Page 23 of The Nightmare's Kiss

“No.” His form doesn’t move so much as it stretches, like a shadow lengthening with the passage of the sun, and all of a sudden he’s closer. Sitting on the edge of my bed. That familiar scent hits me again: smoke and spice, like campfire and black pepper. I used to associate it with fear, but now it makes my mouth water. “But I can be whatever you want me to be.” His form goes hazy and indistinct, becoming the cloud of darkness I usually see within the cell when I work. Various shapes and faces swim out of the darkness. I recognize a raven’s wing, a snake’s tongue, a weeping woman who looks disturbingly like me, Ethan with his look of stern disapproval.

I flinch at the last one. “No,” I say. I sit up slowly. Normally, I hold up the blankets to cover my scanty nightclothes—it is so damn hot in this room at night, I always go to bed wearing relatively little—but this time I don’t. Even as the covers pool on my lap, revealing pale slivers of bare thigh beneath the T-shirt and panties I’m wearing.

The Nightmare gradually shifts back into his usual humanoid form. He’s even closer than before. Nearly close enough to touch. “No?” he asks. “Tell me what you want. It is your dream.”

He’s right. It’s just a dream. And my dreams are mine to mold as I will. In my real life, I am trapped in this town, in my job, in my parents’ house. But here? Here, no one can shame me for who I am or what I want. No one can judge me for what I do.

I push the covers away and sit forward, resting on my knees in the middle of the bed. Then I reach out, slowly, and touch the Nightmare’s cheek. I trace a finger over the hard line of his jaw, his full lower lip. “I like this face,” I whisper. “Sharp teeth and all.”

He goes still under my touch, his eyes on me. “You are a strange human,” he murmurs, his voice lower and raspier than before.

“You’re a strange nightmare,” I counter, scooting closer, growing bolder. My oversized T-shirt slips off one shoulder, and his eyes follow the motion.

He reaches out to cup my face with one huge hand; even with claws, he is gentle. So gentle, his long fingers warm and velvety against my skin. I shut my eyes and sigh as his finger drifts over my bottom lip. I open my mouth and take it in, sucking gently. When I look up at him, his head is tilted and still, his own mouth open to reveal a glimpse of those sharp, sharp teeth. I am surprised at how well his shadowy features can convey surprise anddesire.

His form flickers, nearly losing its shape. I pull away from his finger, uncertain and suddenly shy, and shadowy tendrils curl around my wrists, my ankles, my neck. He pins me to the bed beneath his massive form. Rather than trapped or afraid, I feel cradled,caressed. This isn’t a threat. It’s the embodiment of all the dark desires I’ve never spoken aloud. The fantasies I never trusted anyone enough to play out in real life. Ethan and other guys like him always shamed me for my tastes, my insatiable hunger, and they didn’t even know the half of it.

“Brave little Mara,” he says. The shadowy tendrils tighten around my limbs and lift me up, so I’m dangling a couple inches above the bed with my wrists above my head. I wriggle in my bindings, but there’s no use; his grip is soft but firm, impossible to escape. Meanwhile, his humanoid body sits on the bed and gazes up at me with an aloofness that shouldn’t stoke the flames higher. “You think that you could handle me?”

Even as my heart thumps in my ears, I grin down at him. “I’d certainly like to try,” I murmur.

And I mean it. I am too fucking curious for my own good.

In a flash, he has me pinned to the bed beneath him again, sharp teeth snapping inches from my face.

“Are you trying to scare me?” I ask, still grinning. Feeling reckless and wild and dangerous. Here, I am free and in control. “I thought we were past this.” I try to lift my hips to press against him, seeking much-needed friction, but I can barely move. Still, I manage to lean forward just enough to kiss him. I press my lips to the side of his mouth, and then again—carefully, holding my breath—to one of those huge, sharp canines. He stares down at me, unmoving, but there’s a flicker of hunger in his eyes. “Give me what I want,” I whisper, holding his gaze. “This ismydream.”

He huffs a laugh. “If you say so.”

He trails one claw down the front of my shirt. I wish he would tear it, but he doesn’t. He makes me wait as I squirm and whimper. Then the tip of his claw reaches my panties, and he stops.

“Oh, come on,” I say.

He grins. “Say please.”

I glare at him, indignant. “You think—” I start, and then a shadowy tendril wraps around my throat, applying a delicious pressure, and I choke off in a breathy moan. “Please,” I gasp.

The dark chuckle of his response echoes around the room. Another shadowy tendril yanks my panties down, and then he’s on top of me, pressing me down into the bed. He bites my shoulder as he thrusts into me, and the pain mingled with pleasure is so intense, it renders me incoherent. I gasp and whimper as his sharp teeth dig into my shoulder and he sinks deeper into me. He’s so big. Too big, especially with hardly any foreplay. The pressure makes my eyes water. It feels like I’m going to be ripped in half, yet I rock my hips against him, eager for more,more. This roughness is exactly what I’m craving, exactly what I need to satisfy the hunger and frustration I’ve been bottling up for weeks. Just when I think I can’t possibly handle it, he’s fully in and no longer too big, but just big enough to fill me entirely, a perfect fit.

Because of course he is, I think, as his shadowy form shivers around the edges. He can change at will, and right now he is using that to give me my every dark desire. I’m panting as he pulls back, and then he slams into me again, and pleasure chases away every thought.

It’s like he knows exactly what I want, what I need, pushing me to my limits without ever stepping past them. He fucks me slowly even as I beg for more, deep thrusts that fill me until my eyes roll back and I’m making desperate, needy sounds. A dozen shadowy hands tease me, pulling my hair, caressing my breasts, pushing into my mouth to force it open when I try to swallow my cries. Fingers become tentacles become a slide of his long tongue, a constantly shifting array of pleasure, teasing and torturing every inch of me. Tears leak from the corners of my eyes and my breath rasps in my throat and God, I need more; it feels like I will never have enough.

It would be humiliating, to be reduced to such a begging, incoherent mess by a real man; I would be self-conscious about my whimpering pleas and the faces I’m making, the way my body arches and contorts, the filthy, wet sounds of my body and the desperation in the things I’m asking him to do to me. But this is just a dream, just my own fantasy, and so there is nothing to hold me back from taking my pleasure as I want it.

So I do. I pour out my every desire, needy and greedy and desperate though it may be. I ask him to choke me and bite me and use me as he will, and he obliges, till I am putty under his many shadowy hands and his long tongue, and the pleasure is so intense I can hardly take it. His rasping breath in my ear, the slide of his tongue against the side of my neck and the bright flares of pain of his teeth, his low moans of pleasure—it all only heightens my own need. But the slow rhythm of his movements stay painfully controlled, keeping me on the edge but never allowing me to reach my peak. Finally, I am reduced to only a single coherent word, a repeated plea:please, please, please.

Breath hisses through his teeth as he increases his thrusting, as the wave of pressure inside me builds and builds and builds and then crashes. I cry out as I come, toes curling and body trembling. He fucks me through the orgasm, hard and relentless thrusts, until he groans and shudders too.

He leaves an empty ache when he pulls out of me: a pleasant, satisfying throb between my legs. Slowly, the shadowy tendrils release my ankles and wrists, one by one. I am too tired to lift my head or open my eyes. When I finally manage to crack an eyelid, he is gone, morning light is spilling through my window, and I am awake.

15

Chapter Fifteen

My sheets are a tangled mess, my pillow is on the floor, and I’m sprawled spread-eagle with my nightshirt pushed up around my waist.

Holy. Shit. I sit up slowly, groaning as I find my body sore and aching, as though I really did get railed by a seven-foot-tall shadow monster last night. Was I thrashing around in my sleep?

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