by Deja Black
Table of Contents
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
About the Author
A businessman with a past encounters a being who wants to be a part of his future.
Raksha arrived from Nepal, along with his people, to reclaim his mate, Cole Brightside, a man afraid of a past he doesn’t fully remember. Their only connection has been Cole’s dreams where Raksha appears as both beast and man. Now, Raksha wants more.
Can Cole defeat his own fears to become the man Raksha needs him to be? Can Raksha accept who Cole has become?
Can they find a place for dreams?
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
A Place For Dreams
Copyright © 2017 Deja Black
ISBN: 978-1-4874-1211-1
Cover art by Scott Carpenter
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.
Published by eXtasy Books Inc or
Devine Destinies, an imprint of eXtasy Books Inc
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www.eXtasybooks.com or www.devinedestinies.com
A Place For Dreams
By
Deja Black
Dedication
For the ones who believed in me when I stopped believing in myself.
Prologue
When the dreams first came, the touches were light, tender brushes against Cole’s sanity.
The phantom caress of fingers drifted over Cole’s wrist, his body shivering in their wake.
Cole had been sitting in his dorm room studying when the temperature dropped to a cold so bitter he saw his own breath.
Strong fingers circled his wrist while an arm slid around his waist, pulling him back against a hard body.
He had to be imagining things, was losing his mind. It wouldn’t have been the first time.
His skin chilled as lips slid over his neck, across his collarbone.
But the sensations had only grown, upsetting his carefully organized, strategically safe world.
“So cold, my mate. But you will make me warm.”
The whispers had never stopped.
Chapter One
Cole Brightside was six years old the day his mind split. It had started out as a fun day, sitting outside in the back yard on a warm summer day playing with a friend. The just acquired newest Marvel action figure sat beside him where he could easily pull it out and surprise Karen. Of course, when he had, Karen displayed the requisite joy of any kid at that age.
Cole handed the toy over, excited to share the way it moved and the accompanying pieces when suddenly he was no longer outside in his parent’s backyard. Instead, he found himself in a dark room, a room so brutally cold, he’d shivered.
“Mom! Dad!” His voice was loud as he called for his parents, shouting at the top of his lungs, his little frame trembling while he wrapped his little arms around him. Turning one way then another, he widened his eyes as he tried to see around the room. It was then he heard it, the sounds of someone breathing. The breaths were harsh and labored, struggling for air.
Cole turned toward that sound, afraid of what he might see. A broad shadow sat in the corner of the room, its head bent.
“Hello?” Cole remembered his parents’ warnings not to talk to strangers, but he didn’t know where he was. He had been playing outside, and then he was here. Scared and needing help, he had no idea who to look to. Maybe the person in the shadow could help him.
He remembered shifting closer, his hand out to the dark figure. The breaths were faster, louder in the quiet room, as loud as the freight train he’d heard on television days before. Still, Cole had peeked around, his eyes slowly adjusting to the darkness. He noticed the bucket of water next to the wall and the mats lying on the floor. There was food, too, but he didn’t like the smell. Had the man been sick? Was that why he was all alone?
“Sir.” Cole practiced good manners. He was a Brightside, after all, the last male in a family that had held power for generations. Manners were important. “Hi, my name is Cole.”
A feeling rolled over Cole then, an awareness that slammed against him, and he was physically thrown back, his small body crashing to the floor. The shadow rose unsteadily before him, so tall it almost reached the ceiling. Hairy, like the bear rug on his father’s floor, and immense. The taller it grew, the bigger it became. Cole remembered glowing blue eyes and a mouth filled with fangs.
Cole tried to scream, but he was too afraid, too terrified.
Cole stepped back, his hand raised toward the creature. The creature reached out toward him, its claws glistening in the barely there light in the room, and Cole found his voice. The screams tore from his chest, his only defense against the monster.
When he awakened, he was in his room, lying in his bed. His posters were on the walls, he was beneath his Hulk comforter, and his plush feathered pillow cushioned his head. His nanny stood beside him, her hand over his forehead.
“Shh, little one. Shh. It’s okay. Quiet now. You are back.” Ansu patted him gently, her hazel eyes flicking from him to where his parents stood just before the doorway. Her weathered brown hand, the color rich from years spent in the harsh sun and wind of Nepal, ran over his shoulder comforting him. Michael and Vanessa Brightside both looked at him worriedly, but they didn’t come close at first.
“Ansu,” his mother questioned. Her brown eyes flitted from Ansu to Cole, but she waited, as if seeking permission to see to her son’s needs.
“He is fine, mistress. It was a dream.” Ansu’s voice held a quiet command that had always been present for as long as Cole had known her.
“Hmph. A dream left him catatonic? What kind of dream does that? We should call someone.” Michael Brightside believed in action, and Cole’s dazed eyes followed his father as he paced back and forth, pausing only to look at Cole and begin again. His inky black hair, which was never out of place, had been disheveled, his worry for Cole evident in the way his tie fell open, the top buttons of his Brooks Brothers shirt undone.
Ansu stood. “Sometimes things like this happen.”
His parents couldn’t see the hesitation in her movements as Cole did, the way she hovered over him whispering words in a language that reminded him of some place he’d been before, some place he couldn’t remember.
“Do they? Well, you’re here to ensure they do
n’t. We did not travel miles to adopt this boy to have him lose his mind. Vanessa, see to our son. I have work to do.” Cole’s father pivoted on his heel and stalked away.
His mother eased further into the room, pulled her robe tighter around her slight frame. “How are you, honey?” Her hair was wet from a recent shower.
“I don’t know, mama. I saw—” Cole had wanted to tell her of the tall monster covered in white fur, of the way his eyes had glittered blue.
“A dream, little one. Nothing more.” There had been something in the way Ansu focused on him, a warning, so Cole said nothing. His mother looked at Ansu, then back to her son, a question on her face, her worry in the lines of her skin. Communication passed between them; then she’d moved.
“Okay, Cole. I’m here.” She sat on the bed, opened her arms, and he crawled within the safety of his mother’s embrace, the scent of peaches wafting from her soft skin. His mother always smelled like his favorite fruit. Cole had loved peaches then, still did. “I’m here, darling. Nothing can touch you here.”
Chapter Two
Now Cole hurried to his car, glad he’d parked on the seventh floor rather than the second. If he parked any higher or any lower, he would have frozen to death, it was that cold. The lights stuttered in the parking garage, the only sound his own footsteps and the occasional screech of wheels from below. He had that feeling again, the one that crawled over his flesh, leaving goosebumps in their wake.
He was being watched.
He didn’t hear footsteps, any sound at all, but he felt eyes boring a hole in his back. He still felt the hints of earlier touches, traced the line where lips had run along the cord of his neck. He shivered, and not from the cold.
He already had his BMW X5 key fob in his hand, the vehicle’s immediate recognition welcoming him when he put his hand on the door and opened it quickly. His breath was chilling, the tendrils hanging in the frozen air. Cold. It had grown much colder in seconds.
Cole threw his East Dane briefcase on the passenger seat and moved to get in.
“Stop.” No, it was his imagination. It was the voice from before, the one that always called to him in his dreams. He would turn, look, but there would be nothing, no one.
He wasn’t there when Cole was twelve crying from pain he knew wasn’t his, his parents bundling him up late that night, rushing him to the hospital.
Back then, Ansu had watched from the door opening. He needed her and had stretched out his hands as he reached for her, screamed for her to make the pain go away. Ansu had only shaken her head, her regret clear in her bent shoulders and the curve of her frame.
“Stop that infernal noise, Cole Brightside,” his father growled as he maneuvered his latest luxury car at Mach speed to a place where Cole would stay for months, alone and afraid, each night more terrible than the last as he felt searing burns, sharp blades cutting his skin. The doctors, the medicine, the nightmares that came each and every night were brilliant in their vividness. Each night, his mind was in a different world.
Each night, he heard the voice, the sound of it seeping into his bones, calling for him while he slept.
Returning to the present, Cole slowed his breaths and practiced the relaxing exercises learned years ago, attempted to settle himself.
“I am here,” the voice said, but Cole refused to look. He put a hand out to close the door, the other to secure his seatbelt.
When the door failed to move, he looked up, and all attempts at control fled in the face of the man who held it.
Cole couldn’t breathe. He was here, so many years later. The years of therapy, of hiding what the doctors could never fix, and Cole knew in his soul the creature he’d seen, the keeper of the voice he heard so long ago, was outside of his car standing in the cold.
Cobalt blue eyes looked at him, traced his body from head to toe.
“I have hoped for so long, prayed for your return to me.” That voice. Cole would never forget it, the growl, the sandpaper roughness of it. Cole dropped his hand from the wheel, unable to look anywhere else but at the man currently staring at him.
“Why? How?” Was this real? When he sat before yet another therapist his parents had purchased, one who would keep the oddities of the only Brightside child a secret, he’d been convinced he was just dreaming, that these were the thoughts of an anxious child in his subconscious.
Cole shivered, his need for the stranger overwhelming him. “I don’t know you.”
“But you do, my Sunil. You have known me for centuries, and you will know me again.” The stranger moved toward him, his body throwing Cole further into the interior of his car. He had seen that face before, knew that touch, and knew how it would feel to be against his body.
“Mr. Brightside? Sir? Is there a problem here?” Mercer, the research company Cole worked for, had hired Freddy recently. Cole liked him and was grateful to see him now as the security guard peered around the car then reached for the walkie-talkie strapped to his ample hips. “Sir?”
The man looked at Cole, his blue eyes appealing to him, asking him to speak. When Cole said nothing, only shook, he stepped back. The light revealed the pale white blond hair Cole remembered but couldn’t believe shined before him outside his dreams. “I’ll leave you for now, Sunil.”
“Cole. My name is Cole.” Cole barely heard himself speak.
“You will always be Sunil to me.” Bending down, he pressed his lips against Cole’s, and Cole’s mind exploded. He saw things, people he didn’t recognize. Ice capped mountains, and not those in the French Alps where his parents often vacationed. He saw immense buildings with immaculate wooden doors carved with mythical beings and decorated in foreign script. He knew those words, knew them as if he’d read them moments ago.
When he was released, when he breathed again, he spoke. “Raksha.”
Raksha smiled. “Sunil.” When he pressed forward again, Cole leaned away.
“I don’t understand. I don’t know you.” But that wasn’t entirely true. He did know him, knew the feel of those hips against his own, the weight of the cock in those pants. Cole knew how it would feel to be held in his arms, tight against the wall of his chest. He knew how Raksha’s nipple tasted against his tongue.
“I know, Sunil, my darling. I know. I must leave for now. There are tasks I must complete, people I have to see to. But I will come to you.” Raksha’s hand was warm against his cheek, the touch brief.
Then he was gone.
Cole looked around, his head whipping to one side, then the next. When he thought that perhaps he was dreaming again, that maybe he needed to up his meds, he heard Freddy’s sharp intake of breath.
“What the fuck was that? Where did he go?”
Chapter Three
Cole’s ride home was on complete autopilot. He couldn’t get past the scent of a man he knew in his dreams, the way the man’s lips felt against Cole’s. He wanted—no, needed—more of Raksha, to taste him, to be near him.
His body, his soul craved the man as if he were lost and finally coming home.
Cole pressed the button and the garage door shut behind him. Ignoring the outdoor pool in favor of a swim inside instead, he opened the door, walked inside his home through the mudroom, down the hall, and turned right to enter his kitchen. Tossing his keys in a bowl on the marble counter, he opened the refrigerator and looked inside.
A note with brief instructions of how to warm up his dinner as well as a reminder to take his meds lay on the counter beside the refrigerator signed in a feminine scrawl.
Maya. The woman his mother had hired to take care of his house for him was a blessing. But there was too much energy running through his body, too much going through his head.
He needed a swim.
Leaving the kitchen, he pulled off his black windowpane vest and jacket, undid his red polka dot tie, and tugged the red and white striped collar shirt from his body.
Tossing one over a spacious sofa and another over a divan, he strode to his indoor pool, which would be
set at his preferred temperature. He sat on a lounge chair and bent over to untie his boots. Standing, he unzipped his pants, then dragged his boxers over his thighs, over his long legs and tossed those, too. Taking in air, he dived into his pool.
Cole looked forward to the heated pool at the end of the day. Besides the decked-out kitchen that he didn’t use other than to heat up meals, the bedroom sizable enough for a small family, or even the entertainment room, there was nothing he enjoyed more than the laps he currently swam back and forth.
The water usually helped him. He was able to allow the day’s stressors to slip away, his mind focused on taking in air, arcing his arms up around, and kicking. But no matter how much faster he moved, how he twisted his waist as he bulleted through the water, he couldn’t get the sight of Raksha out of his head.
Raksha. It was the name he thought of when he saw the man, Raksha’s dark eyes possessive, caressing every part of him.
Cole swam harder.
Are you trying to run from me, Sunil?
A deep accented voice, Raksha’s voice, whispered in his mind. Cole struggled for air, but quickly righted himself.
Get out of my head, Cole said.
The laugh was beautiful, like the roar of the ocean. It crested over Cole’s soul, making his body wake up in places that felt his tight grasp only when he was in bed or in the shower.
Hands slid down his body, danced over the curve of his ass, his thighs, and disappeared.
I have missed your touch, Sunil. Let me in, my love.
Go away and leave me alone. This is crazy. You in my head is crazy. I’m crazy.
Your mind is your greatest asset. I am cold, Sunil. Let me in.
Mentally, Cole shook himself and strove deeper in the water, sinking all the way to the bottom of the twelve foot pool and rising again to the top, breathing deeply when he broke the surface and arcing a spray of water. He swam to the edge, grasped the rim made of smooth stone imported from Australia, and lifted himself out of the water, rivulets running down his arms as he climbed over and out. The air felt good against his skin.