Free Dreamscape by Rose Anderson

her husband’s jaw.
    * * * *
    Lanie woke from a most interesting dream to the sound of hammering and scraping outside her window. The work on the front porch had started and here she was still in bed. Blindly reaching for the cell phone to check the time, she discovered she’d overslept by nearly two hours. She had a slight headache. “Ugh, it must have been that second glass of wine.” Though two moderate glasses spread over a five-hour evening with a heavy meal in between was hardly a bender, she never handled alcohol well.
    Throwing the sheets back, she flew out of bed to wash and get dressed, all the while running through the list of to-dos in her head. There was a final day of laundry to do, all those sheers and linens from the servant’s quarters. Then she’d tackle the runner on the stairs that was getting too dangerous. Sorting the cellar was on its third day, and if it was anything like the yesterday, she’d better have her medical kit handy. There was no time to review her two dreams. The first one, my oh my , she’d hadn’t ever had such an erotic dream in her life. Just thinking about it now had her feeling tingly and feverish all over. The second had such detail. She couldn’t help feeling the second dream was one she needed to pay particular attention to despite how her mind sought to return to the first and add a face to it.
    Both of those dreams would stay with her throughout the day because Jason would periodically enter her mind and remind her.
    Where he’d normally pop from room to room at will, Jason took his time slowly walking through his house to see the results of cleaning and repairs. Lanie had done a marvelous job. His home was warm and welcoming again and curiously quite similar to how it was when he’d been a young man fresh from medical school. The inside was almost as he remembered, save for the few modernizations through the years. She’d even removed all of the uglier pieces the Mason clan had added in the last century. They never did have style, the lot of them.
    He found it odd that she arranged furniture where he’d had it placed before he’d married Cathy. Were he to place Lanie next to his wife, whom he had once thought to be extremely beautiful, he couldn’t help but compare the two women. Where Cathy was honey blonde, Lanie was raven-haired. Where his wife had large brown eyes like a doe, Lanie’s eyes were indescribably blue and fringed with long dark lashes. Comparison after comparison, Lanie was more beautiful by far. What was more, Lanie had a genuine sweetness and quality of character while Cathy was like a beautiful succulent peach you bit into to only to discover the rotten core. That poisonous beauty possessed the soul of a murderer.
    He watched Lanie on the stairs. Kneeling with carpet nails held tight between pink lips, her slight hand wielding a hammer much too large for it, she was doing an admirable job tacking down the runner. This time he left her tools alone. At her sensual jiggling he was taken with an overwhelming desire to kneel behind her, to grasp her hips and sink his cock into the tight heat his fingers found so delightful the night before. Damn him, if he wasn’t hard again. He wanted to talk with her again person to person. So intent was he to return to her dreams, he periodically whispered to her mind as she worked and was just about to do so again when sound coming from the foyer doorway caught his attention. He turned to find a man standing there, tall, blond, and vaguely familiar. He didn’t like the way he tipped his head to the side and appraised Lanie on the stairs, nor did he like that feral glint or the tongue that licked his lips as though he savored some unknown taste. Recognition surged into him. This was Max, one of his repeat vandals who still broke an occasional window here late at night when the street was deserted. Jason’s eyes grew large as they flew to Lanie in recognition. He’d heard the little savages that day all those