Chapter 4
Chapter
Four
“I’ve been waiting for you.”
I opened my eyes to find myself deep within the Wilds again. The ring of trees, the hillside of glistening ferns, the sun-dappled canopy above—it was all the same…and yet something had changed.
This time, I didn’t have to wait for my alpha to appear.
Spinning around, I found him already standing inside the clearing, his arms crossed in front of his chest and his shoulder resting against one of the towering redwoods. His velvety green gaze was focused on my face.
Anticipation shot through me like lightning. Catching like wildfire, heat swept up my spine and down my limbs as I waited for him to come and swoop me up into his arms again.
But he didn’t move. He just stood there, silently staring, the hunger in his eyes more profound than ever before. So intense that I began to worry that this time he might be craving something more than simple pleasure.
I shifted back and forth on my feet as, for the first time in these dreams, I was hit by a chilling wave of self-consciousness, strong enough to threaten the flames of desire already burning inside me.
Was something wrong? Why had the dream suddenly changed? Why had all my worries and doubts chosen now to muscle their way to the surface?
Every question that popped into my head only tightened the coils of tension inside me. Eventually, I couldn’t take the strain any longer. I broke the silence.
“You’re, uh, already here,” I awkwardly stated the obvious. “That’s…different.”
“Is it?” He sounded almost amused by the observation.
“Yeah.” I nodded. “Usually, I stand here for a minute alone, and then you come bursting out of the trees. Then you pick me up, carry me to your cabin, where we…”
Heat rushed to my face as my words trailed off. Even in a dream, I was too embarrassed to say what happened next.
But my alpha wasn’t about to let me off that easily.
Pushing his shoulder off the tree, he straightened up to his full, intimidating height. “Keep going,” he insisted. “Tell me what we do once we’re alone in my cabin.”
“I’d rather not.” I shook my head. “Besides, you should know. You’re there too.”
“You forget, my love,” he said, a small smile teasing one corner of his mouth. “This is your dream. Not mine.”
That voice. It was just like thunder, low and rolling. Both thrilling and terrifying at the same time. It moved me in ways I didn’t want to admit.
“Of course it is,” I admitted. “After all, you’re not real. You’re just a figment of my imagination. Right?”
Surprisingly, he didn’t look offended as he stepped closer, his long legs bringing him dangerously close in just a few strides.
“Don’t I look real?” Grasping my wrist, he pressed my palm against the hard plane of his chest. “Don’t I feel real?”
He felt like heaven itself. So good, I couldn’t bring myself to pull my hand away. Not even after his grip on me loosened, then fell away completely.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said, though at this point I wasn’t sure who I was trying to convince, him or myself. “This is just a dream. You’re just a dream.”
“If you believed that’s all this was, then you wouldn’t be traveling all the way up here to find me.”
He slid his arm around my waist, pulling me flush against him. A rush of something deeper than simple lust pulsed through my veins at his intimate embrace.
This dream really was turning out to be different than all the others. In those, all our interactions had been straightforward. Lust, plain and simple. Two bodies coming together in near-anonymous passion.
But this exchange was something else entirely.
We’d already spoken more to each other in the span of a single minute than in every other dream put together. Not only was all that crackling energy still there between us, but I could feel it growing deeper with every breath.
“I’m not going to the Wall to find you.” Even though my voice was firm, even I didn’t fully believe my words. “It’s just a job. One that I’m not in a position to refuse since I lost my job. Which was your fault, by the way.”
“I didn’t do anything.” His smile grew, even as he shook my head. “It was fate.”
“Bullshit.”
My response proved none of this was real. No one would talk that way to a real ferus. Who was I kidding? No one in their mind would utter a single word. They’d just run like hell.
“You don’t believe in fate?” He seemed amused by the idea. Raising his free hand, he caressed the back of his rough fingers down my cheek. “That will change soon enough, Sophia.”
Even the heat of his touch couldn’t stop the sudden sense of wariness that tightened my shoulders. “How do you know my name?”
“We’re in your head. This is your dream, remember?” Of course. His hand slid from my face to the nape of my neck. “Here, I know everything about you. Where you like to be touched. How you like to be kissed and for long. I know how you taste…how all of you tastes.”
Oh God.
“Stop.”
“Why?” Closer than ever before, he breathed the question against my ear before lightly grazing his teeth over the top of the lobe. Shivers shot through me at the sensation, and I found myself wrapping my arms around his waist to steady myself.
“Because…” I struggled to come up with a good answer. I’d never had to think clearly when he was this close, and it was a hell of a lot harder than I’d imagined. “…because we never do this out in the open. You always take me to your cabin.”
“Not today.” His voice dipped down, growing more gravelly. More animalistic. “Today I want to take you here in the open.”
Bolts of searing pleasure mixed with a deep sense of unease as his lips moved down to the column of my neck.
“We can’t do that.”
“We already are.”
As if to prove his point, he wrapped his hands around my thighs and lifted me up off the ground before fully claiming my mouth with his.
His kisses had always been hungry, but this one was downright ravenous. Suddenly, all lingering doubts and fears fled from my mind. My senses became overwhelmed by the feel of his body against mine.
All that coiled strength practically vibrating with desire right beneath my fingers— it was too much. And yet, I still found myself clawing at his jacket, pulling it from his shoulders, and tossing it to the ground just so I could feel more.
What the hell was happening to me?
I’d never been an exhibitionist. Or particularly adventurous when it came to lovemaking. In every other dream with the alpha, there had always been a closed door and a bed.
But not this time.
Now I barely recognized myself as my fingers curled in like claws, ripping at the fabric of his shirt, desperate to get it off him. Craving the feel of his skin against mine right here under the open sky.
I didn’t even care about the sting of cold morning air washing over my skin as he pulled the buttons of my shirt open. And I didn’t think twice as he did the same with my pants.
The alpha was right. Who cared about a little public indecency when you were already breaking the laws of man and nature?
Thoughts of right and wrong fled my mind as his hand swept underneath my bra, cupping the swell of my breast. How could something unreal feel so good? How could someone imaginary shake me to my core?
I drew in a sharp gasp as my spine pressed against something wide and hard—a tree, I realized.
Suddenly, I understood why he’d only opened the front of my flannel shirt instead of pushing it fully off my shoulders. The thick, soft material protected my skin from scrapes as I leaned against the highly textured trunk.
Pinning me against the tree with one hand, he quickly pulled off my pants with his other. I bit into my lower lip as I watched him undo the front of his own.
With goosebumps of sweet anticipation spreading over my skin, I realized there wouldn’t be any long, drawn-out foreplay this time. No slow build. No careful kindling of the fire inside me.
He was just going to take me. Right here and now. Up against this tree. Like the animals we were.
Fingers tangled in my hair, the alpha tugged my head back until my eyes were locked with his. My breath hitched, stopping in my throat at the intensity I saw there.
“You have no idea what you do to me, Sophia.” His voice was so deep now, so gravelly that I could feel it reverberating in his chest. “You have no clue what it’s been like having to hold myself back day and night.”
What the hell was he talking about? Had he been holding back in all the other dreams? Had he been treating me with kid gloves? And how was that even possible if these were my dreams?
“I don’t want you to hold back,” I told him. “I want to feel you. The real you. I can take it, Kyre. I need it.”
His chest rumbled again, a full-throated growl ripping through the forest just as he thrust his hips up sharply.
My head fell back against the soft redwood bark behind me as I struggled to draw breath. Warm, wet heat rushed from between my legs, my body’s desperate attempt to ready itself for the sudden fullness and pressure inside it.
My fingers gripped his shoulders, curling so tight I feared they might draw blood as a cry ripped from my throat.
“Kyre!”
“Sophia.”
Oh, fuck no. Not again.
Felicity’s voice rang out through the trees above like a voice from the heavens. One that, based on the alpha’s lack of reaction, only I could hear.
I didn’t want to wake up.
Not now. Not when the inner walls of my body were just beginning to ease around his shaft, ready for more.
“Sophia, sweetie. You’re dreaming again.”
Goddamn it!
My eyes popped open, the searing sunlight pouring directly through the bug-covered windshield of Felicity’s old hatchback immediately searing my brain.
We’d started off from LA at eight o’clock this morning and spent the whole day driving north.
We’d crawled through LA morning commute traffic before speeding north through the Central Valley.
But since the sun was now dipping down toward the horizon right in front of me, I figured we must have finally made the turn west toward the coast.
“Sorry,” I said, rubbing my eyes as I pulled my head off the passenger side window. “How long was I out?
“A little over an hour, I guess.”
Honestly, I was surprised I’d managed to stay awake as long as I had.
I had barely slept the night before. All I’d done was toss and turn, unable to do more than drift off for more than a few minutes at a time. To say I was having second thoughts about the trip would have been the understatement of the century.
I figured I must have lost my damn mind. Both of us had.
Shared psychosis—that’s what they called it when two people were caught up in the same delusion.
And believing that recording a podcast next to the Wall was a good idea was about as deluded as a person could get.
There wasn’t a soul alive who would shame me for backing out. Not even Felicity.
But for some reason, I didn’t.
After spending a whole sleepless night knowing I was probably making a huge mistake, I got out of bed, grabbed my bags, and settled into the passenger seat of Felicity’s car.
I couldn’t stop myself. It was almost as if I were no longer in control of my own mind and body. As if someone else was operating me like a marionette—pulling my strings and guiding me where they wanted me to go.
Something like fate.
I didn’t do a thing. It was fate.
I shuddered at the words my dream alpha had used, and did my best to push the memory out of my mind.
Straightening up in my seat, I cleared my throat. “How close are we to Goldwood?”
“Just a few miles,” Felicity answered.
“You should have woken me up sooner.”
“Well, I would have,” she started with a widening smile. “But it sounded like you were enjoying your dream. Like really enjoying it.”
“Oh, my God!” My stomach twisted in instant mortification. I ducked my head down as my cheeks started to burn.
“Oh, don’t be embarrassed,” Felicity laughed. “It’s just us. Besides, I’m glad to hear that you’re getting some—even if it is only in a dream. But I have to admit, there is one thing I’m curious about.”
My stomach twisted as I turned toward her. “What?”
“Who the hell is Kyre?”