God. His woman.
Wake for me now, he sent. He released the tight hold he had on her, his hands gliding down her arms. He craned his neck to look at her face.
Her eyes opened slowly. She blinked at him. “Marcus?” she murmured. “That was … so good … but … what is this … where am I … where did you take me?” She looked around, and the innocence and confusion on her face tore at his heart and his conscience. He became painfully aware that what he had just done to her, which was similar to enthralling a woman, might not be viewed by her in a positive light.
Then her eyes opened all the way, a wide stare of light green eyes that locked onto his as she came fully awake. “You seem so real.” She blinked again.
In that instant she was here, now, with him, and he wanted to keep her with him, hold her, wherever the hell they were together. Dammit, he wanted her to stay.
He slid his arms around her once more. “Stay with me,” he cried, his panic rising. “Don’t go. We should talk about this. Please, Havily—” But he was losing her, he could feel it in the stiffening of her muscles and in the horror that replaced her look of satisfaction, her contentment, her fulfillment.
You bastard! she shouted within his mind.
He froze. He was always shocked by how much she despised him. And there was nothing he could do, nothing he could say. She would leave him.
“Fine,” he retorted. “Run away like you always do. But I don’t think you’ll soon forget how I just made you feel.” He released her and folded his hands behind his head. She was still connected to him, still one with his body. Her disgust with him had pissed him off, scraped his nerves raw once more, and frankly he wasn’t going to make the disengagement easy, not when she came to him at night, not when she teased him by sliding against his c**k every damn night. This time, she could do the work.
She shifted her hips and he bucked hard to let her feel the connection once more, that his c**k was buried deep inside her, that she had come to him for this purpose. She brought him to this place every goddamn night. Well, f**k her for looking at him as though he lived on the underbelly of a slug.
She gasped then lifted and glided off him. “I hate you for doing this to me,” she cried. She covered her br**sts with her arm, rose up, then faded away toward the dark edges of the room. Because she left, his departure from this nowhere place occurred at the same time. Once again, he felt that strange rush-and-glide as pitch darkness surrounded him.
He blinked, straining to see, but one more blink and he was lying on his bed in exactly the same position, with his hands folded behind his head. He was on top of the sheet now and as before completely naked.
For a moment he thought about folding to Second Earth and hunting her down. He knew where she lived, her little condo at the foot of Camelback Mountain. He wanted to get in her face and gloat. He wanted her to know that whatever game this was, for all her distaste of him personally, she wanted him, she pursued him, and he’d pleasured her.
Hah.
Well, at least in that he found a measure of contentment in their little war. At least in that he could smile at the ceiling, settling his shoulders deeper into the mattress. He’d done the very thing he’d been trying to do for four months now, since Alison’s ascension, since his return to his life on Mortal Earth—he’d brought his woman to a screaming climax.
His smile broadened, at least for a time, then it dimmed. Who was he kidding? This would never be enough, these encounters that had no more substance than if he’d awakened in the middle of a wet dream.
Still, he’d kept her with him until the end this time, and he would take satisfaction from that. Sort of.
He’d come inside her, which made him wonder. He looked down at his partially thickened c**k still weeping his fluids. He blinked. He felt over his abdomen and chest, but there was nothing of his come present on his body. He felt only a thin sheen of sweat.
If this had been a wet dream, he would have been covered in his seed.
So where was the unmistakable evidence that he’d just had one helluva fine orgasm?
He was pretty sure he knew and once more he smiled at the ceiling. If he was right about all of this, Havily Morgan had one big-ass shock coming to her.
Good.
* * *
Havily knew the encounter was just a dream, like all the others she’d experienced, endured, over the past weeks. Of course it was just a dream, except that in this dream she’d actually had an orgasm. And somewhere in the course of the dream, she’d stripped off her nightgown … as usual.
She lay in bed, staring at her ceiling, at the collection of glittery butterflies. The air conditioner came on, and the large flock moved as though in flight.
She smiled. She didn’t know exactly what this was she had been doing at night, but she could feel the ease of hormones that drifted through her veins now, those beautiful hormones that gave her such a light peaceful feeling.
She had to admit one thing—her fantasies rocked! She could even laugh at herself now. She had given Marcus such form, such shape that when she’d awakened from the fantasy-dream, for a moment she’d actually believed he was real.
Her smile faded. She believed he was real in the same way she had believed the fiery attack on Luken had been real … because the attack had been real.
She shuddered and squeezed her eyes shut. Of course the attack on Luken had been real. She’d made a phone call, and Thorne had confirmed the tragedy.
But this thing with Warrior Marcus was not real, never had been real, couldn’t be real. Oh, God, it really couldn’t.
She took several deep breaths and calmed the feelings of panic that constricted her chest. Of course it wasn’t real. But … and here she closed her eyes … in the dream-fantasy, Marcus had smelled so wonderful.
She touched her fingers to her lips. She smelled all his delicious fennel scent and smiled. In her fantasy he had kissed her—and what had he kept saying to her? Sleep. So she had, and then she’d orgasmed. He was such a big, powerful man and his hips had pistoned hard. And his cock, like a baseball bat.
Desire swept over her once more and her hips rocked as she let all the incredible sensations sweep over her, which in turn caused her back to arch off the mattress. That’s when she felt the oozing between her legs.
She had just finished her period. What the hell?
She sat up carefully and flipped on the light. She grabbed a handful of tissues and pressed between her legs. She looked down at the tissues certain she’d see blood. However, what came out of her wasn’t red.