Page 150 of In Somnis

“We have time,” I tell her, and I mean it as the promise it is. “Take however long you need. I’m not going anywhere.”

She looks at me as if she’s trying to decide whether to believe it.

She will. Eventually.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Ridge

Low sounds roll through the dark.

Moaning.

It starts buried, almost swallowed, then catches on little hitches of breath. Each exhale drags a little longer than the last, like whoever it belongs to is being slowly and luxuriously pulled apart and doesn’t mind at all.

Someone’s having a hell of a time. Good for them.

The sound comes again, fraying into a soft broken whimper. My pulse answers before my brain does.

I should probably… check. Yeah. Responsible. Aware of my surroundings, et cetera .

I open my eyes, and at first, it’s only shapes. Skin curved over muscle, light sliding across it. A spine that dips and rises again. Two dimples at the base of the back, just above the swell of an ass, thighs parted.

A very male ass.

Rounded, dusted with light hair that trails down the cleft and disappears into shadow. Muscled enough to flex visibly when he breathes.

Huh, that’s weird.

Last time I checked, I was straight.

So why am I face-to-ass with a naked man?

I look down at my hands.

Left one has eight fingers. Right one has six.

Right…

… definitely dreaming.

And apparently, my subconscious has decided that tonight’s entertainment involves a stranger’s bare ass, which raises some questions.

I stare at it, and it stares back in the way that asses do, which is to say without acknowledgment or apology.

I kneel there for a full moment with the detached bewilderment of a man who has been lucid dreaming for years and has seen genuinely everything this landscape has to offer, and is still, apparently, capable of being surprised by it.

“Why…” I ask my subconscious, “… is there a naked male ass in my dream?”

But it does not answer. It never does. It just presents the situation and expects me to deal with it, which is exactly the kind of passive-aggressive behavior that has defined our entire relationship.

I get to my feet and take a step to the side.

Oh.

Oh.

The ass belongs to the Shaw boy, which is fine, whatever, he’s got a perfectly acceptable ass. I’m not going to make it weird.