Sweet Dreams

by Bolryder, Terry

  He’s so thick he’s pushed up against all the right places inside me, places it would be hard for anyone else to reach. Places I’d break my wrist trying to do on my own. My whole sex is clenched around him as he slowly seats himself all the way in.

  I’ve never felt anything so amazing as this moment. I don’t know how we could be different people when we’re so close. And somehow, even with the surreal magic of the night sky above us and the clouds beneath us and the earth far below, the most magical thing is still the way I feel with him inside.

  The way my body is more alive than ever before.

  And then he starts to move.

  I gasp out at the sudden pleasure, the explosion of feeling as he withdraws slightly and moves in, the beautiful ridge of him teasing my pussy, making me ready to come faster than ever before.

  “Come, sweetheart,” he murmurs, and I do on only his third stroke just because he feels so good inside me and because a part of me has wanted this from the moment I saw his face.

  It built in me until I couldn’t stand it, until I became crazy like this, and now, as usual, he’s here for me, saving me.

  Even from my own need.

  His broad shoulders shelter me as I come, and he watches me with so much pleasure reflected in his eyes that I know I’m everything he wants.

  I flop back against the clouds, breathing heavily, but from what I know of Lorien, he isn’t half done.

  Sure enough, he starts to move again, and one hand moves to my clit to stroke in time. Before I know it, I’m coming apart again, the stars above me blurring in response.

  His satisfaction is evident in the indulgent smile on his face, his need in the taut line of his muscles. I want him to come too now, with me, above the stars.

  Still in the throes of my orgasm, I start to move against him, drawing him in and out, moaning because, after coming, it’s even more sensitive than before.

  He’s everything, so amazing… and even though I was trying to make him come, I’m coming again, his hand still stroking my clit, his eyes only more heated.

  I glare up at him as my body rolls against my will, bucking with pleasure, but then I close my eyes against the sheer force of what I feel.

  When I’m finally done, I feel exhausted, but the need in me isn’t done.

  “Lorien, come inside me,” I gasp out. “I want you. Need you. Help—”

  His eyes close, and he thrusts deep inside me, his shoulders going tight as his cock jerks, setting off another release in me just by how hard even his orgasm forces him to thrust.

  “My God,” I say, vision blurring again as I wonder if someone could die from orgasm. His beautiful face taut with pleasure, the feelings exploding in my body, the stars all around…

  “My mate,” he says, falling over me and wrapping me in his arms.

  Damn, I really don’t know how to let go of him now.

  19

  Lorien

  It’s morning when my dream mate awakes, still beautifully naked, lying on the clouds as they glow a warm rosy hue in the morning light.

  We both fell asleep quickly after an exhausting night, and I wanted to just stay here in the temporary dream realm I created for her where no one else can talk to us, dream fae or human or whatever they may be.

  Tess blinks at me, shoving back blond hair as her green eyes suddenly go wide. “Lorien…” She looks around. “Oh my God, did we? We did.” She brushes her hair back a few times with her fingers, looking slightly stressed, but I simply hand over her clothes, which I cleaned and folded while she was sleeping.

  She changes into them, flushing, sneaking looks at me as she does so. I’m in comfortable robes more akin to what I would wear in my kingdom in the dream world, soft, woven iridescent fabric created from pure magic.

  “My friends,” she says frantically, rummaging through the clouds. “My purse… my phone?”

  I hold out a hand, and her purse appears. “This?”

  She stands and runs forward, a little unsteady on the clouds at first, then smiles at me as she takes the purse and phone from me, rummaging inside.

  “Reve and Jerrek sent this over. Also, your friends know where you are, of course.” I send her what I hope is a dazzling smile. “You’re with me.”

  Even though we’ve gotten this close, I can’t help but be tentative around her. Nothing has been like I expected about this mate pursuit.

  And I don’t know how she’ll react to the fact that we were together during her mating thrall.

  “Are you okay?” I ask, coming up to brush her cheek lightly as she flushes prettily and glances up at me, no longer paying attention to her phone. “Feeling well?”

  She traps my hand there for a moment, leaning into it and closing her eyes, fanning dark lashes over her gorgeous cheeks.

  Maybe it’s just me, but she’s starting to look a little more fae the longer she’s with me.

  I hope so. That’s what she is.

  “I just…” She drops my hand and steps back. “Were we supposed to use protection? Or…” She whips away from me, then back. “What about getting pregnant?”

  I shake my head. “There will be no children until an official soul bond is made.”

  She sighs. “Okay.”

  I raise an eyebrow at her. “You don’t want children?”

  She shakes her head. “Well, they deserve a mom who isn’t committed to fighting dirtbags for fun.”

  “Why do you do that?” I ask, pulling a chair for both of us out of the clouds, shaping it like a cup that cradles our backs. “Why spend so much time on hate when it’s so prolific in the human world?”

  “I just—someone’s gotta help women. When they can’t help themselves.” She takes a seat in the chair, finally dressed, and leans forward, her elbows on her knees, her hands clasped between them. “I’ve always been strong.” Her eyes meet mine meaningfully.

  “I can imagine. You’re very strong.” I grin. “If you start training in the dream realm, you could be stronger than me.”

  She makes a disbelieving noise, then looks up and realizes I’m serious. “What?”

  “Your magic,” I say. “Though, I’ll admit I’m more powerful than most warriors just because of sheer work and training. Most queens are far ahead of most princes.”

  She blinks. “Seriously? Women are stronger in your world?”

  I suck in a breath. “I thought you didn’t want to talk about my world. You wanted to stay in the real world.”

  “You brought me here.”

  “This isn’t the dream fae realm. This is just a waypoint I created. Somewhere we could be alone for something so special.”

  Her eyes meet mine again, green and feline. “So mating thrall. That’s what that was?”

  I nod.

  She sighs. “I’m sorry, Lorien. I got carried away. I don’t know what came over me.”

  My eyes narrow as a small shred of doubt creeps through me like a tiny, spreading crack in a marble statue. “What do you mean?”

  We were just together. She wanted everything. She can’t go back now…

  “I told you I’m trying to explore this… but the whole mate bonding thing… I can’t give you what you want.”

  I blink, honestly astonished she’s saying this, though of course she has every right to make whatever decision she wants.

  But when we held each other under the starlight…

  “I see,” I say, not wanting to scare or exasperate her by showing any frustration. The mate pursuit is my responsibility, and I have to try to win her at all costs. But in the end, if she truly doesn’t want me, that will be her call.

  “I did want you, badly,” she says, looking at the clouded ground. “I didn’t know how to hold back, and that kind of scares me.”

  My whole body tenses. “Why?”

  Her eyes meet mine. “Because I feel if things had been different, I really might have fallen for you. But I’m not sure I can now.”

  “What do you mean?”

 
She leans back in the chair and looks up at the simulated sky, squinting at the brightness before I raise a hand and turn it down.

  “That’s amazing,” she says. “When I’m with you, it’s just ‘poof this’ and ‘poof that.’ You make it all look so easy.”

  I nod. “I worked hard for that.”

  “I know,” she says, and there’s an ache in her eyes when she looks at me. She looks at me hard, much more honestly and fully than ever before.

  Right now, we are meeting as people. Not as lust-driven creatures or hallucinations or in a dream. And she’s taking me seriously. I can tell.

  “That dance,” she says, a grin coming over her face. “That was shameless.”

  I laugh. “Why should I feel shame while trying to win my dream mate?”

  Her cheeks heat. “I had no idea I’d be so jealous.” She sighs. “It was unfair of me to be like that.”

  The crack in my internal armor spreads farther. “What do you mean?”

  She takes in a deep breath and lets out a shuddery one. “Lorien, you’ve seen my dreamscape.”

  I nod. “I don’t know why you let it become like that.”

  “I never knew what it was,” she says. “I mean, I thought everyone had a castle they could go to in their dreams.”

  “Makes sense.”

  “What is it?” she asks.

  “Your dreamscape?”

  “Yes.

  I think for a moment. “It’s a little different since yours isn’t in the dream fae realm. Most queens have dream property there. Yours is between worlds. I still don’t know how you ended up here.”

  “I was born here,” she says. “So I don’t know either.” She pins me with a look. “Are you really sure I’m a fairy?”

  “I’m sure you’re the one I’ve been seeing in my dreams for a thousand years now.”

  Her eyes fly open. “Lorien! A thousand years?”

  I shrug. “It was worth it to be with you now.”

  She flinches and turns away from me, and I go over to her, kneeling by her chair and gently taking her chin in my hand.

  “What’s wrong, dream mate?”

  When she looks up, there are tears in her eyes. I can’t believe it, my tough, impervious dream mate in tears. “Look, I’m already ruined, Lorien. I’m so sorry you’ve been waiting and training so long. But you’re going to have to find another dream mate.”

  “Why, darling?” I reach up to brush a tear away, giving her a soft smile. “Don’t be sad.”

  “I don’t think I can be in love,” she says. “I think I should tell you what happened to my dreamscape.”

  “Okay.”

  She releases my hands and motions for me to go back to my chair, and even though my heart is beating, begging me to stay close to her, I do.

  Her eyes are wistful, seeing something other than me as she looks into the distance. “That day at the beach, the one you made for us the first time you showed up in a dream, that was the last time I was innocent.”

  I simply stay quiet, watching her with everything in me.

  “My father left when I was young. My mother remarried.” Her throat tightens, and the urge to go to her gets stronger. But I know she needs space.

  “I see,” I say. It’s foreign to me how easily humans seem to find and leave their partners, but I’m trying not to judge the culture in which she has grown up.

  I’ve already done that enough.

  “I really liked Gene,” she says. “He wasn’t like the other guys my mom dated. He was kind to me. Sweet. Even when my mom was at work, he’d hang out with me. Playing games, telling me how much he loved me.”

  I nod, smiling. “Who could not love you?”

  She swallows, expression darkening, and a sick feeling rushes through me. “I’m not done.”

  I wait, feeling like my heart is hanging off a precipice.

  “My mother was busy with work but loving when she was around. I didn’t mind hanging out with Gene, and she was glad to have someone to help watch me. And watch me he did, from about age five to age eight.”

  “So he was your father, then?”

  She nods. “That was a happy time for me. I felt like other kids. I had a dad. And he was so warm, unlike my mom who, even when loving, was a bit cold. Gene didn’t hold back. I felt safe with him. Happy. Protected.”

  “What happened to him?” I ask. “Did he die?”

  “He did. Eventually,” she says, her voice monotone now. “But it was a bit too late.”

  My body feels like it’s turning to stone. “Why? Why too late?”

  She runs her hands over her arms, and I snap my fingers so a blanket of clouds wraps her gently. “Thank you,” she says, eyes welling with tears as she looks at me. “I don’t even deserve you, Lorien. I should have worked harder to make you leave. You’ve been loyal for centuries. I haven’t even been loyal for life.”

  “What do you mean?” I ask.

  Her eyes meet mine. “I didn’t protect my ability to love. I let him take it.”

  My breath stops. “What do you mean?”

  She pulls the blanket closer, huddling in on herself, and my beautiful warrior of a mate actually looks ashamed right now.

  Something she should never be.

  “Tess, you’re radiant, beautiful, and amazing. Nothing you could say would change that for me.”

  She nods. “I get that. But it changed things for me. I’ll get there.”

  I wait.

  “We went on a trip to the beach, the three of us. It felt like we were a real family that day, like we’d been born that way.”

  She fidgets with her hands, and I notice her skin has gone pale.

  “I’m not sure how to say this,” she says, glancing at me. “You’re so innocent. But I don’t know how else to explain how I am.” She shakes her head. “Because I don’t want you to think it’s your fault, Lorien. Anyone would be lucky to have you. Anyone who could love.”

  “You can love,” I say. “You—”

  “Let me finish.” Her words are firm.

  Somehow, I want to be anywhere but this dream world right now. Anywhere but here because dread is welling up from deep inside.

  My heart hates the feeling of it, but no matter what, I will stay and hear Tess. And not give up on her regardless of what she says.

  She takes a deep breath, and the agony in her eyes is carving through me like a dagger. “We had two attached rooms. That night, he came to mine.”

  “Ah.”

  She looks away at the cloudy horizon. “Things happened. Things I should have stopped. Things I didn’t understand. I thought he loved me. I thought it was something you did when you were in love. And even when it hurt me, I didn’t want to hurt Mom. I didn’t.” Her voice is breaking. “It took time to realize he didn’t love me. When I told him I thought what we were doing was bad, I thought he would stop. I was eleven then, and I hated it. I realized it was bad, even beyond me being hurt.”

  My brain is still trying to calculate all of this, but if she’s saying what I think she is, I don’t even know how to comprehend that kind of evil.

  Even our history books don’t speak of such nightmares.

  Her dreamscape… makes sense now.

  “He didn’t want to stop,” she says. “He hurt me, told me he would hurt me or my mom. I realized he had never loved me. I felt like a stupid child for not fighting him tooth and nail. I got dark then, and my dreamscape got dark too. There was nowhere to go, no escape.”

  I nod, trying not to fall apart right now because she needs me.

  “So yes, I believed in love that day at the beach, but by darkness, everything was wrong.”

  “What happened after that?” I ask, desperate to know. Desperate to comfort, to feel less helpless.

  But I know from my training that when someone is hurt, the best thing is to listen, to let them get out what they need to.

  Even though I never expected to hear something like this.

  “He got caught.
He was a substitute teacher, and one of the kids wasn’t as brainwashed as me and told on him. But my life was basically ruined by then,” she says. “My mom thought I was a liar after I had first tried to tell her, and then she thought I had somehow made Gene bad and it was my fault he was going to jail.” She sighs. “But I was just glad it was over.”

  “Me too.”

  Her eyes sneak a look at me, then pin on the horizon again. “But what shames me most is that, somewhere inside me, I was sad to see him go. The child that had first believed in love because of him didn’t understand what was going on. The rest of me knew I was ruined no matter where he was.”

  “But—go on.” I barely stop myself from cutting in. I want her to know she’s not ruined, but what I want doesn’t matter right now.

  “After that, I stopped going to my dreamscape, waiting for my prince to come. I had hoped he would be like Gene, when I was little. Make me feel safe like that. I thought he represented a man who could love.”

  I have a lot I could say to that, but right now, I’m just grateful for my sizeable self-control.

  “Everything went wrong from there,” she says. “I was promiscuous, trying to find a way to numb the pain.” Her eyes flash at mine again. “So judge me if you want to.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

  “Guy after guy just confirmed to me what I already knew: that men couldn’t love me. That maybe no one could. But that was just as well because I’m not sure after what happened that I could even feel love. It feels like my connections for that, which most other humans have, are burned off.”

  “They aren’t,” I say instantly. “No one can break you like that.”

  “Don’t you understand, Lorien?” Her eyes burn with tears as she looks at me. “I was ruined before you met me. I had sex as a child! I had sex with abusive men. While on drugs. I’ve woken up in alleys. And ever since I gave up on men in general, I’ve been beating them down for revenge’s sake.” Her eyes are so pained. “I love being with you, Lorien. You make everything so complicated and painful, but then you make it smooth and easy and almost magical, confusing me.”

  I nod.

  “But even though my body wants you, I look at you this morning, and I’m cold. My heart hurts. I don’t want to mate you. I don’t want you forever.” She looks down. “I’m sorry if that hurts you, but I’m just too broken now.”