My breathing quickens. It’s so hard to believe the words he’s saying, no matter how badly I want them to be true. Because while the feelings I have been feeling for Seth are overwhelming, I haven’t really had time to consider the extent of his feelings for me.
“Getting stuck was my own fault, really. I should have visited other dreamers, but I couldn’t stop coming to yours. Even before your attack and your daily nightmares, I’d all but given up on anyone else.”
“That seems… inadvisable. If you’resupposedto visit multiple people, I mean.”
He smiles, his cheek pushing his mask askew because one rises higher than the other. “Youare. I just… couldn’t. I wanted you. Always you. I wanted to be near you, to know what that beautiful mind would create for us… and then after… I couldn’t leave you to face the night alone. I didn’t want to hurt you. Ineverwanted to hurt you.” He cups my face with both hands, his voice desperate. “Please, Princess, if you don’t believe anything else, believe this. Ineverwanted to hurt you.”
With as many times as he’s attacked me in my dreams, I probably shouldn’t believe him… but I do. He’d never hurt me if he had the choice. It’s a truth that has sunk into my bones, as sure as the sun.
“Unless,” I say, unable to hide my smirk. “I wanted you to…”
“Well, I think we both know I am powerless to your wishes.”
“Are you?” I whisper, my lips so close to his that I graze them with mine. The contact sends jolts of arousal through me like lightning.
He licks his lips, perhaps forgetting how close we are… perhaps opening a door. “Yes.”
He’s hesitant, waiting or teasing me, I’m not sure, because he doesn’t come any closer. Does he truly not know how much I want him?
I leap, hoping that I haven’t misread the situation.
Leaning in, I press my lips tentatively against his, inviting him in.
He answers. Instead of desperate and demanding, his kiss is slow, reverent, beseeching. His tongue slides against mine, massaging and teasing questions and answers from me that neither of us quite knows how to put words to.
What are we?my tongue asks.
Whatever we want,his seems to reply.
I don’t want to read into it, but nothing has ever felt more real, or perfect, or right.
It’s everything I heard that I should expect of communing with God, a deepknowinginside myself. But instead of an inscrutable being, it’s this impossible, amazing one who has been everything I have ever wanted, ever needed.
Seth’s long fingers twine in my hair and cradle the back of my head like I am something fragile, something special.
When he pulls away, gasping, I’m disoriented, chasing his mouth. He holds me back by pressing his forehead to mine, our breaths lingering in the space between us. For a perfect, suspended moment, that is the only sound in the world. His breath and mine, mingling and joining until we are but one.
And then Henry snores from his space by the fire.
Seth throws his head back, laughing, and it feels like I’ve come home. The sound is so familiar from my dreams, it echoes through my life and my memories.
We’re running through a field of wildflowers, hand in hand.
We’re huddling under my father’s desk after sneaking a few of his cherry cordials.
We’re collapsing against the wall of a castle after taking tea with a dragon.
I’ve lived millions of lives with him, but none of them have ever been real.
None of his laughs have ever been real.
Until now.
Now, Seth cradles me in his lap, in my cabin in the woods, while my dog snores by the fire. I couldn’t dream up something this perfect.
My cunt squeezes, demanding more attention, but Seth pulls away.
“Sitting you on my lap was a bad idea.”
