Dream Lover (28 page)

“The hell we are.” I jumped out of bed, vaguely aware that I probably looked like a wild woman in my flimsy, white gown and my long, dark hair flying every which way. “I denounce your existence. Or I revoke your privilege. Whatever! Just get out!”

He didn’t budge. He arched one dark eyebrow at me and his sensuous lips curled into a droll smile. “I’m not a demon or a vampire or any of those dark fellows. I’m your guardian angel. Fallen or not, you can’t send me away because I’m as attached to you as your shadow.”

“What the fuck,” I slumped on the bed beside him. “Now what?”

He gathered me up in his arms in a familiar way—as if he’d done it a thousand times before. Which I suppose he had, if all those dreams were actual experiences. I didn’t push him away. In truth, he felt pretty nice and I
had
been lonely for a long,
long time. I rubbed my wrists where he’d held them, feeling the slightest hint of pain, like a bruise that has yet to appear. I shivered.

Victor held me away from him. “There.
That
. What was that?”

I shook my head. “I’m cold.”

“No. It’s something. Something buried so deep even I can’t get to it. Something that keeps you closed off and lonely. Something that torments your rest so you don’t sleep, don’t dream.” He shook me slightly, hard enough to make my teeth click together. “What is
that
, Michelle?”

“I was just thinking about how it felt when you grabbed my wrists,” I whispered, feeling the heat of embarrassment and shame in my cheeks. “That’s all.”

He cradled my head to his chest. “Is that it? Is that the key?” he whispered.

I sensed he wasn’t talking to me, so I stayed silent and just enjoyed the warmth of him surrounding me. He stroked my hair with his hand, smoothing the waves and soothing me in the process. And then his touch changed. He gathered up my hair in his hand, twisting it around those long fingers, and gave it a firm tug.

My eyes went wide at the sensation, a prickling along my scalp that sent a corresponding tingle to other parts of my body. I looked up at him and saw that he was watching me, studying my reaction. He gave another tug on my hair, hard enough to stretch my neck and make me gasp. I gripped his shoulder with one hand, the other curled against my chest, my heart beating a tattoo against my rib cage. A third tug sent a shiver of desire down my spine that tightened my nipples and made we wet.

“Does that hurt?” he asked softly.

I nodded.

“Do you like it?”

I hesitated. If I said no, he would stop. If I said no, he would release my hair from his hand and let me go. If I said no, I would be lying. I nodded.

My reward for answering was another hard tug on my hair that made me clench my thighs together where wetness pooled slick and hot.

“Do you want more?”

No hesitation this time. I nodded firmly.

“How much more?”

I licked my bottom lip, the faint lingering taste of blood making me bold. “As much as you can give.”

He trailed his fingers down the column of my exposed neck, his touch so light it almost tickled. Dipping a hand into the bodice of my nightgown, he cupped my breast and thumbed one tight nipple. I whimpered low in my throat. Then he pinched the nipple between his fingers, hard enough that I went rigid with the unexpected shock of it. I felt a corresponding tingle between my thighs, my clitoris throbbing with need. He tugged my tender nipple and I moaned.

By the time he began tormenting my other nipple, I was breathing hard, sweat beading on my forehead.

“Is the pain too much? Not enough?”

I shook my head, once, twice.

With my nipple between his fingers, he gave a twist of his wrist. My eyes fluttered closed and I saw stars. Just like that, with nothing more than this sweet torment of my breasts, I felt my orgasm building.

“More,” I said, shuddering and gasping in his arms.

He lowered me to the bed and I whimpered, clinging to him, my need greater than my pride. But he was only shifting me so that he could use both hands at the same time. He freed
my breasts from the bodice of my thin nightgown, tugging and pulling on my engorged and sensitive nipples until I cried out my release. I came as he watched me with dark, knowing eyes, writhing on the bed as he manhandled my sensitive breasts in a way I’d never known—and never thought I would enjoy.

“Ahhh,” he said, soft and low, as if he had just discovered the meaning of life in his cup of tea. “This is what they meant.”

“Who—what—” I tried to form a question, but he was still making me twist and groan under his unrelenting touch. “Please,” I gasped, though I wasn’t sure if I was asking him to stop or begging for more.

He hooked an arm around my waist and flipped me over in one smooth stroke. I lay flat on the bed, blinking in shock at the suddenness of the shift. Then he was gripping my hips and pulling me onto my knees.

I expected to feel his hand between my legs, but nothing was as I expected this night. I had only a moment to be aware of the movement of air before his hand connected with my ass. I yelped and rose up on my elbows, but he put his hand firmly between my shoulder blades, forcing my upper body back down to the mattress while my ass remained raised—and vulnerable.

A series of stinging slaps sent heat rippling along my bottom and thighs. I opened my mouth to protest this humiliation, but something—something made me stay silent. It was a need buried so deep I didn’t even recognize it until it bubbled to the surface in a flood of emotions grounded in physical sensation—the throb of my abused nipples, the sting of pain warming my ass, the twin heartbeat pulsing insistently between my thighs. Instead of trying to escape the pain, I arched my back and pushed my ass higher to meet the next blow.

“You are so beautiful,” he murmured, slapping me even harder than before.

I felt his hand between my thighs, cupping my panty-clad mound, a finger pressing the material into my wetness. I moaned and thrust against him, eager for more, needing to be filled. I felt a tug then heard the rip of fabric as he shredded my panties to get to the wetness beneath.

He stroked my pussy with his fingertips, teasing me. After the force of his hand on my ass this gentle touching was unsatisfying. I whimpered, in frustration rather than pleasure, and he laughed.

“Is there something you want, love?”

“Please,” I whispered. “You are driving me crazy.”

“What is it you need?” His finger stroked along my clit, too softly to do more than torment me. “Tell me and I will give it to you.”

I took a breath. A knot of longing, hot and tight like a rock in my center, was coming undone. I had nothing to fear; nothing to lose. I had only this night and this man, this beautiful angel who was here just for me. “Fuck me, Victor. I need you inside me.”

I felt him press against me, the fabric of his thin pants the only thing separating our bodies. His erection felt huge, hot. I trembled in anticipation and need, pressing against him as if I could will away the barrier between us.

“Yes, you need me,” he said. “You need this.” He bucked his hips against me, nudging my pussy with his bulge. “But what else do you need, love?”

My brain was fuzzy with desire, I wasn’t sure what he meant. Then the truth of his question struck me. “I need it hard. I need…pain.”

Shame brought a flood of tears to my eyes. He couldn’t see my face, but he must have sensed the roil of sick emotions twisting me into knots. Suddenly the barrier of his pants was gone and he was inside me in one thrust.

I gasped, the force of his weight taking my knees out from under me. I lay pressed to the bed, his cock buried inside my wetness, his body stretched over mine. He caught my hair up in his fist again and gave it a hard tug as he drove into me, pressing me into the mattress with each driving thrust. I moaned at the onslaught of sensation, tingles of pain along my scalp corresponding to a delicious soreness taking hold deep in my pussy.

Victor trailed kisses down my cheek and neck, then sunk his teeth into the tender flesh of my shoulder, not so hard as to draw blood, but hard enough to make me gasp. I pushed against him to the extent I was able, but I was nearly immobilized by his body on top of me, his cock driving into me, his hand holding my hair fast.

I didn’t think it could get any more intense than this…and then it did. Victor pressed his mouth to my ear and he whispered, “Every night from now on, I am going to give you the pleasure—and the pain—you crave. Will you like that?”

The instant flood of moisture between my legs gave me away, but I nodded anyway. “Yes, oh, yes.”

He pressed deeper into me. “Good. Let me tell you what I’m going to do to you.”

And then he did. He whispered all manner of dark delights as he fucked me, every thrust as firm and unrelenting as the one before. He told me how he would spank me and slap me, bind me and torment me. He made loving promises to leave me sore and bruised, exhausted from his rough lovemaking. It sounded wicked and filthy and more like something a devil would say than an angel. But to my ears, to my body, it was a promise of heaven itself.

Victor was not immune to the pleasure and punishment he was inflicting on my body and mind. His words were a raspy growl as he fucked me, driving me to the edge of release. I was
incapable of speech, my thoughts expressed only in whimpers and pants, the sounds of a woman being tormented by unyielding pleasure. I clutched at the sheets in mindless abandon, my world shrunken to the size of my bed. I surged up against him as my orgasm crested and broke over me, my body a swelling wave of pleasure that seemed to last for all eternity. Only when the sensations had softened to gentle ripples did I feel him go tense against me, his cock throbbing and pulsing like a wild thing inside me. He groaned my name, then words in a language I didn’t understand, his body jerking against me as he finally claimed his own pleasure.

Then we were still, breathing as one. Time lost all meaning as Victor whispered in my ear, “You are mine. Now you will rest.”

 

It seemed like night had stretched on for days instead of hours when I tucked my head into the hollow of his muscular shoulder and yawned. My eyes felt heavy with sleep—blessed sleep!—but the irony was I wanted to stay awake all night in the arms of my angel.

“Why were you banished?” I asked softly. “What caused your fall?”

He hesitated so long I didn’t think he would answer. Then, softly, he said, “I committed the worst sin an angel can commit.”

I considered the horrors he might be guilty of. After the pleasure he had given me, I wasn’t sure it mattered what he had done to be cast out. But I had to ask.

“And what is that?”

He kissed the top of my head, a long and lingering kiss that soothed me into slumber.

“I fell in love,” he whispered.

I awoke feeling disoriented, sunlight slashing cruelly through the blinds. I felt…bereft; as if I had been granted everything I had ever wanted, only to have it snatched away in the unforgiving light of day.

“Just a dream,” I said, my voice breaking. “It was just another dream.”

Only…my body felt sore in places that had nothing to do with sleeping in the wrong position. My breasts were swollen and tender, as if they’d been abused, as was my ass. And there was a heaviness between my thighs—that well-fucked feeling I hadn’t felt in…well, years. Only I hadn’t taken a lover to bed the night before.

I turned my head, half expecting to see Victor, but he wasn’t there. I closed my eyes and sighed. My dreams—the real dreams—had been vivid and beautiful, not lonely at all. And though I couldn’t remember Victor in any of them I sensed he had been there, absorbing every sensation joyfully, living through my dreams. That, at least, was comforting. I couldn’t lose my angel now that he’d given me a taste of heaven. If I could only have him in my dreams, that would have to be enough.

A piece of hair tickled the corner of my eye and I pushed the wayward strands behind my ear. Only the texture was wrong. I reached up and pulled a long feather from my curls. Staring at it, watching the way the sun reflected the color as midnight blue, not black as I’d thought in the darkness, I felt my heart leap. Until that moment, I was still convinced Victor was just a product of my overheated imagination; that my aches and pains were a result of wishful thinking borne of loneliness and a life dedicated to a demanding career with little time for romance or passion. But this—I turned the feather,
his
feather, between my fingers—was tangible proof.

“My angel,” I whispered.

“Yes, love?”

I jumped, startled, the feather slipping from my fingers to float to the bed. Victor stood in the doorway, resplendent in his nudity, his wings tucked against his back so that he looked like a normal man. A
beautiful
, normal man.

“You’re here!” I climbed out of bed and flung myself into his arms. His warm, solid arms. “I thought you’d gone.”