by Emma Dawn
What was I waiting for, an engraved invitation to crazy town?
“Fuck it all,” I whispered.
“That’s what I was hoping you’d say.”
I wrapped my arms around his neck and tugged him to me, our mouths tangling once more, back and forth, our tongues darting in and out as his hands went to the closure of my bra. With a deft twist, he popped it off and slid me out of the straps one arm at a time.
I think he groaned my name but wasn’t sure why until I adjusted my position on his lap and felt his cock pressing against the ache between my legs. Far bigger than I was expecting and I squirmed again, my jeans and his pants far too much of a barrier between us. The kitchen floor was hard, and I was not about to have sex on it. Not when there were perfectly good beds elsewhere. I pulled back.
A wash of fatigue hit me so hard, it was like a hammer slammed me between my eyes. I swayed in his arms, tiny sparkling lights dancing in front of my eyes.
My tongue felt thick like I’d been drinking all night and it was the morning after. “Sterling, I need—”
“Yes?” His eyes were intense and I wanted more than anything to take him up on the offer, but my body was so heavy, I knew there was no way we could go forward. Not right then.
“I need to sleep.” I shook my head and swayed again. I had to fight to keep the words coming out. “No matter how much I want this, I am exhausted. Unless you have some magic drink like Ally got in the Hive to keep her awake, I need to rest.” I put my head against his. “Sorry.”
He sighed softly. “Where do you want to sleep?”
“Not on the kitchen floor. Despite the Roomba, I’ve seen the edges under the counter and they are nasty.” I managed a smile but it wobbled because my whole life felt wobbly. Like the edges were fraying and I wasn’t seeing anything correctly anymore.
“There is a bedroom, second door to the left down the hall,” I said. “I can sleep there—”
Before I even finished speaking, he was up and had me in his arms, striding through the kitchen to the door. I couldn’t help but laugh softly like I was some lady in a medieval tale. He carried me easily, adjusting me so he could open the door and walk through. I was topless, my scars and breasts on display and I wasn’t even trying to cover up. Which was a damn miracle as far as I was concerned. Or maybe I was just too tired.
Sterling laid me on the bed, pulled my socks off and made a motion at my pants. “You want help with those?”
“No, I’ve got it.” I sat up and he took a step back, then another, then he turned away. I held a hand out to him. “Wait.”
He went still and looked over his shoulder at me, his green eyes full of uncertainty. It was a good look on him. “What is it?”
“Stay. Please.”
“I thought you wanted to sleep?” He frowned.
I shimmied out of my jeans and kicked them off, then slid my legs under the blankets, the cool sheets giving me a tingle on my bare skin. I let out a sigh and closed my eyes.
“I do want to sleep, but not alone. Please, I just . . . I don’t want to be alone tonight; will you stay with me?” I swallowed hard and found myself looking up at him from under my eyelashes in a move I’d seen Rose perfect over the years.
Apparently, I should have been using it more often because Sterling’s chest rose and fell rapidly as if he were struggling to breathe normally.
My lips danced on the edge of a smile but I managed to keep it back. “I promise not to molest you while you sleep.”
Sterling grunted and moved toward the bed. “What fun is there in that?”
I moved over as he slid onto the bed, but not under the covers. “Won’t you get cold?”
He shook his head. “No, warlocks like all supernaturals run on the hotter side.”
I shivered. “I’m always cold.”
He shrugged and slid an arm around my shoulders, tugging me toward him. “Besides, if I were under the covers, I couldn’t guarantee that I won’t--what was the word you used?”
“Molest?”
“Yeah, that sounds dirty.” He spoke against my hair, his lips moving through the strands.
I laid my face against his chest, my nose in the crook of his neck. “My ex-boyfriend used the word. It stuck in my brain as a silly thing to say about . . .sex.” I shivered, thinking of Terrence, Ter to his friends, my boyfriend before I got the unexplainable scars.
“He scares you?” Sterling ran his hands over my body, and even though they were on top of the covers, the heat from them flowed through.
“Yes.”
“He hurt you like this, with the scarring?”
I shook my head. “No. He was a dick, but he would never do this to me. He was abusive in other ways. In his words. In how he tried to control me. I almost married him, that’s the crazy part,” I yawned, fighting the fast-growing fatigue and losing badly.
Sterling pulled me a little closer. “Are you sure you don’t want us to do something about him—”
“No.” The word was sharp on my tongue. “Just let it go. You are my figment, so I’m in charge here. Stop being bossy or I’ll call you Pompous again.”
I rubbed my face against his skin, breathing in the clean strong scent that was all him, and maybe a hint of laundry soap from the sheets. Clean, safe.
Home.
The word bonged through my head. I squeezed my eyes shut, deliberately ignoring the strange feeling that bubbled up in my belly. There was no place like home, right? Even if it was just a figment of my imagination.
My eyes were still closed, and I was sure I was dreaming, so I burrowed in deeper against Sterling to block out the soft voices that rolled around me.
Only they didn’t go away, if anything, they were louder, arguing.
“You have to tell her what is really going on,” Cranky Pants said, his voice urgent. “I might not like it, but we need her. We all need her if we are going to survive this, which means sleeping with her is a bad idea.”
“I think it’s a great idea,” Chuckles said. “She’ll be more likely to help if she’s in love with one of us.”
“It’s not going to be that simple. I’m not even sure she’s like us. If she is, where are her abilities? Where are the signs that she is more than human?” Sterling’s voice rumbled gently under my chest. “We have deliberately invaded her dreams for the last year. We have gotten to know her; we have watched over her from a distance looking for a chance to intervene, to see if she is the one we need.”
A sigh from someone else. Spanish, I thought, from the husky tone. “If her abilities were going to come on line, they would have at the accident. Her closest friend was in trouble, that should have shocked her power into displaying itself. That’s how it works, if you recall?”
There was more than a little sarcasm within the last word. He didn’t like whatever it was Sterling was doing.
Sterling gave a low growl. “There are other ways to shock ability into displaying itself. And I am not the only one trying to figure out how to make this work or who made that accident happen because we all know it wasn’t just an accident. You are my Cabal, some help you’ve been.”
“You just want a reason to fuck her,” Chuckles said and for the first time there was no humor in his voice. “I do to. She’s amazing and beautiful and funny as hell, not to mention intelligent and determined. All qualities we love, but she is a human, Sterling. She’d die if she came to our realm. She’ll age and fall apart within years. No relationship is worth that heart ache.”
“Then why could she even see us in her dreams?” Sterling countered. I lay there quietly, fully awake but with my eyes closed because I didn’t want them to know I was hearing this. And maybe they would be too distracted to realize my breathing rate had changed, or that I’d tensed up with each subsequent word.
“I don’t know,” Chuckles said. “That’s why we are here. Because while we were directed to her by the oracle, even the oracle didn’t know why. She just said to go to Dominique. We did, so we
are here and we need to figure this out. It may be as simple as her connection to the vampire queen.”
Sterling sighed and his arm tightened around me. “I care for her, and if I am right, I am not the only one.”
“You are correct. She has grown on all of us,” Spanish said softly. “We all have seen the strength in her, her loyalty to her friends, and her compassionate heart. She won’t tell you who hurt her, will she?”
“No. She says she doesn’t know who did it,” Sterling said.
That was enough of that. I shifted and stretched, yawning wide as I let my eyelids flutter open, once, twice, three times before I tried to burrow back under the covers. “Is it morning?”
An act, but one they wouldn’t know seeing as none of them had ever been in bed with me before and know that when I woke up it was instant, no groggy stretching and yawning garbage.
“It is,” Sterling’s lips were against my ear, tickling my skin. I opened my eyes and made myself look at him. But the other men were not there; they were not in the room at all. I blinked a couple of times. His grin was a wry twist. “Looking for someone? Or should I say, more than one someone?”
Chapter 5
I blushed. I know I did because I could feel the heat under my skin and I came up with a lie I knew he would believe because I wasn’t sure I wanted to talk about the conversation I’d just overheard. At least not yet. For the moment, I wanted to pretend I’d not heard it at all. Maybe that wasn’t the smartest response to hearing their words, but it was the truth.
I was in bed with a gorgeous man whose very presence made me feel safe, whose touch made thoughts flee from my head and I wanted to explore what he had to offer before he disappeared in front of me. “I was dreaming about all four of you, but for the first time in a year, it was just a dream.”
To be fair, what sleep I’d gotten with Sterling at my side was the best sleep I’d had in a year.
And that amount of solid rest had left me more than a little . . . frisky, my already raging libido refreshed and ready to rumble. I slid a hand over his chest, “You still offering the same buffet as last night? I’m something of a morning person.”
A thought hit me hard, one born from years of rejection. Oh, God, what if he turned me down? I wasn’t sure that my ego could handle being rejected in the light of day. It was one thing to be turned away from at night, you’d almost expect that. But first thing in the morning, after sleeping side by side . . .there was an intimacy in that, a sense of caring. Turning me down would be far worse, at least in my eyes.
What the hell was I thinking, asking him—
His lips were on mine before my mind could continue down that path, his hand sweeping up to cup my face, holding me as if I were something, or someone, precious. Delicate. His lips caressed mine, moving over them as if he could not get enough of me.
“Been a long time?” I teased.
“Very,” he whispered. “We . . .” He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. Are you sure you want this? It may break the hold you have on me, and if that is the case, I’ll be gone.”
I stared up at him, the man in the shadows that I’d known for the last year, that I’d touched in my dreams more than once. Hell, I’d even smacked his ass in my dreams. I blushed, remembering that particular night. I’d been drinking and the alcohol had followed me into my dreams making me brash and wildly inappropriate. “But if it doesn’t break the bond between us, what then? Are, are you sure you’d want to stay with me?”
God, we sounded like teenagers, not thirty-somethings. “Wait. How old are you?”
He laughed. “More than old enough. And I am betting on the bond being broken. The chance you are meant to stay with me is small.”
My lips dipped into a frown and he ran a thumb over them. “I’m not saying I wouldn’t want to stay, or that I don’t want you. But warlocks are drawn to only a single woman for their entire lives, and once they find her, that’s it.”
“You don’t think I could be that one woman.” I didn’t ask it as a question because I knew what he was saying. This was a fling, a hot fling, and I needed to be okay with that. I drew in a breath and he answered.
“Warlocks are tied to a particular kind of woman. You are not that kind of woman.” His eyes were intense. “It does not mean I don’t want to lick every part of you, to dip my tongue into your pussy and taste your heat in my mouth.”
My mouth slid into an O of surprise and instant desire. “I can live with that. One time to last a lifetime.”
“This is about to get good.” He rolled his shoulders. “Very, very good.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Over confident much?”
“No,” he shook his head, his green eyes serious, “I know you, Dominique. This last year of living in your dreams has taught me a great deal about you. About who you are and what you like and what you don’t. And I am about to exploit that knowledge so I can bring you to a screaming orgasm.”
I blinked up at him, deliberately batting my eyelashes. “One? You think one orgasm will impress me?”
His eyes widened and his jaw dropped, and once more, I could feel the blush heating up my skin. “Challenge accepted,” he growled.
His hands pulled down the sheet, revealing my naked torso, and nothing but underwear on my lower half. Panties that I suddenly recalled were the size of Ohio. He stared down at my exposed body and grinned.
“Nice . . .bloomers. They are rather large for such a small woman.”
I slapped his shoulder and he laughed, held up his left hand and snapped his fingers. Green sparkles burst out around the snap like a mini shower of fireworks.
A tingle started in my belly button and spread outward, my skin dancing with the sparkles. Magic. “Just what was that about?”
He winked and made a motion for me to look down. I followed his gaze to where my panties had been and . . . nothing. My underwear was gone, leaving me bare before him. I sucked in a sharp breath to compliment his skill but my words were gone as he dropped his mouth straight to a nipple, took it in his mouth, and sucked it deep and hard. I arched my back, moaning, my hips dancing toward him.
“Dirty pool.”
He muttered something I didn’t understand and didn’t care to because the rumble of his voice against my breast sent rockets of pleasure straight to my core. How long had it been since I’d felt anything even remotely this intense against my skin that wasn’t sheer frustration? The men I’d dated had been all about themselves. They’d wanted nothing more than a quick fuck.
The sensation of his mouth leaving wet hot kisses and tiny bites all over my breasts was sending my brain into some sort of shutdown mode where I could think of nothing more than Sterling, to have him inside me and my body coming around his thick cock.
“Clothes off.” I panted the words, not caring how breathy I sounded. Not caring for the first time in a long time what anyone thought of me, or how they saw me. I wanted him. I wanted him with every piece of my aching body.
The last year had shown me more of him than I’d let myself believe, and even though a tiny part of my brain still said he wasn’t real, I pushed it aside. If I was never going to see him again, I wanted a memory of us together that I could replay over and over, that I could look back on and know that at least once in my life, I was treated as I should be. He’d be the gold standard of sex. I smiled as the thoughts rolled through my head and then the smile slipped as his hand reached up to tug at my other nipple, drawing a deep moan from my lips.
I clung to Sterling’s shoulders, digging my nails into this smooth skin and ridiculously hard muscles. He put a hand up, grabbed my wrist and pinned it above my head.
“Oh yeah,” I whispered and gave a tentative pull on his hand that held me down. He didn’t so much as flinch. Yeah, this was what I wanted. A man who could take control, who didn’t need me to tell him where to put his hands, or how to touch me. A man who could take note of what I wanted by the sounds escaping me and the way my body twisted toward him.
“Tease.” I gasped the word as his fingers trailed my side. Over my hip and against my upper thigh he went. His mouth didn’t slow its ministrations of my breasts, tugging and nipping at the sensitive skin, pulling them into his mouth and then using his tongue to flick the nipples as if they were another part of my anatomy.
He brought my pleasure to the edge of pain and then slid back again and I rode the line with him, breathing hard through it, my one hand buried in his hair, the other clinging to the sheet as if I could ground myself.
“God, Sterling, I’m right on the edge,” I whispered and his mouth slowed and eased. He flicked his tongue against my nipple instead, the way a tongue would flick against a clit, over and over. I groaned and grabbed at his hair, tugging him closer.
He paused. “Thank you, Dominique.”
“For what?” I could barely think with the way his fingers were circling my inner thigh, the way his mouth circled my nipples, the heat in my body pooling like a volcano building to an explosion that would scorch me.
“For not making me guess at what you like.”
I groaned and tried to move so he would take the not so subtle hint. Through panting breaths, I spoke to him. “Less talking, more touching.”
He smiled and a laugh danced through the air between us. He shifted upward and kissed me hard, driving his tongue into my mouth, the pressure between our lips intense, and I focused on his kiss.
At the height of it, he slid two fingers between the folds of my pussy, dipping into the center of my desire. I wrapped a leg around his hip to hold him closer and squirmed on his fingers, all thoughts of conversation gone, wanting to take more than them in, wanting to feel his cock deep inside me, too.