I smile as I move to straddle him. We’ve done this before, and I essentially told him I was going to do it again, so I feel perfectly justified in taking what I want—especially when I know that he wants it, too.
He’s hard, so damn hard, and we fit together so perfectly. I sigh with pleasure as he fills me. As I raise and lower myself, taking him. Pumping him.
He feels it, too. I can tell by the incredible sensation of him inside me as well as by the way his body writhes beneath mine. He is close, and I think that if I can just take him all the way—if he will just come inside me even in this dreamland—then it will break the spell. Like the princess kissing the sleeping prince and waking him once more.
I think that I am succeeding. Beneath me, he begins to move more wildly, and just when I think that he is there, he opens his eyes and stares into mine.
I gasp because he is still hard, and for a moment I am overwhelmed with the power of everything that is between us. But that changes in an instant. He moves fast, rolling us over until he is on top of me and no longer inside of me. He yanks me to my feet, his hands clenching painfully tight around my upper arms.
I gasp, trying to read his expression, but he’s not with me—I can see that clearly enough now. He’s dreaming. He’s fifteen. And I’m certain that in his dream he is doing exactly what I told him to do.
He is fighting.
He is fighting me.
With a groan, he slams me against the wall, one hand around my neck, the other between my legs. His expression is hard, his eyes wild, and I gasp, trying to breathe as he roughly spreads my legs and thrusts inside me, wild and untamed.
I’m scared—goddammit, I’m really and truly scared—but not of him. I’m scared of the dream. Of the fact that he doesn’t see me. He sees her. The Woman. I know that he wants to hurt her. And right now, I don’t know how far he will go.
I whimper as he tosses me back on the bed, as he forces me up on my knees, then tugs my arms behind me so that my shoulders feel ripped out of me and my weight is on my head. He still has me around the neck, and I’m completely unable to move, and he’s inside me, thrusting hard. Not his cock, but his fingers, and he’s lost in the intensity of the moment, so far gone with pain and fury that I can barely make out the words he mutters: Bitch. Pain. Never again.
I’m light-headed, and though part of me says I need to let him do this—I need to be the stand-in for the object of his rage—I cry out, the sound muffled because I can’t draw air and the room is turning gray. A darker, colder fear washes over me and I force my name out, Jane, I cry. I’m Jane. But I don’t even know if I’ve actually made sounds.
Then his grip loosens and he flips me over. His hand is still around my neck. He’s still fucking me, thrusting deep. But now it’s slower, more methodical. His eyes are still glazed, but I see the man I love behind the shadows, and when he whispers, Mine, I know that he sees me, too, even from somewhere in his dream.
With each thrust of his fingers, he’s moving over my pelvis. Grinding himself against me. And I can see that he’s close. I feel it when his body tenses, when he tightens his grip around my throat again, when he explodes over my belly, my breasts, and then throws his head back and groans.
For a moment, I think it’s a victory, but when he opens his eyes and looks at me, all I see is horror.
Within seconds, he’s released my neck. He leaps off the bed and is flat against the wall, his chest rising and falling. His eyes wide. His face so full of pain and self-loathing it breaks my heart.
I sit up, trying not to show how sore I am. How hard it is to breathe. “Dallas,” I say, but he holds up his hand as if he can’t stand the sound of his name.
I don’t silence myself though. “It’s okay,” I say. “I told you to. You didn’t hurt me. I consented. A hundred times, a thousand times. I wanted this. You needed it.”
“Needed to fucking rape you?” His voice is thick, and I think he is on the verge of breaking down.
“You didn’t,” I repeat. “I wanted it. I told you.”
“I could have hurt you.”
“I’m right here. I’m not hurt.”
“No.” He shakes his head, then brings his hands up and squeezes his skull. “God, no. What the fuck? This isn’t—I can’t. Fuck.”
His eyes find me. “I was a fool,” he says, his voice low. “We can’t ever have normal. We can’t ever be normal. I’m a danger to you. Physically. Emotionally. And I can’t do this. I can’t stay with you and watch myself destroy what I love most in the world.”
He starts for the door.
“Dallas!” I call, but he just keeps going. And he doesn’t look back.
My body aches to go after him, but I hold myself still, clutching tight to the sheets as if to anchor me. I tell myself that he just needs time. After all, that was seriously intense.