Dream Lover

Dream Lover

By Aaron Michaels

Patrick wasn't into one night stands, not anymore, but the man currently holding court at the far end of the terrace had him seriously rethinking his position on random sex. Patrick's company had reserved the outdoor terrace of the newest and trendiest riverfront restaurant for its semi-annual dinner and drinks mixer. The place had rows of tiny lights crisscrossing the top of the open-air A Torquere Press Sip - 1

dining area, and soft music accompanied the constant low murmur of easy conversation of scattered groups of public relations executives and potential clients. The setting was business intimate, but from the moment Patrick laid eyes on the man who'd drawn the attention of a far larger group of execs than anyone else, all he could think about was getting the man in a far different intimate setting. He was easily the most beautiful man Patrick had ever seen. Tall and lithe, with a full head of curly dark hair, the man wore a Hawaiian shirt open at the neck, giving Patrick a tantalizing view of smooth, creamcolored skin. Patrick could see why the guy had drawn such a large group. He was more than just good looking. He had an easy smile, which he used often, and a laugh that invited everyone to join in. Then there were the subliminal messages the guy sent out. The way he turned his full attention on whoever was talking. The way he leaned in a little closer, but not too close. The way he tilted his head and let his gaze drift just a little lower before he refocused on a face. The guy practically oozed sex appeal. Was he part of the company, someone's client, or a potential client? Patrick was sure he'd never met the man before. Him, Patrick would have remembered, even if he'd seen the guy in some stuffy office or a tension-filled boardroom rather than at a casual social occasion where the air was warm and sultry, the drinks were free, and more than one deal would be made in bed rather than on paper. Patrick felt himself pulled in by the man's charisma, almost like he'd planted an electro-magnet in the middle of Patrick's chest and turned the charge on full bore. Patrick polished off the gin and tonic he'd been nursing and set it on a table. He had to resist the urge to A Torquere Press Sip - 2

straighten his tie as he crossed the terrace toward the group. He was one the few men at the mixer wearing a suit. Most were dressed in business casual, but Patrick was a good ten years older than the majority of the people he worked with, and he just felt more comfortable in a suit. "How do you like my party?" the man asked Patrick before Patrick could even introduce himself. "Your party?" Patrick felt off balance. Was the man a new hire he hadn't been introduced to yet? That would make any type of relationship -- even a one night stand - awkward. "Gino owns the restaurant," Martha said. Martha was a short, compact woman with long black hair and black-rimmed glasses. Patrick knew for a fact that Martha had a girlfriend at home, but from the high color on her cheeks and the way her blue eyes glittered behind her thick lenses, it was clear she wasn't immune to Gino's charm. "Ah," Patrick said. "Marvelous place you have here." He introduced himself and stuck out his hand. He got the shock of his life when Gino took it. Literally. Patrick had never felt electricity of any sort with any of the men he'd been with. Lust? Yeah, sure. Lust went hand in hand with being a horny guy with more hormones than he knew what to do with. The zing he felt when Gino's hand touched his was altogether different. Sharp and immediate and there, like a charge that heightened all his senses all at once. The music sounded throatier, the aftertaste from the gin was sharper, and the sultry air was suddenly filled with musky perfume and an undercurrent of earthy richness. The charge Patrick got from the mere touch of Gino's hand made him want to loosen his tie and leave his suit A Torquere Press Sip - 3

coat draped across the back of a chair, draw Gino to him, and dance the kind of dance that would get them both arrested. Somewhere in the back of his brain, Patrick was aware he'd held Gino's hand for a split second too long for the shake to be just business. He let go and Gino smiled at him, just as warm and friendly as he'd been before their hands had touched. Still there was a knowing look in Gino's eyes now. Knowing, and inviting. "Nice to meet you," Gino said. "Let me get you another drink." Patrick was going to need it. He was half hard inside his trousers. He should politely excuse himself and go do some networking and schmoozing, but he knew he wasn't going anywhere. Not while Gino was looking at him like the man wanted to gobble Patrick up, and when Patrick was wrung out and totally spent, start all over again. Or was it all in his head? None of the other people in the group seemed to notice that anything other than a handshake had happened. They were all still busy chatting away about business. While Patrick sipped another gin and tonic, Martha talked about possible ad campaigns for Gino's restaurant. George, an account exec who worked with a company developing a new, low-cost lighting system, promised to put Gino in touch with his clients. In addition to the lights strung over the top of the terrace, tiny fairy lights were strung along the decorative railing that kept diners from taking an inadvertent swim in the river, and soft lights illuminated potted plants strategically placed among the tables to give diners the illusion of privacy. "My guys could put lights in here that would cut your A Torquere Press Sip - 4

electricity bill in half," George said. Gino looked Patrick straight in the eye. "I don't know. I find I rather like a little electricity now and then." Patrick swallowed hard. Inside his trousers, his cock twitched. "I know what you mean," he said. Gino's smile got wider. "I thought you might." Patrick didn't remember much of what anyone talked about after that. Oh, he knew conversations were going on around him, but the words flowed over him like the dark water in the river. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been so lost in the feeling of wanting someone, and he was pretty sure it was mutual. So it came as something of a shock when Gino abruptly made an excuse and left the party before Patrick could even think about how to give Gino his number. Everyone in the little group seemed as surprised -and as let down -- as he did. Patrick took the remnants of his drink and walked over to the edge of the terrace. He leaned on the railing and stared down at the river. In this part of town, the river was fairly narrow, less than half a football field across. The water was channeled between concrete embankments some twenty feet deep meant to control the occasional flood. Because the artificial banks acted like a bottleneck, the water rushed by faster here than it did in the shallower, lazier, and wider parts of the river upstream. That hadn't stopped the city from building a river walk path into the concrete walls, complete with cobblestone walkways and lazy, meandering steps from street level down to an actual, man-made, riverbank. Wrought iron benches bolted to concrete pads were interspersed between shrubs and flowering bushes, all in A Torquere Press Sip - 5

an attempt to make the path look at least semi-natural. Street lights on faux-antique posts illuminated the walkway just enough to create deep pockets of shadow behind the bushes and give the river's current a silver sheen. Something broke the surface of the water, something slick and sleek and far too large to be a fish. At least Patrick thought it was too large to be a fish. He'd never really paid attention when his dad used to tell tales about the one that got away after a day out on the lake with his uncles. Given his dad's total lack of success with a rod and reel, Patrick had grown up thinking that fishing was all about drinking a lot of beer on a boat where none of the wives could yell at their husbands for drinking too much. He stared harder at the water, willing whatever it was to show itself again, but the water remained maddeningly calm. He was about to turn away when he caught sight of something else. Gino's Hawaiian shirt, draped over the back of the bench closest to the river. Had the man gone for a midnight swim? What, was he nuts? Well, swimming in a fast-moving current might be nuts for someone like Patrick, but Gino did have a restaurant right on the river. Maybe the guy had a thing for swimming at night. And maybe -- just maybe -- he wanted company. After all, he'd left the shirt out in the open. Patrick bet that would be Gino's idea of an open invitation. After all, the bench where Gino had left his shirt was in clear view of anyone standing at the terrace, and there had been an unmistakable chemistry between the two of them. Patrick considered whether he was drunk enough to take a chance. He hadn't gone skinny dipping since A Torquere Press Sip - 6

high school, and then only on a dare. He downed the rest of his drink. There, that just about ought to do it. Drunk enough to head down to the water in a good suit in search of sex, not too drunk to forget what was sure to be the best sex of his life. If it happened. Patrick managed to leave the party without anyone trying to snare him into a conversation he wanted no part of. The boss might wonder aloud at the next staff meeting why Patrick hadn't fully availed himself of the networking opportunities the mixer was meant to provide, but if Patrick landed Gino, so to speak, that would go a long way to keeping Patrick's butt out of the fire. The lazy steps leading down to the water weren't quite as lazy up close, at least not to a semi-drunk public relations exec. Patrick had to concentrate hard on his feet to make sure they didn't slide out from under him. The steps were slicker than they'd appeared from the terrace, damp from the humidity this close to the water and mossy in the spots where the daylight never reached. Patrick's dress shoes had leather soles. The third time he slipped on the moss, he took off his shoes and socks. The steps were cold and clammy on his bare feet, but at least he wouldn't fall down and break his neck. By the time he got to the iron bench, Patrick was beginning to rethink the whole idea. What if someone he worked with saw him skinny dipping in the river? That was a whole different level of unprofessional behavior than simply photocopying your butt. Besides, what if Gino didn't want company? Sometimes a shirt was just a shirt, not an invitation. "This is nuts," Patrick muttered. Something splashed in the river off to his left. Patrick A Torquere Press Sip - 7

turned toward the sound as fast as he could without making the world spin around him -- he hadn't really had that much to drink, had he? -- but he couldn't see anything. Another splash sounded, this time off to his right. Patrick whipped his head around, and this time the world did spin. That was the only explanation for what he saw. Gino was in the water near the edge of the river. At least, Patrick thought it was Gino, but he couldn't be sure. The man's hair was gone. His face had the slickedback look of something that lived in the water, a cross between a seal and a dolphin. His nose had flattened, his eyes grown larger, and what Patrick could see of Gino's body beneath the water looked long and thin and sleek. "You shouldn't be here," Gino said. His voice came out wet and burbly, the words slurred. Patrick swallowed hard. "What the hell did you put in my drink?" He couldn't really be seeing what he thought he was. Things like that didn't exist. Gino ducked beneath the water. When he raised his head again, he had the familiar face, the curly dark hair, the clean-shaven, slightly-tanned skin that Patrick remembered from the party. With a smooth, fluid move, Gino pulled himself out of the water. He was human. Flawlessly, beautifully human, and entirely naked. Patrick let out a nervous laugh. "Oh, man, I have definitely had too much to drink, but I gotta say, you look good enough to eat." Gino walked toward him. The streetlight made his wet skin look silver. "You shouldn't be here," Gino said again. Patrick thought his heart actually stopped beating. He A Torquere Press Sip - 8

was caught in a nightmare, that was it, but on the off chance it wasn't, he really should leave. Before Patrick could make his body move, Gino reached him. He grabbed the back of Patrick's neck with one strong hand and kissed him, deep and hard. The other hand grabbed Patrick's crotch and rubbed. Patrick's cock had never completely wilted, not even when he'd seen what he thought he'd seen in the water. Between the sudden assault on his mouth and his cock, Patrick forgot all about being scared. He forgot about the possibility of being seen by people he had to work with every day. He rubbed himself against Gino's hand and let Gino plunder his mouth, and before he could think twice, he came. He came so hard he thought he would never stop. Even with the fabric of his suit between his cock and Gino's hand, the electricity Patrick had felt when he shook hands with Gino was nothing like the bright, hot, never-ending ecstasy that shot through him from his cock all the way up his body to short-circuit his brain. Patrick didn't remember when he stopped coming. He didn't remember how he got home. All he remembered when he woke up the next morning, naked and alone in his own bed, was the marvelous dream he'd had about the owner of the restaurant. A dream so good it almost felt real. The dream had certainly made him come in the middle of the night if the stiffness of his sheets was any indication. He kept on telling himself it had only been a dream right up until he picked up his suit to put it in the dry cleaning bag. His trousers had a stain on the front, but more than that. They had the unmistakable outline of a muddy handprint on the crotch, right in the place where he'd dreamed Gino had grabbed him. A Torquere Press Sip - 9

*** Patrick dreamed of Gino every night for a week. Vivid dreams. Erotic dreams. Dreams that made him come so hard and so often that he was beginning to run out of clean sheets. He didn't dream of the Gino who'd talked to him from the water, the thing that had been more creature than anything human, but of the naked man who'd given Patrick the hand job of a lifetime. At first the dreams were more than a little disturbing. Gino did things to Patrick that would have left Patrick humiliated in the waking world. Gino dressed him up in fetish gear, a mask over his head, clamps on his nipples, his wrists and ankles immobilized while his cock hung hard and needy between leather straps as Gino fucked him from behind. Patrick never bottomed, but when dream Gino entered him, Patrick knew he'd never felt such ecstasy in his entire life. In another dream, Gino gagged him, tied him to a frame and hung him upside down, then sucked his cock until Patrick wanted to scream from the sheer torture of the blood pounding in his ears as he came, over and over again. He woke from those dreams dazed and shaken, and he pretended not to see the marks on his wrists when he took his shower. Then the tone of the dreams changed. Gino still fucked him, but he was gentler. Gone were the restraints and the gear. What was left was simply the beautiful man Patrick had met. There was still an edge to the sex - no one in his right mind would call it lovemaking -but Gino seemed to be making an effort to please Patrick, not merely to get himself off. Still, the dreams drained Patrick. His energy level fell A Torquere Press Sip - 10

sharply, and by the end of the week he could barely drag himself out of bed. He was sore and weary and more than a little worried he was losing his mind. He hadn't had these kinds of dreams even when he'd been a horny teenager. The last place Patrick wanted to go was Gino's restaurant, but he was getting desperate. He'd cancelled his meetings on Friday, telling his assistant he was sick. If the dreams kept up, Patrick was in jeopardy of losing his job. He couldn't keep going on like this. The only way to stop dreaming about Gino was to get the man out of his system the old-fashioned way -- a blow job in the men's room. Short and sweet, and with any luck, Patrick could go back to sleeping through the night instead of waking up to stiff, sticky sheets. Patrick arrived at Gino's restaurant around five-thirty, right before the dinner crowd. When he asked for Gino, the girl at the reservations desk told him Gino wasn't in. "He's never in during the day," she said. "He usually gets here around eight, then stays until we close." The hostess, a pretty blonde who no doubt had to fend off advances from every single straight guy who came in the restaurant and a good number of married ones, shared a look with the girl at the reservations desk. "He hasn't been around much this week, though," the hostess said. She held a menu in her hands. "You're welcome to wait. We have a table available on the terrace." Patrick didn't want to sit next to the river. If he was losing his mind, the last thing he needed was to think he saw more impossible things in the water. "I'll just sit at the bar if that's all right," he said. The hostess said that would be fine. Patrick ordered an appetizer off the happy hour menu along with a gin A Torquere Press Sip - 11

and tonic, and prepared to wait. Two drinks and two more appetizers later, Gino finally walked into the bar and sat down on the stool next to Patrick. "Why am I not surprised to find you here?" Gino said. A shiver ran down Patrick's spine. He'd felt Gino enter the bar before he'd even seen the man, and his cock -- his traitorous cock -- was already getting hard. What kind of a hold did this man have on him? Patrick stared resolutely at his drink. "I've been having dreams about you," he said. "Oh?" "Incredibly realistic dreams." Gino put his hand on Patrick's thigh. To Patrick's credit, he didn't flinch. The same electricity was there in Gino's touch, but Patrick thought he must have grown used to it because his cock wasn't quite hard enough to break the zipper on his jeans. Not yet, anyway. "Do you want to tell me about them?" Gino asked. "I think I want to get you out of my head." Gino had been rubbing Patrick's thigh, soft little movements, but at that his hand went as still as stone. "Haven't you enjoyed your dreams?" Patrick made a strangled little sound. "I've enjoyed them too much. I don't want to wake up. I don't want to go to work. I want to stay asleep so the man of my dreams can fuck the shit out of me, although I'm not quite sure 'man' is the appropriate word, and I'm starting to wonder if somewhere along the line I lost my mind because I know how crazy it sounds for me to come in here and ask you to stay out of my dreams." Gino didn't say anything for so long that Patrick wished a hole would open up in the floor and swallow him whole so he wouldn't have to see pity on the face of A Torquere Press Sip - 12

the most beautiful man in the world. "Is that truly what you want?" Gino finally asked. Patrick looked at him then. Gino had asked the question with a perfectly flat tone of voice, but his eyes told a different story. He was hurt. Patrick had spent a week gazing into those eyes while Gino used him, like he was angry at Patrick, and then was kind and gentle with him. Like someone who wanted to make love but didn't quite know how. "I don't want you in my dreams anymore," Patrick said. He covered Gino's hand with his own. "That doesn't mean I want you to stop." Now it was Gino's turn to look away. Patrick considered whether he'd let too much of his own feelings show, but then again, he didn't even know what those feelings were. He was frightened of what he thought he'd seen in the river, and frightened by the realization that Gino seemed to know about the dreams. Things like that weren't supposed to happen in the real world, yet they clearly had. Patrick's world had gotten a hell of a lot bigger in just one week, but he couldn't imagine going back to the way things had been before he'd met Gino. "Just don't hurt me," Patrick said. He swallowed hard. "I feel like if I keep dreaming, pretty soon there won't be any of me left." "I'm not supposed to--" Gino shook his head. "You saw more than you were supposed to see. I reacted badly, and for that, I'm sorry. You deserved more than that, and I tried to make it up to you. I overdid it, I guess." One side of his mouth quirked up. "I wasn't ready to stop being with you." Patrick took a deep breath. "You want to start from the top? I feel like I'm behind the curve here." A Torquere Press Sip - 13

Gino glanced at the bartender. The man was serving drinks at the other end of the bar, but he was clearly within earshot. "How about we got for a walk?" Gino said. "We don't have to go by the river, but I'd like a little more privacy, unless you're worried I'm going to molest you. I know you have no reason to trust me, but I can keep my hands to myself." Patrick considered his options. If he wanted a real explanation, he might as well face all his demons at once. "The river's fine," he said. They didn't hold hands on the short walk down to the water. They sat down on the same bench where Gino had left his Hawaiian shirt only a short week ago. "I spend half my life in there," Gino said, nodding at the river. "The other half out here." The streetlights glinted off the river just like they had the other night. "That was really you in the water?" Patrick said. "Yes." He'd known the answer before he asked the question, but still Patrick felt an odd nervousness settle in his belly. He took a deep breath to steady himself. "Are you a mermaid?" he asked. "Merman?" Was that the right word? Nothing in Patrick's past had prepared him for something like this. Maybe he should have minored in mythology. Gino chuckled. "No. I'm something more wicked than that, or at least I'm supposed to be, according to the legend. I can walk in that part of existence where your subconscious goes when you're asleep. Only unlike you, I can control what I do. What I do there, what my people have always done, is enjoy ourselves with others who are open to the experience." A word swam up from the depths of Patrick's mind A Torquere Press Sip - 14

like a line from the script of a bad horror movie. "You're an incubus?" "Ugly word," Gino said. "But essentially, yes, only without the evil connotations." Patrick didn't know about that. As charming as Gino was now, he'd seemed to take a great deal of pleasure in Patrick's discomfort in the first of the dreams. "You were pretty evil with me there for a while." Gino got very still. He looked down at his hands. "I'm sorry I did that. No one's supposed to see us when we're in the halfway state. I can't hold that form well at night. It's how I spend my days, swimming in the river, staying out of sight. At night, I'm like this. When you touched me the other night, I felt something I've never felt, a connection so strong and so deep..." He shook his head. "I needed to spend time in the water to clear my head. Then you followed me, and you saw me, and I had to make you forget." Patrick blinked. "You thought giving me the best hand job in the world would make me forget you?" Gino glanced at him. "Best in the world, huh?" "Yeah, well... it was still a strange way to try to make me forget." Gino shrugged. "Not my best idea, I admit it, but I thought if I did here what I usually do in the place where you mind goes to dream, that would be it. The connection would have served its purpose, and it would dissolve. That's the way it's always worked before." He glanced up at Patrick, and the vulnerability in his gaze wasn't something Patrick had expected. "I didn't know it would make the connection stronger. I couldn't stay away from you." Patrick's gaze fell to his own wrists. The marks had faded, but the memories were still pretty raw. "If it was a dream, how come..." A Torquere Press Sip - 15

"With you, because of what we did here, the experience was vivid," Gino said. "Things like that carry over from one place to the next." "Vivid." Patrick rubbed at his wrist. "You could say that." Gino sat quietly, and Patrick guessed he was done talking. The silence stretched out between them, but it wasn't an uncomfortable silence. Patrick realized Gino was giving him time to come to terms with everything. Time to decide what to do next. "You started to say something in the bar," Patrick said. "About something you weren't supposed to do, but you never finished the thought. What were you going to say?" Instead of answering right away, Gino bent down and picked up a small rock. He held it in his hand for a moment, and then lobbed it out into the water. It felt with a soft plop. Patrick half expected another -- man? demon? incubus? -- to poke its head up out of the water, but the river flowed on by undisturbed. "We're not supposed to visit people that often," Gino said. "That many times in a row. Humans visit the dream space as a way to rejuvenate themselves. We go there to play. To interact." "To have sex." "To have sex," Gino agreed with a grin. "When we play too often with a person in too short a time, that person can't get the rest he needs. It wears him down. It wore you down. That's why we're supposed to be evil, because we can inadvertently injure people." "And because you have sex," Patrick added. "Yes, well, you'd be surprised how many people who are repressed by day want us to visit them in their dreams." Patrick could believe that. He'd been propositioned A Torquere Press Sip - 16

on the sly more than once by a supposedly straight, outwardly homophobic college classmate. "My people aren't evil," Gino said. "But we aren't perfect. Sometimes we lose control. Do things we're not supposed to do." "Like you did, visiting me too often," Patrick said. "I did, but that's not where I failed." Gino's voice grew soft. "We're never supposed to fall in love, not with a human." The words hit Patrick hard. No one, not one man in his entire life, had ever told Patrick he loved him. "You're in love with me?" Patrick asked. He could hardly get the words out. "I didn't mean to. At first it was just sex, but then?" Gino's dark eyes glittered in the low light, and he sighed and looked down at his hands again. "I'm sorry I hurt you. If you tell me to stop, to leave you alone, I will. I am not an evil being, I hope you believe that. I just wanted you to know why I did what I did. It's a poor excuse, but it's all I've got." Patrick had felt a range of emotions in the past week. Lust and fear and confusion. Humiliation. Tenderness. Want. Need. And now the hollow realization that if he said the word, Gino would leave. The thought of life without Gino brought an ache so sharp that Patrick wondered how he'd ever breathe again. As much as the dreams had confused him, he'd longed for the next one and the next just so he could see Gino's face and experience his touch. Was that love? Patrick had no idea. He'd never been in love. "What if we make love here?" Patrick asked. "Not in dreams, but here. Can we?" "Right here?" Gino asked. Patrick snorted. "Not on the riverbank, but in this... A Torquere Press Sip - 17

plane of reality? I don't know what to call it. It's the only 'here' I know. At least when I'm awake." He tried on a smile. It felt good. Gino smiled back, a tentative smile, but a smile nonetheless. "I don't know. I've never tried it." "Never?" Gino's smile got bigger. "Never met anyone I wanted to try it with. Until now." Patrick stood up and held out his hand. "Why don't you take me to your place and we'll find out." Gino took Patrick's hand and stood up. "Only one problem." He nodded at the river. "This is my place." "You live in the river." "Yes. When I'm not at work." "Where do you keep your clothes?" Stupid question, Patrick knew, but Gino wasn't wearing his Hawaiian shirt tonight. When the world turned on its side, sometimes stupid questions were the first things that came to mind. "I have an office at the restaurant," Gino said. "My clothes are in a cabinet under lock and key." Huh. Patrick wondered how Gino slipped from the restaurant to the river and back again without anyone spotting him, which would be hard to do if he ran naked both ways. Then he realized he was over-thinking things to avoid the real issue: whether he wanted to invite Gino home to his own bed. Of course, when he looked at things inter -- intra? -dimensionally, Gino had already been there. Numerous times. "Well, then," Patrick said. "How about you get a look at my bedroom in the real world?" Gino kissed him. One kiss, quick and almost chaste. "As long as I get back here before dawn." When they got to Patrick's apartment, Gino took a A Torquere Press Sip - 18

long look around. "It looks different here." "Different how?" Patrick asked. "The dream world is part of your subconscious. I can walk there, but things get... distorted." Huh. "Good to know," Patrick said. The Gino of Patrick's dreams was fairly wellendowed. Patrick told himself he wouldn't be disappointed if Gino didn't live up to his dream persona's dimensions. Thankfully, once they were both naked, Patrick realized his dreaming self hadn't needed to distort one bit of Gino's anatomy. They took their time, almost like they were new to each other, but they also had a solid familiarity that took the edge off any potential awkwardness. Patrick showed Gino how to go slow and make the buildup as important as the payoff. Gino showed Patrick how being inventive, including being a willing bottom, was a form of play. During it all, that electric connection Patrick had felt when he'd first touched Gino hummed along in the background, no longer the all-consuming force driving his actions, but more of a pleasant companion that gave everything they did together deeper meaning. When Patrick finally came, it wasn't with the gutwrenching feeling of being wrung out and used up, but with a fulfillment he'd never known. He drifted off to sleep almost immediately with Gino's arms wrapped around him, and he wasn't surprised in the least to find that Gino had followed him into his dreams. Not to make love to him again, but simply to hold him. Patrick wasn't used to being held while he slept, but with Gino, it felt right somehow. Patrick drove Gino back to the river an hour before dawn. They kissed long and hard in the car, and Patrick promised he'd be back at sundown that night. "Make it nine," Gino said, smiling. "I have to get A Torquere Press Sip - 19

some work done some time." Patrick did, too. They'd have to figure out a schedule. Patrick wasn't exactly nocturnal but he could adjust. All he needed were clients who also preferred working nights. Or at least late afternoons. That way he'd have his nights open to spend with Gino. He watched the dark river for a long time after Gino left. Gino had piled his clothes in the back seat of Patrick's car, and instead of walking down the steps, dove off the bridge where Patrick had parked. Gino's form had changed in mid-air, and when he hit the water, it was with the sleek shape of the dark-skinned dolphin Patrick had seen only a week ago. Patrick didn't know how long their relationship would last, but for now, he was happy. He was in love with someone who loved him back. Some people lived their entire lives being loved only in their dreams. He was lucky. He was loved in both worlds. A man couldn't ask for more than that. End. If you liked this book, you might like: Haunted and Billy and the Ghosts.

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Dream Lover Copyright © 2011 by Aaron Michaels All rights reserved. No part of this eBook may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information address Torquere Press, Inc., PO Box 2545, Round Rock, TX 78680 Printed in the United States of America. Torquere Press, Inc.: Sips electronic edition / October 2011 Torquere Press eBooks are published by Torquere Press, Inc., PO Box 2545, Round Rock, TX 78680

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