“Oh no, I’m going to be late! Why didn’t I wake up with the alarm?”

Of course, she knew why. The question was really more of a frustrated statement than an actual query, especially since the answer was already part of the dream, she just had…

Dee dreamed of him. And she’s feeling a lot of embarrassment about it.

Even more so since she liked the dream.

Extremely liked it…

So, as she continued to rush about prepping for her cooking time at four in the morning while the whole house was still asleep, she allowed herself a few moments to remember her dream.

And she felt her face flush even more at the memory…

+++

The widow found herself outside the house, somewhere in the forest that seemed unfamiliar to her. That should have given her a clue that she was just dreaming. But then, everything felt so real.

The smells… the coldness… the sounds… the full moon’s glow illuminating everything, even allowing her to see the muted colors of the trees and bushes in the darkness…

All of it was beautiful, so she started walking through the foliage, trying to look for anything familiar which she could use to find her way back to her house. Then, from the corner of her eye, she saw something move…

“Well, hello there, Miss Diwana. What are you doing out here in the middle of the night?”

Diwana turned towards the smooth, charming voice and came face to face with the handsome, hazel-eyed city-boy-turned-logger who was now smiling at her. Despite the darkness, she could almost see some sort of glow coming from him, and the same feeling of safety and security that she had felt from him before was also overwhelming her now…

Along with all that came, from her loins, the same newfound warmth that both pleasured and puzzled her.

And this time, it was stronger.

“I… I don’t know… The last thing I remember, I was at home… in bed… was about to fall asleep, and then I…”

As she looked downwards, partially due to her wanting to avoid his intense stare, and felt herself blush even more…

She was wearing one of her thin, short, silky nightgowns, which hugged her large, full breasts tightly while exposing her smooth, curvy thighs. To her horror, due to the cold, her nipples were now taut and hardened enough that they were leaving seductive-looking impressions on her gown.

Diwana’s arms instinctively drew up to her chest, in an effort to hide her exposed “features,” but Eron mistook it for something else.

“Oh, are you feeling cold? You shouldn’t have left your home without a coat, or a robe at least,” the concerned man said as he removed his leather jacket and wrapped it around her. “Well, at least you wore shoes.”

She couldn’t help but join his low chuckles with her own melodic giggle. He just had a way of making her laugh…

And much more.

“Miss, do you mind if I just bring you somewhere safe? I don’t want to leave you like this in the middle of the woods.”

“I normally can find my way around here, but all these seem so out of place. None of these trees or rocks or paths are familiar to me.”

“That’s odd, then. But if you’ll let me, I can bring you somewhere you’ve been before.”

“Alright, I would love that. Thank you.”

His smile, for her, seemed to light up the darkness like the sun. Her own smile was as warm as his, too, and she hoped it made their walk a little less awkward.

But as she walked two steps forward, her foot got lodged in a large root that was above ground. Her fault, since she kept looking at the muscled man beside her.

Diwana gave a short scream as she fell, and a pair of strong, well-defined arms swiftly caught her, holding her close…

And a beautiful man’s face was now bowed over hers, his breath warming her mouth, their lips merely inches away from each other. Her own breathing seemed to have stopped completely, though.

“Diwana…”

“E-Eron…”

“I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to… disrespect you… in any way…”

“You didn’t… You haven’t... You aren’t…”

She could smell him, his natural scent so inviting to her.

She could feel him, his hands warm and her skin tingling from his touch.

She could almost taste him, and she couldn’t stop herself anymore, so she brought her head up to his…

And kissed him deeply.

His mouth immediately responded to hers, his tongue immediately searching for her own. Their lips locked eagerly, hungrily, even while their hands started to touch cheeks, hair, shoulders...

Diwa didn’t remember how or where she ended up on a soft mattress inside a tent, but that was exactly where she saw she was once she opened her eyes. Meanwhile, Eron was still on top of her, but he was already looking down at her with fire in his eyes.

And he was already shirtless.

She gasped, not because she felt fear at seeing him like this, but because she felt extreme admiration at the view she was now enjoying. His beautiful, sinewy body was in its full glory just inches away from her, and her hands moved instinctively to touch those well-defined abs and bulging chest.

He inhaled sharply and closed his eyes at her touch. She watched in fascination at the pleasured, impassioned look on this desirable man’s face, even as her hands continued to travel down his torso and towards his belt… his jeans… his zipper…

Diwana heard him growl low, his chest rumbling with the sound, as her hand settled on the bulge that was tenting Eron’s pants. She took this as his way of agreeing to what she wanted to do next, so she pulled down his zipper and put her soft, gentle hand inside the opening…

And Eron stiffened at her touch, then did the unthinkable…

He howled!

That’s when Diwa woke up to the Silent Hill siren ringtone of her phone. And it seemed she had hit the snooze button three times already.

How she did that, she still didn’t know.

+++

Once again, the same ringtone resounded in the kitchen, where she was now working fully on her cooking. It was giving her the reminder that she needed to be finished prepping her dishes and pastries by now and should be already dressing up. Unfortunately, she still needed half an hour to complete her preparations, and she hated her ringtone even more for the stressful reminder.

“I really should choose another melody soon. I don’t want to wake up with that kind of ending to my dream just because of a damned ringtone,” the flustered woman muttered to herself as she scooped up her chicken macaroni cream soup into individual serving packs.

“Hey Diwa, are you ok? You look all red and rushed.”

Diwana swiftly looked up to see Erica at the entrance of the kitchen, rubbing one of her eyes with her right hand as she looked towards the almost-finished preparation. The troubled surrogate mom smiled in relief, trying to find an excuse to give to the concerned teen and at the same time asking for some assistance.

“Oh Erica, so glad you’re here. Yes, red and rushed because I will be late if I don’t get dressed now. Can you take charge of packing all of these while I take a bath and get myself ready? Pretty please…”

“Say no more. Go go go go! I’ll take care of this,” the teenager replied while tying her long, naturally frizzy black hair in a tight ponytail, even as pushed Dee out into the hall. “Good thing you don’t use makeup or you’d take longer dressing up, hahaha!”

The beautiful but sweaty woman laughed a little at her ward’s last statement before rushing towards her bedroom, where she had her own private bathroom, complete with its own bathtub. Of course, she only used the shower this time because she needed to be ready within half an hour if she was to get to the lumberyard in time for their breakfast.

Inside the shower, as she soaped herself, she couldn’t help but remember parts of the dream again, the image of those large caressing hands touching her all over. With all her might, she stopped herself from thinking and went on mindlessly with her bath. Diwa did not want to be late…

Nor weakened by a wrongly timed orgasm.

+++

As Erica finished placing all the wrapped pastries and single-serve dishes into her surrogate mom’s woven native basket and eco-bag, she heard a hurried knocking on the back door. Normally, they kept that door unlocked the whole day and secured it only at night.

It was the door that most of the neighbors used to get into the house, and since everyone was a long-time friend of the widow, they could just come and go as they pleased.

“Looks like Dee was in so much of a hurry, she completely forgot to unlock it. She normally would do that before she started cooking,” the young lass mumbled to herself as she walked over to the other end of the kitchen where the door was.

As she opened the door, a woman in her early thirties eagerly barged through the doorway and immediately started talking the minute she stepped into the villa’s threshold.

“Oh my gosh, Erica, did you hear? There’s a new shitty werewolf story going around! Someone stuck a picture of large footprints from an unknown location up in the mountains on our town hall bulletin board! Those things did not look human and are so fucking huge!” the slim and tall amber-eyed lady exclaimed as she flipped her long, loosely tied tresses back from her face.

“Whoa, easy on the curse words, Ma’am Leena… and… wait... what… Did you just say werewolves?”

The visitor, who was actually one of Diwana’s fans when it comes to cooking, nodded briskly and continued her story, now at the speed of forty words per minute…

“Yes, and no one is talking about the picture. No one seems to know about it, too! It just showed up in the town hall, mysterious-like. Also, no one had admitted to being attacked by wolves these days so it’s unclear if that picture even happened nearby or somewhere else.”

Erica hurried back to her almost-finished food packing, Leena right behind her, as she gave her thoughts about the news. “I’m not sure about what to think about that, Miss Leena. After all, this town used to be a tourist attraction for werewolves, until it was proven to be a fraud created by our last mayor. I was just a little child back then when it happened, but I do remember my mother’s stories about that.”

“Yes, that the mayor ran off and disappeared after his ‘hoax’ was exposed,” Leena answered as she sat on one of the kitchen’s island stools, her amber eyes wide. “That he wanted to make money out of the werewolf legends of our village and even hired goons to dress up like wolves and were sent to attack travelers and even homes.”

“Let’s not forget about the fake videos and photos that he leaked to the media,” the slightly chubby teenager added eagerly. “That actually was his biggest mistake because it’s also the media that showed the true nature of his schemes. Too bad, he was never prosecuted.”

“Yup, just took his money and ran. Good riddance! But with this new story about werewolves going around, could it be that someone’s trying to revive that tourist scam once again? Or maybe, we really did have werewolves here, one time or another?”

"What on earth are you ladies talking about so early in the morning? Did I just hear you say werewolves?”

Both females in the kitchen looked up at the still wet-haired speaker that had just entered the room. The older one jumped off her seat and rushed towards the woman in the short, lilac sundress.

“Oh my gosh, Dee, you need to hear what I’m about to tell you before you go to the lumberyard…” the brownish-blond-haired visitor eagerly piped up, intent on not letting her friend leave without hearing her out.