She was bare beneath the shift, no undergarments. There was no barrier when his fingers finally traced over her core.
"You’re not wet. Do you need to be kissed more?"
He kissed her fiercely, fingers tracing against her. She flinched from the coldness of his touch.
Before long, her traitorous body grew soft. She melted and knew the precise moment her body answered him, for he groaned deeply.
"Look at that. You obey me so well. You’re so warm," Graves said against her mouth.
He parted her, seeking that spot that made her gasp and clench around nothing as he brushed over it softly.
It was just a dream. This wasn’t real. She could enjoy it.
"Just like that," he praised. "Just feel it."
The words were so much like him. Everything was. Save the absence of his scent, the unease in her body, as if she wished to reject him, and the coldness of his hands.
The sickness inside her welled like a fearsome ocean wave, surging over her until she was left gasping. Pleasure and nausea tangled until she couldn’t tell one from the other.
Caught between two intense feelings, she didn’t know which way to let herself fall.
"I-I think I need to stop. Graves, I don’t feel well." She tried to close her legs.
His knee lodged between her thighs, forcing them open.
When she blinked her eyes open, she saw shadows quickly retreating from his irises. Her warring body trembled beneath him.
Graves’s hand surged up, cupping her throat beneath the collar. "I told you tofeelit. Stop thinking so hard. Let me touch you. Let me help you."
She turned her head to cough violently. His fingers tightened around her throat.
And she fell wholeheartedly away from pleasure. Her climax fizzled out—she was left unsatisfied, and so glad of it.
Beneath him, Luella could only sob brokenly. "I want to go home."
Graves leaned down and took her lower lip between his teeth, biting so hard that blood welled. He pulled away, and her lip came free with a soft pop.
"You have no home but this. Give in."
He was right. She had no place to call home. But anywhere would be better than this.
His lips teased the point of her ear, his tongue tracing the shape of it and dipping inside. Even his breath was cold. His stubble scratched the side of her face, and she wanted so badly for this to be real and not a dream—a consequence of her fever.
Luella turned her face away as Graves continued to kiss over her ear, until he moved back to her lips, claiming them with rapacious intent. His hand stilled between her legs, fingers settling over her upper thigh, as if he was awaiting her to melt for him once more. But she could never melt again. She felt frozen, encased in ice.
Her eyes fell shut.
The hand on her throat tightened, cutting off her air.
Would it be so bad to let him steal her breath and take her life this way? It was only a dream, after all. She couldn’t be hurt in a dream.
Her mind softened to the idea, but her body struggled for air. She seized, mouth opened in a silent plea for breath. She felt Graves’s lips against her own, but she couldn’t even draw in the air that he teased against her lips, because the hand around her throat kept her from doing so.
Slowly, everything faded…
Any moment now, she’d wake up.
It was a dream.
