“I’m not gonna last, baby. It’s been too fucking long,” he muttered.
My heart knew what I needed to hear. That I was the only woman he wanted, even in death. Even in the spirit realm—which I’d convinced myself this was—I was the only woman he wanted. The only woman he fucked.
“Come for me, Morgan. Let me feel you squeeze my cock. Show me how much you missed me being inside you.”
“Yes,” I cried out, whimpering his name over and over as he fucked me. I ignored the part of my brain that tried to break the moment. The part that wanted to tell me this wasn’t what I thought it was. That it was more. That it was real.
It wasn’t real.
It couldn’t be.
He was dead.
He was never coming back.
This was all I had to hold onto.
This memory, this dream, this delusion was something I would store in my heart for when the grief came back.
And it would come back.
It always came back.
It was always there, hiding, waiting for the right moment when it would pierce my heart the deepest.
“That’s it, baby. I can feel you clamping down on me.”
He leaned back far enough to reach between us and stroke my clit. Pushing me higher and over the edge. My body tensed. My eyes filled with the tears I was tired of crying. I knew when this was over that was what would happen. The pain would come after the pleasure. The grief would come after the euphoria.
But for now, I would take what I could get. I would let my delusions wash over me the way the orgasms were. My legs tightened around his waist; my arms squeezed around his neck as I clung to him. As I held him close to me, not wanting to let him go again.
He drove into me a few more times before he roared out my name. Spilling into me, the feeling so tangible. So authentic that I wondered again how it was possible.
His head rested on my shoulder while we both panted, struggling to catch our breath, lost in the ecstasy of each other’s arms. Caught up in the fantasy together.
My legs slid down to the floor as he slipped out of me. The feeling of his cum dripping down my legs was too much to ignore. My brain registered the corporeal man pressed against me, and my eyes opened wide.
My hands moved to his waist. They slipped under his shirt, desperate to feel his skin. My fingers grazed his abs.
It wasn’t smooth.
I pushed him away.
His head snapped up. “Morgan?” His voice pleaded an unspoken request. I looked into his eyes. Those deep blue eyes that haunted my dreams.
I blinked at the question in the tone of his voice. I pushed him back and looked at him. Really looked at him.
My hands went to his shirt again, and I yanked it up. The smooth skin I remembered so fondly was gone. Replaced with raised grooves. Puckered lines crisscrossed his belly.
Scars.
From a burn.
From an explosion.
This was a nightmare, not a dream.
He pulled my hands away, smoothing his shirt down. Stepping back from me, he pulled his pants up as I reached for him again. The look on his face turned to one of guilt, and suddenly I realized he wasn’t a hallucination. He wasn’t a dream or an apparition.
