Married to the MIB

All around Dulcie, geysers of foul-smelling steam belched from dripping pipes. Unidentifiable machinery hissed, and lights flashed in macabre shades of crimson and purple. She wasn’t supposed to be here, hiding in this dank place all alone, driven by fear and some deep, desperate need to survive at all costs.

She’d come here, though, to escape someplace much worse. If only she could remember exactly what she was running from.

Just when she’d reached the point where her only option was to scream—not for help, but for the sheer, utter hopelessness of her predicament—he appeared. He swept out of the hot, churning mist, the broad-shouldered silhouette of a man backlit by a strobe of acid green. He reached for her.

Some strange instinct bade her to take the hand he offered, but rather than rise with dignity from her hiding place and let him lead her out of this neon hell, she flew into his arms, shivering and sobbing.

He murmured something soothing while she buried her sweat-dampened face in his neck. His scent curled into her lungs on her next shuddering gasp of breath, and she calmed. Strong arms lifted her from the darkness, and Duclie melted into his muscular caress. He smelled like sin, a curious mix of male sweat, danger and an intoxicating cologne.

There was something about that smell—familiar and wonderful—that told her everything from here on in was going to be just fine. She tightened her arms around him, and he scooped her up as if she weighed nothing. The steam faded then, offering a momentarily clear view of the place. This time Dulcie tried to pay attention to what she saw.

Miles of coiled wires, rusted pipes and twisted fingers of metal and smoky crystal stretched before them. In the still-shrouded distance a white light cut through the gloom.

“That’s the way out,” he said. His voice, like his scent, penetrated her weakened defenses and left her dreamy-eyed and breathless. Beneath her splayed hand the muscles of his chest, hidden under a black T-shirt, rippled as he strode toward safety. “We have to hurry.”
“Hurry.” She nodded, but for some reason all the urgency she’d felt a few moments ago had faded. She’d have stayed in his arms forever, cradled against his rapidly beating heart, cherished in his embrace.

“Hurry…” Dulcie awoke with that word on her lips. Again. This was the third time this month. She might have been more concerned about the details of the recurring nightmare, except it always ended the same way, with her daring rescue.

Exhausted from the terror of the dream, she lay still a moment, staring up at the plain white ceiling of her bedroom. The details of the dream slipped away quickly as always, leaving her with very little but the memory of a masculine chest beneath her hands and muscled arms against her back and legs.

And that scent. Two weeks ago, on a whim, she’d once again dragged her best friend Vivienne Marks to Macy’s, where they’d spent the morning sniffing men’s aftershave and cologne. She’d come home with a headache but still no idea exactly what her mystery man smelled like.
That was probably a good thing since the dreams, and the rich wood smoke and vanilla aroma of him, always left her a bit turned on.
She had no idea where Dream Guy carried her off to, but she secretly hoped it was someplace with a king-sized bed.

With a sigh she rolled over, flicked off her alarm clock one-minute shy of her seven AM wake-up call, and vowed if she ever met a man in real life who smelled that good, she’d jump him.

Dulcie’s bare feet hit the polished hardwood of her bedroom floor, and she shivered. The chill of early October had seeped into her apartment through the night, leaving the crisp essence of autumn in the four tiny rooms she just barely managed to afford on her teacher’s salary.

Energized by the bright sunlight filtering through her pale pink curtains, Dulcie threw off her comforter and hurried to the bathroom, stretching as she padded through the hall.

A hot shower would wash away the lingering thread of terror nestled low in her belly. If it wasn’t for the fear, the recurring dream might not be so bad. Certainly being rescued by a handsome man had an up side…hmmm. Handsome. She never actually saw her savior’s face in the dreams. His physical strength, the self-assured way he spoke to her and, of course, that orgasm-inducing scent just seemed to imply he was gorgeous, but really, all she remembered of what he looked like was the black shirt and a brief glimpse of a stubbled jaw.
He felt so real to her—in fact, her skin still tingled from where he’d touched her, but with some regret Dulcie reminded herself he was only an illusion produced by her romance-deprived brain.
Disappointed once again with Dream Guy’s lack of…solidity, she started the shower and stripped off her boxer briefs and Blue Man Group T-shirt. Three bald heads in a shade of brilliant cerulean caught her attention, and she gazed at the logo of the impressionist musicians for a moment. Other than the fact she’d seen them in concert last year with Viv, something about them seemed strangely familiar, like the man in her dream. It was déjà vu all over again.
A feather of steam wafted up from the tub, distracting her from distant thoughts and reminding her of the terror she’d experienced while sleeping. She combated the sudden unpleasant memory by cracking open the bathroom window to let in a thin stream of cooler morning air.

She swiped a towel over the bathroom mirror and met her own still slightly bleary gaze. “Good morning, Sunshine. Get the cobwebs out.” Raising her eyes ceilingward, she addressed her phantom rescuer. “If you want to come back tonight I’ll be here, but this time plan on sticking around a little longer.”

If the closest thing she could get to a date was a sexy dream, she’d take it. After all, as her mother never tired of reminding her, by the age of twenty-eight a girl really couldn’t afford to be choosy anymore.

The phone rang then, trilling over the rush of shower spray and interrupting a well-rehearsed comeback for her mother’s imagined lecture. Dulcie grabbed a towel and wrapped it around her before ducking into the hall and reaching around the open doorway to snag the cordless off the table in the corner of the living room.
Caller ID told her it was Vivienne. “Hey, you’re early. What’s up?”
“I got the interview in Boston!”

Dulcie’s heart did a small, sideways shift. Involuntarily her hand tightened on the receiver. Vivienne had been working so hard to earn a promotion at the bank where she worked, but moving up the corporate ladder also meant leaving their small town behind and transferring to the bustling city. “That’s great! I’m so excited for you.” Dulcie hated herself for not quite meaning it.

Vivienne deserved the promotion, but the thought of seven hundred miles separating her from her best friend left her feeling a little more than blue.

“I’m so nervous! And I need a favor.”

“Let me guess, my navy dress? I can drop it off before work.”

“Oh…that too, but really I called to ask if you can walk Maggie for me while I’m gone. I have to leave today so I can make the nine AM interview tomorrow.”

Vivienne’s sheep dog/poodle mix weighed forty pounds, all of it fur. Dulcie adored Maggie, and knowing she’d be saying goodbye to her as well if Vivienne got the job in Boston intensified the strange longing she felt for someone she’d never even met. Why couldn’t her Dream Guy be here to comfort her when she lost her best friend? Why couldn’t her Dream Guy be here, period?