First You Dream
In AGATB, Gemma has a dream about Kartik. Well, the Realms deals in dreams, and I was never quite satisfied with Kartik being utterly clueless about his and Gemma's impending relationship. So I decided that the dream was shared between the two of them without either of their knowing it. It's only about as steamy as it was in the book, with a bit of new insight on Kartik's internal struggle between duty, family, and destiny.
No, I don't own the Gemma Doyle trilogy. This was made for giggles and grins (and to torture my boyfriend, I'll admit) without profit.
It is a dream within a dream.
Within it, I wake from a light sleep with soft, warm, nearly-familiar lips pressed down onto mine. Coppery red hair tickles the skin of my bare chest and a small gasp escapes those unyielding lips before they depart from mine. She didn't expect me to wake up.
My dream-self notes her state of undress; indeed she wears nothing but the thin, insufficient chemise she wore on our first official meeting. Her hair is wild around her pale face and her jade-colored eyes seem to glow in the near-darkness of my tent. In this moment she is more beautiful than anything I have ever seen; more beautiful than the violet-eyed goddess, Pippa Cross.
My dream-self thinks nothing of right or wrong, duty or destiny. There is only desire.
Desire brings my hand to her wrist, pulling her onto my cot. Desire pushes me out of my sleeping position to one atop her pale body. She isn't frail like her friends; I do not fear that my weight will hurt her.
There is a sigh from those lips. Parts of me ache for attention, but I ignore them in favor of bringing my lips to hers. She strains against me, no longer restrained by her morals, or values, or fear. She wants me as I want her.
I inch a thumb toward her breast, feel it through the soft fabric of her chemise, and rub slow circles over and around until I feel her harden to a rounded point beneath my fingers.
Her lips trail to the skin of my neck, driving me nearly mad with wanting. What a horrible kind of pleasure; the wanting would surely kill me. I feel her teeth graze over my flash and it's all I can do not to whimper against her flesh.
I divide her thighs with my knee, pushing that thin fabric up and away from the creamy flesh of her legs and over her navel. I think nothing of Amar or the Rakshana. I don't even really think of myself. She fills my senses, my mind; my very being is consumed in each strand of her fiery hair and each dark freckle that mars her throat or arms.
My hands glide over her form, drunk on the taste of her silky skin and an ache spreads from my heart to swell in my chest. Could I have hated this girl? Could I have spent so many hours wishing to gods that I was not supposed to pray to that it had been her instead of my brother? The thought fills me with sickness.
I hesitate before brushing past a part of her body that I'm not ready to know. I'm curious, certainly. The growling desire in me whispers of indulgence and of satiation, but a stronger part of me just isn't ready to mar her perfect innocence.
"Wait…" her voice is a whisper against my skin. The tone betrays the word and the desire won't give me leave to head her request. I slip my hand up under her gown and cup a breast that fits perfectly in my palm.
My lips find hers and I can taste the indecision in her. Her hands splayed against the expanse of my back, I take only one second to notice the stark contrast of my dark skin, and her pale flesh.
I rub the skin of her breast to pink and her breath comes in short bursts, mixing with mine.
As suddenly as she is mine, she is gone. Her hands against my damp skin push me away from her, and I don't fight. The skin of her neck and shoulder are moist with kisses and perspiration.
I blink as fatigue washes away all other thought, and suddenly I am just as I was as she fades from my sight.
Gemma…
I wake with a start and sit bolt-upright on my cot. It was only a dream. A dream that leaves my skin slick with sweat and my heart racing in my chest. The parts of me that have been denied attention throb with a persistent ache and I lie back down with an arm over my eyes, willing my treacherous body to calm.
It was only a dream. A dream like I've never had of an experience I've never partaken in.
Miss Doyle is safe in Spence, lost in dreams of dances and dukes, no doubt. A land where antagonistic Indian men have no place.
Only a dream.
Why does that knowledge sting so?