Page 29 of Soulbound Shadows: Part 1

“I can’t stop thinking about you,” I blurted out, and then, to my horror, I kept talking, pouring out my thoughts to her.

“What are you saying?” she asked when I finally paused. She took a step closer. The flimsy fabric of her robe didn’t hide anything. It was a Herculean effort to keep my eyes on hers, but I’d already crossed so many lines in the past few minutes.

I opened my mouth to tell her I was sorry for intruding, and that I was going to leave, but the words wouldn’t come out.

“You’re intoxicating,” I admitted instead. “I can’t bring myself to want anyone but you, and I want you so desperately, I feel like I’m going to go mad with it. I’m tired of pretending.” The confession was surprisingly difficult. It was too much to hope she might return my feelings, but there was a sinking pit of dread opening up in my stomach at the idea that she would decide our partnership wasn’t worth it anymore.

Her face was turned up toward me, pale and lovely in the low light being cast into the room by the streetlights. I couldn’t read her expression. I was struck by a sudden certainty that I had ruined this strange, fragile thing between us, and there would be no way for me to repair it.

But then Evangeline, as she so often did, surprised me. “Fuck it,” she said, and then we were kissing, hot and frantic and desperate. She pulled away just long enough to yank my shirt off, and then we were falling into her bed, and I was undoing my belt, then holding myself steady for her to sink down onto…

I woke, blinking up at my bedroom ceiling, glaring upward at nothing in particular.

Of course, I thought. Of course my subconscious would decide to do this to me. My cock was achingly hard, with precum dripping onto my stomach. I sighed. The dream was still tantalizingly present in my mind, but I could feel it starting to fade like mist being burned away by the sun. I couldn’t shake the image of Evangeline on top of me, her eyes dark with lust and lips kiss-bruised, her robe slipping off her shoulders to reveal her pert breasts.

I couldn’t help myself. I reached down and took myself in hand, stifling a groan of relief at the sensation. It was too dry, but going to the effort of grabbing lube felt as though it would make this worse somehow. This wasn’t something for me to luxuriate in. This was simply me dealing with an issue. I swiped up the precum from my stomach and used that instead, stroking myself quickly and just on the right side of too tight.

I thought of the unabashed lust I’d seen in the eyes of dream-Evangeline, and how she’d looked at me like I was something she had been craving. I thought of the sight of her bare, freckled chest, and nipples pebbled in the cold night air. She’d been sensitive, pushing into my hands when I touched her there. When she’d straddled me, her robe had parted over her legs, showing me a glimpse of neatly groomed chestnut hair between her legs.

My hand was moving faster now, twisting around the flushed head of my cock with each stroke. I thought of the hot, wet press of her cunt against me as she started to slide down onto me, as well as the velvety warmth of her, and my hips jerked up off the bed.

Would Evangeline approach sex the same way she approached everything else, with skill and determination? I was thrusting up into every stroke of my hand now, ragged gasps escaping me. Would she look up at me with that sharp, examining gaze, even as she went down on her knees and took me into her mouth? Would she smile to herself like she’d solved a mystery when she managed to make me fall apart?

I thrust up into my own tight grip one last time, letting out a broken moan. Pleasure tore through me ruthlessly. My grip slackened, and I closed my eyes, panting. I didn’t need to, really, but breathing was a hard habit to break, even after centuries.

When I managed to resurface from the hazy, pleasure-drunk place I’d sunk into, I huffed out a breathless laugh of disbelief. Just from my own hand and the thought of Evangeline, I’d come so hard that some of it had nearly reached my collarbones.

“I think I may be in trouble.”

11

EVANGELINE

It was hard to feel like you were setting off on an important quest when joggers kept passing you by. It was just past seven thirty, and as I headed to the spot where I’d told Gabriel to meet me, people in brightly colored athletic wear kept running past me, greeting each other with nods, waves, and the occasional breathless, “Hey!”

It was a bright, cool morning, with just enough of a breeze to send the clouds scudding across the sky. The northern entrance to the woods was a wide, friendly path that led to a handful of hiking trails. A few of them were easy enough to be popular with people looking for a decent morning jog, and there were plenty of people walking their dogs as well. I knew from experience that over the summer there would be flocks of little kids there, being herded down the paths by frazzled-looking camp counselors.

The stone archway was set off from the main path, surrounded by birch trees. It was old, and the weathered stones were overgrown with moss and vines. A few of the vines were sprouting delicate flowers with long, thin petals that were such a vibrant orange they almost didn’t seem real.

The flowers were much better to focus on than my dream last night, which I was doing my best to not think about at all. And failing pretty badly. It would have been one thing if it had just been a simple sex dream. Gabriel was distractingly handsome, and if it had just been my brain throwing together the image of us in bed, I would’ve been embarrassed, but not, if I was being honest with myself, all that surprised.

But that wasn’t what it had been. The version of Gabriel I’d dreamed up had pretty much been falling over himself to tell me how great I was. He’d seemed like the human—well, vampire—embodiment of the hand clench in the Pride and Prejudice movie Isabella and I watched together whenever one of us was having a real shitty day. Gabriel was hot, sure, but why would my subconscious dream up a version of him that was practically in love with me? I could barely admit to myself that I kind of enjoyed his company sometimes.

“You’re early,” said a familiar baritone.

I turned around to find Gabriel standing a few yards away, holding an incredibly ugly backpack.

“So are you,” I pointed out. Then I processed what he was wearing and stared at him blankly. “Is that a tweed blazer?” It was made of dark green wool, with a large leather patch coming down over one shoulder.

Gabriel sniffed, tugging his blazer straight. “It’s a shooting jacket,” he said tightly. “It’s intended for outdoorsmen.”

“Right,” I said. “Outdoorsmen. Okay. And the boots?” The boots were shiny black leather that came up to just below the knees.

“Riding boots,” he said. “I had planned on getting myself a pair of hiking boots, but I thought that trying to break them in on a trip that’s going to take multiple days would be unwise. And I used to go running through the woods in these, so…”

“Very practical,” I said, biting the inside of my cheek to keep myself from grinning. “Thanks for dressing up for the occasion.”

“Don’t be absurd,” Gabriel said, shaking his head a tiny bit. “I’m not even wearing a tie.”

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