Page 9 of Her Christmas Monsters

The dark fog expands like it did before as his form takes shape. Judging by how high the shadows reach, he has to be well over six-foot-five. His face forms first, golden glowing eyes immediately catching my attention. They lock on to mine as his strong jaw and sharp nose appear, pulling me into their bottomless depths.

His body materializes next, drawing my gaze down to his wide bare shoulders, his hard pecs, and rippling abs.

“My name is Soren,” he says, as I scan over his muscular obsidian form. Heat blooms in my cheeks as I reach his waist and see that everything about him is indeed massive.

“Wh-what are you?” I lift my eyes back up to his.

“I’m a shade, but many from your world call me a shadow monster,” he explains.

“A monster?” I ask, expecting to feel a stab of fear, but it doesn’t come. Soren seems calm, serene, sweet, nothing like how I would picture a monster.

“Yes,” he says softly. “Some like me can act like monsters, but so do some humans.”

“You’re not wrong,” I huff out on a breath of amusement. But that moment of levity is quick-lived as I take in the shadowed interior of my apartment again. “This isn’t my apartment is it?”

“We’re in the dream realm, but you can’t truly see it because you’re human,” Soren explains, glancing around my room. “I never thought I’d see the day ...”

“You’ve never seen an apartment before?” I tease.

“I never thought I’d see the day when you saw my true form,” he whispers.

My breath catches in my throat at the forlorn look he gives me. It’s so filled with pain, it cleaves my heart in two.

“How long?” I ask, my throat dry. “How long have you been watching me?”

“I don’t know how long it’s been in human years, but it’s felt like an eternity to me,” he says, his hand reaching out as though he means to trail it over my cheek. I take a step forward almost on instinct, desperate to feel the caress of his midnight skin against mine.

He hesitates, his fingers a hair’s breadth away from my cheek, and I pull in a staggered breath, anticipation thrumming like electricity though my body. He brushes them over my skin, the light touch leaving warmth in its wake like the smooth caress of silk.

“I’ve waited for this moment for so long, it doesn’t feel real,” he says as I lean into his touch and close my eyes, relaxing against his palm.

I have no idea if this is real or just my mind spiraling out of control, but at this moment I don’t care. I tilt my head up to gaze into his glowing golden eyes that seem to see into the depths of my soul. If this is real, he’s probably glimpsed the memories that make up my being if he’s been watching me for years.

I raise up on my toes the same moment he lowers, our lips meeting in a tender kiss that steals my breath away. It’s soft and tentative at first, but then he deepens it, spilling all of the pain and heartache he felt being kept in the recesses of my dreams for so long with each sweep of his tongue.

His hand threads through my hair, and I moan against his lips as his tongue caresses mine in long, languid strokes, stoking the flames of desire in my core even higher.

Something wraps itself around my ankles, soft and soothing, like the feel of his skin beneath mine. It feels amazing, yet some part of me must realize I should be scared because my body urges me to jerk back. Just as I’m about to jump away, Soren cradles me closer.

“It’s my shadows,” he breathes against my lips, and I instantly relax in his grip as they wind up my legs, leaving goosebumps in their wake.

The shadows slip beneath the edge of my skirt and continue higher, eliciting a whimper of need from my lips as they near the place I desperately need some sort of friction.

“Is this okay?” he asks, parting for only a moment before I crush my mouth back on his, desperate and aching for him to continue. His chest vibrates with laughter beneath my hand and his shadows slither higher before sliding the fabric of my panties to the side.

Two more tendrils wreath themselves around my waist, trailing along my skin until they find the underside of my breasts. Thank fuck I flung off my bra last night as I was working, since there’s nothing to halt their path as they curl around my nipples, and stroke them into hard peaks.

“I can’t wait to hear the sounds you make as you come,” he breathes in that sweet yet seductive tone of his that makes my heart melt. If I wasn’t wet before I sure as hell am now. I love a man who can both be sweet and spicy when the time comes.

“You have some work to do before then, Soren,” I tease, and suck in a sharp breath as his shadows thicken and push inside my tight channel.

“Oh trust me, I’ll take pleasure in wringing every ounce of ecstasy from that gorgeous body of yours.”

I moan into the kiss as his lips crash back on mine, and he swallows the sound. I’m sure my knees are about to give out when a tendril caresses against my clit at the same time he slides back into me, but he wraps an arm around my waist, helping to support my weight while he turns my bones to jelly.

“Soren,” I breathe against his lips as he drives in again, the other tendrils teasing my nipples and circling my clit to drive my need higher and higher.

“I can taste your pleasure, Clara,” he groans into my mouth, and I whimper as I get closer and closer to that precipice. “It’s just as intoxicating as you are.”

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