He tore away from my mouth, his eyes utterly wild. “I can’t...” He swallowed and shook his head. “I don’t know what’s happening to me. I can’t stop. It’s like I’m being driven bysomething other than myself.”
“I know.” I weaved my fingers in his hair, pulling him back down. “I feel it too.”
He fell on me again, his tongue fierce and slick.
The need grew worse, infecting us with mindless hunger.
Lucien’s hand slid higher under my nightgown, his fingers scorching my inner thigh.
My hips swayed toward him, not caring where we were or what all of this meant.
He cursed, low and filthy, pressing me backward until my shoulders hit something solid that wasn’t there a second ago. He broke the kiss, panting into my mouth.
He held me as if he wanted to wring my neck and worship me at the same time. “I hate you for hurting yourself for me.”
“Same.” I nuzzled his nose with mine. “I hate you for leaving me instead of talking to me. I hate that you didn’t give me a chance to help you. I hate that you tried to protect me—”
“I get it.” His teeth flashed with a vicious smile. “You hate me. So you better give me the chance to earn your forgiveness...one orgasm at a time.”
His mouth found mine again as he fumbled with his zipper.
I reached to help him—
Our clothes suddenly vanished, leaving us bare and aching.
He snarled as my hand wrapped around his hot hardness—
A shrill scream tore like lightning through the sky.
We froze.
A volley of bangs followed, dull and muted as if it happened in an entirely different world to this one.
“What...?” Lucien frowned.
Something shook me violently.
Something I couldn’t see.
The sky tore like wet paper—
The dream shattered as reality crashed back with brutal force. The power, the strength, the safety—all of it vanished, leaving me weak and empty, back in a broken body.
I wanted to scream at the unfairness of it. I wanted to go back to being better, but...sunshine blinded me as I lay flat on my back. My nightgown was nice and demure, and Lucien lay beside me unconscious, his shirt parted as if revealing the truth that whatever had happened wasn’t real.
Unlike the fantasy where his chest was smooth and metal-free, the vitalsync core was back—imprisoning his heart with that hatedpacemaker.
My head throbbed trying to understand.
Hadit all been a dream?
A quick, sexual dream where everything had felt so, so real?
The shake came again—the same shake I’d felt but couldn’t see.
Squinting in the searing sunshine, I gasped as Dillon jerked me upright. “We’ve got to run.Now!”
“Run?” I swallowed back another mouthful of bitter nausea.
