Gently so he wouldn’t wake her, he pulled the silk away and sat back on his haunches to take her all in.
Long, smooth, tanned. A golden goddess with hair of pure silk and emerald eyes. He longed to see her eyes glaze over with pleasure, but deep inside he knew he’d lose her if she raised her dark eyelashes.
He’d lose himself.
He was already lost. For her.
He painted a trail with his tongue around one of her nipples, then blew cold breath on it and watched it rise as though seeking his touch. He couldn’t resist such a request. He leaned over her, cupped both her breasts, and kneaded the full flesh, enjoying how well it filled his palms. He’d held her tits before, felt their weight.
She looped one leg around his and pushed against the floor with the other, rolling them over so she straddled him.
“Ride me,” he whispered.
She ducked her head. Brow furrowed in concentration, she raised and lowered herself around him. Her measured movements drove him mad with lust.
Her long hair cascaded down her breasts and tickled his chest. Lovely as it smelled, he wanted it out of the way. He brushed it back and half rose so he could suck one distended nipple between his lips. He worried the rosy bud with his teeth until she gasped.
“I’m almost there.”
He crawled between Alice’s legs and gently draped them over his shoulders. He’d wanted to do this the moment he’d seen her bare and glistening with evidence of her arousal.
He shouldn’t have accepted her invitation for a thank-you drink. He was late—should leave right now, really—but he wanted to soak up every second he could with this gorgeous woman who had a contagious laughter and no sofa.
He glanced at his watch. She would be mad. It would be the last time he’d need to see her that way.
“I can come another time,” he called out. He didn’t know where she’d gone. The kitchen was across from him, but she’d disappeared somewhere behind him.
“Don’t you want to come before you go?”
He swiveled toward her voice as fast as his position on the floor allowed.
She stood right behind him, pushing her shorts down with both hands. “I give great ‘thank-you’s.’”
He remembered licking his fingers to find out how she tasted. He remembered more about her than he did about himself, and he knew all he needed to figure out was how—
He closed his eyes, expecting pain, but instead got a void of memory. There was something important just beyond his reach…
He wouldn’t focus on that. His full attention belonged to the divine woman spread out before his hungry eyes.
He blew a raspberry on her lower belly and bit gently on her inner thigh. She’d liked it rough. Had asked him to bite her. That would have to wait. Right now, he wanted to take his time. He ran his tongue up her slit, separating her lower lips until he found the bud hiding between her folds. He closed his lips around it and sucked gently as he pushed two fingers inside her.
Like the night before, she latched onto them, tilting her pelvis so he could go deeper. He began pumping his fingers inside her unhurriedly, flicking her clit with his tongue. Her body slowly began swaying to the rhythm of his thrusts.
He withdrew his hand and slipped his tongue inside her core, craving her essence. He dug his fingers inside her buttocks and held her to him, sucking and biting. Her chest rose and fell erratically, her hips meeting his every thrust.
When she clenched her thighs around his head, he drove a finger, slick with her juices, inside her asshole and pinched her clitoris with his free hand. He wasn’t ready for how hard she bucked against him, but he didn’t stop fingering and fucking her with his tongue while she rode out her orgasm.
By the time she stopped trembling, he was hard as steel and twice as determined to remember how he’d come to be a shaggy mutt.
And why he felt like he didn’t have much time before he stayed one forever.
“I’m afraid to open my eyes,” she said.
“Then don’t.” His voice reached his ears hoarse with disuse.
“Can I touch you?”
He might die, if she didn’t. “Yes,” he whispered. He climbed up beside her, and Alice rolled to the side and held out her hand.
“Guide me?”
He wanted to wrap her fingers around his cock and steer her movements to facilitate a quick climax. He wanted to straddle her head and have her full lips stretch around his girth. Instead, he placed her palm on his chest and let her decide the next move.
“It’s you, isn’t it? My beautiful stranger?”
He nodded before he remembered she couldn’t see him. “It’s me.”
“Why am I dreaming of you now? It’s been so long.”
“Almost six months.” He didn’t know how he knew that.
Drawing circles down his stomach, she echoed his words, then said, “So why now?”
Before he could answer, she dragged one fingernail down his length. Quinn sucked in a breath. “I think it was now or never,” he said. The answer made sense to him on a visceral level.
“I’m glad it wasn’t never.” Using her hand as an anchor, she inched down his body until her warm breath caressed his shaft. “I hate unfinished business.”
He briefly considered asking what she meant, or offering a witty comeback, but lost the ability to speak when she ran her tongue over his cockhead.
“I like your taste,” she said and rubbed her cheek against his shaft. “Like your smell too.”
He wanted to stay a man forever. Stay in this bed forever. Stay with her forever.
Maybe he could?
She touched her lips to the tip of his cock and began sliding them down slowly.
“You know, I can do that using only my mouth.”
She’d said that when he’d rolled the condom on. When he’d been ready to take her where she lay, on the cushions strewn around her coffee table.
Cole Valley. Her neighborhood. His too, since she’d gotten him that contract. He’d never have afforded rent there, if she hadn’t convinced that producer to give his music a try. And how was he repaying her? By getting ready to fuck another woman in her building. In the apartment right beneath hers, if he was right. She had given him a chance when others only turned their back to him. He owed her everything, but he couldn’t love her.
Alice was swallowing his cock one inch at a time, her hand taking over where her lips hadn’t yet reached. She kept her grip loose, teasing, and he bunched his hands in the silken sheets to keep from closing his fist around her palm and forcing her to bring him to completion.
He wasn’t stopping. Even while thinking of how he was betraying the only person who’d had his back since he’d left the last foster home, he kneeled between the leggy brunette’s spread thighs and positioned his cock at her entrance. He wanted to take things slow—eat her out and then watch her blow him while she played with her pussy—but he couldn’t hold back.
Next time, he’d be a fucking gentleman.
After he’d found the balls to go upstairs and tell Cassandra he wasn’t in love with her and couldn’t keep pretending.
Cassandra.
Her face struggled to form in his mind, but Alice cupped his balls and tugged lightly. “Are you still with me?”
“Always.” Corny answer, but it just spilled out. Like he would, soon, if she kept making that sound deep in her throat while she sucked. The vibrations intensified the feel of her scorching hot mouth around his cock.
He raised his fist, lowered it, raised it again. There was no avoiding what needed to happen.
It didn’t take more than that first timid knock for the door to be thrown open, and Cassandra to look up at him with that gaze he always dreaded.
The one that saw right to his soul.
Alice rolled her tongue over the head of his dick, grazed the underside with her teeth. He tightened his jaw. He wouldn’t come. Not yet. It was important to hold off.
“You’ve been with her,”
Cassandra said.
Huh? Alice? Had Cassandra seen them? Guilt swelled up inside him. It tasted like bile. “It’s not what you think. This was the first time. I’ve never cheated on you before. Ever.” He wasn’t lying. “I tried so much to be who you needed me to be, Cassie. I changed for you. You know how I was when we met; I’d sleep with anything that moved. But I was faithful to you. Faithful to the end. Until today. I was coming over to break things off, when I met her, and—”
“And you just had to have her.” Her eyes seemed lit with an eerie glow. It had to be the corridor lights, because he’d never seen their midnight blue look phosphorescent before. “My sisters warned me about you,” she said. “About her. But I thought we could overcome it all, if you met me first. If I loved you enough.”
She sounded crazy. His lack of surprise at that was disconcerting. He’d always suspected there was something off about her. That sense of danger had reeled him in at first. Cassandra could do anyth—
Alice would make him come. Now. He felt his cock throb in her mouth when she scratched lightly at his perineum. Panicking, he grabbed the base of his cock and squeezed hard. He couldn’t come yet.
Alice pulled back, letting him slip out of her mouth with a wet plop. “What was that about? You almost dislocated my jaw.”
“I’m sorry.” He panted the words. “I just want it to last. It’s been a while.” He was certain beyond the shadow of a doubt that when Alice was done with him, she’d wake up. And when she woke up…
Cassandra glared at him. “You came to break up with me with your skin still carrying her scent.” She wrinkled her nose and turned her gaze to the ceiling. “Meant-to-be. Stupid meant-to-be, always getting in my way. Where is my meant-to-be? Why can I never see it?”
“Cassie, you need to calm down.” He took a step back, but she closed the distance. All of a sudden, she took up his entire field of vision. Quinn was about a foot taller than her; there was no way he needed to look up to see her.
“They can see more, you know—my sisters—but they won’t tell me what. They only said she’s your soul mate, that you were always supposed to end up with her, but I say she’s immaterial. You’d have fucked anyone who made it easy enough for you, because you’re a dog.” Her voice was shrill, laced with pain.
Quinn opened his mouth to protest, to say he’d been a dog once, but had never meant to hurt her. She’d taught him so much in and out of bed. She’d given him the world, and he’d wanted so much to give her the love she longed for, but it just wasn’t working.
Whatever Alice was doing was working. Too well. The way she twisted her hand one way and her head the other with every down stroke was draining his self-restraint. He ached to hold her head in place and begin thrusting uncontrollably into her mouth until he sent his cum down her throat.
Then he wanted to taste himself on her lips.
Just a few more pumps. He had to keep going for just a few more pumps.
He wanted to say all that and more, but all he managed was a loud woof.
“You won’t be hurting anyone else, because no woman will ever think you’re The One again.” Cassandra narrowed her eyes, but now she seemed as gleeful as she was hurt. “And to throw in the good old curse-breakin’ clause, unless your One asks you to be with her before this year is gone, you’ll stay a dog for the rest of your life. Your memories will disappear for good when 2015 rolls in, if you don’t manage to break the curse in time.” She patted his head. “But remembering won’t be easy till then, either.”
The headaches. Only being his real self when Alice was asleep next to him. It was the curse.
It had taken him almost six months, but he’d found her. No matter how crazy Cassandra was, she obviously had magical powers. And if magic existed, maybe soul mates did too. He had to admit that whatever part of his human self had remained with the dog had been linked to Alice in a level he couldn’t quite fathom, and that link had eventually led him to her.
But the year would be over in about twenty four hours.
He had to tell Alice. Now. Before she woke up.
His entire body spasmed with the force of his release, and he could no longer stop his hips from jerking off the mattress. Over and over he spilled inside her, while his panic rose to engulf him.
He’d been wrong. His memories didn’t resurface when she lay asleep next to him, but when they touched in her dreams.
If they didn’t touch the next night…
“Alice—”
She looked up at him with those big green eyes of hers, and he was lost.
He just needed a handful of moments. Had to let her know.
Had to tell her.
What?
Her hand felt good on his head. His doggie head. He rolled over so she could scratch his throat. Alice was the best. He’d be so happy if she kept him.
“You wouldn’t believe the dream I had, Prince,” she said. “If things keep going this way in my sleep, I think you should spend tomorrow night in the guest room. I’m starting to feel like a major perv waking up next to you, after…”
Panic.
Fear.
But of what?
Blue eyes and sharp cheekbones.
Pain.
Chapter Seven
New Year’s Eve.
Her last chance to have actual sex that year, and it was already late afternoon. Dream cunnilingus aside, Alice could use an actual messy, sweaty carnal session.
Maybe she should bite the bullet and go by Becca’s that evening. If Colin and Brad’s friends looked half as good as Becca’s lovers did, Alice might be in for a treat.
She didn’t realize she’d stopped walking until Prince took hold of her hand with his jaws and gave her a light tug.
“Ready to go home?”
He gave her one of those mystifying nods, and she couldn’t think of a possible scenario in which she didn’t keep him forever. She communicated better with him than with most humans she knew.
She picked up after him, then steered him back to her parents’ house. Yeah, she’d probably drop by the party, just to check things out. Not like she’d jump in the sack with a guy she just met, merely so she didn’t have to change the year by her lonesome.
Though she’d jumped in the metaphorical sack with a guy, merely because he’d carried her groceries.
And she kept dreaming of that man, as if he’d meant something.
She was being silly. Her dreams weren’t about him per se. Her subconscious was obviously telling her she was done with one-night stands. That was what her beautiful stranger’s dream-visits were about: her need for a relationship. He’d been the last guy she’d had sex with, and her Id was apparently looking to make a lasting meaningful connection where there had only been an isolated sexual one.
There. All explained.
Back at the house, she hung her coat up and got her cell out of the pocket. She’d call Becca and casually ask what time the party would start. No commitment to make an appearance.
Of course, she could stay with her dream lover and hope this time he did more than eat her out. She remembered his cock in minute detail. Remembered it filling her. Stretching her just this side of pain.
Focus. Feed the dog. Take a cold shower. Then get ready, go to the party, and find someone to rock her world. Starting tomorrow, her subconscious could obsess over someone new.
Only, she couldn’t keep her mind off the gorgeous face of the man she’d only met once while awake. Sleeping with someone else felt like cheating after the past couple nights.
The die was cast; she was going to Becca’s party, before she got even more attached to a fantasy.
She took a quick shower and pulled on her favorite pair of jeans. High heeled pumps, a sparkly backless top, and large hoops completed the ensemble. Under Prince’s watchful gaze, she sat at her mother’s dresser to do her makeup. When she took in her reflection, her gaze fell on the rumpled sheets behind her. The bed looked so inviting, and the long walk in the cold had sapped so
me of her strength.
She glanced at her slim wristwatch. A little after nine. She had time for a power nap.
Or one more naughty rendezvous with her dream lover.
Prince bounced after her, but she held out her index finger. “No,” she said. “You’re staying on the floor this time.”
He gave her something like a shrug and got comfy on the rug-turned-dog-bed.
Alice kicked off her heels and fell on the bed face-first. “Just one more time,” she whispered as she closed her eyes. “Please.” She couldn’t say why, but it was imperative to see him tonight.
When he said he’d call, she believed him. He wanted to see her again; she’d seen it in his eyes when her nails had raised welts on his shoulders. What they’d shared had been as unique for him as it had for her.
If he didn’t call despite that, she didn’t want to be tempted to make the first move. Not again. He knew she was available; the ball was in his court.
“Till you call, you’re my beautiful stranger.”
Long fingers closed around her ankles and flipped her on her back. She didn’t bother to suppress her squeal of delight. “You’re back.”
He pulled her down until her ass hung out the edge of the mattress. “Wild horses couldn’t keep me away.”
She had the sense he’d meant to add tonight.
“I—”
Something rubbed along her slit. It took a heartbeat for her to realize it was the blunt tip of his cock. “I don’t think I can take it slow this time,” he said. “I need to be inside you.”
She bit her lip. “Then what are you waiting for?” After three consecutive nights of foreplay, she was nothing if not ready for him, her body humming with anticipation, her nether lips swollen with need.
He didn’t speak. For one long moment he did nothing, and then he buried his entire length inside her in one hard stroke.
“God!” Just the previous night she’d struggled to fit her mouth around him, but he felt even bigger now.
Giving her no time to adjust to his size, he began pounding her to the mattress. Her pussy ached from the force of his first thrust, but closed around him greedily with a fervor that matched his, their coupling bearing none of the gentleness of the previous nights. This was what she wanted—what her body hungered after.
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