Mine Tomorrow Read online

  “Yes, sir. The young man from Milt’s Market came by an hour ago with a couple of boxes of groceries. I took the liberty of letting him into the apartment and seeing that everything perishable was put away.”

  “Thank you, Dan.”

  Dan nodded. “It wouldn’t take long for food to spoil in this heat.”

  “You went grocery shopping?” Devin asked quietly as she followed Gregory up the stairs.

  “When I got in yesterday, there was nothing to eat. Nothing…that hadn’t spoiled.”

  Once again, his tone held more sadness than accusation. She’d hurt him, Devin realized. Wounded him as surely and severely as a round fired from the enemy’s turret. Had she really left him? Was that why he’d asked if she’d been staying with her sister? If she had left him, why?

  When they reached the second floor, he stopped at the first door in the hall. Devin wasn’t surprised to find it was the apartment where the estate sale had been held. He unlocked the door, but before she could enter, Gregory turned and scooped her up in his arms.

  “I know I already did this once,” he told her.

  Maybe it was just wishful thinking, but she could almost recall that other time he spoke of, almost feel the sensation of his arms cradling her body against his chest as he carried her over the threshold on…

  “Our wedding day,” she murmured.

  He nodded. “Today is a brand new start for us, as well.”

  Devin swallowed around the lump that had formed in her throat. Even if she didn’t know what had happened between them, his words touched a place deep inside.

  Once they were inside the foyer, Gregory returned her to her feet. Where the building’s lobby had been recognizable despite having undergone obvious cosmetic changes over the years, the interior of the apartment was almost exactly the same as it had been when she’d walked through it the day of the sale. In the living room, the same pair of club chairs bracketed the fireplace, over which hung the ornately framed landscape painting that had sported a hand-lettered SOLD! sign on one corner. The camelback sofa was the same, too, although its muted damask upholstery appeared brand new.

  To satisfy her curiosity, she took the overcoat that was still draped over his arm.

  “Let me just hang this up,” she said, opening the very closet from which she had taken it in real life mere days earlier.

  This time, the closet didn’t smell of mothballs. Rather than being largely empty, the top shelf was full of hat boxes and a man’s herringbone-print overcoat hung inside. She ran her hand over the soft wool. She didn’t recall seeing that the day of the sale. If she had, she would have purchased it, as well. When she turned, Gregory was watching her.

  She smiled and, berating herself for feeling so self-conscious, asked, “Are you…are you hungry?”

  Laughter, low and masculine, greeted her question.

  “That depends on the kind of hungry you mean, Devin.”

  He reached for her hand and drew her to him. Their bodies bumped together. She settled her hands on his chest. Under her palms, she felt the beating of his heart. It was far from steady, yet its irregular rhythm was completely in synch with hers.

  In real life, Devin probably would have ignored the very obvious signals he was sending and headed to the kitchen anyway. Once there, she would have rousted up a sandwich or heated a can of soup, all the while making painfully polite small talk. The date would end on a strained note with her suitor promising to call, even as both of them knew he never would.

  Frigid. A tease. She’d been called both, to her face. Some men were a little more polite, of course, but that only left her to imagine what they said over a few beers with their buddies.

  Well, dreams were the perfect venue to let go and take risks. Safely tucked inside her subconscious, she didn’t have to agonize over making any mistakes. She didn’t have to worry about being a disappointment or, for that matter, being disappointed.

  Feeling both empowered and exhilarated, she nuzzled Gregory’s neck.

  “I know exactly what you need to satisfy your hunger.”

  In the blink of an eye, his gaze turned from heated to molten. “Show me.”

  “Happy to,” she murmured and took his hand.

  From the estate sale, Devin recalled that the master bedroom was at the end of the hall. No words were necessary as she led him to it. Along the way, they passed two smaller bedrooms. The doors to both were open. She spared each a peek inside. On her last visit, the first had been a study, complete with built-in shelving and the large desk that had a secret compartment where the letter was found. The desk was there, but otherwise, except for a few boxes, it was empty. The second one had no furniture, only more unopened boxes. Had they been moving? Or had she been moving out?

  Such questions were forgotten as soon as they reached the master and Gregory pulled her into his arms. The mirror over the bureau showed lovers in an embrace.

  Devin barely recognized herself in the woman reflected. Her makeup was different. Well-defined ruby lips. Eyelids lightly lined in black. She hadn’t sported bangs since grade school, but here her coffee-colored hair was curled under high on forehead, and the rest was pulled back into a chignon at the nape of her neck. The jaunty hat with the blue feathers was still perched on her head. It went with the dress, she realized.

  More than these details, however, it was the expression on her face that gave her pause. Emily often teased Devin about the slim line of consternation that usually resided between her eyebrows, but it was nowhere to be found. Despite the storm building inside her, she looked composed and relaxed, even if she also looked eager.

  Their gazes connected in the mirror. When they had arrived at the apartment, he’d removed his cap, which he’d left on the table in the foyer. His hair was cut tight on the sides and left slightly longer on the crown. She gave into impulse and ran her fingers through the military-issue crew cut. The strands were softer than they appeared. Much like his mouth had been. With that thought, she pulled his head down so that his lips met hers.

  Unlike the kisses they had shared in the square, this one ignited a fire that neither of them felt compelled to bank. Here, in the privacy of the quiet apartment, Devin was determined to feel the burn of passion. She wanted it to consume her, incinerate her.

  He drew back, but only so he could remove the pins that held her hat in place. Afterward, he freed her hair from its chignon and pushed his hands through its length. To her surprise, the ends reached halfway down her back. Devin couldn’t remember the last time she’d worn it that long, if ever.

  “I love your hair,” he murmured huskily, after which he wound thick hanks of it around his hands and gave a gentle tug.

  As he’d intended, she let her head fall back, granting him better access to the slim column of her neck. Devin closed her eyes, luxuriating in the feel of his lips on her skin and his breath, too ragged and so hot that she thought she might go up in flames.

  The dress’s cut was too modest to allow his mouth to explore much beyond her collarbone. His groan of frustration echoed the one building inside her.

  “The buttons are in the back,” she whispered urgently and was unable to stop herself from adding, “Hurry!”

  “I plan to.” Low laughter accompanied his reply. “You know, getting undressed would go a lot faster if you gave me a hand.”

  There was no need for him to ask twice. While Gregory got to work unfastening her dress, Devin began fishing the brass buttons of his uniform through the holes. Even with hands made shaky by anticipation, she finished well before he did, forcing him to stop what he was doing so that she could push the jacket down his arms.

  “Slowpoke,” she teased.

  “You have an advantage. You can see what you’re doing. I’m working blind,” he pointed out.

  “Well then, let’s make this fair.”

  She repositioned their bodies so that he could see her back reflected in the mirror. Even though he now had a visual, she still managed to unbutto
n the shirt he wore beneath the jacket before he finished. When she peeled the sides open, her breath caught at the sight of his muscular chest. Eager to see more of such masculine perfection, she yanked the tails from his pants, shoved the shirt over his shoulders.

  “I like you like this.” When she glanced up in question, he added, “Eager.”

  Her hands went still. She swallowed. “Sh-shouldn’t I be?”

  “Yes.” He grinned. “Definitely. You were nervous before, worried you would do something wrong. As if that’s possible. You let me undress you, but…”

  But she hadn’t undressed him. Devin’s 1945 counterpart apparently was too demure for that. Truth be told, she’d never undressed a man in the twenty-first century either.

  “The times, they are a changing,” she murmured.

  He leaned closer. “Pardon?”

  She put the inner vixen she’d only just met into her smile and told him, “Your belt. It needs to go. It’s in the way.”

  His mouth dropped open briefly, but then his grin returned. She felt his hands at her back, and then it became clear he had finished his task, as well. His hands settled on her waist, thumbs hooked under the slim band of leather.

  “I was thinking the same thing.”

  The belt he referred to was not the one holding up his pants, but the decorative one that went with her dress.

  Gazes glued to one another, they got rid of the offending accessories. By the time Gregory finished unbuttoning her dress, Devin felt ready to explode. When it fell to the floor, a puddle of starched pastel blue cotton, she was only too happy to step out of it.

  He inhaled abruptly and uttered a word that sounded too reverent to be an oath. A glance down revealed she was not wearing her usual no-frills bra and white boy-cut cotton panties. Rather, she was clad in the foundation garments that had been popular back in the day, as well as a pair of sheer silk stockings that Devin knew without looking had the prerequisite seam up the backs of her legs. The garters that held them up were practical, but that didn’t make her feel any less sexy in them.

  “I feel like a pin-up girl,” she murmured, striking a pose.

  “You’re a lot prettier than a pin-up.”

  She started to sigh, only to suck in a breath when Gregory dropped to his knees. Despite their earlier rushing and impatience, he took his time unhooking the stockings from the garters. Afterward, he painstakingly rolled the sheer silk down the length of her legs. The light touch of his fingertips on the sensitive insides of her thighs nearly tipped her over the edge, especially when his mouth mimicked their path.

  “My turn,” she managed in a hoarse whisper.

  Emboldened, she helped to rid him of his trousers and boxers.

  Perfection.

  That’s what he was. From his well-defined biceps and a chest that looked as if it had been carved from granite, to his washboard abdomen. An inviting line of dark hair drew her eye south. Devin sucked in a breath, felt her body tighten and tingle in reaction.

  Oh, yeah. Perfection.

  And he was ready for her. Still, he didn’t rush. Rather, he lowered himself onto the edge of the mattress and drew Devin forward until she was standing between his legs. He unclasped her bra and his mouth found one breast, laved her taut nipple, before moving to the other one. He was patient, so amazingly patient and focused. Even when her body trembled in anticipation and her head tipped back on a moan, his pace remained unhurried.

  His hands caressed the undersides of her breasts, leaving gooseflesh in their wake. When his thumbs flicked over her erect nipples, she moaned a second time and nearly begged him to satisfy the hunger gnawing inside of her.

  “Have you any idea how many times I dreamed of this?” he murmured.

  Devin could just barely make out his words over the blood rushing and roaring in her ears.

  “Dozens.…Hundreds,” she replied. “I have, too.”

  Since that first dream she’d had years earlier when she’d spied him in a crowd and had known—known—he was the one. She’d awoken in tears, sure she would never see him again. Every dream after that had been bittersweet given the ending, but she kept that thought to herself. As crazy as it seemed, she didn’t want to acknowledge this was all a dream—always had been and always would be—and ruin the moment.

  An overwhelming sense of desperation stole over her. She didn’t want to wake up yet. She couldn’t. Not without knowing…without experiencing…

  With strength she didn’t know she possessed, Devin changed their positions and pushed him backward until he was lying on the mattress. Putting her knees on the edge of the bed, she followed him down. Springs creaked in protest. In her real apartment, Devin would have worried about disturbing the neighbors. Here, she was only vaguely aware of the sound. And, free of such concerns, as well as her own inhibitions, she straddled his body, poised just above him.

  He glanced toward the nightstand. “Shouldn’t we…?”

  She stopped his question with a kiss. No need for protection in a dream, she reasoned.

  “Welcome home.” Having said so, she lowered her body until she enveloped him.

  As her climax took her over the edge, Devin realized the sentiment applied to her, too.

  Chapter Five

  What now?

  Devin had asked herself that same question in Times Square when she and Gregory had finally reached one another. Now that they had made love, she found herself wondering anew what would happen next.

  And worrying specifically over when she would wake up.

  More than ever, she didn’t want to. Why would she when for the first time in her life, sex had been an amazing, spectacular experience? Fireworks? She was still feeling the residual shower of sparks.

  Devin waited for awkwardness or at least a feeling of self-consciousness to steal over her. She usually felt such things after sex, no matter how good an idea it seemed before the first article of clothing was shed. But lying next to Gregory in the quiet apartment, where time itself seemed to have stood still, she felt none of those things. Rather, she was content, and she felt confident and satisfied in a way she never had before. It had taken a figment of her imagination—albeit a very well-endowed one—to allow her to experience the most earth-shaking orgasm of her life.

  Indifferent? Unresponsive? Asexual? In the past, she’d worried she might be all of those things. Not now, though. What she had just experienced with Gregory was special. It was, she imagined, what making love felt like—not merely a physical joining, but an emotional one.

  On a sigh, she cuddled closer to his side. The apartment was warm, borderline uncomfortable, but she couldn’t get enough of his heat. She was determined to imprint every last detail of him on her memory so that she would have something to savor later.

  “You’re awake,” he said.

  “In a manner of speaking.”

  If he found her reply odd, he didn’t comment on it. Instead, he levered up onto one elbow and studied her. Enough of the afternoon sun was able to squeeze around the drawn curtains to cast the room in an ethereal glow. He pushed a tendril of hair back from her brow. The gesture was tender, practical and lover-like all at the same time.

  “It’s tempting to stay here forever,” he told her.

  Devin agreed wholeheartedly. Hadn’t she just been thinking that very thing? “I don’t want to move.”

  His stomach growled loudly and they both laughed.

  “We probably should eat,” she told him, amazed to find her own appetite growing. That had certainly never happened in a dream before.

  “Food isn’t as important as this.” He leaned over and kissed her, his mouth lingering just long enough to cause her hormones to start popping like kernels of heated corn.

  “I agree, but we need to keep up our strength.”

  “For?” His brows tugged up along with the corners of the mouth that mere minutes earlier had all but driven her insane.

  “For round two,” she informed him boldly.

  �
�Well, when you put it like that…” He leaned over for another kiss. Before rolling on top of her, he murmured, “I have enough strength for another round of lovemaking right now, if you think you’re up to it.”

  Gregory was most definitely up to it.

  On a breathy laugh, Devin replied, “I suppose food could wait.”

  * * *

  Wait it did. It was another forty-five minutes before they finally emerged from the bedroom. Devin felt the way she often did after an especially intense session at the gym: a little sore, but otherwise loose and limber. And oh so pleased with herself.

  “You’re smiling.”

  “I am.” And her grin widened as she made her way to the kitchen.

  Before leaving the bedroom, Devin had donned Gregory’s shirt. She’d fastened only four of the buttons, leaving it to gape at the neck and flare open at the thighs when she walked. Underneath it, she wasn’t wearing a thing. She felt decadent, sassy, sexy and confident.

  “Penny for your thoughts,” he said.

  “Oh, they’re worth at least a dollar,” she teased. “Inflation, you know.”

  He regarded her quizzically for a moment before replying, “Whatever the amount, I’m willing to pay.”

  He was barefoot and bare-chested. And even though he’d pulled on his pants, he hadn’t bothered to fasten them. He came to stand behind her, wrapping both of his arms around her waist and pulling her back against his broad chest. His breath was hot as he nibbled her neck. The tip of his tongue flicked across her earlobe, sending delicious shivers up her spine.

  “Tell me,” he coaxed. “I want to know everything.”

  “Everything?” she whispered.

  “Everything.”

  The hands on her waist tightened. The possessive gesture made her want to sigh. Devin’s longing changed to a sense of belonging.

  “I’m so happy right now.” And she was, but it was more than that. So much more that words failed her. Indeed, everything about this moment was beyond her ability to comprehend.

  “I feel the same way. I love you, Devin.”

  “I love you, too.” When tears threatened and the lines of reality blurred, she closed her eyes and reminded herself, “It’s a dream.”