East Rising (Naive Mistakes #2)

by Rachel Dunning

  When I got back, Alex told me that Conall was certainly at the gym: "A dingy place not too far from here where he does kickboxing. He goes there to ease off, chill out."

  She sat on the couch across from me, a two-seater, red and comfy. "I wear his shirts," she said, looking down at the dress-shirt she had on, "because they make me feel safe. No other reason. It's nothing romantic."

  I didn't reply. It wasn't my place to judge. I guess she needed all the help she could get in finding stability in her new life.

  "Thank you for staying," she said, looking at the whiskey glass in her hand, downing it, then putting it aside. Her head lolled back and she eventually lay down, her legs dangling off the edge of the plush settee.

  Shortly, she was asleep.

  I looked around. The room really was beautiful. Typical for a fancy hotel suite. There was a big TV, a sound system, dining table, some painting (by some famous guy no doubt), all the usual stuff.

  I wished I had the book I'd been reading, the one by Samantha Young. I'd bought that one new because I'd had a good night of tips and decided to splurge. But I didn't have it with me. I didn't have anything. I lay back, looking up at the ceiling, wondering what the hell was going to happen with me and Conall and Alex and... Damn it. Things were supposed to have been simple after he and I had found each other again!

  I felt my mind drifting...

  A breeze licked my cheek. Then it became a dog, slavering over me, its wet tongue making me cold and causing me to shiver.

  I turned on the couch. I felt a pain in my back from sleeping on it. As luxurious as the couch was, it wasn't made for dozing off comfortably. My eyes opened...

  There was no dog, of course. I'd been dreaming.

  Alex twitched across the way. She really was beautiful. I wondered, again, as I would many times later, how someone kept such elegance and grace and radiance after suffering so much. Kayla was also beautiful, in a different way. And I wondered if beauty wasn't something generated from within. But maybe I was just tired...

  I walked over to her, kneeled next to her, and whispered for her to come to bed. When she replied with "Conall?" I kept my cool. An honest mistake. Or maybe not. But I understood it better now, not perfectly, but better. So I said nothing.

  "Come on, hon." I put my hand under her shoulders. They felt firm, a little bony maybe. But I couldn't pick her up. I shook her gently. Her head lolled right, toward me. When she opened her eyes there was a moment in them of terrifying shock. She was looking at me, but she also wasn't. I heard her breath catch. But it was brief.

  Then she settled, realizing where she was, and who I was. She gave a half smile.

  It really would be best for her to go to Switzerland... To get away from all this craziness, loud cars and throngs of people. Wide space is good for people when they're going through something. The ocean at Seaford had helped me a lot, helped me clear my own mind.

  "Let's go to bed, Alex."

  She got up, the liquor no doubt already effecting its hangover on her. She groaned. "I really should stop drinking," she half-slurred. She put her hand around my shoulder and dragged her feet to the master bedroom. She fell on the bed and slept immediately. I scrounged her cupboard for something to sleep in, saw the broken mirror Dr. Gehrig had referred to. Someone had cleaned up the pieces off the floor though.

  There were several men's shirts in the cupboard. I wondered if they even belonged to Conall, or if he'd simply bought them for her after she'd asked for some of his shirts. I decided it was the former, because she'd referred to the one she was wearing as "his" shirt...

  In a drawer I found a baggy tee and some shorts. The room was warm so I put them on and lay next to her. Soon I found myself holding her hand instinctively as my head lolled, again, to sleep.

  My mind was a whir. A vortex opened up, a storm started, I felt my body twitch. Then I was falling, falling off the Seaford cliffs to the ground...

  I jumped!

  "Huh!" I gasped. It had been a dream. I caught my breath, lay back once again. This time I did fall asleep. A deep, entombing sleep. By the time I started dreaming, I was so far gone that the dream was more real than anything I've ever dreamed.

  -2-

  Alex is wearing a long V-Cut dress, the cut going all the way down to her belly. It's red, silky, glistening from a light-source which I cannot place. It's dark in this room, like a studio. But there is no photographer, no one but her, and, I suppose, me. Because I am seeing her, so I guess I'm here with her.

  Her lips are crimson, her skin pale white, milk on snow. Her eyes green, a yellow-green that fills with flames and hurts me as they look at me. I wonder about this fact, because I am sure that Alex's eyes are brown...

  Her hair, long and strawberry-blonde in this room, hangs to the one side of her, falling all the way to her waist. I wonder about this last part as well, because isn't her hair dirty-blonde? It is here where I think that, maybe, I am dreaming...

  Until she touches me.

  Her hand grazes my skin by my wrist and it sends electrified spikes of pleasure or pain, I cannot tell, up and down my arms. How she came from where she was to where she is now, touching my arm, I don't know.

  I am suddenly on my knees, her lips to my neck. She kisses me, and I feel her teeth enter me. They go deep, sucking me, sucking the blood from my veins so that my arms tingle. But it feels good. I like the feeling, the sense of being owned, controlled.

  I see the slit of her dress, all the way up her thigh and I just catch a glimpse of her round, firm butt. But I see also a snake in her dress, several snakes, cobras and rattle-snakes...

  I'm in a field, running from snakes or spiders or monsters with legs, howling. It's foggy. I sense someone running after me. Trees are in my way. Mist covers my vision. I trip, fall onto a twig that grazes my left eye. Leaves and underbrush cut into the skin of my palms. I try and move, but I can't. No matter how hard I try force my body to lift itself up, it's stuck. I know I must move. I hear — sense — the creature behind me, the red-dressed girl with the crimson lips and vampire teeth, chasing me.

  She lands!

  Or is it her? The thing on top of me is nude, that much I know. And I like it. I know I should hate the body that is above me, in this world and in this place in which I am, but I enjoy its feel over my skin.

  It warms me. The forest was cold, but the body above me is hot. Only the body is big and strong. It has muscles and, something else, something between my legs, something wet, caressing me. I like it, I don't question it. It grazes me at my crotch, just outside the lips.

  I say the word: "Conall..."

  The man above me — because I know it is a man now — writhes and spreads my legs apart. The leaves graze against my skin, under my breasts. I am nude. I don't remember when that happened but I just accept it, accepting that I've probably been nude since seeing Alexandra in that red dress.

  Am I a vampire now?

  I come to realize that the thing between my legs, not inside, just there, touching me, teasing me, is a hard-on. A firm, strong, massive hard-on...

  "Conall?" I ask.

  The deep baritone that answers is not Conall's voice. "No, it's Dorian."

  "Oh... Where's Conall?"

  "You cheated on him."

  Dorian rubs his cock around my center, not entering.

  "I was saving myself for Conall," I say. Part of me wants Dorian, in this world, this world of forests and teeth in the neck and a warm male body above mine...

  "I know. But that was only a dream, wasn't it? A fairy tale. He loves Alex. Isn't it obvious?"

  Dorian's cock is fat between my butt-cheeks, squeezed tight between them. He closes my legs and straddles me, rubbing back and forth as if he plans on coming on my back. My hand eases down to my clit and I start rubbing it, but Dorian's hand moves it away, rubs it for me.

  He's rough, a little too fast. But he's always been that way.

  "It won't be perfect with you," I say, resigning myself to what will happe
n. "But there is no other way, is there?"

  "I'll make it good for you. You'll never forget it."

  He rubs, up and down, between my butt-cheeks, squeezing each one around his hard-on, making me feel its head and its hard shaft as it moves. I feel his moisture, the pre-come, lubricating and pleasant, all between my cheeks and by my anal hole. His cock slides between as if he were rubbing it between my breasts. Briefly he presses that anal hole with the head of his cock, not entering, just teasing.

  I think of Conall's finger...

  A faint, disturbing thought comes to me, a wisp of smoke amongst the clouds...of whether I've showered or not...

  I ignore it. I must have showered. Only the thought begins to bother me. It's so unimportant, so unlikely. But, in this world, this misty, ethereal world, the thought is all-engulfing. A problem like no other. Such that I begin to sweat with nervousness. What if, god forbid, I...smell...down there? Even Dorian deserves better...

  "Dorian," I say, "I need to go. I have to do something first."

  He rubs harder. "Huh, baby? Say what?" He's groaning, clearly almost there, almost ready to come on me. I want him to, but I also don't. Because something is wrong.

  "No, please, move away. I have to..." I have to shower, I think. I have to mist myself up and put on a pretty dress. And my hair needs something. Because I want to look beautiful.

  Or is it something else bothering me?

  Dorian keeps rubbing, and I'm hot for him, but I'm also worried, worried about that "something." What was it again? A shower? A man? A friend? Falling down a cliff? Are we on a cliff? If he orgasms, will we fall? Will I fall?

  Pleasure begins to course over me. I forget my concerns, I forget making myself beautiful. Now I just want to come. The need covers me, all over, head to toe. It calls me like a living person. "Give it to me," I say to Dorian. "Just give it to me. Fuck me. Fuck me hard. Fuck me now!"

  As he enters me, vaginally, I sense something is wrong again. There was someone...once... Wasn't there? Who had That Man been? Or was it a woman?

  Pleasure pulses through me.

  "Conall," I say, "you feel so good."

  And then it is Conall above me. I feel it, I think. I don't know!

  The man inside me pushes in and out. I'm getting close. The pleasure fills me. But it has to be Conall. I'll come, yes, I'll do it with this man, if it's Conall...

  I turn to see his face. I don't know how because I'm still lying face down, but all I see is blackness where his face should be. I can see everything about him, except his face.

  Tattoos. Conall has tattoos, many of them. Dorian only has one. Who is this man above me?

  The man rides me, thrusting harder, pushing in, out. I feel the build-up, the tension growing, ready to snap. I'm on my back now. Burly, tensing muscles shake as this beautiful giant rams his pelvis against me, his cock inside me. He rubs my clit with his thumb. I hear him groan, deep and manly, guttural.

  Oh, please don't come, Leora. If this is not Conall, please don't come! I think.

  I see the man's eyes. Green?

  The pressure builds. My arms tense. No! Green-Eyes is Dorian! I must get away!

  The man becomes a woman, licking her lips. Red, dripping lips. Blood on them. And now she is riding me somehow.

  I don't care anymore.

  "I can't stop it," I say, as if Conall were listening. I'm not sure where I say it, in what place, but I say it. "I can't. Once it starts, I have to take it all the way. Conall, I'm sorry..."

  I'm back in the forest. And then I see him: Dorian. Riding me. Fucking me. Smiling his winning smile.

  "I'm sorry, Conall..." I say to the side. "I tried..." I turn away, look at the log on my left, wait for climax. At least I'll get something out of this.

  "Sorry for what?" says...Conall.

  Huh?

  I turn my head. For a fraction of a second, I see him, it's him! Above me, ramming me! His face grimacing, his eyes rolling back ready for climax! I relax, let the tension and uncertainty from my legs ease. I smile.

  And then the waves of thrumming ecstasy take over me...

  -3-

  Awake now, I wailed audibly. I felt like I was...just about to come? Huh? It was odd. It was there, but not there, and I still wasn't sure what was happening. But then the shudders started. I had no hand down below, nothing rubbing me there, but my legs spasmed, waves went through my body, my eyes rolled back and I tried to roll them forward but, for those seconds, I couldn't.

  I think, because I hadn't been actively stimulating myself, it lasted longer than usual, like a grand piano teeter-tottering off a ledge, going back and forth until, finally, crash!

  After five seconds of limbo, little pulses, I wasn't even sure it was happening. I mean, a wet dream for a girl!?

  But then the shakes became stronger, and it was unmistakable that I was, for real, coming, because of a dream! My back arched, just lightly, and I moaned softly.

  Sweat covered my brow when it was done. I stuck my hand in my shorts and rubbed myself just a little bit more, just to finish things off properly. It took another minute or so. And then I was really finished. And relaxed. And thinking clearly.

  And that's when I saw Alex's hand on my breast.

  Huh?

  For a second I got quite a shock. Had we — ?

  No, no we hadn't! She was fast asleep, my breast being about as interesting to her as the pillow under her head. Her hand had clearly simply plopped onto my chest sometime between us falling asleep and now. Maybe that's what had triggered the dream? I exhaled, crawled out from under her arm.

  "Jesus," I said to myself in the bathroom. I laughed a little. "To a girl!" I said quietly. I sat on the bathtub, still a little awed by it all, then finally settled myself into the fact that it had happened.

  But I was now awake, fully awake. I wanted to take a shower. I was drenched, and feeling salty. I also smelled of sex. First from Conall's bar, then in his room, now this... But it was too late to shower. I'd wake Alex (although she was so far gone I don't think she would've woken even if there was a falling piano anywhere near...)

  "Self-control my ass," I said to myself, thinking of how Conall had left me high and dry earlier today. "So this is what happens when you don't make me come, Mr. Williams..."

  I made a note to tell him that. Although, I definitely wasn't going to tell him much about the dream.

  I thought back to Dorian, shook my head. If it had ended with him, in my dream, it would've been a nightmare, not just a restless wet dream...

  Anyway.

  I went to the lounge, pulled out my iPhone, and stared at nothing for most of the night. I heard Alex rouse once or twice. She called out for Conall... Then she called out for me. When I went to the room, she was only half-awake. She twitched a lot, and shook violently.

  How long had she been suffering like this?

  Her legs kicked once. "No..." she mumbled.

  I sat on the one-seater in the corner of her room, watched her. I watched her until the sun rose. She was ever restless. When the sun came up, she didn't exactly wake up so much as simply open her eyes and sit up.

  She rubbed her eyes. They were black, her hair ruffled. A glass lay on her nightstand, and an empty decanter. She picked it up, as if to confirm that it was really empty.

  She poured a drop — the last possible drop — into the glass. But when the glass was moving to her mouth, I put my hand on it. "Hey, what you say we try and skip that for today? I'll be with you, all day, OK?" I said.

  She frowned, scratching her hair, and put her other hand on my own. "I might throw you against a wall eventually. This is the only thing that keeps me sane..."

  "Let's just try it, OK?"

  She rolled her eyes, but she did put the glass down on the nightstand again. "Well," she said, "then you might as well come into the bathroom with me while I take a piss, because I'm already feeling suicidal."

  I did.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  -1-

 
Alex jumped in the shower when she was done with her business. Mostly I looked away. I've never been good with nudity and other girls — my own or theirs. Heck, I've never been good with nudity around anyone. How men walk around in the gym showers with their junk hanging and dangling around is beyond me. (So I've heard.)

  Kayla's different. She'll stare at me full-frontal if something suddenly pops in her mind and she happens to be naked.

  I sat in the corner of the bathroom, reading a Marie Claire magazine.

  "He's mad about you, you know that?" I heard Alex say from behind the shower curtain.

  I didn't believe I'd heard it correctly. Or, rather, I was a little uncertain as to how to respond. Because I wasn't entirely certain what Alex's position was with Conall. Was she in love with him? Was she just looking for someone — anyone — to keep her turbulent mind steady?

  "Uh, thanks," I said, trying to figure out what the Price upon Request items that Zooey Deschanel was wearing, in the cover article, actually cost. I gave up trying.

  The place was steaming up big time. I struggled to breath and my shirt stuck to my skin because of it.

  Alex showed her head from behind the shower curtain. Thank goodness she hid the rest of herself! She looked, with her hair wet, "normalish." Even her scar wasn't really noticeable. It's amazing how much pain people can hide under their complexions.

  "No," she said, her eyes wide, "I mean, you're different. You're... Conall is completely nuts about you. You're like..." She looked up, made a motion with her hand that showed she was looking for the word. "Damn it, it's... He'd do anything for you. Anything." She closed the curtain, went back to her shower.

  Anything?

  I was a little shocked, stunned, unable to speak. Surely she'd misunderstood something... Or maybe she just felt that way because she'd, perhaps, tried to start something with him and he'd told her about me. Any girl that a guy likes, who is not you, makes you think he's crazy, nuts, mad about that girl. Yes, that was it. Surely.