I set mine down, then snatched a sheepskin bedroll from the ground and placed the bedding next to the fire.
Without anything to do, I stared into the flames. My head would nod, and the jerky movement would startle me awake. Each time it did, I caught the drift of shadows at the edge of my vision. But when 1 glanced at the trees, the lake, the mountain, nothing was there.
I dragged my eyes open one last time before I lost consciousness. The flames had turned every shade of the rainbow, and they smelled just like sun-warmed grass.
Chapter 23
Sawyer walked out of the trees wearing nothing but his tattoos. If I hadn’t known this was a dream, I might have run for my life. But since it was, I got to look my fill.
The firelight played across his skin, etching the curve of his hip, the ripple of his abdomen, the spike of his rib cage in sharp relief. As he stalked toward me, the shadows came alive, swirling around him, taking on the shapes of his beasts. The air seemed to whisper in an ancient language, and the flames leaped higher than before.
He didn’t speak; his eyes shone pale against the bronze of his face. They seemed lit from within, the way a small animal’s eyes glow when caught by the headlights of a car.
I’d come to my feet; I don’t know when. He stopped so close I could feel his heat, along with his erection. I made an involuntary movement, rubbing the delicious hardness against my belly. Too bad I still wore all my clothes.
He smelled like grass. Had he been rolling in it? Perhaps the scent was merely invading my senses from the blazing fire, which now illuminated the clearing like a spotlight spewing a rainbow. Colors sparkled all around us like rain.
Reaching out, he brushed a fingertip across my cheek-bone, and when he pulled it back, a dewdrop twinkled, silver on bronze.
His spooky gray eyes holding mine, he lifted his finger to his mouth, and the moisture dissolved on his lips. He suckled the tip. I felt the pull in my stomach, then lower still, as a moan threatened to break free.
The flames leaped and danced. I was suddenly so hot. I shrugged out of the flannel shirt, lost the jeans, boots, underwear, and socks. The air stirred like springtime against my skin.
I wanted to feel every inch of him with my hands and my mouth. I wanted to lick the wolf, scrape my teeth against the shark, suckle the skin where the tiger paced.
Since this was a dream, I could touch him and more. So I did.
He didn’t make a sound. His hand cupped my head gently, fingers tightening as I roamed ever lower.
I licked the long, hard length of him, my tongue twining along the same skin as the image of a rattlesnake.
Was that supposed to be a joke? I didn’t bother to ask.
He sank to his knees, bringing us hip to hip, heart to heart, face to face. I look his hand and saw the centuries. They were long; they were lonely. No one had ever been like him until me.
I jerked, and our hands separated. I wasn’t like him. I never could be.
“Shh,” he murmured. As he leaned closer, his hair brushed my face; then his lips took mine.
I no longer saw anything; I could only feel. His tongue in my mouth, his hand on my back, his palm cupping my breast.
Energy surged between us. If 1 didn’t know the night was clear, I’d have thought lightning had struck nearby. But the breeze was gentle, warmed by the fire, not a hint of rain anywhere. Yet that sensation of electricity, the faint scent of ozone, lingered. The more I touched him, the more I wanted to. What should be weird, if not downright frightening, I understood now to be inevitable.
He pulled me closer, held me tighter. I caught at his shoulders, unbalanced, then found myself captivated by the amazing smoothness of his skin. My fingertips traced the places where his tattoos roamed. I felt nothing, as if they weren’t even there.
His thumb flicked my nipple, and I gasped as the sensation shot through me, arching into his palm, begging for more, wanting everything. He replaced his hand with his mouth, his hair shrouding his face, cascading over my skin. I hung on as he suckled me and behind my closed eyelids beasts of prey flickered.
Like an X-ray—white against black—wolf, eagle, tiger, rattlesnake; everything I touched I could see. While his scalding mouth did such remarkable things I nearly came from that touch alone—hey, it had been a long time since I’d had sex of any kind, even imaginary—I dreamed what it would be like to become those animals, and I wanted it almost as much as I wanted him.