The buckle of his belt clanged like a soft whisper across the room. His pants pulled open, but not pulled away. He stalked toward her with smooth, unhurried movements, allowing the pressure to build with each solitary step he made.
The bed sunk beneath his weight, a prowling tiger whose shoulders moved with a feline grace as he crawled up to hover above her. His heat was a blanket that covered her, his blue eyes the cool, icy promise that sent chills across her sweat dampened skin. Caged against the mattress by strong arms that were as thick as they were rigid, Alice forced herself to close her eyes.
“Look at me when I make love to you.”
His thumb and finger gripped her chin and tipped her face up so that when her eyes fell open, she became lost to the emotion in his.
With a voice as delicate as a whisper soft caress, he said, “From this night forward, we will always be together. Never forget that, Alice. I will never let you go.”
Her heart sang in response to his words, her body shuddering beneath him ready to take whatever pleasure he would give.
And give he did, his hands exploring every inch of her body before his mouth and tongue traced the same paths.
It took hours for Max to deliver on every unspoken promise he’d made to her with eyes that were filled with desire and hands that were as sensual as they were cruel. He teased her until she was begging for more, finally relieving her just enough so that she felt she would burst apart if he didn’t take her completely – making her his.
His attention entirely on her, Max pushed Alice into a frenzy of sexual need, pushing and pushing until finally entering her body to become one.
Drenched in delicious sweat, her heart pounding beneath her ribs, Alice fell over a tight precipice into the ecstasy and euphoria of her love for the man that drove her wild with the strength of his hands, the searing intensity of his kiss and the rhythm of a man possessed, taking from her body all it had to give.
They crashed against each other after that first time, but it only took minutes for Max to regain his strength and drag her into the shower to both love her again and help her clean up.
After showering, and before allowing her to crawl back in bed, Max changed the sheets. She found his need to change them odd, but she was too tired to question him about it. By the time her head fell against the pillow, exhaustion rode her so thoroughly that her eyes closed and she slept, her fear of what the night would bring lost in the warm strength of Max’ arms.
*
The next morning came as ordinary as any morning. Except it wasn't ordinary for one glaring reason that Alice didn't understand until she opened her eyes to find the first rays of morning sunlight trickling past the curtains of a large picture window in the room.
Dust motes glimmered where they hung suspended in a cascade of shimmering beauty, tiny fairies of light that had paused to worship the warmth that was returning to the world after hours of the cold moonlit night. Her eyes followed those small points of reflected light where they danced and swirled within the small air current that worked a path through the room.
She was aware of her surroundings, but not yet awake enough to completely understand it. More importantly, she wasn't pinned to the bed by some unseen specter. She was able to wiggle her fingers and toes, and she didn't open her eyes onto the scene of nightmare that had followed her from sleep into her waking life.
The sleep paralysis she'd suffered so often that it had become a part of her, was absent. There was no ringing in her ears so loud she feared she'd never hear anything beautiful again. There was no weight on her chest that threatened to crush her. Her body was solid and not floating above itself looking down to where she lay comfortably in the arms of a man.
The confusion that came with the absence of a demon that had plagued her for as far back as she could remember was staggering.
Max' arms were a warm weight across her body that prevented her from sitting up, but from what she could see, the pillows she laid her tired head upon the night before were still in place. The sheets were as neat over her body as they had been when Max had tucked her in. There were no obvious points of pain on her arms or legs from where she'd hurt herself fighting some unseen force through the night. She was still in place and hadn't woken to find herself standing in the threshold of a doorway, or lying down in another room.
She'd slept through the night without fighting. Without dreaming. Without panic or fear. And she'd woken peacefully to find the glimmering rays of quiet morning light.
12:37 p.m.
There wasn’t a waiting room any longer. At least not for Alice. No name being called and no doctor standing in a doorway. She woke up to the same couch where she always sat, her bent legs drawn up to her chest, her arms wrapped around her legs as a protective cage.