by Lola Gabriel
Noah listened to the rhythm of her breathing, and when it became faster, he knew she was close to orgasm. He released her nipples and ran his hands down her sides, lightly trailing his nails over her skin. He released her clit from his teeth, licking it gently, holding back the pressure until her moaning became a frustrated demand for more. He slipped his fingers inside of her, pressing on her g-spot as he began to stimulate her clit once more. He worked his fingers in time with his tongue, slowly building up the speed and the pressure. Chessa writhed beneath him, bucking her hips and pressing herself against his face.
Chessa gasped in a breath and let it out in a scream as her orgasm flooded her body. He didn’t let up. He kept working her, sending her deeper and deeper into the spiral of pleasure. He felt her clit pulsing, her pussy clenching around his fingers. She arched her back, lifting her ass from the bed as her orgasm gripped her, turning her body stiff. He moved his head back, watching Chessa. The tendons strained on her neck, and her mouth hung open. Her eyes rolled in their sockets as she screamed his name over and over again.
Her hands lay by her sides, the sheet beneath her balled up in her fists so tightly that her knuckles turned white. Noah pulled his fingers out of her center and pressed them against her clit, moving them in a circular motion.
Chessa screamed louder, her eyes rolled back in their sockets, and for a second, she hung there, silent. Her eyes fluttered open, and she gasped in a large breath. She whimpered with the pleasure that assaulted her body. Finally, Noah moved his fingers from her, giving her a reprieve from the painful pleasure that held her in its grip, not wanting to push her too far. She flopped back on the bed, panting for air.
Noah leaned forward and kissed the smooth skin of her stomach. He moved from between her thighs and lay next to her, rolling her onto her side and scooting closer to her. He pulled her against him, the skin of her back against his chest. He could feel her ass grinding against his cock, ready for more, even as she panted for breath. He wrapped his arm around her waist, feeling the jerky movements of her breathing.
He lay like that for what felt like an eternity as he waited for Chessa to get control of herself, to come back to earth after he had pushed her into the black abyss of pleasure that only a shifter could control. Finally, Chessa’s breathing slowed to a normal rate.
“What was that?” she breathed.
Noah kissed her neck. “That was a demonstration of just how good your body can feel in the right hands. In the hands of your mate.”
“I… Wow.” Noah laughed softly. Chessa frowned at him over her shoulder. “What?” she demanded.
“I’ve just never known you to be lost for words,” he said.
“Well, that’s because you’ve never done that before,” she teased.
Noah smiled back at her and kissed her neck, feeling the goosebumps rise at his touch. He began to move his hand down her stomach, towards her center. He pushed his fingers inside of her lips and began to slowly massage her clit. His touch was gentle, tender, almost lazy as he moved. She reached behind her and began to stroke his already hard cock. Her touch was confident, sure, and she worked him effortlessly, sending waves of fiery pleasure through his body. When he could take it no more, he gently pried her hand away from him. He lifted her leg and slipped his cock inside of her, kissing her neck again.
He thrust into her, long, slow strokes that sent him wild with desire. His hand roamed over her stomach, over her breasts, taking a moment to bring her nipples back to rock hard points. When he could feel she was on the edge of orgasm, he upped the pace of his strokes. He moved his fingers back to her clit. He listened to her ragged breathing, and he knew his own matched hers. Each breath seared his throat as he fought to hold back his orgasm. When he couldn’t hold it back any longer, he whispered in Chessa’s ear.
“Come for me baby.”
The way she moaned his name took him the rest of the way over, and he felt his orgasm filling him, slamming through his body. He felt his cock twitching as Chessa’s pussy gripped it in a warm, tight glove. He came hard, his back rigid as he marked her as his girl, his mate.
He slipped out of her, and she lowered her leg. He held her in his arms, enjoying the warmth of her skin against his. Her breathing started to deepen, and he knew she was heading towards sleep. He could feel his own eyes starting to close. As he drifted into oblivion, he kissed Chessa’s neck.
“I’m never letting you go again,” he mumbled.
8
I wake up slowly, conscious of the fact that my head hurts. I reach up gingerly and touch my temple. My fingers come away sticky with blood, and panic begins to swirl in my stomach. I look around me, taking in the unfamiliar room I’m in.
The room is white, clinical looking. Metal cages line the walls, each of them equipped with heavy duty chains. I don’t know where I am or why I’m here, but I know I have to get out. I stand up and take a step forward, but instantly, I am pulled back, a loud clanking sound coming from behind me. I turn and look, and I see that I’m held by the same chains that adorn the other cages. I blink, trying to wake up enough to make sense of this.
As my vision slowly becomes less blurred, I see the cuffs around my wrists and ankles, and I realize I am in one of the cages. I can see the bars on all sides of me. I look down at the ground. The floor is solid concrete. I am trapped, a prisoner.
My heart races as panic threatens to overwhelm me. I swallow hard, although my mouth is dry. I need to stay alert, stay focused, so I can find my way out of here.
I hear a door opening to my right, and I turn to look. A staircase goes up out of my line of sight. As I watch, a shadow appears on the staircase. Someone is coming down. When the figure steps into sight, I feel as though my heart will stop beating.
The figure is basically human in shape, but instead of two arms, there are four, two extra ones growing from the creature’s chest. The thing has bright red, piercing eyes that I fear will burn me if it looks at me too long. Its face is overlaid with what looks like black webbing, making the skin look bumpy and raised. The webbing covers its full head, which is completely bald.
It pulls its blackened lips back in what I think is a smile, revealing silver teeth that look too big for its mouth. Its tongue moves in and out of it, tasting the air like a snake. I don’t know what the hell that thing is, half snake, half man, but I can feel the evil coming off it in waves.
“Chessaaaa,” it says in a low voice that is almost a hiss, drawing the “a” out for what feels like an eternity. “Chessaaaa.”
It comes towards me, its smile widening. It reaches through the bars of my cage with two of its arms. I try to back away, but the chains don’t allow me to move far enough to get out of its reach. I am crying now, panting out panicked sobs.
It grabs me with its probing arms and pushes another one through the bars. It runs cool fingers down my cheek, its gentle touch at odds with the sight of it. The gentle touch is somehow more menacing than the pain I was expecting to feel.
“We wouldn’t want to spoil your beautiful face, now would we?” it asks in its low hiss. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t have a lot of fun together, Chessaaaa.”
All four of its arms are in the cage now, two holding me still and the hands of the other two pressed to my temples. “Let’s play a game, Chessaaa.”
Its hands squeeze my temples, and my vision goes black for a moment. I panic, thinking the thing has somehow blinded me, but then it begins to come back, and I see the vision the thing wants me to see. It is so terrifying that I can’t even begin to process it properly. It blows my mind, making me crazy.
Chessa sat up in bed, her eyes open wide but not seeing anything. Her heart raced, and a scream was torn from her throat. She blinked, panic overtaking her once more as she looked around the room and recognized nothing. She glanced at the door, waiting for the thing from her dream to come into the room.
She felt a warm hand on her shoulder, and she screamed again, backing away from the touch.
Just a bad dream, Chessa thought. Just a bad dream. It wasn’t real. It couldn’t have been real; it couldn’t have been a prophetic dream. That thing from her nightmare… Nothing like that existed in the world.
She slowly began to calm herself down, taking long, slow breaths. Last night started to come back to her. She was at Noah’s place, in his bed. That explained why the room had looked so unfamiliar to her when she had woken up. The touch she had felt on her shoulder had been Noah. She had taken the test yesterday, the test to see if she and Noah could be together. That had brought on the nightmare. She always had bad dreams when she was stressed out.
When Noah tentatively touched her again, she moved closer to him rather than further away, and he enveloped her in his arms. She felt safe there, protected, and she finally let go of the dream with an embarrassed laugh.
“I’m sorry. You must think I’m a freak,” she said. Noah kissed the top of her head.
“Never,” he said. “What were you dreaming about?”
“You know how kids have a monster that lives under the bed or in the closet?” She felt him nod. “Well, mine apparently lives in my head,” she said with a shudder. “I was being held captive by a monster. I know it sounds stupid when I say it out loud, but it felt so real.”
“The bad dreams always feel more real,” Noah said.
Chessa pulled back slightly so she could look up at his face. “You have them, too?”
“Not so much now,” he said. “But when I was a kid, I had them nearly every night. ‘Night terrors,’ my mom called them. They always felt real to me as well.”
His words reassured Chessa, cementing the notion that the dream wasn’t prophetic. It was just a night terror. More vivid than the average dream, that was all.
Noah kissed the top of Chessa’s head again. He gently lay back onto his pillow, pulling Chessa back with him. She shifted slightly, tucking herself along the side of his body, her arm over his stomach, her palm flat on his chest. He kept his arm tightly around her, his fingers gently caressing the top of her arm. She rested her head on his chest, snuggling into him, breathing in his scent. She had always loved the smell of him, wild and exotic, a heady mixture of musk and spices. As she breathed him in, she felt her body relaxing.
“It’s only ten past four,” Noah said. “Try and get back to sleep.”
Chessa nodded, though she was certain sleep would evade her now. The dream might not have been real, but that didn’t mean she was in any rush to go back to sleep and experience anything like it again.
She lay in the darkness, her eyes open, not daring to close them in case sleep took her unawares. She listened to Noah’s breathing as it deepened. Her palm moved up and down in time with it, and his grip on her loosened as he fell asleep. If she was alone now, the night would seem long, an eternity, but laying here with Noah, she knew she would be okay. And she could think of many worse places to be than in Noah’s arms.
This could be our last night together, she thought to herself. Maybe it’s a good thing I plan on staying awake for the rest of it then. I can make our time together longer, really make it count.
Tiredness began to creep back up on Chessa. She could feel her eyes closing against her will, listening to Noah’s rhythmic breathing. She blinked, trying to wake herself up. She didn’t realize she had fallen asleep again until she jerked awake with a gasp. Noah’s grip on her tightened for a moment, and he pulled her closer, mumbling something she couldn’t understand. She moved her palm back and forth on his chest, enjoying the feeling of his skin beneath her hand. When sleep took her again, she let it.
Chessa felt herself pulled towards Noah as she looked at him making coffee in his kitchen. She tried to ignore the feeling, telling herself it was all in her head, but the more she let it in, the more she knew he was her soul mate. She didn’t want to get her hopes up, but something told her she had the protein. That would explain why this felt so right, surely?
Noah turned to her and handed her a steaming mug of coffee. She smiled her thanks and wrapped her hands around the mug, blowing on the surface of the coffee and taking a sip.
“No more bad dreams last night?” Noah asked.
Chessa shook her head, her cheeks turning slightly pink. “No. I’m sorry I woke you up. It was just a silly dream.”
In the bright light of the morning, she could see that she had completely overreacted to the dream, even though it had felt so real in the darkness of the night.
“No worries. I’ll always be there for you; you know that,” Noah said. Chessa smiled at him, feeling that pull again.
“When will we have the results of the test?” she asked.
She was afraid to know for sure whether or not she had the Sanmere protein, and at the same time, she could hardly wait. The not knowing, the limbo of it all, was driving her crazy. How could she put her foot down and convince herself she could walk away from Noah again when she didn’t know for sure if she had to do that or not?
“It usually takes two or three days, but knowing my dad, he’ll have given Jason strict instructions to prioritize this, so I reckon we might have them by the end of today,” Noah answered. He smiled at her reassuringly. “Don’t look so worried, Chess. The results won’t change the way I feel about you, no matter what they are.”
“That’s what worries me,” she replied honestly. “You promised me that you’d marry Raina if the test shows I can’t become immortal, but everything you’ve said since then tells me you’ll fight me on this.”
“I’m hoping it’s not a problem,” Noah said, avoiding Chessa’s real question.
“Me too, but—”
“Let’s just wait and see, shall we?” he interrupted her. “It’s pointless, us fighting over something that might never happen.”
Chessa nodded her head, knowing he was right. She checked her watch. It was just after nine-fifteen. She stood up. “I’d best get going. We only have the nurse until ten.”
“Try not to spend the day worrying, Chess. It’s going to be okay. Whatever happens,” Noah said, pulling Chessa into his arms.
Her protests were cut off by his kiss, and she allowed herself to relax against him, kissing him back with a passion borne from knowing she might lose him. It was hard to accept this might be the last time she kissed Noah, the last time she let him hold her in his arms. Finally, she stepped back, knowing she had to be back for her mom. She smiled up at Noah.
“I’ll call you the second I have the results,” he promised.
Chessa nodded and left before he could kiss her again. If she let him, she didn’t think she’d be able to stop herself from going further this time, and although Ally had insisted she’d be fine on her own, Chessa didn’t like the idea of leaving her alone for too long, especially not so she could sneak around having sex.
Walking towards home, her heart was heavy, weighed down by uncertainty. She didn’t know how she was supposed to get through this day. She couldn’t even talk about it to her mother without having to tell her everything, and that still felt like a conversation that should come only once she was certain she could turn.
She reached home around nine-forty and let herself in.
“I’m back,” she called.
Freya stuck her head out of the kitchen door and smiled at her.
“Hi,” she said. “I’m just making a pot of tea. Would you like anything?”
“No, thanks,” Chessa said. “Is everything okay?”
“Everything’s fine,” Freya replied. “Your mom and I watched movies yesterday, and then she had an early night. She had a good sleep, and she seems good this morning. Pop on up and say hello if you want while I finish up here. She’s awake.”
Chessa nodded, happy that at least there weren’t any problems. She went up the stairs and into her mom’s bedroom.
“Hi,” she greeted with a smile.
“Hi, honey,” her
mom replied. “Did you have a good night?” Chessa nodded, trying and failing to keep the grin from her face. Ally laughed. “I’m guessing from that look that you and Noah sorted things out?”
“Kind of,” Chessa said. “We still have some details to work out, but that’s nothing for you to worry about. How was Freya?”
“She’s lovely,” her mother said. “We got on really well. We even have the same taste in movies.”
Chessa smiled, wondering if that was true or if Freya had just let her mom choose whatever she wanted and went along with it. It hardly mattered. Ally was happy, and she seemed more alert this morning, more like her old self.
Freya tapped on the door. Chessa’s mom called for her to come in, and she entered carrying a tray with a teapot, almond milk and sugar, and three cups. She smiled at Chessa.
“I know you said you didn’t want one, but I brought an extra cup, just in case you changed your mind.”
She poured out three cups and added almond milk and sugar. She handed one to Ally, who thanked her, and then she held one out to Chessa with a questioning look. Chessa smiled and took it. She wasn’t really a tea drinker, but Freya had gone to the effort of making her a cup, and it wouldn’t kill her to have a couple of sips. The three women sat chatting for a while, sipping their tea.
Freya’s cell phone rang, and she stood up, placing her tea on the side.
“Would you excuse me for a moment, ladies?” she said, leaving the room. She left the door ajar, and though Chessa didn’t try to eavesdrop, she couldn’t help but overhear the conversation. It was short and to the point.
“Hello?” Pause. “Consider it done.” She came back into the room, leaving Chessa wondering what it had been about.
“Well, if you don’t need me for anything else, I really should get going,” Freya said after a while.