Chapter 26
TWENTY-SIX
Zephyrine
Levi wakes me up with his hand around my throat and one arm snaked around my middle as he takes me from behind.
He’s already slipped inside me while I slept, waking me by demanding that I say his name.
I let out a soft moan when I realize how wet I am already.
He’s hitting me at the perfect angle, his grip on me tightening as he kisses his way down my throat.
I’m completely lost in it now. Lost in him.
The rhythm he keeps is perfect, and his hand drifts between my legs, softly brushing over my clit as he takes me closer to my orgasm. I knew it would be like this with him.
His voice is rough and throaty as he orders me to take him deeper and switches his position until I’m nearly coming with each successive thrust. I could cry for how good it is.
Every touch I’d had from Corey had been selfish and neglectful, and on the worst days, baselessly cruel and often painful.
He’d told me to shut up, to stay quiet so he could concentrate, while Levi begs to hear more from me again.
So I give him everything he wants in return.
Just as I’m getting close, his hand moves to my hip, and he shakes me, rocking me back and forth and pulling away from me.
I let out a whimper of disappointment. Instead of demanding his own name, he’s calling out mine, more and more urgently with every shake of my body.
I frown as the cabin walls around us start to meld into darkness, and I take in a sharp gasp of air.
I blink. It’s pitch-black, with only a small patch of moonlight arcing in through the window of the cabin’s bedroom. My skin is heated, and the low bloom of want is still here in my body. But he’s not inside me. He’s not even touching me besides where his hand rests on my hip.
“Zeph?” Levi sounds half awake and more than a little unsure, putting more distance between his body and mine. Nothing like the version that had just been so in sync with me. “You okay?”
I freeze.
“You were…” He pauses, and I realize he’s searching for words. I hear him swallow hard before he continues. “I think you were having a dream.”
“Oh, um. Yes. I was having a nightmare. I think. Did I wake you up? I’m sorry.”
“Yeah.” He’s short, and I’m worried I’ve pissed him off somehow.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.” I shift in the bed to turn into a new position so I can see his face, and I misjudge how close we are. My hip grazes his dick as I move, and I can feel how hard he is.
He clears his throat. “Sorry,” he apologizes. “Whatever was happening in your dream. You were, uh, grinding back against me. I swear I woke up like this and woke you up as soon as I realized.”
“You’re fine.” I shake my head. Still trying to process how this man and the one who spoke to Corey are one and the same.
“Your nightmare…” The words fade on his lips, and I hear him shift. “Whatever it was. I’m sorry. Especially if it was him. Feel free to let me kill him again in your dreams.”
“No, it wasn’t him. It was you.”
“Me?” He sits up. “Fuck. I’m sorry. I thought today was probably too much for you, and I shouldn’t have—”
“We were having sex.” I interrupt him, and he goes silent. “In my sleep actually.”
“In your sleep?”
“I woke up in my dream to you already inside me,” I explain, feeling the creep of embarrassment up my spine. “I’m sorry. It’s awkward, I know. I’m just telling you so you don’t think it was anything bad. I’m not awake enough to come up with a white lie.”
“You said it was a nightmare.” He sounds concerned.
“Okay, well, that part was a lie. I guess I can lie, but not creatively.” I laugh softly, trying to get him to relax, but I can feel the tension rolling off him.
“I can sleep on the couch,” he offers after what feels like an eternity.
“No. Please don’t. We’re fine. We can go right back to the way we were. It was just a dream. I’ll say a rosary for it.” I try to make a joke to ease his worry. I turn and scoot back, trying to snuggle up to him again. His hand braces against my hip, preventing me from getting any closer.
“I’m trying to be a good guy right now, Zephyrine.” His voice sounds strained. “I’m trying to do the right thing. Trying not to take advantage of you. But I…”
“But…” I finish turning over to look at him.
I want to see his face when he talks. It’s so expressive, and it’s so rare that I get a glimpse of him without his glasses on.
Not that I don’t find them sexy as hell, but seeing him without them makes me feel like I get a little bit of him that not many people do.
Just like that first night here in the shower.
A touch more vulnerable than he normally is.
“But you’re so fucking pretty when you moan, and listening to you is one of my favorite fucking sounds in the world. I almost didn’t wake you up. Which I realize is fucking depraved given our situation. So I can sleep on the couch.” I can hear the guilt eating him alive.
A long beat of silence passes between us while my mind whirs. Part of me wants to give him an out. Another part of me wants to seize this chance. But I’m scared of him rejecting me the same way he did before. But nothing risked, nothing gained. My heart pounds faster in my chest.
“Did you fall back asleep?” He breaks the silence.
“Do you want me to?” I reach across his chest and grab his arm, pulling it around me as I curl back up with my back to him again.
I press his hand to my stomach, just underneath where my nightgown has bunched up around my waist. He splays his fingers, his palm brushing just above my navel.
He absently lets the base of his thumb stroke over my bare skin.
“I think I’d like being woken up like that. ”
“Like what?” His hand freezes in place.
“You—breathing against my neck. Your hand tight around my middle. Fucking me awake.”
“Is that how I fucked you in your dreams when I was a priest?”
“Sometimes.”
“There was more than once?” He pulls me tight against his body, and I feel his hard cock nestle just below my cheeks, my panties and his boxer briefs providing the two thinnest of barriers between us. Ones I want to curse right now as much as I want to appreciate them.
“It was almost every night.”
“I didn’t give you enough rosaries.” I can feel him smirk against my shoulder.
“You just wanted to imagine me on my knees,” I tease him back, the darkness and the closeness of his body making me braver than I should be.
“You’re right. I did. I probably should have gone to confession.”
“For the way you were recording me, definitely.” I grin.
“I’d like to see anyone resist after they heard you for the first time.”
“I tried to be quiet.”
“And failed. Thank fuck.” He places a kiss to the top of my shoulder. “How was I fucking you in your dream tonight? Tell me. Because the way you were moaning and grinding away, it seemed like you were loving it.”
“You were already inside me as I woke up. You’d snuck into bed, crawled under the sheets, and pulled my panties down my thighs.”
“Like this?” His fingers hook into the elastic waist of my underwear, and he pulls them down so slowly I feel every single inch as the cotton slides lower and lower over the curve of my ass and down under my cheeks.
“Just like that.”
“Where were my hands?”
“One was just like this, wrapped around my middle.” I run my fingers over the backs of his knuckles. “The other was wrapped around my throat.”
He slips his other hand under the crook of my neck and leans forward to kiss the side of my throat.
“Like this?” he asks softly.
“Yes,” I whisper back.
“What else was I doing?” He kisses me again, this time at the base of my neck, and I can’t stop the small sigh of pleasure that comes out of me when he does it.
“The hand you had around my middle… You moved it lower.” I still feel shy, unsure of exactly how to handle a man like him.
He’s so rough around the edges, terrifying really, but so intelligent and soft when he chooses to be.
It’s uncharted territory for me to have both in the same person.
I've only ever known the extremes in my husband and my teenage boyfriend before him.
Both of them pale in every possible comparison, which only makes my nerves grow.
His fingers trail over my abdomen, his thumb brushing soft circles in their wake until he meets the waistband of my panties, pinned low on my hips from the way he’s pulled them down in the back.
His fingers creep under and slowly slip between my legs, his middle finger parting me and brushing over my clit.
He groans against my skin when he finds how wet I am and kisses a trail back down my throat.
He nips at my shoulder and grinds his hips upward until I can feel how hard he is.
I spread my legs wider for him, and he takes the invitation to add his index finger to the gentle exploration.
He’s so careful, so gentle that it leaves me wanting more, and I cant my hips to meet his fingers, rocking against them for more friction.
“Fucking hell. You’re soaked, sweetheart.”
“The dream sex was good.” I grin against my pillow, thankful he can’t see my face.
“Well, I’m glad I’m meeting expectations up there.”
“Exceeding them, honestly. The perfect rhythm, angle, and you say all the right things.”
“What do I say?”
“I can’t repeat it. It’s too much, and I’ll die of embarrassment.” I plead with him.
“It can’t be worse than the things I said on the recording you heard.”
“Things like that.”
“Like what?” he presses, his fingers circling my clit with more purpose. “You tell me, and I’ll give you more of this as a reward.”
“Please.” I roll my hips to meet him.
“Keep talking.” He bribes me.
“You tell me I’m gorgeous when I’m wet for you. You say you can’t wait to be inside me, and how well my pretty little cunt is gonna take your cock.”
“All true. So far, your dream version seems accurate.” His fingers start to move gently over my clit again. “Seeing how wet you got for me today, bent over like that in front of him. Getting to show him how perfect you are. I loved every second of it.”
“I loved it too,” I confess. “Does that make me terrible?”
“No. That makes you human. Men like him deserve what they get.” His lips brush my shoulder, and he picks up his rhythm again. “And you deserve so much more than he ever gave you.”
“You’re good at this,” I whisper.
“We’re good at this. It’s your dream. I’m just playing the part.” He drags his lips over my throat, and I rock back against him as his fingers circle tighter over my clit. “Tell me what else I say.”
“You make me say your name. You make me beg for you.”
“Is that what you want?” he asks, a touch of surprise in his tone.
“I want you to stop treating me like a nun. Just for a little while.” I brave out the request.
“I’ve never had my hand between a nun’s thighs begging her to tell me her fantasies in the middle of the night. So I think we’ve got that wish covered.”
“Well. There’s that at least.” My words end on a moan, and I grind back against him.
“Oh fuck. Listen to how perfect you are. Keep moaning like that. I want to hear you.”
His fingers slip inside me, and I whimper at the intrusion. Another gasp follows when he grinds the heel of his hand against my clit. He slowly increases his pace, patiently waiting and listening to the sounds I make to direct him.
It’s so damn good that I almost don’t want to come. I don’t want it to be over yet. Tonight I’m celebrating being liberated. Having my freedom back and not having to think about what tomorrow looks like, or what it means if I go back to the convent. Tonight, I get him to myself.
“That’s it. Keep going, sweetheart.” I’m brought back to the present when I hear how loud I’m breathing, practically panting for air, and whimpering as he brings me to the brink.
I press my face into the pillow, trying to stifle how loud I’m being when it feels like it’s echoing off the walls, my lips pressed against the cotton sheet until he nips at the spot where my shoulder and neck meet.
“No. There’s no one to hear you out here but me and the trees. So don’t you dare silence yourself.” He corrects me firmly, softly kissing the spot on my shoulder he just nipped.
He’s right. With him, I don’t have to worry. I don’t have to be embarrassed. There’s no judgment. I can just let myself go.
I give him what he wants, moaning loudly as his fingers glide in and out of me, and I use his rhythm to take me crashing into the best orgasm I’ve had in a long time.
Maybe ever. All because it’s him with his hands on me.
His words coaxing me on with the heat of his body at my back.
It’s everything I could have asked for, the freedom I’ve desperately needed.