Page 19 of A Very Monstrous Desire

He was in the company of an alien monster, who was up to something, and Theo didn’t really know what apart from the fact it involved the munching monsters.

He may or may not make it back to his own dimension, and if he did, who knew when that would be or what he might go through before it happened!

It was all quite...overwhelming and Theo reflected on the moment six weeks ago when he’d received his conscription papers and how insistent he had been that nothing and no one would force him to battle. And now here he was, surely not the first person to slip into this dimension, but certainly the first he knew of!

Theo sighed as the monster disappeared into the bathroom, his thoughts racing back and forth, over and over until the monster emerged maybe ten minutes later.

He was topless.

Theo suddenly did not feel as sleepy anymore.

He looked up, wide eyed, as the overly muscled monster also made his way over to the bed. And he really was huge, Theo had never seen a human who could come close in sheer muscle mass. Though the muscles were just like a human’s, at least their locations—biceps and triceps and abs and all the rest. They were almost the very same. How was that possible?

“What are you doing?” Theo asked and he meant that to be a demand, but it did not come out like that at all.

“We are sleeping,” the monster said.

“Together?” Theo asked and the monster frowned.

“There is only one place to sleep.”

“Yes, but…

“But what?” the monster asked, and he seemed confused by Theo’s words. Perhaps that was how it was over here, in this dimension, they slept in the same bed, the same small bed.

The monster slipped in beside him before Theo could say anything else. Theo shifted quickly, intending to push himself as far back against the wall as possible, but he wasn’t quite quick enough. The monster’s hand brushed against his. It was the first time their skin had touched, Theo knew this to be true because the moment it did, a shiver of something ran through Theo. He did not recognize the feeling at all.

He’d never felt it before.

What was it?

A familiarity and yet…not…

Theo swallowed against a sudden lump in his throat. He felt a bit shaky again and when he realised why he almost died of shame. He had never felt so embarrassed in his life. The feeling was twisting and changing now, turning into something that was almost…excitement.

Theo shifted even further back to the point where he was pressed up against the luminous cave wall. He was beyond mortified, and he couldn’t help but wonder what the hell was wrong with him. He had been chased by monsters, had saved his friends from an imminent eating, had travelled to another dimension, and seen things that no human had ever seen, and now he was finishing that day excited to be sleeping in the same bed as an alien monster!

Ridiculous.

Absurd.

Undeniable.

“Sleep,” the monster commanded and his hand brushed Theo’s again and that same weird feeling ran through Theo quickly followed by another pulse of excitement.

Theo closed his eyes. Mortified again to realise that his body was reacting to that weird, excited feeling in a painfully predictable way. An inappropriate way. He scrunched his eyes as tightly shut as he could as the monster shifted into a sleeping position. He took up quite a lot of the bed. Theo was pressed close to the wall and there was still barely an inch between them.

He smelled of something Theo could not identify but it was in no way off-putting. And he was hot. Theo could feel the heat of his body and given they were in the depths of winter that meant Theo was warm in no time.

Perhaps it was nothing more than forced proximity, Theo thought a little desperately. Nothing more than a completely inappropriate response to a completely inappropriate situation. Surely, in the morning Theo would shake his head and be disgusted with himself. Realise that he had just been out of sorts and needed to sleep, needed to reset himself.

Yes, Theo told himself, it was nothing more than that.

He just needed to sleep.

And eventually, and despite not really believing that he would, Theo relaxed enough that he did sleep, either that or he was simply overcome with exhaustion, but his dreams were filled with munching monsters one moment and even stranger monsters the next. The squad were suddenly in the other dimension with him, Joel grinning and flexing his muscles and Gill throwing an uppercut. Julia was there, and she wiggled her eyebrows as she pointed between him and the monster who Theo was sleeping next to, who had suddenly joined him in the dream.

The monster reached out, pulling Theo into his arms, and he wasn’t just topless this time, and sleep was not the only thing they did in that bed. Perhaps that was why, as Theo awoke, that it took him a moment to realise exactly what was happening in this reality and what was happening in his dream…

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