“I like it. Come here.” I pat my lap. “I’ve missed you.”
“Have you?” I make a soft noise in the back of my throat as Diantha crosses the room. “I feel like you’ve done everything in your power to avoid me.”
“Let’s not talk about that,” I reply.
She hums in agreement as she lowers into my lap. Her weight feels so real. But it’s been so long since I’ve dreamed that perhaps…
Her lips are on my neck. Yes, this is definitely a dream.
Her mouth moves with greed, her nails digging into my chest. I welcome that desperate mix of pain and desire. I gather her hair in my fist, feeling the tension of it as she descends.
“Slowly, amore,” I whisper.
She lifts her dark, wide eyes to meet mine and the hot, keen edge of pleasure flares in me. Her teeth nip at my flesh, herhands knead at my thighs, until she’s between my legs. “I’ve missed you too.”
My erection strains against my jeans and I shift, but it does nothing to alleviate the pressure.
“Really?” I ask, my voice husky.
She nods. But her dream-like touch is elusive. It glitches, here and then gone. I groan with desire, with frustration. I want to feel everything, every skim of her fingers over the planes of my stomach. Every whisper of breath as her lips make contact with the sensitive skin above my belt.
I watch her move lower, until her lips reach the fabric of my jeans. And then, I feel the pressing heat of her mouth against my dick. Through the fabric, the pressure of her tongue against me.
I tighten my hold on her hair. Is this real? It feels so…
Her fingers curl around my belt buckle. “May I?”
I can barely form a response. I grunt, watching my abdominal muscles flex and tighten. Her fingers pull the leather strap through the buckle while she keeps the heat of her mouth pressed to the base of my erection.
Maybe it takes minutes or seconds or eons, but finally she unzips my pants and pushes my boxers away. I spring forward for her, humiliatingly ready. Her tongue snakes out to wet her bottom lip, and then…
This has to be real. I can feel it all.
Her hair between my fingers, her breath on me, then her lips and her tongue. Her sweet, hot tongue. Tasting me. Tracing upward. The vibrations of her moans. The pleasure building and building in the depths of my groin as she takes me deeper. Her eyes fixing me through those dark lashes. That wicked mouth of hers coaxing me closer. The sounds of my own pleasure growing louder, mixing with hers…
I awaken with a jolt.
Red numbers blink from my nightstand, my only company in the total darkness of my bedroom.
I take to wandering campus in the moonlit hours before and after Bowen’s class. Anything to keep me from going home, falling asleep, and finding myself back in that goddamned library.
It is beautiful this time of year, cloaked in fog and the soft light from nearby street lamps. The library windows glow like a beacon, calling me toward their warmth. One night, I concede. I push open the heavy, oak double doors.
The intricacies of the building stun me. I walk slowly through the atrium, my eyes trained on the stone buttresses that lead into the stained-glass dome.
When my eyes drop to the desk at the center of the room, my feet stall.
There she is. Looking up at me.
“Orfeo.” She sounds so shocked.
I am too.
My name on those lips.
Desire surges in my chest, alongside longing and pain. It all tangles together inside me, and for a moment, I remember the horrors of being human. The dull ache of guilt and shame; the sharpness of anger. Her dark eyes are flooded with that—all of that. The mess of being alive.
She makes me feel alive.
