Even in dreams, my lover tortures me.
I know it's a dream because Alice would never bring anyone, especially this man, to our house. And what kind of man would that make him? To be fetched? To be lured? Not just by a stranger, but into the room of a teenage girl? And not just any teenage girl, but one he resents? One he spurned? What kind of person would be convinced to enter a sleeping girl's room? Her bed? Her body?
But in the dream, this is exactly what Alice does. She brings him to our house and leads him up the stairs.
And in the dream, Grim doesn't need a single shred of convincing.
Standing tall, dark, and ominous in my bedroom doorway, the man bestowing me with this very reverie doesn't let my only ally follow him to where I'm curled up. He closes the door, locking her and everything but himself out as he approaches. Not that the lock could stop her. It's symbolic. He's here now, and nothing and no one else belongs here. Just him and me. We belong to each other.
In the dream, I'm outside myself somehow, watching the scene unfold from across the room, trying to breathe around a throatful of flutters as he uncovers my face.
I feel it. The cool air as he gathers away the blankets. The warm weight of his ink-black thumb when he draws it across my lips and presses in the corner, parting my dream-mouth. He turns me onto my back, and I feel the bed sink around my body even though I'm not in it as he kneels over me. Fully dressed. Ripped jeans and bare knees. The sweater I love sliding off his stained glass shoulder. I feel the strength and heat of his unmarked hand, cradling the back of my head as he draws his nose along the curve of my lips, bidding them more open before hovering his own parted lips there.
I feel him breathe into me.
Hypnotic and magnetic and heady.
Just like I've done to him a hundred times before.
But instead of pushing me into abysmal sleep, it rouses me.
And when he fills me with another lush breath, I feel it light me up.
In the dream, sleep slips fast from me with the rest of the blankets and I'm as bare as I was made to be. Eyes open wide, arms wider, legs so wide my whole frame shakes as he presses them even farther apart to make himself fit. Leaning over me as he undoes his jeans, my heartbreaker drags his ache against my ache like an edge, making every part of me come to life. Come to him. Blush and tingle and plead out loud to come all over him -
There you go. The heavy flame of his dream-voice grazes my cheek, my neck, my chest as we start to move together, and everything spins and blurs.
Wake with me, baby, my prey purrs, digging his teeth against my skin as he lets himself inside. Wake up with me.