A/N: This chapter may seem a little different, but I liked it. :P Comments and shared thoughts are my favorite thing in the world. :P
There's a field of blue flowers spread about before him, creeping up the edge of a mysterious looking forrest. He can see the tops of trees scraping at the sky, swaying gently as the wind blows them to and fro. The blooms come up to Danny's chest as he wades through the thick growth, each cluster of petals the size of his head. When the silken flowers brush against his arms and neck little sparks of electricity tingle across his skin. It's not an unpleasant sensation, in fact the lingering warmth leads him to seek out the bobbing flowers.
The scent is like nothing he's ever encountered, an opiate that he can't get enough of. His breathing gets deeper and deeper as he struggles to sate the desire for more. It seems to be getting stronger the further he walks across the field, even though the flowers themselves are growing more and more scarce. He passes out of the field, the gently undulating canopy sheltering him as he enters the forest, his heart thumping in his chest as the sunshine filtering through the leaves becomes weaker.
Just as he's certain all the flowers are gone, he breaks into a circular clearing, an emerald green carpet of grass about twenty feet in diameter. Right at the center is another flower, this one impossibly huge, sun glowing from the opening above. Petals hang down like curtains fluttering in the breeze.
His hands seek out the electrified warmth, fingertips brushing against the bright blue. It's not a flower though, the silken petals are some sort of gossamer fabric that slides like water against his skin. That's when he sees them, perfect little toes peeking out from beneath the lowest hanging sheet of fabric.
His fingers draw back the fabric, and it comes to life, floating away from the form nestled at its heart. She's bare to him, arms outstretched in invitation, all smooth skin and soft floating hair. He can feel desire pulsing through him, and there's nothing he wants more than to cross the meager space between them and sink into her.
But when he moves closer to her he realizes she's just out of reach, hanging above him suspended in a sunbeam.
When Danny wakes, the room is pitch black and his nose is buried in something soft that smells like lavender. The latent desire thrumming through his limbs makes him curl into the warmth, contentedly breathing in the aroma. A round and gently yielding surface is under his palm, heat zinging through his fingers. Some primal part of his brain knows exactly what he's feeling, and responds to it, desire coiling dangerously in the pit of his stomach.
His eyes shoot open, and within seconds he's up and out of the bed, hands safely away from his traveling companion's posterior. She sleeps through Danny's moment of panic, and he breathes a long sigh of relief before stumbling into the bathroom.
The last thing he needs right now is to become entangled with some strange transient woman. His life is a mess as it is.
Everything might look golden from the outside, but he constantly feels like he's mere moments from flying apart, pieces of him flying into oblivion. Back in New York he yells at delivery boys for being five minutes late, berates his interns for making mistakes that he knows are understandable, and he even once made a barista cry for putting whole fat milk in his coffee. There's something wrong deep inside of him, an elastic band around his heart, squeezing at him so tightly that he's sometimes afraid of cardiac arrest. The unexpected call from his father last week had pulled at it until it snapped.
Trust Alan to ignore the time difference, waking Danny at midnight with the sharp trill the landline. The conversation had been short, and Danny was nearly mute by the end of it, listening to his father's supplication for forgiveness with stony stoicism.
It has been a front, crying like a child as soon as the receiver once again lay in its cradle. Danny sat motionless on the edge of his bed, tears flowing out of him for the first time in over a decade. Once the levees broke, there was little he could do to stop the flood. Hours later he was still weak, lying in the middle of his king size bed all alone, everything around him tinged at the edges with gray.
The memory fades slightly as he watches himself in the mirror. He feels like other men wouldn't have reacted so strongly to such a simple thing, but he could hear the decrepitude in his father's voice, and all the lost years are tinder fueled Danny's anger and his tears. He's still a mess, but his plan to drive across the country and break his father's nose with one good bone crunching wallop seems to hold him together for now.
Shedding his clothes, he steps into the shower, ready to wash away the flop sweat and grime of the road. The bathroom is still humid, and the scent of lavender lingering in the air is too reminiscent of his strange dream. It's not hard to imagine her in here, naked but for the foamy bubbles clinging to her slick skin, his dream filling in the gaps of his carnal knowledge. He just so happens to have his hand around his dick when the images flash into his mind, and he turns his face upwards into the cascade of hot water. His imagination has never hurt anyone, so he leans into it, stroking himself as he pictures her running her hands up and over the gentle curves of her body.
It's been so long since he's indulged in this base need that his quick finish is only mildly surprising, although the intensity of it leaves him panting and leaning his forehead against the shower tile. As always, he's immediately flooded with a frustrating combination of guilt and relief, the hot flush on his cheeks only partially caused by the water still running over him.