Page 124 of Ex Somnis

My steps slow. “A speech?”

I can feel him looking at the side of my face, but I don’t look at him.

“A whole speech. An excellent one. Very emotional. I’ve completely lost it now.”

“I’m not listening.” I forge a path through the gummy bears, making the floor harder so I can move faster.

Of course, he keeps up.

“But even though I’d love to fuck you, I didn’t come here for that.” Ridge steps around in front of me, and I stop automatically.

He reaches out to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear with one careful finger, then kisses my temple. “I promise,” he murmurs, breath warm against my skin. “I will not fuck you right now.”

“Ridge.” I bat his hand away. “Stop saying the word fuck.”

He chuckles, and it does terrible things to his face. “I’m sorry. But seriously, I really want to talk to you. We can do the fu… the thing after. If you still want to sit on my dick.”

I look at his eyes, and I know what I see there. It’s the same look he had when he dropped to his knees and licked me like he was starving. “This is a trick.”

“I would never joke about you sitting on my dick.” His gaze drops to my mouth, then lower, watching how my chest is rising too fast. “Though I do like the visual. You, flushed and dripping, taking every inch while I watch those pretty tits bounce.”

The gummy bears start launching themselves at him.

I don’t entirely mean to do it. I’m flustered and annoyed, and the dreamscape responds to whatever I’m feeling, so when red gummy bears peel off the ground and launch themselves at his face, I don’t exactly stop them.

“Goddammit, sweetheart.” He ducks the first few but then takes a hit to the shoulder. He gasps, mostly in outrage, but that only gives a lucky red one an opening to rocket directly into his mouth.

Ridge freezes in surprise, but then he chomps down viciously, glowering as he chews the gummy bear into a pulp.

It has never been so hard not to laugh.

“Strawberry. If you’re going to weaponize them, at least make them lemon.”

A blue one joins the party, nailing him directly in the forehead.

“That one was accidental,” I say.

“Oh, it felt personal.”

He ducks an orange one that comes crashing, but catches a green one, looks at it, and eats it.

“Still not lemon,” he informs me.

He’s a grumpy horror author standing in the middle of my candy dreamscape, with gummy bears stuck in his hair, but instead of looking ridiculous, he makes everything else seem less believable. And I am so tired, angry, relieved he is here, and so furious at myself for being relieved, that words just bubble out of me.

“I am not weak, Ridge. Okay?” My voice cracks, and he stills, but I don’t care. “I am not a weak little thing that you can just do whatever you want with because you’re bored. I have feelings, and I’m not just here for your entertainment. I’m not. I’m not some…”

I don’t even know how to finish it. Some what? Some girl you fuck in a dream and forget about when you wake up? Some person who is actually, genuinely, humiliatingly in love with you and terrified of what that means, given that I don’t even know if I’m getting out of here?

I can’t say any of it.

So I stand there with my mouth open and my chest splitting.

He takes my face in both hands and kisses me hard, but I bite his bottom lip harder.

He pulls back with a hiss and runs his thumb over his lip, chuckling at the red smear. “No,” he says, his eyes darker than before. “You’re not. You’re the strongest fucking person I’ve ever met.” He brushes his thumb over my cheek, probably smearing his blood there. “And I would like to tell you what you mean to me, if you’d let me, because that is what I came here to do.”

“Ridge.”