Jessica signed with satisfaction. Finally, she was in his arms.
He leaned down and looked at her, his face blurred by the dim light in the cabin but his eyes shining like stars.
Jessica was breath-taken by his sculptured face, and drunken by his mysterious ocean-like scent.
The decadent wooden cabin was suddenly cozy now that she was pressed into his chest.
She could hear his heartbeats alongside the chirping of the bugs outside and simply felt like melting into him.
As his lips dropped on hers, she closed her eyes, a shot of heat jolting from inside her body which was now lying limp in his firm embrace.
Yes, she had been waiting for this moment for so long that she was now literally aching for him, for his touch, for his warmth, for his weight on her, for his full possession of her, and more...
"Beep...Beep...Beep..."
An alarm was set off and jolted Jessica out of her dream.
Her eyes shot wide open, and she stared up at the beige-painted ceiling, feeling disoriented and at a loss as to where she was at the moment.
The alarm was set off again.
She turned abruptly and saw the bright sunlight outside the window.
"Oh crap!" She shot out of bed and ran to the washroom.
"Oh no! Oh no! Oh no!" She kept mumbling to herself while washing up and getting dressed.
So much with the plan of doing nice makeup and looking fabulous for her first day to work. She would be lucky if she didn't smell her dinner last night.
She took a quick look at herself in the mirror to make sure that she was at least presentable before she shot out of her flat. It didn't matter. She was just a low-rank ordinary office girl so nobody would take notice of her.
When she finally got to the office, it was already 5 minutes past 9:00 a.m., the official time for the start of a regular workday.
She tried hard not to pant, and to sneak to her cubicle, thinking that nobody would notice.
"There you are!" A thunderous voice came and literally made Jessica shake for a brief moment. She stopped dead in her tracks.
Her manager Mr. Halt was planted right in front of her, blocking her way to her cubicle. For a brief moment, Jessica felt like running past him and disappeared into somewhere less embarrassing.
He grinned at her brightly and said, "I thought you might have decided at the last moment not to come work for us and I would have to start looking for another newbie. Glad you saved me the trouble."
Jessica smiled an awkward smile back and felt her back burning with stares from co-workers around in the office.
What a wonderful start to her new job!
Luckily, Mr. Halt didn't try a new joke. He simply showed her to May who was sitting next to her cubicle and said, "May would brief you about things you need to know for the first day and we'll start from there."
Both Jessica and May nodded and stood waiting until Mr. Halt disappeared into his office.
Jessica stuck out her tongue and smiled coyly at May, "Sorry for the trouble."
May smiled thinly back, "Alright, let's get down to it." She looked like she didn't want to waste any time making friends.
Jessica's smile froze and she mentally reminded herself that this was just work, not a place to make friends.
Several girls around eyed her now and then, and whispered to each other.
"She looks like she's dressed for jogging instead of work."
"Late on the first day? I wonder if she's a 'friend' of some big man in the company."
"She does look pretty but do you see that silly smile of hers? Ugh!"
...
Jessica was somehow pissed, but not sure if at herself or at them. She sat down and started going through the documents May had shown her.
Not sure how much time passed when she felt like some coffee. She grabbed her mug and ran toward the pantry, or at least, a corner that looked like the pantry to her.
May called out, "hey where ya going?"
It was too late. She literally crashed into him who was there stirring his coffee with a stick. The coffee sloshed and some got to his hand.
"Ouch! What the..." He cried out and looked up at her, before he paused. The annoyance on the man's face dissipated. They've finally hired a nice-looking one.
Jessica said hastily, "I'm sorry but I ..."
She stopped dead and was petrified.
Standing there right in front of her, tall and handsome and live in real life, was the man she had been dreaming of almost every night for the past months and who had finally kissed her last night, in her dream also.
She blushed and stammered, "You...I...So it's you! In the cabin, we were..."
She had been wondering why she could dream a man so vividly with all the details, especially the way he looked, moved, felt, and smelled. So there was a real-life version of him?
But he did look slightly different. Not his face or physique, which seemed exactly the same as the man in her dream, but the way he was dressed and carrying himself.
He was in a suit nicely tailored to his slender and tall body, unlike the exotic outfit the man in her dream was always in.
And he looked at ease, even a bit languid as if bored, unlike the always alert and agile looking McDreamy.
But he also smelled nice, as Jessica could faintly detect his scent from where she stood. It was serene, slightly musky and woody, like morning dew on the grass blades still smelling the mysterious night before and yet also the brightness and dawn of a new day.
He looked at her intently, "were we? Tell me about it."
After that, he suddenly smiled a very faint smile and looked at her with interest.