by Allison Pang
“Do you want me to go?” he said softly, his thumb arching forward to stroke down my cheek. “I can guard your dreams tonight.”
I could feel the tips of his fingers tremble; my nerveless hands carefully replaced the mug on the table. The last of the day’s angst was gone, wrapped in this single moment when I realized just how badly I wanted him, wanted to lose myself in the mindless warp of pleasure. His eyes were flushing gold, belying the question. Capturing his hand against my mouth, I gently kissed the tip of his thumb.
I twisted so that my knees were folded beneath me, our faces at an equal height, still pressing his hand to my mouth. “Are you sure?” His voice was a whisper, seductive and soothing, his other hand already hovering at the edge of my robe, fingers sliding beneath the collar, running over my neck, pausing at the pulse point of my throat.
In answer I shifted to let the robe drop from my shoulders, exposing my flesh to him, nipples hardening in anticipation, a flush of heat fluttering from my belly. I shuddered as his hand dropped even lower. I moved toward him, our mouths meeting in a flurry of kisses. Within moments the robe was gone, and he was stroking me, questing along every inch of my skin, setting me on fire with each touch.
I fumbled at his waist, the hot hardness of his erection launching into my hands as I pulled the towel from his hips. He was a velvet rock in my palm. I squeezed him, smiling at the husky groan that tore from his throat, dark and rich as honey. With an oath, he tumbled me back onto the mattress, hands jerking my hips upward, my knees open and welcoming. He hovered above me, his cock lightly stroking over my sex, hot and wet and slippery with desire. I arched forward, my hand on his ass, pressing him low and close.
Our eyes locked. The question reasserted itself and I only smiled at it, my mouth moving against his. “No regrets,” I murmured fiercely, pushing him down as I snapped up to meet him, taking him into me with a soft, shuddering moan. Without further prelude, he thrust against me, taking me forward and upward, rolling me over so I was on top, driving into him. His hands were on my hips, a litany of soft words tumbling from his lips. I could not have said what they were, only that I was swept away by the golden nimbus of his gaze, and knowledge of him moving inside me, and for that moment I knew I was truly and utterly alive.
He was peeling me away from myself. One layer at a time, I was exposed, laid bare and open beneath the heated scrape of his fingers. Every stroke was like a brand, burning his mark into my skin. He bent me beneath his will and I broke myself upon him, aching and hungry. Was I dreaming? Awake? I couldn’t bring myself to care anymore. Brystion had spun a web of desire about us, entwining strands of lust and the delicate beginnings of some deeper, unnamed emotion into a pulsing nebula of light and shadow.
“Abby . . .”
My name echoed from his lips like a prayer, murmured in gentle refrain. His mouth trailed across my throat, beneath my chin. It lingered on my cheeks, my eyelids, my forehead. My eyes fluttered open to catch his, half-lidded and golden in the dim light of my bedroom. Something flickered over his face—uncertainty, perhaps—but it was quickly replaced by a far more primal mien as I arched my back in anticipation.
“Shush.” I didn’t want any words, nothing to shatter the fragile shell of ignorant bliss carved around me.
The frantic pace of our earlier coupling had dispersed, the edges of passion blurred. We were merely naked now, wrapped in cotton sheets and shadowed hues as the night slipped away into the waiting morning.
Dawn . . .
He leaned forward on one elbow, his long, sculpted body curled about me like a cat, possessive and warm. The rainy scent of his midnight hair filled my lungs. His free hand continued to roam over my skin, pausing to cup a breast or brush the curve of my hip, trailing down the length of my thigh. I reached up to twirl those silken curls around my finger and watched his expression change yet again as he shut his eyes, brushing my palm with his lips. I wanted. I ached.
“Come here.” I tugged gently on the lock of hair, my lips already parted. His teeth flashed white, his smile teasing and predatory as he watched me silently plead for his mouth. He nipped lightly at my jaw and gave me what I wanted, his tongue probing deep. His fingers traced over my belly before slipping between my thighs.
I bit down on his shoulder; his sweat and skin mingled on my tongue. He reared back, gold flaring from his eyes. “No mercy.”
“Wasn’t asking for any.”
His mouth twitched. “Works out nicely, then,” he snarled, his hands capturing mine, pinning me to the bed. I squirmed, laughing despite myself, but the sound inflamed him and he bit at my mouth, sucking hard on my lower lip. “Mine.” It wasn’t really a question, but there was a purring rumble to the words that reverberated through me with a tender sort of uncertainty.
“No,” I murmured, kissing him back, as my legs drew up around his hips. “Mine.” His grip relaxed just a touch around my wrists. I wriggled them free and wrapped them around his neck, snagging into his silken hair like the reins of a horse. “Now,” I whispered, pulling him down to me. “Now!”
With a cry he thrust into me. I clung to him, unable to do much more than hold on. His hands stroked down, fingers biting into my ass, spreading me wider. For a moment I hovered on the edge of oblivion. Captured beneath him, my body started that familiar tightening. His movements were a blur.
“Abby . . .” My name echoed between us like a prayer, and I answered with a mewling cry, tumbling over the precipice again. Pleasure swept over me, vibrating though the marrow of my bones as I lost myself to it. The bed wailed beneath us, and the headboard slammed into the wall with a rattle as Brystion followed swiftly behind. He stiffened, a hoarse groan escaping him as he released into me.
Aching and sore, I dissolved around him, our bodies slick and worn. His breathing slowed in time with mine so that we were boneless, merging into a single entity.
With a soft sigh, he brushed his mouth over mine again and slipped from my body to roll onto his side. I shivered, every nerve under my skin still on fire, even as some hidden part of me sagged in disappointment at the emptiness he left behind. He curled around me, one hand pulling up the sheet to tuck it around us, the other moving over my shoulder in tiny circles.
“Dreamer,” he whispered, a gentle smile on his face. “You’ve undone me utterly, woman.” I mouthed his ear, suckling the lobe between my teeth so that he trembled in response. He tipped his head back as though he were offering his throat to me, his eyes half-lidded and languid. It was deceptive, such submission, but I continued to run my lips over the salty edge of his jaw, wondering when the trap would be sprung.
“But such lovely bait,” I murmured, leaning forward to kiss him. Inhaling deeply, I pressed my face into his hair, willingly captured in the haze of midnight rainstorms, crushed rose petals, and the distant tang of the sea.
I didn’t remember him tasting like this in my dreams. There had always been the hint of something shadowed beneath the honeyed flavor of his skin, but it hovered out of reach, masked by a barrier I couldn’t quite penetrate. And now he was here beneath me, and that exquisite darkness embraced us both.
He looked at me shyly, as though guessing the question written across my face.
“In the Dreaming, we can only take from what is given to us,” he admitted. “I can change it, manipulate it to my lover’s will, but I cannot create something new.” There was something curious in the tone of his voice. He lifted me up so that I straddled him, his hands running over my thighs. “I tasted the way you wanted me to taste.”
“And now?” I cocked my head at him.
His lips curved into a slow, lazy smile, turning his head to kiss my hand. He drew a teasing finger down my rib cage, running it in small circles over the flat of my belly. “And now . . .”
Sprung!
I nearly laughed aloud when his hands ensnared my wrists, powering me onto my back with predatory ease before kissing me soundly again. My eyes closed and I nuzzled him closer as he slid beside me
. “How does it work? The creation of your kind?”
“Ah,” he said. “We’re born of the Dreaming. My mother was a Dreamer—a poet, I suppose.”
“You suppose?”
He shrugged. “I didn’t really know her all that well. Sonja and I were just afterthoughts for her, I think. Bastard offshoots of inspiration, maybe, or the metaphysical equivalent of a man’s seed running down his lover’s thigh.” His words went flat and monotone, his hand stilling on my shoulder. “Sonja’s father was an angel, hence the wings.”
“He wasn’t the same as yours?”
His hair tickled the back of my neck as he shook his head. “No,” he said, the sound muffled in the pillow. “My father . . . well, honestly? I don’t really know who or what he was. Something daemonic is the best I can come up with. Certainly not Celestial.” There was more than a trace of envy in his words, and I could detect the bitterness of what was surely the pinnacle of sibling rivalry.
“And your mother never told you?”
“I don’t think she even knew I existed.” He shifted me around so I was facing him, one hand sliding over my cheek. “I was never a baby, Abby. I didn’t have a childhood, or at least not one you’d recognize as such. I just came into being, much like you see me now. One moment I didn’t exist and the next . . .” He sighed. “Sonja found me lurking in the dark corner of my mother’s Dreaming. Born from her Heart, I was never allowed to reenter.” He snorted with a touch of irony, something painful lancing through me at the hollowness of the gesture. “None of us can . . . something about the creation process, I guess . . . the stuff of what we’re made. Maybe we’d just get reabsorbed if we went back. Didn’t stop me from trying though.”
I reached out to stroke his face, my fingers lingering on the plump curve of his lips. “I’m sorry. That sounds horrible.”
“It’s what I am,” he said softly. “But I wouldn’t take it amiss if you might offer me a bit of your Heart to retreat to, now and again. Incubi have no Dreaming Heart of their own. If we did . . .” He shifted again, wrapping me tighter into his arms. “If we did, perhaps we wouldn’t be the parasites we appear to be.”
“Parasites?”
“Nothing of me is mine,” he said brusquely. “I can only be as my Dreamers wish, bound by their wills to suit their pleasure. My appearance, my skills, my mannerisms—all of it taken, stolen from the dreams of mortals.”
“Even me?” Had I inadvertently thrust my will upon him? That’s a new look for him . . . he used to be blond . . . Melanie’s previous words winged their way through my mind. “Oh, God. I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
“You couldn’t have. It’s all right,” he mused, one hand trailing through my hair. “I’m used to it.”
“How do I stop?”
The incubus stilled, his head tilting back on the pillow. “We break the bond.”
I couldn’t think of anything to say to this, so I kissed him. “No. You are what you are,” I said. “There’s no shame in that. And if it makes any difference to you,” I said, letting my hand drift to rest on the pulse on his neck, “I don’t know who my father is either.”
“At least you knew what he was,” he pointed out dryly, giving my hair a gentle tug. “No chance of a tail sprouting out of that perfectly delicious ass, anyway.”
“Hardly perfect,” I retorted, my cheeks flushing as his hand strolled casually down my spine to the small of my back, fingers swirling over the spot in question. “Mmmph,” I muttered. “And even so—human or not—it still leaves me in the dark about my heritage.” My head tipped forward to rest on his chest again. “I used to pretend I was a princess,” I said dreamily. “I was always wondering if my daddy was a fleeing prince or a secret agent or some such thing.”
“You never know,” Brystion said, resting his chin on my head with a contented sigh. “And your mother never told you?”
“No.” I frowned. “But then, I suppose mothers have their reasons, don’t they? Guess I’ll never know, now.” I worried my lower lip. “There’s one thing I’m confused about, Ion. How did I become a Dreamer? Or if I have been all along, why now? Before I came to Portsmyth, I’d never even heard of the OtherFolk or the CrossRoads or anything else.”
He lightly stroked the curve of my hip, but it was soothing now. “Dreamers are born, but not all of them Awaken. In your case you probably poured all that energy”—he kissed my head—“into your dancing. When you . . . lost that, it had to go somewhere. When did you start having the nightmares?”
“After the accident,” I said softly. “I had been hoping that visiting my mother’s grave would have helped them, but it didn’t. All of it just sort of came on at once—the seizures, the dreams.” I shuddered. “It’s pretty awful, really.”
His hand went still, the heat from his fingers suddenly burning like a bonfire. “Would you give it up, if you could?”
“Give what up?” I raised my head, confused. “I don’t follow.”
“The Dreaming. Would you give it up for a chance to go back to what you were?”
A warning bell went off in the back of my head. “Just what are you asking? Back to what? Before the accident, you mean?”
“Well, it wouldn’t be exactly the same. But you’d be free of the nightmares, anyway. Maybe even the seizures, if it’s done right.” His voice got even lower. “You’d be free of all of it.”
“Would it bring my mother back?” I swallowed the bitterness, looked up at the ceiling. “But I don’t know. I don’t think you can ever really go back to the way things were.” On the other hand . . . to be able to dance again. My heart ached with it, the longing to see if such a thing were possible. “You’re not telling me something.” I glared at him. “What else would I have to give up?”
He snorted. “Me, for one. You wouldn’t be a TouchStone anymore, but then, isn’t that what you really want? To be normal again?”
“Give you up? As in what, never see you again?” My upper lip curled. “The tit dries up and you move on to someone else, is that it?”
“No,” he snapped. “That’s not it.” His body twitched as though I’d slapped him, muscles coiling in an effort to sit up.
“Then what?” I turned in his arms so that I pushed him back down on the bed. “What is it that you’re trying to say?”
“Never mind.” He shook his head. “It was wrong of me to suggest it. I don’t think it’s even possible.” I stared at him, utterly bewildered, but he merely chuckled. “Let’s worry about it later,” he said. “After we find Sonja and the others. Then maybe we can talk about it.” He gathered me back into his arms. “It’s getting late.”
“Late,” I snorted, “hell, it’s early morning.”
“Rest, then. I’ll guard your sleep.”
“You’re a stupid man, Ion,” I muttered, my eyes already closing. “For all that you’re an incubus, I’m not sure you know the first thing about romance, but we can talk about that tomorrow too.”
“Tomorrow,” he agreed, his hand stroking my forehead. He curled around my back, his broad chest cradling me against him.
“Ah, and you can have it, you know,” I yawned.
“Have?”
“The spot. In the Heart of my Dreaming. It’s yours, anywhere you like.” He said nothing, but his body froze, his breathing suddenly stiff. Finally, his head dropped on the pillow, a soft echo of thanks falling from his lips, so faint I nearly mistook it for a sigh. Without another thought, I slipped away, not even the lure of the Dreaming able to pull me away from catching an actual chance at rest. The barest hints of dawn crept through the slats of the blinds.
Dreamless, I slept.
I started awake with the phone screaming for my attention. Brystion’s arms tightened around me and I relaxed, suddenly realizing where I was. “I have to get it.” I kissed him and squirmed free. He made a little mmmmph noise, rolling over on his side. I paused for a moment, my gaze lingering over the bed-swept hair, drifting over his sculpted jaw. His face seemed quieter no
w, all dulled edges and drowsy vulnerability.
The phone rang again and I tore myself away, snagging it from the dresser.
“’Ello?”
“We’re ready, Abby,” Robert said, his voice terse. My momentary postcoital bliss screeched to a stop as my brain shot back into high gear. I gazed at the clock; it was nearly two in the afternoon. Nothing like a little metaphysical pickle tickle to make you lose track of the important things.
“Have you heard from Melanie at all?”
“They discharged her this morning,” he reproached me. “She’s not really speaking to any of us at the moment.”
“All right, I’m heading down there right now. Did . . . did Phineas ever show up? He didn’t come back here last night.” I flushed guiltily. Not that I’d even checked—some TouchStone I was. I pushed the thought away when he grunted in affirmative.
“He’s here, but you’d better hurry. He’s gone through at least half a bottle of rum on his own, and I don’t think he’s got any plans of stopping.” There was a pause. “And you might want to tell him that if he bites me again I’m gonna rip that horn off and shove it up his ass.”
I sniggered despite myself, dashing into the bathroom. Brystion lifted his bleary head as I passed. “Yeah, it’s one of his more endearing qualities. He humped your leg yet?”
“No comment.”
I eyed my snarled hair with a sigh. “Is Topher there?”
“No. He called the bar a little while ago—wanted to know if you were there. He sounded real edgy though.”
I grimaced. Something told me the artist wasn’t going to show, especially if he knew any of the particulars from the shed the night before. There was very little doubt in my mind Topher was intimately involved in what was going on with Maurice. I hadn’t quite worked it out, but the connection was there. I sighed, realizing I’d missed part of the conversation. “. . . and Roweena sent a report back to Faery. We found one of the succubus paintings mostly intact from the shed.”
“Shit. We’ll take a closer look at it when we get there. Maybe Brystion will be able to tell us something.” He grunted a good-bye and I hung up the phone, peering around the doorway. “Get up, we’re fucking late.”