Page 60 of Dance of Madness

I just didn’t want to keep sidestepping it. You’ve been honest with me, and I didn’t want to build this whole thing on half-truths.

Besides, you’ve always struck me as someone who doesn’t scare easy.

So… still there?

-Me

13

NERO

The soft inand out of her breathing fills the quiet darkness of the room.

I stand in the shadows, watching her chest rise and fall. The sheets are half-kicked off, her legs tangled in them like she fought sleep before surrendering to it.

This is her pattern. She goes to bed like a little princess: brushes and flosses her teeth, does her nightly skin routine, brushes out her long, platinum blonde hair, gets under the covers and pulls them up to her collarbone, folds them back precisely straight. She falls asleep on her back, lips closed gently, hands clasped over her sternum like fucking Snow White after a bite of that shitty apple.

Three minutes later, once she’s asleep, that whole perfection routine goes to shit.

She twists. She turns. She kicks at the covers. Her limbs flail all over the place, and her mouth drops open.

I’ve come to enjoy the path from perfection to ruin that she takes every night as sleep drags her under.

I’ve certainly watched it enough by now.

Tonight, though, I’m not inclined just to watch. Not after she stood me up. After she defied me.

I step forward, slowly and silently, until I’m standing at the edge of her bed.

She’s on her back with the covers mostly off, one arm tucked under her head, the other resting on her stomach. As always, her tank top’s ridden up enough to show a strip of bare skin, and her shorts are bunched at her hips.

My fingers ghost over her cheek, then drift lower to her collarbone.

She doesn’t stir.

I trace the back of a finger down her side, brushing just enough against the side swell of her breast to make my cock stir. Then I bring my finger down to her ribs.

The air in the room shifts. Pulsing hunger ignites inside of me.

I hook a finger under the hem of her tank top and slowly lift it, dragging it higher up her ribcage. When I get it all the way to her breasts I use a second hand to lift it away from her body and ease it over the soft, creamy swell of her tits.

Her pale, almost ghostly pink nipples tighten as I expose them to the cool air. My cock twitches in response, already thick and swollen.

When I swirl a fingertip over one nipple, it hardens even more, pebbling against my touch, a soft sigh falling from her sleeping lips.

I groan in response, reaching down to cup my bulging erection in my pants.

I tease the other nipple, watching it harden like the first. My palm teases over her taut dancer's stomach, relishing the way it caves under my touch.

My fingers slip into the waist of her shorts. I pull them a few inches lower, just enough to see her hipbones, the line of her stomach, the smooth expanse of skin.

She still doesn’t wake.

I pull them down further, taking her plain black panties with them. They slip off her hips and down her thighs until they slowly peel away from her pussy.

Pink. Delicate. Shaved bare.

Swollen, with a little bit of a glisten between her lips as her legs shift softly.

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