by Honor James
Chapter 22
She was in his arms. Even in their dream she was in his arms and they were in front of a fire. A smile caressed her lips. “I love you, Miklos. I’m sorry I didn’t last long enough to tell you, darling.”
Nuzzling her neck he shook his head. “Don’t worry about it, love. You have had a rough day. You need sleep more than anything else, darling.” Rubbing her arms lightly he hugged her a bit tighter. “How are you doing?” he asked softly.
“I am doing well. I feel for the wolf and her cubs,” she whispered and looked up at him. “Everything was lost and then we come home to see that one of our wolves was hurt. I don’t like this day, Miklos, so tomorrow needs to be better. Promise me it will be?”
“I’ll do my best to make it better,” he promised her softly, lifting a hand to stroke her hair gently. Kissing her cheek he sat back and just held her as he stared into the flames of the fireplace in their dreams. “Why did you choose here, love?” he asked curiously.
“I guess because I want to be close to our wolves even in our dreams.” She blushed and shrugged. “We can go somewhere else if you would rather?”
“No,” He shook his head and squeezed her gently. “I like that you want to be close to them even here. And it’s a peaceful enough setting,” he told her softly as he stoked her arm gently.
“It is, isn’t it?” She leaned against him and breathed in the scent of the fire. “I have always loved fire. That’s why I got into being a firefighter, because I love fire and it was that or become a firebug, which I didn’t want to do.”
“I’d say you made the better of the two choices.” He chuckled softly. “I’ve personally always found it interesting. What makes it burn certain colors, what one can add to it or take away without destroying the basic principal of what fire is. Me personally, I hate puzzles, always have, they get under my skin and drive me crazy. I literally will not sleep if I can’t solve something. That’s why I got into police work. Someone needs to be able to figure out the clues left behind by the victims and give them the answers they and their families need.”
Harker grinned and looked up. “You sound like Desi. She hates puzzles with a passion. I have never in my life met someone who hated puzzles more than her. She rips the crosswords to shreds when she sees them. I mean she hates puzzles.” Something else her best friend and mate had in common.
“I burn mine,” he told her softly with a shrug. “If I see you with a crossword I will have to spank your bottom right after I toss it into the fireplace and light it with lots and lots of lighter fluid,” he told her. “I hate the damned things, crosswords, puzzles in any form or shape, I hate.”
She shivered. “I think I will get them just so that you can spank me, Miklos.” She would like that, a great deal. “I would love to have your large hands spanking me, telling me to do more and more, all while I am taking you into my mouth.” Oh god she felt the burning liquid heat pooling between her thighs, her pussy starting to throb.
Shivering at her words he bit her neck gently. “You have a deliciously wicked mind and are going to cause me to have a permanent erection for the rest of my life. Personally, while it will be uncomfortable, I don’t give a damn, but I think the other officers on the force may have an issue with it.”
“How about I just give you these images and thoughts while we are home alone together?” Her hands moved down his chest and to his jutting cock. “I really, really want to do this. I know we are dreaming but I need you even in our dreams, Miklos.”
“I’m yours, Harker. Do with me as you wish,” he told her even as he stretched out, changing positions just to give her more room. “Come on, love, give me some of those images that will torture me when I’m supposed to be working.” He grinned.
She turned so that she was facing his feet. Her hand wrapped around his cock and she let out a low, throaty groan. “Steel wrapped in a hot velvet casing, you are magnificent, Miklos.” She took a deep breath, a shiver working through her. Then with slow and deliberate actions she stroked her tongue from the very base of him to the very tip. She moved down the one side and back up the other.
“Holy mother of god,” he moaned out, his back arching up as every bit of his breath escaped his lungs. Groaning as his muscles quaked he knew this was now in his top five images to pull out while working when he wanted to think of her. Carefully he slid his hand over her spine remembering, barely, that in reality she was still injured and he couldn’t just grab her like he normally would.
She grinned, knowing that she was doing something right for him to lose a little of his iron control. This time when she came back up the shaft her tongue circled the head of him, toyed over the dome, and licked in the small white line of pre-cum that had seeped out of the opening on top. “I can’t have you come inside of my mouth, so warn me?” She was afraid that even in her dream if he came he would swell, so she asked, only a half a second before she took him into her mouth and began to bob her head on him, licking and sucking as if eating a lollipop.
All he managed was a choking sound that might have been agreement, but he knew it was because his eyes had just crossed and his toes had curled as she practically sucked his brain out. Reaching down he laced his fingers in her hair trying to remember to not pull, to hold her carefully the whole time, but he really wasn’t sure if he was achieving it or not.
She moved on him faster, then slow and then faster once more. Her hands fondled his ballsack as she moved and then he felt his cock begin to swell ever so slightly. She moved her mouth to just the head of his shaft and suckled him hard as her tongue toyed with the dome of his cock and her hand moved fast up and down the length of him.
“Harker,” he croaked out as he swelled fast at the new teasing, his only warning a slight tug to her hair, gentle and, hopefully, nothing to set off her reaction. With her teeth where they were he was so not chancing that happening. Moaning loudly he arched up and came, her name a hoarse cry on his lips.
She backed off with him so that he didn’t plunge his cock deep into her throat and let her hands pump hard and fast, up and down as she drank every drop of him in. When he had tugged her hair it shifted something inside of her and she came with a moan that vibrated down the shaft of his cock.
She couldn’t drink in everything. His seed kept coming and coming so she pulled off and collapsed up beside him once more, her hand still on his cock and covering them both with his seed. She grinned as she looked up at him. “Did I do good?” She so had to try this when they were awake. It was necessary.
“Uh,” he grunted as his body jolted again spouting more of his seed out. Finally he lay still and groaned. “I think you killed me,” he said in a weak and shaky tone. “We have got to try that when we’re both awake,” he said, speaking aloud the thought she’d had without realizing it, his lips curling in a big grin.
“I was just thinking the same thing.” Her leg came up and crossed over his, his heavy ballsack laying against her thigh even as her hand stayed on his cock to semicontrol where his semen landed. “I love you, Miklos.”
Shifting slightly he looked at her. “Are you okay, love?” he asked, stroking his fingers gently through her hair. “You look…” He paused and shrugged. “I don’t want to say confused, but it’s almost like that.”
“I think it is because I am.” She laid her head back on his shoulder and nuzzled there lightly. “I came when you tugged on my hair. You are stroking it now and all I want to do is curl up with you and purr and ask for more.”
He froze. “I never meant to pull your hair, Harker,” he said softly to her as he began to stroke her hair again even more gently than before. “I’m sorry if it brought up any bad memories, love. You know I don’t want you to hurt that way.”
“It didn’t, Miklos,” she said and looked up at him, her hands stacked on his belly. “Didn’t you hear me?” A grin was on her face as she asked. “When you tugged my hair, I came with you. I didn’t before that but when you did that, it sent me into out
er space, Miklos.”
“So that’s a good thing right?” he asked hesitantly as he watched her. At her nod and smile he let out a breath of relief. “I didn’t mean to do it, but I’m glad that you at least got some joy from it.”
“I know you didn’t.” She placed his hand back on her hair. “You are erasing the pain, Miklos. Don’t stop, please never stop?” she asked quietly as she watched him watching her. “I love you and I want to be able to have all of the touches that you wish to give me.”
Nodding he pulled her closer and kissed her. “Slowly though,” he murmured against her mouth. “One step at a time until I know you’re okay with everything I am.”
She nodded her acceptance and kissed him, her lips brushing over his before pulling back. “I’m sorry.” She had drunk his seed down. She was sure he wouldn’t want a kiss, but he had just kissed her. “Why did you kiss me?” Her confusion was there and clear. She didn’t understand why he would kiss her after she had just been drinking him down. She had heard enough from the firehouse to know that men didn’t like to kiss their women after they had come, but he had kissed her. She didn’t understand it.
Frowning at her he shook his head. “Why wouldn’t I kiss you, love?” he asked softly. “I happen to love kissing you, Harker. So unless you want me to stop, which I’d have to deter you from bringing up, I’m going to continue to.”
“No, I never want you to stop.” She bit her lip and added, “I’ve just heard the men at the house saying more than once that as soon as they come inside of their partners’ mouths, they won’t kiss them. I’ve always found that strange, but they said they didn’t like to taste themselves.” Sounded petty to her, but who was she to say otherwise? “So I just, I know I shouldn’t assume, but I did.”
Rolling over with her gently so he didn’t repeat the action where they were actually sleeping he kissed her again and again, each deeper and more intense than the last. “I love you, Harker,” he murmured. “I want to kiss you all the time but I think having you attached at my hip would seriously mess with my work.”
“I think it would, especially when I go back to work.” Which she had decided would only be part time. She wanted a life with Miklos and that was hard when she was gone seventy-two hours at a time, home for twenty-four, gone for seventy-two. “But I will always be here for when you need a kiss. Even if you need one and you are working, call me and I will come to you because I need them as well.”
“I’ll just come to you,” he told her with a grin. “You can let me slide down the pole and then we can make out in a supply closet somewhere. Or”—he had a thought and chuckled—“you can come to the station and I can arrest you and give you a strip search,” he suggested, licking his lips.
“Down boy,” she said, grinning, but the whole idea had a hell of an appeal. “We don’t want to really be arrested, Miklos. We will figure it all out. I promise we will find a way to be together, honey.” Even if she had to kill someone they would find a way.
Snorting at her he shook his head. “No one’s going to arrest us. Hell, I look at them and they start looking around for the tranquilizer guns.” That pissed him off, too. One of these days they’d annoy him more than enough and he’d just shoot their asses, see how they liked it. “I just hate the thought of not seeing you throughout the day,” he told her softly. “Not being able to touch you or assure myself you’re just fine.” Hell, his head was already starting to play tricks on him. God only knew how much worse it would get once they had to be separated for a time.
“I know and I am going to hate it as well, Miklos, but we have to do what we have to do.” Her hands moved over him as she snuggled closer. “We have cell phones, we can call each other any time we want, you can come by the house and we can have coffee or I can show you what we do on our off time and it won’t be long. I will go part-time because I know that I can’t do three nights sleeping without you beside me, even if we do have our dreams together.”
He hadn’t even thought about her rotating schedule and groaned. “God that would be killer. Not being able to hold you I mean,” he said at her look. “I like to be able to hold you. I need to be able to hold you when we are sleeping even if all we do is sleep and just talk in the dreams.” He’d go insane likely if he couldn’t touch and hold her every night. “But I don’t want you putting your career on hold or letting it slide just because of it, Harker. You’ve worked hard to get where you are and I don’t want that taken from you.” He’d just have to make do.
“I have worked hard for where I am now yes, and I love my job but, Miklos…” She made him look at her and smiled as she stroked her fingers over his cheeks and neck. “I love you more, Miklos.” And that was really all there was to that.
“I love you, too, honey, so as long as you’re happy I’ll keep my mouth shut about it,” he promised her. But he knew it would eat at him anyway, knowing she was giving up her career for him. True, in the past it was common practice, but he had never been one of those males that would ever demand that of their mate. He wanted her to have something that was strictly and all hers.
“Besides, I’m not giving it completely up, Miklos. I will just pull the twenty-four on and seventy-two off instead of the seventy-two on and twenty-four off.” She patted his chest. “I adore you completely but I would go nuts if I wasn’t working.” Which was the truth. However, when they had kids, well she would worry about that later.
“I just want you to be happy, Harker,” he told her again, stroking her arm in a mindless, slightly distracted manner. “I don’t want to be the reason you give up something so good and right. I know that makes no sense really but I do mean it. You need to have something all your own and I don’t want to be the reason you’re leaving it behind.”
“I know, honey, I really do know that and I appreciate that you want me to be happy.” She pinched him, however, in their dream. “I do have something all my own, Miklos. Stop thinking that you are ruining my life because you aren’t. I’m more than happy to give up this to be with you. You are worth more than anything to me, Miklos. Career be damned, your love, being with you, that is what makes me happy.”
Wincing at the pinch he rubbed at the spot and glared at her. “That wasn’t nice,” he told her. Rolling her over he kissed her and bit her lip. “If you ever want more, tell me. Don’t be unhappy and dissatisfied silently, Harker. This is a partnership and I can’t bear the thought of hurting you like that. Talk to me, baby,” he whispered, brushing his lips down her neck. “I love to hear your voice and hear your ideas and thoughts.”
“I will always talk to you.” She wrapped a leg around his hips and tugged him closer. “Right now though you need to wake up and check the fire. I feel cold.” She hated to push him away when she needed him, but she was freezing and waking up anyway.
Kissing her softly he nodded and pulled from the dream to wake. Looking over his shoulder he cursed softly and rolled from her. Moving to the fire he threw another log on and carefully encouraged it to build up again. Putting on another he sat and waited for it all to catch before moving back to the pallet of cushions on the floor.
She reached up for him and smiled. “How are the mother and the alpha?” she whispered sleepily and frowned when she couldn’t see their forms in the darkness. “They are still here, aren’t they?”
Nodding he kissed her softly. “They’re still there, love, just laying on their sides sleeping. Mother is doing fine. Her breathing is nice and even and the big guy just kind of gave me a look before going back to sleep.” Looking down into her eyes he rubbed his nose against hers. “You should be asleep, too, babe,” he pointed out gently.
“Sleep doesn’t appeal until you’re holding me again, Mik,” she murmured and opened the blanket to him, silently begging him to come back to her, come back and sleep with her and be with her. “Come sleep with me?”
Sliding under the blankets he gathered her into his arms. “Why didn’t you just say so?” he asked with a smile, rubbing her back
. “I love you, baby. I will always and gladly hold you while we sleep. I need to feel you against my side just as much if not more than you need me.”
“Then don’t argue with me when I go to part time with the firehouse after I go back, Miklos. You understand how I feel and that I need to have you holding me as often as possible.” She smiled and snuggled closer. “Besides, what happens when we get pregnant?”
The shift in conversation confused him completely. “What?!” he squawked out in a startled tone. “What do you mean when you, we, you, we…” He shook his head. “When we get pregnant I mean? What are you talking about that for already?” he asked, trying to get past his shock.
She frowned and looked at him. “You don’t want children?” she whispered, feeling an ache in the center of her chest. “I had thought you wanted to have children?” Now she was lost, very much so.
Chapter 23
“Of course I want kids, but you throw out the word babies when we’re talking about you going back only part-time to the house. It was a complete one-eighty, love, and I’m just trying to keep up with it is all. I love kids, I want babies with you, lots of babies, but where did that come out in the conversation?” he asked her, pulling her close for a kiss.
“When we do have babies I want to leave working altogether and I think that is why I brought that up. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to confuse or lose you, honey.” She patted his chest and smiled. “I do love you, however, Miklos, and if and when we get pregnant it will be wonderful indeed.”
Staring at her he shook his head. “When you change topics like that next time, damn well explain where you’re going with it please. You had me scared, Harker,” he said softly, pulling her closer to him. “And when we have babies we will worry about it all then. Until then we have all the time in the world to figure out everything.”