Chapter 8
Just My Imagination
MAX
I’m spread naked on a rock. Not just any rock, but one perched at the edge of the world. A waterfall plunges into an ocean of mist far below. Clouds drift past, brushing soft, fleeting kisses against my skin. The air is heavy and sweet, laced with honey and sunlight.
A man holds me to him, his breath warm at the nape of my neck, his arms keeping me from tumbling into the abyss.
“Don’t be afraid, little fox. I’d never let you fall,” he whispers.
His voice gives him away. It’s low and husky, threaded with that impossible mix of tenderness and hunger that could only belong to E. A voice made to soothe and ruin in equal measure.
“You’re safe with me, Max.”
Each word vibrates along my spine, pulling at a place inside me that aches to be touched. A molten glow lingers behind it, a predator’s lullaby that strips me of the will to run. It’s meant to both worship and devour me, but I don’t care.
His voice burns with the kind of desire that shines so bright you can’t look away.
His large hand finds mine, fingers lacing together in a perfect fit that makes my chest ache. The heat of his skin grounds me against the cottony haze of the dream. Every inch of him feels solid, real, while the clouds around us dissolve into smoke.
I spin around in his arms, but the sunlight shines a little too bright for me to see his face. His body is a study in light and shadow. Broad shoulders catch the sun, the lines of his muscles defined and smooth like silk drawn taut over stone. The light behind him paints his edges gold, and my skin prickles. Not from cold, but from the deep-sated yearning that coils low in my belly when his lips graze my ear. He smells of rain falling over hot stones—a rare scent that promises both ruin and renewal.
“You were meant to be bathed in sunlight,” he murmurs, shifting above me.
His weight presses me down into the cliff at my back, the smooth rock hot enough to sizzle.
“Why are we here?” I ask.
“You’re dreaming, Max,” he says soothingly.
His fingers brush my collarbone, light as wind, and that single touch ripples across every nerve ending, awakening a burning need that hums through my bones.
“I know,” I whisper. “Don’t wake me up.”
When I reach for him, the world tilts. My hand meets air first, then warmth, then skin. I sink my hand into his golden locks and drag my nails across his scalp.
He leans into the touch with a low hum, caressing the path between my throat and navel back and forth.
“Who are you? What’s your name?” I croak.
He kisses the hollow of my neck. “You already know who I am.”
“I don’t.”
I move to trace his features, but he catches my hand and kisses the underside of my wrist. “Whatever you do, don’t let me fall for you.”
“Why not?”
He tucks a strand of red hair behind my ear. “I only break the ones I love.” His hand travels down the path between my breasts, past my navel, and down to the gap between my open thighs. “I’d break you, too. In tiny little pieces. Just so I could make them fit with mine.”
I’m so incredibly ripe for him, for his touch, I could burst.
He leans closer, sunlight bending around us, the world spinning slower to make space for this moment. Our lips touch. The taste of him—of salt and sweetness—fills my mouth.
My back arches off the hot stones as his fingers finally reach my opening. Bliss bubbles in my blood, each stroke sweet and perfectly placed, like I’m an instrument he already knows how to play, and play well.
Then the sunlight flashes, and darkness takes over the sky. He fades—leaving only warmth in his wake, and the echo of a touch I was never meant to know.
