Chapter 17
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Lennon
Paul is crowding me, his hands framing my face as if I’m something precious he might break if he’s not careful.
The world feels soft around the edges, like someone dipped it in honey and let it drip slowly. I’m in a kitchen… my kitchen? No, it’s bigger, brighter, and with sunlight pouring through windows that stretch forever.
His mouth crashes down on mine, possessive and demanding, claiming every breath I have left. One hand slides to the back of my neck, tilting my head exactly where he wants it, while the other grips my hip hard enough to leave marks I wouldn’t mind.
“Mine,” he growls out against my lips, the word vibrating through me, and making my knees wobble. “Tell me you’re mine, darling.”
He doesn’t even let me answer, deepening the kiss as heat pools low in my belly, his body pinning mine. One hand roams down my side, fingers digging into the curve of my waist, pulling me flush against him until there’s no space left, no air, only him, and I’m owned in the best way.
He pulls back for a breath, and his face shifts.
The salt-and-pepper stubble softens to a short blond beard, the deep coffee eyes turn into the soft gray of early morning, and the frame in front of me heightens, familiar in a completely different way.
Suddenly, it’s Nevan smiling down at me, that tousled dark blond hair falling over his forehead.
His hands on my waist feel different, too, same warmth, but bigger.
I focus on his freckles when he leans down to kiss me.
Wait! Wasn’t I just kissing Paul?
Oh well.
Nevan’s kiss is sweeter, almost playful. He cups my face gently at first, thumbs stroking my cheeks as his lips brush mine teasingly.
“Hey, Lemon,” he murmurs, pulling back to flash that sunshine grin before diving back in.
His hands slide down to my thighs, squeezing with the right pressure, but he has to almost fold in half to keep kissing me.
As soon as I think that, he lifts me effortlessly onto the counter as if I’m weightless.
He nips at my lower lip, sweet turning hot, his fingers digging in, tracing higher, and making me gasp. Playful nips turn into hungry strokes as the kiss deepens, bodies pressing closer until I’m wrapping my legs around him.
His hands are everywhere, my breath coming in short bursts.
“Ew.”
The word cuts through the heat like cold water down my spine. I freeze mid-kiss, my legs still locked around Nevan’s waist as I look over his shoulder.
Ridge is floating a few feet behind him, cross-legged in midair. He’s sucking on a bright yellow lollipop, nose scrunched in disgust.
“That’s unsanitary.” He drops lightly to the floor and strolls toward us, gaze flicking between Nevan and me with lazy amusement. “I hope that’s not the kitchen you baked my muffins in.”
God, he’s hot too.
I let go of Nevan, slip off the counter, and step toward Ridge, the air around him buzzing faintly, a static under my skin. His lips are shiny from the lollipop, and I can’t help but stare at them.
“What are you doing?”
I’m entranced with how each word moves between his lips. Lips I’d like to taste.
“Don’t look at me that way, Lennon.”
I rise onto my tiptoes with my lips puckered, aiming for his mouth. Before I can make contact, he presses two fingers to my forehead and pushes me back down onto my heels, then flicks my nose.
“Ouch!” I rub at it. “What was that for?”
“How many fingers do you have?”
“What?”
“Indulge me.”
I look down at my fingers, which are breadsticks. “Huh.”
“Good, now question it.”
He’s right. Why do I have edible fingers?
That’s weird.
My stomach drops just as the kitchen shudders like the world exhaled too hard…
… The colors deepen, and the air feels heavier, denser, as if I’ve snapped into a higher resolution.
“This is a dream,” I whisper, eyes still fixed on my breadstick fingers.
“Good job,” Ridge praises in a low tone. “Now breathe and stay with me.”
Easier said than done. The space around me ripples and feels unstable.
I’m awake in a dream. This is a dream.
And he is a stranger.
“How do you know my name?” I ask.
“How do you know mine?” He shoots back. “We introduced ourselves.”
“That’s not…” I start to say, because I’m very sure I did not tell him my name last time.
“Hey, hey,” Ridge soothes as my breathing becomes erratic. “Relax.”
“I can’t.” I reach out and cling to his hand without thinking. “Help me.”
He frowns, then interlocks our fingers. “Don’t get excited, you’re fine. Inhale. Now exhale. Okay?”
The kitchen ripples in response as if it heard him and disagrees.
I close my eyes and try to breathe more slowly. “Distract me from the fact that we’re in a goddamn dream.”
A loud crack makes me open my eyes, and I look up to find a split in the ceiling. Plaster spiderwebs outward, bits of it breaking loose and showering down around us. I flinch, instinctively ducking closer to Ridge.
Ridge doesn’t react at all. His gaze is fixed on Nevan, who is still standing a few steps away, completely still like a paused video.
“Who’s that?”
“That’s… Nevan.” My neck heats remembering what I was just caught doing.
Oh God. I made out with him in front of Ridge.
Did he see me kiss Paul too?
The embarrassment hits first, then immediately curdles into something worse when I remember that I’d tried to kiss Ridge seconds after I was done with Nevan. And he stopped me.
My fingers twitch, instinctively trying to pull away from his hand, but Ridge tightens his grip enough to trap me.
“Wait,” he says slowly. “The Shaw boy?”
“You know him?”
Can this get any more embarrassing?
“Haven’t seen that one in years.” His mouth quirks as his gaze flicks between Nevan and me. “Got yourself a boy toy?”
“What? No!”
His brow lifts, unimpressed. “But you want to.”
“I… no!” I protest. “He’s way too young and…”
He hums, clearly enjoying this. “Dreams run on emotions, not logic.”
Ridge lifts the hand that’s not holding mine, then makes a lazy flicking motion. Nevan jerks backward as if he’s being yanked by an invisible force, straight through the kitchen window in a burst of glass and light.
“What the hell?!”
Ridge finally looks toward the empty space where Nevan stood, then back to me, utterly unconcerned.
“Chill.” He squeezes my hand. “He’s only a projection of your subconscious.”
“You just threw him out a window!”
“And?” His tone is dry. “Your precious baby boy is fine. He’s a thought your brain dressed up.”
I gape at him. “Even so, you didn’t need to kill him.”
“I can’t kill something that’s not real.
Now focus. If you keep emotionally multitasking like this, the whole place comes down.
” As if summoned by his words, the crack in the ceiling widens with a groan, and dust drifts down between us.
He glances up, then back at me. “I said, focus. We have shit to talk about, you can smooch some more later.”
Something in me snaps.
“Oh, now you want to talk?” I shoot back, tugging my hand free of his. “You couldn’t even open your door for me when I wanted to talk, but it’s fine when you walk into my dream?”
He lifts his shoulder in the world’s most unbothered shrug. “I’m not on call for you.”
The audacity.
“And you don’t get to ignore me and then show up in my dreams when it suits you!”
He grins and flicks my nose, making me blink in shock.
“Can you stop doing that?”
He pouts theatrically. “But it’s so flickable.”
I glare at him, not at all prepared when he does it again. Dammit.
“Stop it.”
“Make me.” He reaches for my nose again, and I try to grab his wrist, but he anticipates it, gently flicking my hand away.
“Uh-uh. Stop me without touching me.”
My hand still hovers uselessly in the air. “What?”
“You heard me.” His eyes gleam with challenge as he reaches out again, slower this time, as if he’s daring me to figure it out.
This is a dream. Anything’s possible here, right?
I will something, anything, to stop him.
The floor shifts, and thick, golden honey bubbles up from the tiles.
It grips his hand, halting it inches from my face.
The honey pulls his arm downward, and Ridge’s eyes widen as he tugs experimentally against it, but it holds firm, stretching like taffy before snapping back.
I stare at the dream honey coiled around his wrist, while my pulse turns louder in my ears. “I did that?”
“Yeah.” He gives another tug against the sticky hold, flexing long fingers inside the grip. “You did.” He puts his lollipop in his mouth with his free hand and murmurs around it. “Now let me go.”
No. Not yet.
“How do you know how to do this?”
He arches one dark brow, the motion so small it’s almost mocking as he drags the lollipop from his mouth again. “Do what, exactly? You’re gonna have to be a little more precise with your questions. Dreams don’t like vague.”
I gesture around us at the cracked ceiling still shedding faint dust, the warped kitchen counters, the place where Nevan used to stand before Ridge casually yeeted him through a window that no longer exists. “This. Lucid dreaming. Showing up in my dream. How do you do this?”
“Practice.” That mouth of his twitches again. “I have a deeply unhealthy, borderline codependent relationship with my subconscious.”
“And why are you in my dream?” I narrow my eyes. “I don’t even know you, even if you’re acting like it.” He says nothing, so I push on, “Fine. Are you going to tell me what you did to Tessa at least?”
The honey around his wrist pulses once as if it felt the spike in my heartbeat.
Ridge repeats the question back to me slowly. “What I did to Tessa?”
“Yes.” My voice cracks on the syllable, anger, grief, and desperation all rushing up at once, making the dream shudder softly.
“You loved her. You loved her, Ridge, and Nora tore you apart, and you didn’t fight for her.
You let her bury it all in dreams until she couldn’t climb back out, and now you’re here, in my head—”
“Lennon.”