There wasn’t.
Even though she was one of them, she was a complete unknown. Before yesterday, no one—not even Frank Stone—had known she existed. Which was impossible.
Stone, and others like him, were experts at detecting the emergence of New Ones. Once a Protector like them was identified, Stone would send someone, like Brendan, to watch over that person until he or she was ready to hear the truth.
Stone had been utterly baffled how this spitfire—a force more powerful than anything they’d encountered in a long time—could have escaped their notice for so many years. If the strong vision that had interrupted Brendan’s sensual Thursday night had been any indication, they needed to find her quickly and bring her into the fold before the ever-searching, ever-hungry darkness devoured her.
That was going to be a difficult task considering how Brendan didn’t know her name, her address, or anything about her other than the nearly painful attraction he was feeling toward her at the moment.
Her mind stirred. Her thoughts tentatively touched his as he settled even deeper inside her.
“Shhh,” he whispered. “I won’t hurt you.”
A flurry of thoughts followed. She battered him, trying to push him out. He was an outside unknown. A danger.
“I won’t hurt you,” he repeated. “You know me. We are the same. Listen. And remember.”
It didn’t matter. This was too intimate for her. He could feel her panic rising.
He rifled through her thoughts, searching for a glimmer of blind trust to grab onto.
There was none to be found. She’d been left alone in the world of the humans for too many years.
In the shadowy corners of her mind, Brendan sensed threads of the darkness that had already found their way inside her mind. Like a cancer, the evil had started to grow within her. She drew on its sticky, corrosive powers to protect her from his presence.
Damn, this was worst than he’d imagined.
A sharp pain struck him as she directed the darkness to attack him. It dug into his thoughts, filling him with violent urges, most of them sexual.
He growled and blindly struck back.
“No! Stop,” he commanded. He couldn’t let her block him like this. If she pushed him out, the thread between them would snap, the darkness inside her would grow stronger. It would eventually devour her soul and she would remain forever lost to them.
The darkness struck out again and he could feel himself losing his connection with her.
Without considering the consequences, he grabbed onto her spirit—the part of her that was perfect and untouched by evil. Holding onto her as tightly as possible, he whisked her soul out of her body, out of the reach of the darkness, and dragged her kicking and screaming into his world.
His world.
Time and space swirled, pulling them both to the happy dream world he’d created during the nightmare of his childhood. Once the maelstrom stopped, he found himself standing in a shimmering blue landscape. The sable-haired spitfire landed softly at his side. Her hand securely clasped in his own. Her lips parted slightly as her wide, grassy-green eyes took in the view of the blue-tinted trees, the vast expanse of the sandy beaches and the bright blue waters that teamed with life and fed Brendan’s powers.
“What is this place?” There was a hushed sense of awe in her voice.
“My heaven.”
She shuddered. “I-I don’t belong here.”
He fought her attempt to pull away. “No, tender one. Stay. There’s nothing to fear. No one can harm you in this place. As long as you are with me, you’re safe.”
And under his power.
A wholly unexpected sense of satisfaction rushed through Brendan. As long as she stayed in his domain, this woman—a New One with powers rivaling the ancients—was his and his alone to control.
Fuck, what was he thinking? She was a New One, an innocent. It wasn’t as if she understood the powers available to her. Without her knowledge or permission, he’d blasted his way through all the rules governing this sort of thing and dragged her into a realm of his making. He spiked his hand through his hair. He absolutely, positively shouldn’t be considering what he was planning to do.
He held his breath as she sucked on her lower lip and gazed around the simmering landscape. A waterfall dropped from the azure sky to fill an indigo-tinted reflecting pool. The sky’s baby blue glow glinted off the clear pool’s still waters and made it look as if diamonds were floating on its surface. Nearby, a Caribbean blue sea lapped at a sandy shore. And beyond the sea, sapphire glaciers formed a mountainous backdrop.
She tore her gaze from the beauty surrounding them and propping her hands on her hips, blinked up at him. “You’re the one from the alleyway. The one who…”
A blush brightened her cheeks.
“The one who…what?” he teased.
No, don’t play this game. Ask her name, find out her address, and get out, his irritatingly noble conscience urged. But he wasn’t ready to let such a powerful, tempting woman escape so quickly.
He tried to blame his recklessness on the aftereffects of being tainted by the darkness that had infected her. But he knew the truth. The hungers eating at him were deeper. More dangerous.
“The one who…what?” he repeated and used his powers to give her barriers a push.
Her own powers surged in response. She huffed a quick breath. “You frustrate me.”
“The feeling’s mutual, my pretty puzzle.”
That made her smile. “My friend says I should…um…thank you for that kiss you gave me in the alley.”
“She does?” He raised a brow. “And, do you?”
“Do I what?” Her power swirled around them in sparkling green-blue eddies, all warm and inviting. And strong.
His cock hardened and pressed against the front of the jeans he’d donned in this magical world of his for her sake. He swallowed the lusty lump that formed in his throat.
“Do you thank me?” he asked.
“It depends.” The crooked smile she gave him seemed to brighten everything. “Let me decide after I see where this incredible dream takes me.”
He took her hand and drew her toward the shelter of the waterfall. “Anywhere you want to go, tender one. Anywhere you want.”
As they passed the reflecting pool, Brendan crouched down and dipped his hand in the silent water and swirled, sending a ripple of pleasure spiraling through his eager companion. She nodded encouragingly. He closed his eyes and swirled again, while picturing the gentle folds between her legs. With his mind, he caressed her, lapped at her honeyed sweetness, and made love to her with an invisible tongue.
“Oh…” She gripped his shoulder and held on as he played with the water, knowing that she felt the warm ripples stroking her as intimately as if he were using his own tongue. “Oh! Oh, my.”
Her pupils grew large as she gasped softly. “You weren’t kidding me. This dream is going exactly where I’d...oh...” she managed before letting out another soft moan.
“Come here.” He leaned back on the soft bed of bluegrass beside the gurgling waterfall and guided her to her knees so she was straddling his waist, her crotch pressing enticingly against his rampant cock. “Kiss me.”
Like an obedient servant, she did as he bid and pressed her warm lips to his mouth.
Her velvety soft lips caressed his as tenderly as a warm breeze. The feel and taste of her only made him want more. He deepened the kiss, making love to her mouth. Suckling. Savoring. Growing wild with desire. When they finally parted, she was panting.
“This isn’t a dream, tender one.”
“Hmm…hummm….not a dream…right…” she murmured and tried to kiss him again. “And in the waking world, men are always whisking me off to fantastic places to make mad passionate love to me.”
“It’s not a dream.” His voice deepened. “Trust me.”
He wasn’t sure why he needed her to understand that what they were doing—though not happening within the realm of
reality—was real. Perhaps even more real than what could happen in the flesh.
He’d taken a peek inside her mind and had felt the pain from broken relationships she’d been gathering over the years. He’d seen firsthand the heartbreaks she’d suffered. Love didn’t have to be that way…at least that was what Frank Stone had spent the past six years trying to beat into Brendan’s thick skull.
Just this last year Brendan had started to come around to Stone’s way of thinking. If he could keep his emotions out of the picture, he found he could be with a woman without risking anything.
Sex could simply be sex. No losers. No heartache.
So, given that line of reasoning, there couldn’t possibly be anything wrong with what he was planning to do. As long as she understood the situation, she would be no different from the blonde who’d practically begged he bring her home with him last Thursday night.
You’re wrong, his conscience chided. What you’re doing is not much different than tossing her on the ground and raping her.
But she was strong. If she didn’t crave him as much as he was craving her, she’d push him away.
You know it doesn’t work that way…not while she’s in your world, under your control, and playing by your rules.
Then he would have to make sure she didn’t get hurt, because stopping now would be too damned difficult…for the both of them.
He wasn’t absolutely sure about how everything worked in this dream realm, because he’d never done anything like this before. But he suspected that since she was in his world, she was probably feeling what he was feeling. And frankly, he was horny as hell.
He wrapped his arms around her slim waist and rolled her over onto her back.
* * * * *
Dallas tried for a calm breath. This was a dream, she reminded herself. A wonderfully, uninhibited erotic dream.
Her dream lover was wearing a pair of battered old jeans that were growing tighter by the moment. With no shirt. His muscles rippled from his arms down to his finely sculpted chest. His golden tan reminded her of honey.
Her stomach was still dancing from the sensation of him flipping her over onto her back. Not only did she suddenly find herself under her dream lover, a happy slave to his advances as he nudged her legs apart, the leather clothes she’d been wearing had disappeared and had been replaced with a shimmering white, sinfully sheer negligee.
Her breathing seemed uncontrollable. And the short, halting panting only heightened the throbbing between her legs. Never, ever had she felt so desperate for a man. Before this moment, she doubted she could have even explained the feeling of desperation.
Don’t you dare pinch yourself. Nope, no pinching was going to be allowed. Now, as for biting…
She sank her teeth in the soft flesh around his broad flat nipple and thrilled at the low rumble of his groan. His single-minded attraction gave her a rush of power.
Power. Hmmm…She enjoyed the taste…the strong power. She couldn’t seem to get enough. She lapped at his chest while he rocked his body against her. With sharp, quick kisses, he started to work his way down her body.
When he reached her swollen, needy breasts, he returned the favor and scraped his teeth against her nipple. She arched up off the ground with a force that made her eyes roll back in her head. He suckled her, urging her nipples to pucker. An electric tingle followed his hand across her belly and down between her legs.
“Touch me,” she whispered.
She spread her legs wider and helped him pull up the long, gauzy material of the white negligee. With a mischievous grin, he sat up and draped the material over her so it was spread over her face like a wedding veil.
Slowly—achingly so—he ran his hands over her thighs. Teasing her by avoiding the heat at her center that was begging for his attention. A frustrated scream escaped her lips when he finally touched her with the tip of his finger. He slowly ran that same finger down the length of her opening.
At first his touch was light. But then he pressed deeper. Harder. He dipped one finger into her and then another. She was at his complete mercy while at the same time in complete control. It was a heady experience.
Replacing his fingers with his hungry tongue, he buried his head between her legs and swirled his tongue over her swollen clit. She was hot and wet and felt like liquid fire. She thrashed against him, not at all concerned what he might be thinking of her wanton behavior. Free from the worries that came with a genuine encounter, she let herself sink into the sensation of his hot tongue raking against her soft flesh.
He devoured her, suckling her nether lips with the same intensity he had used on her nipples until her heart seemed to be beating, pounding through her entire body.
More.
She wanted more. Though the erotic, wonderful sensations pounding through her were all too much, too overwhelming, she wanted—needed—him inside her.
Now.
But how did she ask for something she had never asked for before in her life? How did she demand the satisfaction only his cock could give her? She didn’t even know him.
As if reading her thoughts, he lifted his head slightly and smiled. It was a cat that swallowed the canary kind of smile—slow and purposeful. He knew what she wanted, and he knew how to give it to her. It felt as if he was worshiping every inch of her as he crawled up the length of her body, kissing, licking, nipping as he forged a trail from between her wet needy legs up to her tingling lips. She tasted her own sweet nectar in his drugging kisses while his red hot cock rubbed up against her.
“Tell me you want me,” he demanded. His hot breath whispered against the sensitive flesh of her neck. His gaze met hers. “Tell me I’m not forcing you.”
She read a glimmer of worry in his dark eyes. He wanted her to want him…to need him. But that didn’t make sense. Couldn’t he taste how much she was aching? For a dream, the pain was too real and too demanding. If he didn’t fill her with that thick cock of his soon, she feared she would come apart.
“I want you.” She blew out a shuddering breath as she dug her fingers into to his hair, afraid that if she let go he might vanish. “Please, I want you.”
Chapter Two
“Your name…” her dream lover whispered. His beautiful blue world dissolved like chalk on a sidewalk. “I need your name.”
“Dallas. I’m Dallas.”
A faint beep, beep, beep tugged at her awareness. She could barely breathe. Exhaustion weighed heavy on her chest. It took all her strength to draw a steady breath. Lord, she’d had sex dreams before but nothing had ever come close to what had invaded her dreams last night.
She drew another breath, this one not quite as even as the first, and tried to stretch. Everything ached, especially her inner thigh muscles—exactly as expected after a night of vigorous lovemaking. It wasn’t a bad ache. Her muscles felt stretched and relaxed and, well, sated.
He had stretched her and done things to her that were beyond her wildest imagination. First with his tongue and fingers, and then with his tireless cock. Simply thinking about it made her body grow tight, eager for more.
Which was nonsense. It had only been a dream. A pleasant, wet, highly erotic dream sparked by a stranger’s stolen kiss. Perhaps Janice was right. If this sexual explosion was any indication, perhaps Dallas’s love life had become too regimented.
She shuddered to imagine what would have happened if she hadn’t been in a hurry when she’d bumped into that sinfully sexy man in the alleyway. Would she have lived out those obviously repressed fantasies for real? With a stranger?
Lord, she hoped not.
Though amazing, mind-blowing and violently erotic, it had simply been a dream. One, that had made her whole body feel as if the encounter had been more real than anything she’d ever experienced before.
What the hell was up with that insistent beep, beep, beep? She couldn’t imagine anything more annoying on a Saturday morning. It wasn’t as if she had any appointments this morning. She’d planned on sleeping late. So w
hy was that cursed alarm clock blaring in her ear?
Her muscles screamed their protests as she swatted her arm out, trying to find the snooze button. Her fingers hit plenty of tubes and wires, but no buttons.
“Come on, I just want to sleep,” she grumbled.
“You’re awake!” Janice cried.
“You set the alarm clock?” Of all the under-handed, sneaky things to do to a person.
Dallas opened one eye, which wasn’t as easy as it sounded. Even her eyelids felt heavy and sore.
Janice started sniffling. “They told me you were going to…to…” She was sniffling again.
Dallas opened her other eye and blinked several times to clear her foggy vision. What she saw made her want to shut them and return to her sensual dream world.
Janice never cried. Not ever. But there they were, big salty tears running down Janice’s pink cheeks.
“What’s going on?” By that time she had gathered enough wits about her to figure out she was in a hospital bed and hooked up to enough wires to make an electrical panel proud. But why? “What’s wrong with me?”
Janice shook her head and cried some more. “Don’t you remember anything?”
Dallas remembered quite a lot. But overactive dream life wasn’t something she felt comfortable talking about, not even to Janice. Besides, her dream encounter would never explain why she was waking up at the hospital.
“We were heading out?” Janice prompted. She wiped her eyes with one of those ultra thin tissues hospitals provide. “To meet Tony and Cayce?”
Dallas shook her head. Her memories from last night, except for the vivid wet dream, were foggy.
“We made it to the hallway outside your apartment when you got this blank look on your face,” Janice was saying. “I asked you if you were okay, but you wouldn’t answer me. You pushed my hand away when I tried to touch you. And then—” she sniffed “—then, you collapsed.”
“Collapsed,” Dallas repeated as if saying it out loud could make it feel real. But it didn’t.
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