Chapter 15
Chapter
Fifteen
My hands were in his hair again.
My fingers raking over his scalp, pulling him toward me, tugging him closer.
My lips gasping for breath against his mouth.
Yes! This was where I belonged. This was where I was meant to be.
It didn’t matter that this was just a dream. It didn’t even matter that this time my brain had decided to skip over the whole first act of the fantasy.
This time, there was no waiting in the forest. No scanning the dark tree line, waiting for him to find me. No holding my breath as he raced toward me.
That was fine by me.
This was the good part, after all.
The part after Kyre had already wrapped me in his arms. The part where we kissed each other senseless. Soon he’d lift me up and carry me back to his cabin. Once there, we’d strip each other bare and give ourselves over to the ecstasy of the moment.
The important thing was that there wasn’t any talking past this point. From this point on, it was all sighs and moans. Cries of pleasure and shouted names. Nothing else.
No chances to hear the cruel edge in his voice. No opportunity for him to tell me how much of a disappointment I was. Nothing that might remind me just how deeply the real Kyre hated me.
But at least this fantasy version of him didn’t feel that way.
Here, my dream alpa couldn’t keep his hands off of me. Here, he kissed me like my lips were the source of his salvation. Here, he touched me with a passion hot enough to burn every inch of the Wilds down to the ground.
Even through the raw fabric of his shirt, I could feel the heat of Kyre’s body. But it wasn’t enough. I wouldn’t be happy until there was no distance or barriers between us. Until we had completely merged.
So why hadn’t he lifted me up and started carrying me home yet?
Or maybe this was a different kind of dream, like the one I’d had in the passenger’s seat of Felicity’s car on the drive up from LA. The one where Kyre couldn’t wait and took me right there on the ground.
Opening my eyes, I glanced around to see if I could tell what part of the forest we were in.
But we weren’t in the forest.
We were in the entryway of a house.
But not his cabin. Or Hannah and Tauren’s.
This one was older and larger. In many ways, it looked similar to the castle-like home where his mother now lived. Like the Lykaon’s house, the walls were constructed from stone, though not as high. The floors were polished, but not as wide. The entry hall impressive, but not grand.
What was this place? I’d never seen it before.
But before I could open my mouth to ask, Kyre spun me around in his arms, and I found myself face to face with one of the walls. Grabbing my wrists, he pinned my palms against the cold stones as he ground against my backside.
Well, this was new.
And damn, I liked it.
Especially when the heat of his body wrapped around me as his hips started to move.
“Say my name,” he growled against my ear.
I hissed in a breath as lips teased the side of my neck.
“Say it,” he repeated before his kisses became more intense.
The tip of his tongue flicked against my skin. I shivered as pleasure lit up my nerves. Desperate for more, I tried to move against him, but he held me fast.
“Call out for me, and I’ll bring you here,” he said, trailing more open-mouthed kisses down my neck to my shoulder. Then, with his knee, he nudged apart my legs.
“Scream for me, and I’ll do everything I’m doing now and so much more,” he promised. “Things you never even dreamed were possible.”
Oh God.
Even though I knew it was a dream, I wanted everything he was promising. I needed it. My whole body ached with desire, the kind I knew that only he could ease.
“Kyre,” I moaned.
“Louder, Sophia.” He encouraged me with even more passionate kisses.
“Kyre.” My cry was a little louder this time.
But surely it was loud enough. It had to be. Any louder and the sound of my voice would bounce off the stone walls, echoing through the whole house.
But apparently, that was what he wanted.
Because this time, his tone was more demanding.
“Shout it, Sophia.” The tips of his teeth raked against my sensitive skin. Then he raised his thigh up between my spread legs and let me grind myself against it. “Let everyone hear.”
Yes!
That was the sensation I was craving. White-hot bolts of pure ecstasy shot through every one of my nerves as the pressure of his flesh against my clit sent my body into overdrive.
“Kyre!”
“Sophia!”
“That’s right, my love,” he cooed. “Now do it again. Let everyone know who makes you feel this way. Tell everyone my name.”
“Yes! Kyre, please! I need you so much.”
“Sophia!”
“Sophia!”
I kept grinding against his leg until my whole body started to shake.
Wildly.
Violently, even. Back and forth, like a rag doll.
What the hell?
“Sophia! Wake up!”
This time, when my eyes flew open, I knew exactly where I was.
Kyre’s cabin.
In Kyre’s bed.
His chest was angled over mine, one hand gripping my shoulder as he shook me awake, the other clasped over my gaping mouth. Flickers from a dying fire in the hearth cast deep, dancing shadows across his face, making his tense expression all the more intense.
What was happening?
After a long, confused moment, understanding started to creep into my still sleepy brain.
I remembered how Felicity had woken me up like this a couple of times lately…and always because I was making sounds in my sleep.
Say my name.
Oh God.
My whole body went stiff as a potent mix of shame and humiliation sank all the way down to my bones. But at least Kyre had stopped thrashing me back and forth.
After I blinked a few more times, he even risked peeling his hand away from my mouth.
“Please tell me I wasn’t—”
“You were.”
I noticed a tremble in his usually resolute voice.
My whole face started to burn, the embarrassed flush moving down, ready to make its way over every inch of my body.
“I’m so sorry, Kyre.” The apology rushed out of me. “I should have warned you this could happen, but I was too ashamed. I don’t know what’s wrong with me these days. I keep—”
“You don’t need to apologize.”
Strangely, he sounded like he meant it. Though somehow his rare show of grace only deepened my shame.
Even though I had a terrible feeling I already knew the answer, I still had to ask, “Was I…loud?”
“That depends on what you consider loud,” he said. “I’m sure there were a few families near the center of the village that didn’t hear you.”
“Oh, God.” Collapsing back onto his mattress, I grabbed one of his pillows and covered my face. “This was why I wanted to stay with your mother. Nobody outside those stone walls would have heard me.”
“She would have,” Kyre said.
“Yeah, but that’s one person versus dozens of your neighbors.”
“I can deal with them easily enough,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “I’ll just say you were upset with me and put on a little show to give me grief.”
I threw back the pillow, looking over at him with new eyes.
“Hey, that might actually work,” I said. “After all, your neighbors must know what you’re like.”
His brows pulled together. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing.” I quickly shook my head. Then, “Just that you’re kind of grumpy.”
“I am not.”
“And you have a temper.”
“No, I don’t,” he snapped.
I lifted a brow. “Oh, really? You haven’t stopped snarling since we met.”
As if to prove my point, his severe green gaze narrowed, piercing me with a fierceness that made me shiver. His nostrils flared. The corners of his mouth twitched once…twice. For a second, I feared he was about to pull back his lips and flash his fangs in warning.
But instead, he simply peeled his hands off my body and stood up from the bed.
“Think whatever you like,” he said. “But we don’t have time to talk about this now.”
“Right,” I said sarcastically. “What was I thinking? Who has time for meaningful conversation when there’s a long night of humiliating dreams to get back to?”
“Unfortunately, that’s true,” he said, moving over to the small set of shelves that was built into the wall. “You need to sleep, which means we can’t stay here any longer. We’ll have to spend the night somewhere else.”
Oh, thank God. Maybe some good would come out of this after all.
“Are we going back to your mother’s?”
“Absolutely not.” Reaching into the back of one of his shelves, he pulled out the leather jacket I’d seen so many times before. Once it was on, he offered his hand.
Well, that was different. Usually, he just grabbed onto my wrist.
Hesitantly, I placed my palm in his.
“Then where are we going?”
“Somewhere I’ve been avoiding.”