Dreams of Reality (20 page)

Dreamland hit her instantly with a strange ringing of the phone.

Chapter 17

Craig arrived two hours later looking paranoid as he came through the secret entrance of the apartment in the bedroom’s closet. Thaddeus was about to speak until Craig made a silent gesture, then instructed him to follow him right back out the secret entrance.

They walked down several flights of stairs until they got to the fourteenth floor. He followed him to a service elevator. Once inside, Craig pushed a basement button, and breathe a sigh of relief.

“It’s bad, isn’t it?” Thaddeus surmised from all of this.

“Pooh was found dead last night. His tongue and eyes had been literally ripped out his body. FBI called me and the sergeant up this morning. They believe it’s Laroche Butts. He’s worked for the mob out of a Chicago hit man squad. He’s about seven feet and big as a Mack truck, but no one’s stayed alive to pin him with anything yet. Except one cat knows his handiwork and they said this was his needlepoint.”

“You think Fats called him in?”

“According to them, Chenile, Butts’ daughter use to do some thing for Fats and Fats contacted her two days ago. She paid him off with her dad. Fats wanted to send a message to the police. He knows and I’m terrified of what’s going to happen. I think you should cancel out tonight and get out of town until we can bring everyone in. It’s going down tomorrow afternoon. We’ve got enough to connect Fats to this chain and all the doctors as well. Pooh received some good information on tape from Fats, and gave them to me the day before yesterday. Fats was about to get him in on the deal, because Pooh knew of some women on a big list we have no idea about but heard it mentioned several times. We figured once we get all the parties involved, we’ll get it out of someone, or at least stop them, but I think they’ve already started drugging new women already. The clinic was packed Friday with new patients which I believe were these women on this mysterious list. Pooh didn’t have a chance to tell me everything, before he handed me the tapes and said he was so close to Fats now, we’d bust him like a balloon with the shit he knew, but he promised to talk to me later. Next thing I knew the FBI called me in the sergeant’s office.”

Thaddeus cursed under his breath. “So you think Fats knows everything, including my involvement?”

“I really don’t know. Pooh did have honest street connections. He probably received Fats trust by getting some of the women on that list. We don’t know everything about all what’s going on. I think he did it to save your ass. No one knows the connection between you and I and we’re going to leave it like this. I suggest you send a messenger to the Network for Fats and tell him you don’t want her services anymore.”

Craig checked the time and cursed. It would seem strange if Thaddeus canceled and whatever Pooh had sacrificed to save Thaddeus from suspicion might be all for nothing. “You’re right. Fine, see her tonight and then that’s it.”

“Now wait one moment. Are we abandoning the girl?”

“We’ve gotten all the information we need from her. We’ve had her tailed and identified as of two weeks ago. She knows absolutely nothing about her other life. She has hallucinations about being with you and can’t figure out why, but her psychiatrist, who is in cahoots with Fats, just tells her they’re dreams, which she readily believes. I think once we arrest everyone involved, she’ll be left alone and chalk this one up as a strange experience in her life. Let her go, Thaddeus. You’ll never see her again and if you do and press the issue you might cause irreparable damage to her mental status.”

Thaddeus couldn’t let the Case go, not when he wanted to see her more. He was confused about his feelings for Skye and for the Case. With the realization closing in he was never going to see her again, how could he properly sort out his feelings for Skye. “I’m going to see her tonight and I really think I need to see her again… away from all this when she’s not under the influence. If not for her sanity, but for mine as well. She can’t just forget about me. I know this sounds strange because you aren’t there, but I feel it when she’s with me she wants to be with me and I have a feeling if I don’t end it properly, things won’t be the same for... her.” He almost said, “us.”

Craig was having deep reservations about this. “Thad, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

Determinedly, Thaddeus said obdurately, “I’m doing it. If you won’t give me the information I want on her to see her, then I’ll selfishly find a way to see her because I damn well please.”

Thaddeus cut him off, “I don’t give a damn what you think, Craig, I want to see her and know who she is, so I’ll do it tonight and until she’s out of my system. I’ll find her on my own damn time and see her.”

“Listen you selfish bastard, I won’t let you harm her.”

“You and what army plan to stop me?”

Craig could see he could not get Thaddeus to do, as he wanted, so he compromised. “Alright, fine, see her tonight, but keep the microphone on and the panic button close near just in case, then Monday I will take you on surveillance with me on her. She has a doctor’s appointment scheduled and we want to see if she goes to it. We’ll tail her from her home, but only if you swear tonight you finish this ridiculous obsession and promise you’ll never step foot in her life again.”

Thaddeus leaned against the wall to think. He wanted to protest, but the term selfish bastard hit hard in his conscious. He wasn’t that selfish to cause irreparable damage to her. He would accept Craig’s terms, but he wouldn’t keep his word. This meant too much to him. “I won’t if you do as you promised,” he said.

Craig didn’t trust a word he said, he shook on it. This was crazy and now he wished he had never gotten Thaddeus involved. He hadn’t expected his best friend to become affected by the woman like this.

He pushed for the service elevator to come pickup Thaddeus. “You go back up alone. Meet me at the café about noon Monday. Go through the kitchen, to the back door and I’ll be waiting for you outside of the loading dock by the grocery store.”

The elevator doors opened and Thaddeus stepped in. “Can I just know her first name?”

“Thad!” he protested.

“Please Craig. As a blood brother, and friend, do this for me. I just want her first name. I’d just like to call her by her first name for once in my head instead of always referring to her by the case.”

Craig shook his head hopelessly, then sighed giving in. Just as the doors were about to close, he said the name, and missed the shocked expression on Thaddeus’ face.

When Thaddeus returned to his apartment, the words of Thomas’ resounded loudly in his mind. “One and the same.”

How could this be? Why didn’t he realize it until now? What the hell should he do? Sitting down and carefully thinking about all of it, he began to put little by little together. The heavy make up hid everything from him. Whenever he had seen Skye, she usually kept her hair wrapped or pulled tightly back. When the woman he’d see on Saturday’s kept her soft long curly hair loose. Skye always wore frumpy clothes and the woman he saw on Saturday’s wore next to nothing.

The doorbell rung at ten-thirty exactly and he knew who it was. He dimmed all the lights and lit the fireplace. This time he didn’t use the potion in her wine. He didn’t pour the wine at all, wanting to do so after what he planned tonight.

Slowly opening the door trying to control his eagerness to grab her in his arms and kiss her all over, his eyes noted every detail of her face and knew it was his Skye. Dressed in a flowing silk shoulder-less lavender gown that accentuated the color in her dancing eyes, she gave him the most radiating smile when he opened the door. Jasmine filled his nostrils as he pulled her in his arms, resisting the urge to kiss her, knowing if he did, he would lose what little control he possessed.

Her arms circled his neck and her fingers caressed the nape. “No?” she asked amused. “I find it highly impossible to have the most gorgeous man looking at me like that.”

“Like what?” he hungered to know.

“You want me. You want to make love to me. I can see it in those sensuous expressive eyes of yours, Thaddeus, but I want you to know exactly how much I want you too.”

Her saying his name was his undoing. His lips melted together like hot molten lava. Her moist tongue entered his mouth and he accepted it willingly, voraciously needing her sweetness to fill him. Her hands moved down to his shirt and in her passionate haste she ripped the shirt opened. He didn’t give her a chance to apologize as he yanked her away from the door while kicking it closed.

Ripping the rest of the shirt off of him in one quick motion, he pulled her back in his arms and made an oral assault on her mouth that consumed her. Her fingers moved down to his pants and he helped her get past the belt and the zipper. It seemed choreographed as they moved around the room leaving a trail of clothes until they ended up on the rug in front of the fireplace where she finished undressing him. This was a unique experience for him. No woman had ever undressed him or been so dominant.

He couldn’t believe this was his Skye, yet he knew it was and couldn’t stop her if he tried. Be damn his conscious, he wanted her with all his mind, body, and soul. He had resisted it because he was unsure of his feelings until now.

She pushed away suddenly from his kiss and held him at arms length. Even when he tried to yank her back, she resisted. “I need you as much as you need me right now, Thaddeus, but I intend to remember this night. It won’t be pieces of a puzzle, it will be an entire dream from front to back.”

Her hands began to roam over his body slowly. “I want you to feel my wantonness, Thaddeus.” What made this truly erotic was her lips followed the soft fingertips planting various kisses, licks, and nibbles all over his body.

Before he could think of the trail she blazed all over his body, he felt himself being engulfed deeply into her oral cavity. His legs swayed unsteadily and she placed a hand on his thigh as if to hold him. She took him to the edge of orgasm, but ceased his flow just as he was about to release.

Her hands massaged, stroked, and fondled so affectionately, he cried out her name several times begging for release. She guided him down to his knees until they were eye to eye.

Cupping his face, steering his eyes to meet hers, she smiled seeing the want in his eyes. “I want you as much as you want me, Thaddeus. Did I make you feel it?”

He was speechless. This was a dream come true for him. Knowing she wanted him this much threw whatever sense of morality out the window. He gently pulled the straps off her shoulders and laid her down under him on the soft rug in front of the fire. The kiss he bestowed upon her now, was filled with gentleness and understanding. She wanted this night to be remembered and he would acquiesce to her needs and desires despite his own thirst to take her.

Their tongues explored one another with deep realization that this was not just sex, but lovemaking on a level higher than the world around them.

Entering her was pure heaven, and bringing her to pleasure with him, was a pinnacle of enjoyment. She held him so closely and gently bit down on his shoulder near a burn scar in the shape of a strawberry below his collarbone. She didn’t know why this was so significant, as her tongue traced the shape around the edges of the scar.

He chuckled deeply and she gasped feeling vibrating tingles in her belly. He was still embedded to the hilt in her and unquestionable firm even though he spent himself, but his body was still aroused from their joining and ‘pillow talk.’ “You could just love me.”

“Ah, but would you love someone as plain as me this much forever?” She asked not really expecting an answer.

He moved up until he could look in her eyes. “You are not plain Skye. You are the most extraordinary woman I have ever met. Yes, I could love you much more.”

Skye smiled not expecting that answer, but adoring the answer. She pulled him down to kiss him briefly, then smiled wickedly. “Show me again and maybe I will believe it when I wake up alone in my bed.”