Chapter 37
Idon’t know the name of the man thrusting into me. I don’t know the color of his eyes or if he has any cool scars. Is he a doctor? A firefighter? The town drunk?
I wish I could tell you, but I can’t. His face is a blur.
That’s how my visions work.
He’s a presence over me. In me. Arousing long-dormant parts of my body that ache to be set free.
If this were a dream, I’d know my mystery man.
Instead, I can tell you the little things.
He thrusts deep with every snap of his hips. He calls me Goddess and Beautiful and Good Girl with a rasp that feels like he’s holding back his climax, waiting for mine as his thumb strums my clit and my orgasm builds.
My toes curl. I grip his shoulders, his back, his thigh, and meet his thrusts with reckless abandon.
More. Deeper. Right there.
He lifts my hips off the bed. When we join, he hits that spot deep inside and sends stars across my gaze. My core tightens. So close.
This is the first time a sex dream has been part of a vision, and I am all in.
My breaths are shallow, and my heart thuds in my ears as my core pulses and throbs around his cock.
This is the best sex I’ve ever had, and it’s not even real.
Not yet.
A waxing crescent moon fills the window above my bed. The last one before All Hallows Eve. A signal of new beginnings. Its light barely illuminates my queen-sized bed and the quilt we tossed on the floor.
But it’s an omen. A timeline.
To make this vision come true, I only have three days to figure out who he is and seduce him into my bed.
Not my usual cadence for a relationship, but, oh Goddess, I want this one to come true.
His left hand anchors my hip with a possessive grip. His rough fingertips scrape my soft skin. Masculine scents of sex, clove, and sage fill my lungs in an intoxicating blend that settle into my chest as a feeling of brightness.
Rightness.
Pure perfection.
It’s not a feeling I’ve ever experienced during sex. Maybe that’s because this is a vision and not the real thing and my mind is exaggerating the amazing sensations.
Maybe the real thing won’t be as great.
In real life, sex terrifies me. Any kind of physical intimacy, really.
When a wayward kiss in real-life slams me into my other kind of vision—the kind that always, always, always comes true—leaving me unable to control my body while my partner’s future plays in my head and I glimpse their fate?
Yeah, to say I don’t get out much is an understatement.
I can count the sexual partners I’ve had on one hand. The routine I force on them—so their lips don’t meet mine—usually doesn’t earn me a second romp.
But this encounter cradles my soul. A pull tugs me, bonds me with this man. Like a rope pulling a boat across a raging sea into a calm harbor.
Safe despite the torrent.
That’s this man. Whomever he is.
This encounter—if it truly is a prophetic vision—will be unlike any I’ve ever experienced before.
The man drops my hips and caresses my jaw with his lips. He kisses across my cheekbones to my eyelids.
My back arches off the bed, urging him to plunge us over the edge. I need his cock, not his lips. No kisses. Ever.
He meets my ache with another thrust.
“Yes.” My dream self exhales the word.
Then his tongue is in my mouth before I can inhale.
No!
My conscious mind fights to break the connection to the vision.
To stop the kiss.
Anything to prevent myself from seeing this man’s future. If the pull in my chest is right and he’s special, the perfection of our mating will flood my mind with his suffering. A car accident. A fight. His death—I can’t.
But my vision-heavy body doesn’t listen to my brain as I brace for the trauma to flood my mind. My body is all in on kissing him. My tongue swirls against his, and my nails scrape his scalp, forcing the kiss deeper, deeper.
And the strangest thing happens.
Nothing.
Instead of tasting bile in the back of my throat or feeling my body convulse with the prophecy of this stranger’s doom, no vision comes.
That’s never happened before. Ever.
Is that because I’m already in a vision? Because I’m not actually trading saliva with this man?
But if this vision predicts the future, when I kiss him, I won’t see his death. The me in the vision would want to stop this kiss if I did.
I’m not stopping.
Why am I not stopping?
My fingers claw at his back, my heels press into his ass, urging him to slide into me again and again, to tally up another orgasm and feel him pulse his release. To lose that control he’s holding so tightly as he ignites every pleasure center in my body.
Why can I kiss him like this when every other man I’ve ever kissed, every shared spoon or straw, has left me vulnerable and full of traumatic knowledge I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy?
I don’t understand.
Who is he?
How is this possible?
How does he break my curse?
If only I could see his face.
His scent intensifies, and a warm cloak of safety overwhelms me as we both climax.
My sight blacks to a pinprick of light.
I gasp awake, clutching the sheets to my sweaty body. My core aches. My clit stings. I scrape my teeth across my lips to stop them from tingling, but it doesn’t help. My fingers fist my hair. “Why can’t you be normal and have fantastical sex dreams featuring Connor Storrie or Harry Styles?”
But I know the answer.
Don’t lie to yourself, Sienna.
I’m not normal. It was a vision. Not a dream.
After twenty-six years, I know the difference.
I will never be normal.
I’m cursed.
Doubly cursed, actually.
My prophecy curse. Forever seeing possible futures and never knowing which one will come true.
And my kissing curse. Doomed never to kiss a person without trauma and heartache undoubtably overwhelming my mind with horrors that never fail to come to pass.
No one knows where my curses came from or why they chose me.
But they dictate the rules of my life.
The covers on my bed itch, so I toss them to the ground and plod to the kitchen.
A glass of water calms me, and I pluck my grimoire off the mantle to record the vision. I flip to the back page, and the smell of old paper and peppery magic replace the memory of cloves and sage from my dream.
The new moon is invisible in the dark sky. If that vision comes true, it will happen in the next three days.
I should be scared, worried, freaked out.
I kissed that guy.
I kept kissing him.
And I liked it.
Why didn’t I end up a crumpled mess?
The real question is, what do I do about this?
For it to come true, something will have to change about my curse, about my life—something that allows me to kiss him and not see his future. Is it him? Does he break the curse? Or is it me? Do I change? Is it us together?
True love? Soulmates? A loophole I don’t know about?
Why do I want to run to the waxing salon and get everything polished to perfection?
A face slides into my mind’s eye.
You know why. You know that scent.
Cloves and sage.
Brown eyes and hair. Mustache. Full lips and a jaw so sharp it could cut granite.
Dane Prentice. Warlock. Magical Robin Hood, without the stealing part. One hundred and fifty-three years old but he looks twenty-eight. I’ve crushed on him for the last three years, and he smells like cloves and sage.
Will he be the one to finally break my curse?
My best friend is going to hate this.