The Imaginary Friend’s Obsession (Monster Research Facility #3)

Chapter Thirty-One

I wake to a sudden draft. My eyes open in the darkness as the blanket slides down over my body. It reveals my scanty nightgown, my bare legs, until I am left entirely exposed and covered in goose bumps. The blanket slides off the end of the bed. By the time it’s pooled on the floor, I’m fully awake. I prop myself up on my elbows and blink sleepily at my empty bedroom.

The mattress dips beneath an invisible weight, and I feel, but don’t see, fingers ghosting up over my calves, my knees, my thighs. I try to sit up, but two hands grab my wrists and pin me down. Two others slide my panties down my thighs. I gasp and squirm as he pushes my legs apart and my nightgown rucks up around my waist, leaving me bare and exposed in the cool air. Then an invisible tongue licks a hot stripe over my core.

I whimper and arch my back, wrists struggling in vain against the invisible grip. To anyone else’s eyes, I would be completely alone in my room, writhing beneath nothing on the bed. I probably look insane. But I’m beyond caring about things like that at this point, especially when Dorian’s ministrations are driving me toward an inevitable peak. He licks me slowly, savoring me, teasing me. The entire time, all four hands are exploring my body—cupping my breasts, clutching my hips, pressing down on my stomach to hold me in place. Only when I’m a whimpering mess does he close his invisible mouth over me and give me the steady pressure I need. I cry out loud enough to echo in the house’s empty halls, and then sag back against the bed, panting.

His weight shifts, legs straddling mine, invisible torso resting against me. I wrap my arms around him and nuzzle into his neck. “Let me see you,” I whisper.

He appears, his masked face inches from mine, all of him visible and beautiful…but tragically clothed . I frown, reaching up to run my fingers over the edges of the porcelain covering his face.

“All of you,” I say. “I want to see all of you.”

He pauses. I rest my fingers on the edges of his mask, but I don’t try to remove it. It’s his choice. I haven’t seen him fully since before we were separated. Over the last couple of weeks we’ve been slowly getting to know each other again—figuring out how our pieces fit together—but we have yet to take this step.

He sits up, straddling my hips. First he undoes his shirt, revealing a lean chest and a flat torso with lines of muscle. He shrugs the fabric off and tosses it aside. He slides his belt off one-handed, and the pants come next, leaving him bare except for the mask and gloves. I bite my lip, looking him over from top to bottom with naked desire, my gaze lingering on the two stiff lengths just waiting for me. He’s gorgeous like this, and I’ll gladly take him any way I can, but I meant what I said. I want all of him. Even the parts that are less than human, even the things that would frighten anyone else. Especially those things, because they are the parts that are only for me.

Dorian removes his four gloves, one by one. Then he reaches up, grabs his mask, and slides it off.

My best friend, my lover, my Dorian—he does not have a face that most would consider beautiful, I suppose. But to me, he is everything I could imagine and more.

“You’re perfect,” I whisper. I lean up to kiss him, again and again and again. I kiss him until he is groaning, hips shifting in silent need, lips chasing mine when I pull away.

Only then do I realize we are both floating above the bed, suspended in the air. My hair floats around my head, my nightgown rippling in invisible wind.

“My perfect girl,” Dorian murmurs, kissing the scars his father left across my face. “How lucky I am that you’re mine.”

“All yours,” I whisper.

He grins. “Indeed.”

Then he reaches down and rips my nightgown right off me. I gasp, and he pins my wrists above my head with one hand. Two others slide down to cup my breasts. I arch up—and then cry out at the sudden sensation of teeth grazing my nipples. He pulls one hand back to show me that he’s grown a mouth on his palm before returning it to my breast. Before I can get used to the sensation, he’s sliding against the wet heat between my thighs, and then into me, inch by slow inch. By the time he’s fully sheathed, I am whimpering and thrashing beneath him. All of the furniture in the room is trembling; the lamp is floating.

“Mine,” Dorian whispers, and then claims my mouth with his as he starts to fuck me. He’s still teasing at my nipples with two hands, pinning my wrists with another. He spits on the fingers of his last hand and then slides it down to my ass, pushing into the tight rim. I arch against him with a mewling cry, and more hands burst out of his sides to stroke me, lick me, hold me against him. Fingers hook in my mouth, tangle in my hair; mouths nip at my jaw, suck the sensitive skin of my neck, tease my clit.

I can’t possibly take more. Then his finger slides out of my ass, only for him to lift me up and guide his second cock to that tight hole.

I gasp, writhing. “I can’t—”

“Of course you can,” he breathes. “I’m yours. So take me. All of me.”

“Yes,” I whimper. He pushes into me, slowly stretching me. The pressure is overwhelming—but so is the pleasure that comes crashing in on its heels. “Yes,” I say again, grinding down on his length even as tears spring to my eyes. “More, more…”

He is claiming every inch of my body. The sensations are wild. Overwhelming. Exactly what I need. I am full in a way I didn’t think was possible.

“Mine,” Dorian whispers in between kisses, his voice crackling with static in his desperate need. He fills me until I can’t possibly take more and begins to fuck me slowly with both of his cocks, rendering me incoherent with pleasure. “All of you, all of you, mine . My Daisy.”

He spins me and pushes me against the wardrobe, yanking my head back and making me look into the mirror so I can see the way he’s ravaging me. He has no reflection, so it is only me—panting, desperate, ruined. Perfect.

I come with a cry that makes the entire house shake on its foundations.

* * *

To anyone else’s eye, I spend a lot of time alone. A normal person wouldn’t be able to hear the second set of footsteps following mine as I twirl through the halls of my house, or see the gloved hands that tweak the end of my ponytail as I run a brush through it at my vanity. But I no longer care about being normal. I’ve grown to quite enjoy being strange.

And my house is far from lonely.

I always have Dorian. He is there when I make tea in the morning, his long arms holding me close from behind. He is there when I climb into bed at night, his large body curled protectively around mine.

And without Godric’s oppressive presence, I’ve begun to sense what I believe to be other spirits within the house, stirring from long slumbers. None of them have shown themselves to me yet, but I have my hopes. When they are ready to talk, I’ll be here, with Dorian to help me; and if they decide that they’re ready to be laid to rest, I know I can rely on Ezra’s guidance and aid.

Dorian’s mother won’t be among them, sadly. We dug up her bones from the backyard, and handed them to the local police—along with Dorian’s skeleton, relinquished to us from the MRF. The bones no longer bind Dorian, as they did to this house and then the MRF, but he was pleased that they’d be reunited with his mother’s remains. Their disappearances will finally be solved after all these years, and they’ll be buried together. Wherever Godric is now, I hope he’s atoning for his sins, both before and after his death.

When spring comes, I plant a garden where the bodies were once buried. Dorian is learning to cook and loves to use the fresh herbs I grow.

While once I would’ve been content to be alone in this house with Dorian forever, now I feel enormously lucky to have Ezra as a friend as well. I enjoy my late-night diner trips with him, where he talks to me about his subjects and gives me advice on speaking to the ghosts in my home. Sometimes Dorian accompanies us; sometimes he stays in the house, or wanders Ash Valley when he’s feeling particularly brave. He is free to choose where he goes now, but he almost always chooses to stay at my side.

With him, I am home, and I will never be alone again.