Title: Just Like You Dreamed
Rating: This is my imagination we're talking about. What do you think?
Summary: Evelyn was having a rather intense dream when she was rudely awakened by Imhotep.
Disclaimer: Oh the things I'd do with a million dollars.
Evelyn slammed the drawer shut a trifle too loudly, and she could hear the Daniels and Henderson in the next room over jump.
"You all right in there, Miss Carnahan?" Henderson asked through the door.
"Quite all right, Mr. Henderson," she replied. "Getting ready for bed, that's all."
"Holler if you need."
Honestly, she wasn't quite sure she would 'holler'. If Imhotep came for her then calling in his next two victims wouldn't do any good, and would quite possibly condemn them. Of course, if the mummy managed to get into her room at all it probably meant the Americans were dead anyway so what good would yelling do? Nobody else could hear her. Besides, she didn't trust the Americans. They weren't bad—Mr. Burns had been quite nice, actually—but she just didn't have the same confidence in them that she had in...
Oh for Heaven's sake, girl. There was absolutely no use in fantasizing about someone who obviously didn't feel the same way. A contract, he'd called her! As if he hadn't helped her up after the recoil from the shotgun knocked her clean off her feet, his fingers surprisingly soft and gentle as he'd checked for damage. Oh, yes, quite all right to hold a woman in your arms all tall and strong and handsome but when the time came to actually help her out with something...
Although he was tracking down Imhotep now, wasn't he? Surely—oh damn it all!
Sleep. She needed some sleep, that was all. She was tired and over-excited, her nerves all strung out from Burns and Imhotep and being a human sacrifice. It was enough to make anyone irritable.
Evelyn settled herself into bed, relaxing into the sheets. The Egyptians certainly knew their cotton, and she'd never felt as comfortable as when she was in her own bed. She even wore her favorite nightgown, just to give herself a boost of confidence. It showed off her figure quite nicely, she thought, and it wasn't like anyone was going to see it. And if they did, well, they'd probably be too busy worrying about whatever danger had struck next rather than her choice of attire.
She closed her eyes, took a deep breath and—
Someone knocked at the door.
Evelyn opened one eye, huffing. It was probably Henderson wanting to check in again. The man was quite determined to be a gentlemen—most likely to get on O'Connell's good side. For some ungodly reason Henderson seemed rather impressed with the man. Of course it was hard to blame him, what with O'Connell's quick-thinking and gunslinging skills and brash manner of—
The knock came again.
"I'm trying to sleep, if it's not too much trouble," Evelyn called out.
"Evelyn."
She sat up straight. That was O'Connell. Not only was it him, though, he sounded quite worried. She had heard him take Jonathan with him to save the Egyptologist...
Oh no. Not Jonathan.
Evelyn hurried out of bed and over to the door before realizing it was locked from the outside thanks to a certain beastly, cocky, meddling adventurer. So instead she stood up tall, squared her shoulders, and tried to ignore the fact that she was wearing, well, a scrap of silk and not much else.
"Come in."
Rick O'Connell stepped quietly into the room, closing the door behind him. He looked just as good as she remembered. Damn it.
"You all right?" He seemed oddly concerned, his voice gentler than usual.
"Of course I'm all right. I've been locked in my room against my will for several hours." Evelyn tried to read his expression. "Is everything all right? Is it… is it Jonathan?"
Rick glanced back at the closed door, an amused look in his eyes. "You're brother's just fine. Shaken up a bit, but I got him back in one piece. He's having some bourbon with Henderson and Daniels down at the bar."
"Are you sure that's safe?"
"Sure. More people around, the less likely dead and juicy's going to show up." Rick sobered. "He got the Egyptologist."
"Oh dear."
"You can say that." Rick sighed, his hand unconsciously twitching toward his gun. "You sure you're all right?"
"Why wouldn't I be?"
"Okay, look," Rick scrubbed a hand over his face. "I'm not good at this. Words coming out of mouths thing. Talking."
"Yes, I've noticed."
"But you just make it worse. Every damn thing out of my mouth is the wrong thing to say to you, and then you storm off in a huff or go off on one of your speeches before I get a chance to even unscramble my thoughts so if we're going to do this then you're going to stand still and keep quiet for a second, okay?"
"What are we doing, exactly?"
"Well, I'm trying to apologize."
This was quite the new development. Evelyn kept silent, as per instructions. Rick slipped off his holster rig and set it down, giving himself the time to think before turning back to her.
"I was a little angry with you about the waking a 3,000-year-old walking plague guy," he admitted. "But I don't want you to think—I'm not—this isn't your fault, okay? You didn't know—who thinks that reading something like that could actually work, y'know? I'll stand by my instincts, I sensed evil out there, but I didn't think for a second that a mummy could be brought back to life. And I think I might have made you feel that way and… look, I'm all about survival, okay? Treasure brings you trouble so I was never in it for that. I'm all about keeping alive. So my first instinct was to run from this guy. But I—I guess what I'm—look, I didn't just say 'we' needed to get out of here for nothing, okay?"
Evelyn thought back to their argument earlier that day while he was trying to make her pack. She hadn't thought about it at the time because of the constant we vs. I issue, but he had indeed said that, "we are getting out of here."
Interesting.
"I'm not quite sure what you're saying," She told him. He opened his mouth and she held up her hand to stop him. "I understand the apology, and I accept it, but the last part. The 'we'. What did you mean?"
Rick fidgeted. Rick O'Connell, hardened adventurer, was fidgeting like a schoolboy caught pulling his classmate's braids. "I meant that you—we—I… damn it all Evie, don't you get it?"
"Get what?" She thought she might be starting to understand, but she wasn't about to let him off the hook.
And when had they started standing so closely, anyway? He was barely an inch away from her and she could feel the ghost of his breath on her forehead. If she was to raise her hand, it would brush his chest—like it had when he'd held her after the Medjai attack.
"I wanted you to come with me," he admitted. His voice was incredibly low now, and she had to strain to hear it. "I wanted to get out of there, to be safe, but I wanted… I wanted you to be safe, too. With me."
His mouth was hovering over hers now, and she thought she felt the brush of fingers at her elbow.
"You were never just a contract, Evie. You're a hell of a lot more than that."
Say what you will about him, but that man could kiss. Evelyn's own experiences were too disappointing and few to even bother mentioning, but her lack of expertise didn't seem to matter. She could feel her knees going weak as he kissed her, slowly and deeply, and she knew she was going to end up on the floor but before her legs could buckle completely he had an arm at her lower back, steadying her and keeping her upright. It also did a marvelous job of pressing their bodies together, her small, soft one against his tall, solid one. She shivered, feeling like she'd been missing out all of these years. But then, she hadn't had Rick O'Connell during that time.
She had no idea how long they stood there like that, trading kisses until they were both making little noises of pleasure (she didn't even know you could do that with a tongue), but eventually he picked her up and started carrying her towards the bed. It wasn't at all like when he'd hoisted her over his shoulder earlier. They were still facing each other, for one thing, which meant they could keep kissing, but he was also holding her so gently. It was like back after the raid when his hands had been at her waist and elbows, large and rough but filled with tenderness.
It was at this point that she realized she was in grave danger of turning into a romantic sap.
Only once she was laid out on the bed did he stop kissing her. She felt a mewl of protest work its way out of her throat—without permission, she might add—but he didn't look like he wanted to stop. He looked rather nervous, actually, which surprised her. Surely he'd had plenty of experience before, a handsome wanderer like him. She wasn't jealous. She had a past he held no part in, and it was true the other way around.
"Are you sure about this?" He asked her.
He had slowly worked her into a kind of quiet frenzy and now he was asking if she was sure about this?
Sometimes men were quite stupid.
Instead of answering she yanked his head back down, kissing him with every ounce of energy and experience that she could muster. He made a strangled noise in the back of his throat but kissed her back eagerly, his body slowly lowering so that he was on top of her. It was a little uncomfortable to have her legs under his like that so she spread them, making his legs settle between hers. Rick groaned into her mouth, the vibrations making her shiver deliciously. Even without the noise, though, she knew he was interested. His pants didn't do the best job of concealing things, not when every inch of them was pressed together like this. She imagined what was to come and smiled in anticipation, carding her fingers through his hair. His hands appeared to be everywhere, stroking and palming every inch of her, waking up her long-dormant skin cells so that they danced with pleasurable heat.
"Evie, do you—"
"Trust me," She whispered. He mouthed at her jaw and she tipped her head back to give him better access, her breath coming quick and unevenly. "I want this, want you, Rick…"
She felt him grin against her skin. "I knew you remembered that night."
She hummed. She hadn't wanted to admit it at the time but yes, she remembered every second of that little drunken escapade. He'd behaved like a perfect gentlemen, not taking advantage of her and settling her into bed when she'd passed out, but she hadn't wanted to say anything because, well, she'd felt like an idiot.
Although she was proud of being a librarian.
"Of course I remember, Rick." She said it again, just for the fun of it. He raised his head and she could see his pupils dilating, overtaking the warm brown of his irises. "The question is, can you get me to scream it?"
She'd known those romance novels would come in handy some time, no matter what Jonathan said.
Rick kissed her again and she moaned, feeling him thrust gently against her. She ran her hands over his back, bunching the cloth up in her fists. She wanted it off, wanted the clothes gone so there was nothing but skin on skin, wanted him in her, wanted more, more more—
Slowly, she became aware that the kiss felt different. It felt… Odd? There wasn't an exact word that she could think of to describe it, she just knew that it was off. Something wasn't right. She couldn't feel the rest of Rick, either, his body as insubstantial as air. And her limbs felt heavy, so heavy, like she was swimming up from somewhere deep in the ocean...
Evelyn opened her eyes and realized two things at the same time. One, she had been asleep, which meant that she had been dreaming. Second, and more pressing, was that she was being kissed by none other than Imhotep.
No offense meant (all right, maybe a little offense meant) but her dream-Rick was a much better kisser than the mummy.
She tried to scream and seriously considered biting his tongue in half (oh dear, that was technically Burns' tongue, the poor man) when the door to the room burst open. Imhotep pulled back and she screamed properly, scrambling back against the headboard and sitting up. She was going to have to wash her mouth with soap to get that horrid musty taste out.
"Hey!"
Imhotep and Evelyn both turned to look at the intruder and her heart soared. It was Jonathan and Rick. The former looked scared witless but the second was nothing short of ferocious.
"Get your filthy mouth offa her!"
Imhotep said something that, if translated, held a lot of rather nasty swear words, and stood up threateningly. Rick just grinned. "Hey, look what I got!"
Cleo, Evelyn's cat, hissed menacingly in Rick's hands. Imhotep gave a cry and whirled out of the room in a blur of sand, knocking her clean off the bed and sending her tumbling to the other side. Once the sand cleared Cleo scampered off, looking rather proud of herself. Evelyn looked over at Rick and huffed, blowing some of her hair out of her face.
And it had been such a pleasant dream, too.
"You okay?" Rick asked.
"Not sure," Jonathan answered, breathing heavily.
Rick slowly turned to level a deadpan glare at her brother before striding over to her, holding his hand out to help her up. "You okay?" He repeated, his voice soft and low.
She nodded, accepting his assistance as she stood. To her surprise she ended up back in his arms, rather like after the Medjai attack. His touch was as warm and gentle as she remembered.
"Serves me right," Rick muttered. "I shouldn't have let you out of my sight."
She felt his grip on her tighten just the slightest bit, and the thought hit her that she had no idea what she would have done if he hadn't burst into the room. What would Imhotep have done? Stopped at kissing her or dared to try for more? Attempted to carry her off, or just killed her then and there?
Evelyn lowered her head to Rick's chest, focusing on her breathing. The feeling of his chest rising and falling was soothing somehow, and she let herself revel in it.
There was the sound of running footsteps and she raised her head just in time to see Daniels burst into the room, breathing hard.
"I heard some noises and—what happened here?" The American looked around. "Where's Henderson?"
Jonathan pointed solemnly at the floor in the other room, and Evelyn felt her heart sink.
"He got the Egyptologist too," Jonathan admitted.
Daniels' face was a study in terror. With the other three dead, he was the last one left—not only of his friends, but of the victims. After a moment the American steadied himself and looked over at Rick and Evelyn. "What happened to you two?"
Evelyn became painfully aware of how she and Rick were pressed together, her head on his chest and her hands gripping at him, his arms wound around her. She knew how it must look, but a part of her didn't care.
"She had a bit of a close call," Rick said, stepping away from her. She missed his warmth at once. "We'd better get to the museum, wouldn't you say?"
Evelyn realized that he was looking at her. "Yes," She replied. "We should."
As they all trooped out, Rick never going any farther than her elbow, Evelyn cast a glance back at her bed and let a sigh escape her.
It really had been a marvelous dream.
"Hey, Evelyn?"
"Hmm?" She looked back at Rick.
"About what I said earlier, the whole leaving thing…" Her dream hadn't dared conjure up the bashful look now gracing his features. "You're not—you never were just a contract."
Evelyn smiled. Dreams were nice and all, but the reality was often just as good.
ARGH these two need to stop being adorable! Seriously!