I sigh.
Sounds like a load of spangle shit to me. A perfect excuse to draw the pleasure out and put off the painful bit. But I’ve been doing that for the past who the heck knows how long, and all it’s done is land me on this big, comfortable pallet with the male, nuzzling his hand. Indulging in a love I’ll never be able to keep.
It’s cruel.
I’m cruel.
“I have to go, Kaan.”
“Bluntly aware of your intentions, Raeve. But as I said before you fell asleep, we need to have a serious conversation first.”
I go stone still, swearing internally.
I’d hoped he’d forgotten.
He lifts his face from my neck, then tilts my head far enough that I’m looking up at him, crushed beneath the sizzle of his earnest stare. “We can either do that now or we can keep pretending for a little while. The choice is yours.”
I scowl. “And if I don’t want to have this talk you speak of? Ever?”
He shrugs. “Then you’ll have to kill me on your way out of Dhomm. Simple as that. Otherwise, I’ll be on your fucking heels for the rest of eternity until you decide you’re ready to face your past.”
I physically recoil, like he jabbed me with a shiv and marginally missed a vital organ. “You’re horrible.”
His smile is soft. Gentle, even.
“I’m a horrible male that loves you, Raeve. That wants the best for you, even if it’s not the best for me.” The smile falls, his eyes darkening as he pauses—like he’s grappling with the words on his tongue. “There are … others who would be affected by your sudden return. One in particular. You need to know the truth.”
I open my mouth, close it, shafted by the hardness in his stare. The same hardness I saw in his eyes when he leapt down off Rygun’s back at the crater in the Boltanic Plains.
Whoever this other is, I’m half convinced he’d cut off a head for them. Meaning I’m not getting out of here without this talk. Especially since I threw away my leverage for a midslumber snuggle and a lullaby.
Who am I? A dose of love from the past has tamed me into something soft, squishy, and … stupid.
“I don’t like this.”
“I know you don’t,” he murmurs, reaching up to tuck a tendril of hair behind my clipped ear. “Growing pains are called pains for a reason.”
Don’t like that, either. I’ve had enough pain.
A bit sick of it, actually.
“So what’s it to be, Moonbeam? Are you in a listening mood?”
Definitely not.
A little more blissful make-believe with the male who’s looking at me like I shaped the sky versus a conversation about my prickly past that’ll probably break more than it builds?
Not even a competition.
“Tell me,” I muse, falling back into our lustful illusion like falling through a cloud, “what sort of … things did we used to do in this room when we’d wake before the aurora rose?”
Kaan softens around me, a husky sound building in his chest as his eyes blaze. “You haven’t dreamt about us in this sleep space?”
Yes.
“No.”
He quirks a brow. “Really? Because you said otherwise while you were four drinks deep, being thrown about the dance floor to a thumping jig in the Bhoggith dome.”
My cheeks heat.
Course I did.
He threads his fingers through the strap of my sleepwear, edging it down my shoulder, planting kisses across my collarbone—tangling with my senses.
Loosening my body.
“Tell me, Raeve …” Another soft kiss is planted on my neck, his next words rumbled against my ear. “How did I fuck you in your dreams?”
Warmth pools between my legs.
I nibble my bottom lip as my mind tunnels toward the vivid memories I’ve seen …
Lived.
Memories of us tumbling between the sheets together, laughing.
Loving.
Memories of him working my body into a precipice of pleasure that can only exist when hearts collide in synchrony with a passion-fueled clash. Something I never thought possible until I dreamt it.
One of the reasons I found it so hard to go, while at the same time making me equally desperate to do just that—leaving me torn two ways. Unable to move at all.
And here we are.
Me, like a charmed dragon struggling to rip from Kaan’s atmosphere. And him—
Him.
Fuck.
To think I almost slit this male’s throat rattles me to my marrow.
Kaan pulls the strap farther down my arm, freeing my aching breast, his thumb brushing the peak of my hardened nipple. “Did we play rough or gentle?”
Another kiss on my neck as his fingers slide across the gathered silk of my black sleep shift, feathering over my navel.
“Did I tease you until you were wet, shuddering, and mindless, screaming for me to take you?”
He nips my neck, and I jolt.
Yes, Kaan. I’ve screamed for you in my dreams. Woken with your name still hot on my lips, pulsing with the memory of your hand …
Right where I need it now.
I press my ass against his swelling shaft, putty for his touch skating over my hip, dipping lower.
Lower.
A languid roll, and I lift my right leg, the hem of my shift slipping up my thighs. He gathers it a little farther, leaving me entirely bared.
“Did I take you hard?” he coaxes, grazing his fingers along my seam, parting me, swirling around my throbbing entrance.
Again.
Again.
Two fingers circle that sensitive nub of nerves while he kisses my neck, working me into a knot. “Was it deep and slow?”
“All of the above,” I rasp, and a dense rumble rattles his chest as he pushes into my slick, fluttering core—
Pleasure ripples through me, making me shudder.
Another unhurried thrust, and I widen my legs, trailing my hand down his arm, just like I did in my dream. Using my own fingers to press him deeper into my aching heat—grinding to the same famished rhythm.
He nips the shell of my ear, then kisses it with devastating tenderness.
I rock to a steady beat, keeping his hand between my thighs, coaxing my flesh to flush with a swollen warmth that’s hungry.
Wet.
Wanting.
Another kiss to the side of my neck casts a trail of tingles to my breasts. Past my navel.
Down into my core.
All my fine ligaments twinge and tighten, and my body deepens its rolling ride, building my pleasure from the fill of his fingers.
I tip my head in a quiet request for him to kiss my neck again, groaning when he laves at that tender stretch of skin with such voracious confidence. Picturing his tongue doing the same thing elsewhere.
Every nerve ending below my belly button begins to tingle, intensifying until I can’t speak.
Can’t think.
Can’t breathe.
Another lavishing kiss to my neck, and every muscle in my body clenches with fierce, greedy violence. My release rips through me like a rockslide, splashing me with wave after wave of explosive pleasure.
He gently withdraws his fingers, and a moan bludgeons up my throat as he rubs my tender coil of nerves while peppering kisses around that spot beneath my ear—winding me up.
Unraveling me.
I continue to pulse, Kaan’s low, satisfied growl shuddering through me, and I laugh, shaking my head. So high it feels like I’m dancing through the clouds.
If only I could live in this imaginary existence forever. Things feel good here. Wholesome and happy.
Free.
He plants a kiss at the corner of my mouth, sending another zing straight between my thighs despite my ebbing release.
My attention homes in on his hardness pressed against my backside, the muscles under my tongue tingling …
I roll out of his arms, and his eyes flare as I reach for the clasp of his pants, popping the button.
Yanking them down.
Tossing them aside, I straddle him, greedy gaze sweeping his body. He’s a work of art tangled amongst the silken sheets, his manhood resting against his belly, the tip almost meeting with his belly button.
He reaches up, cupping my face, looking at me in the same way he did in that small, lopsided dwelling. Like he’d catch a fallen moon for me. Only this time it doesn’t chafe, because we’re shaping memories from silt. Something that can be washed away with the next torrential downpour.