to possess her with savage intensity. He was dangerously near losing control over the choice. What kind of spell did she have him under?

Smooth skin, soft breasts, warm lips, an alluring body...many woman could lay claim to those. None had, nor would ever have Brenda's essence, the magic she cast over him by just being herself. To him her skin was smoother than any other woman's, her breasts softer and her lips warmer. Holding her he marveled at the beauty of her body. Just looking at her could make him want her.

He would need hours of caressing her, of making love with her to slake his thirst.

Brenda wiggled against him so provocatively he groaned and cupped her buttocks, holding her close, his desire pounding a fiery demand he couldn't ignore.

"Jax," she pleaded, her breath warm in his ear. She said no more, but he suddenly felt he knew her inner need. He knew she was experiencing the same desperate arousal that drove him to frenzy.

Clinging to one another, they tumbled onto the twisted blankets in a tangle of arms and legs. Her mouth, hot and persuasive under his, invited him to possess her further and he abandoned all attempt to go slowly. He thrust into her, hearing her cry of pleasure mix with his own sensual groan.

Caught up in the whirlwind of passion, he lost track of everything except the erotic rhythm of their lovemaking, a rhythm past control. Nothing existed except their timeless reunion.

The thrill of her release triggered his own, a dizzying spiral that left him replete, content, and reluctant to let her go. He wanted to hold her forever, awake and asleep.

We should talk, he told himself drowsily. We know everything about each other except the facts. Last names. Addresses. But that wasn't important...

Brenda awoke from a dreamless sleep. Rain still splattered against the windows and she snuggled closer to Jax's warmth. She had no idea what time it was but the room seemed less dark. The storm would make a gray morning. She yawned, thinking that neither the storm nor the time really mattered.

Jax murmured in his sleep, and she sighed happily as his hand found the curve of her hip and pulled her against him. His heart beat reassuringly under her ear, making her worries of yesterday, her fear of the dreaming, all of her problems, seem small and very far away. He was here with her and everything else diminished in importance.

She closed her eyes, lulled by the steady beat, feeling secure and content. Halfway to sleep she thought, I don't even know his last name, but it doesn't matter. Later, I'll ask him later...

***********************

What was that awful noise? Brenda opened her eyes and looked around. She lay in a nest of blankets on the living room floor in front of a dying fire. Gloomy daylight filtered through rain-washed windows. She remembered a delicious warmth that seemed to be missing and sat up abruptly.

Where was Jax?