Nightcap. Kathleen O'Reilly

fading. “I could have sworn that you were Margaret. You look just like her. Are you sure you’re not playing a trick on me? Margaret plays tricks on me.”

      Cleo sat down on her mother’s bed, tucking the duvet around her. “No, Mom. Get some sleep.”

      “Could I have some hot tea? And maybe some cookies? Sugar cookies.”

      “I’m not sure that we have any.”

      Then Rachel Hollings mouth pursed into a tight line, and Cleo shook her head in defeat.

      “Give me a little bit of time, Mom, and I’ll make some for you,” she said. “Do you want to watch a movie while I make them for you?”

      “That would be nice. Something cheery. Maybe Doris Day or Lauren Bacall. Did you know that Lauren Bacall lives down the block from me? Nice, nice, woman, always says hello when she gets her meat from the butcher.”

      Cleo put on a DVD and went to the kitchen and made some cookies and tea for her mother. An hour and half later, they were done, her mother deeply engrossed in The Philadelphia Story.

      While Katherine Hepburn was laughing it up onscreen, Cleo climbed in next to her mother and watched her drink her tea and happily munch on the sugar cookies, which Cleo had made exactly like her mother had taught her. One extra teaspoon of almond extract. The Hollings’s secret sugar cookie recipe.

      At the end of the day, these few moments were what counted most to Cleo. When she sat here, in the faded shadow of her mother, it felt right and warm, and she wouldn’t let anyone take that away from her. Here, time was the enemy. No one could live forever. Gradually, her mother’s eyes turned drowsy.

      “I love you, Cleo,” her mother told her, and Cleo felt her heart clutch, just like it always had from the time she was a little girl. Not many people loved Cleo, but her mother did, even when she couldn’t recognize her. Cleo had always been a little too focused, a little too hard, a little too strong, but her mother’s love was unconditional, even under the strain of Alzheimer’s. The heart always recognized what the head refused to acknowledge.

      “I love you, Mom,” she told her, kissing her on the forehead. Finally, she changed into pajamas and set her alarm clock for seven. Five hours of sleep.

      Five brief hours of dream-filled sleep, drifting in and out of consciousness. Cleo promised herself that when her eyes were closed and the moon was waxing low on the Hudson, they counted as dreams, uncontrollable dreams that couldn’t be prevented.

      She wasn’t alone in her dreams. She wasn’t lonely in her dreams. She wasn’t even sleepy in her dreams. Wide awake, aware, waiting for him to touch her. He always watched her with dark eyes, heated dark eyes that made her wet with a look. His hands went to her shirt, flicking open the buttons there, and she wanted him to go faster, she insisted he go faster, but he put a finger against her lips, shushing her demands with soft laughter.

      Such a cocky bastard, to mock her like that. He would pay, she thought, and lust stirred inside her at the idea of it.

      She pulled his finger into her mouth and sucked hard. He stopped laughing, and dragged her closer, until they were chest to chest, her shirt hanging uselessly aside. She loved the feel of his chest against hers, chest hair rubbing against her nipples, so marvelously coarse, such delightful textures. The hard steel of muscle, the smooth, sleek skin.

      His mouth covered hers, starting gently but exploring and tasting, his fingers tangling in her hair, fusing her mouth to his. He tasted like champagne. He always tasted like champagne, bubbling and going to her head. Cleo slid her hands down over him, sliding over the strong ridges of his back, down lower, over his butt, so taut, so perfect for her hands.

      He moaned into her mouth, his hips locked to hers, and she could feel him between her legs. So large, so marvelously large. She rocked against him, purring as she moved, because soon, very very soon…He couldn’t wait long. The heavy weight that was pressing between her legs was testament to that fact.

      His lips moved to her neck, over her shoulder, tempting her with a soft press, a languid lick. Cleo didn’t like languid, she wanted something much more tangible. “Take me,” she whispered. “Take. Me.”

      For a moment, he raised his head, stared, and she could feel the heat emanating from him. He was burning up with it. “You’re not ready yet,” he whispered, lowering his head to her breasts. Tasting her with his mouth.

      His mouth pulled at the tender flesh of her nipple, sucking there. At each pull of his mouth, an answering shock of heat fired between her legs, and she wanted to feel him there, not these transitory pulses that merely fueled her desire.

      Her legs slid against the flannel sheets, back and forth, but it didn’t ease the ache inside her and when she heard the morning sounds of the city outside, she knew he was gone. It was a dream, unfulfilled wants conjuring up a trickster in her head. A man who teased, tormented and then disappeared before she had found her release.

      So unfair.

      Still, her sighs had been real. She had heard her own staggered breathing and if she tried hard, very hard, she could smell the shadow of his cologne. And in that moment, she believed.

      Cleo opened her eyes, blinked against the darkness. She was alone.

      Sure enough, it had been nothing more than a dream.