Chapter 10
Jamie
I sat back on my heels and just looked at her for a second. My hands were shaking. I’d been with exactly no one in my life. Not because I hadn’t wanted to, but because wanting things had a way of going badly for me, and I’d gotten careful. I’d gotten very fucking careful.
Jupiter was still catching her breath in the grass, her chest rising and falling. I had the taste of her in my mouth and I didn’t know what to do with any of it. I wanted to do it again. I wanted to do a lot of things.
I wiped my lips with the back of my hand, staring down at her flushed face, her eyes half-lidded with satisfaction. I couldn’t believe this was happening, even in a dream.
“Jamie,” she whispered, her voice husky and low. Before I could respond, she moved with surprising strength, rolling us over so that I was on my back with her straddling me.
Her hands slid down my chest, coming to rest at the waistband of my trousers. I felt her fingers brush against my erection through the fabric, and I couldn’t stop the groan that escaped me.
“Is this okay?”
“Yes,” I managed to say, my voice rough with need. “Fuck, yes.”
With agonizing slowness, she pulled my cock free. I watched her face, mesmerized by the way her lips parted slightly, her eyes darkening as she wrapped her hand around me. I wasn’t a small man by any means.
“You’re beautiful,” she murmured, and I almost laughed at the irony of those words coming from her, directed at me of all people. I didn’t know what to do with that. I almost told her not to look at me like that.
Then her head dipped and I stopped thinking entirely. My jaw went slack. I’d thought about this—I wasn’t going to pretend I hadn’t—but thinking about it and having it happen were two completely different things.
“Christ,” I breathed. “Jupiter—“
She took me deeper, her tongue swirling around the head of my cock before sliding back down. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the sight of her lips stretched around me, her dark, silken hair spilling over my thighs.
My hips jerked upward instinctively, pushing deeper into her mouth. She moaned around me, the vibration nearly sending me over the edge right then. Something else took over, and I found myself thrusting upward, fucking her mouth.
She didn’t pull away. Instead, her hands gripped my hips, encouraging me as I lost myself in the pleasure. My release built rapidly, too fast for me to control.
“I’m going to—“ I tried to warn her, but she only took me deeper in response. I moaned, and moaned some more, my cock pulsing with the need to come.
Finally I broke, a groan tearing out of me as I came, my hips driving up once before I caught myself. She took it, all of it, her eyes on mine the whole time. I’d gotten myself off thinking about her more times than I’d ever admit to another living soul, but it had never felt like that.
I stared up at the dream sky, chest still heaving. Jupiter shifted against me and I pulled her in without thinking, her head finding my chest like it fucking belonged there always. I kept my arm tight around her. I didn’t want to talk. I didn’t want to think. I just didn’t want her to move.
Above us the stars had shifted, though I couldn’t have said when. Somewhere overhead I could hear Gretchen’s wings as she soared overhead, her shadow briefly blotting out the moon.
I stared up at the sky for a while. “I’ve never done that.”
“I know.”
“Does it matter that this is a dream?”
She didn’t answer right away. Her fingers had gone still against my chest. “I don’t know,” she said. “I genuinely don’t know, Jamie.”
I didn’t say anything to that. What was there to say?
After a moment, she lay beside me as we adjusted our clothing, and stared up at the sky too. “We might be dreaming, but our consciousness is lucid, so I say it counts.”
A smile tugged at my lips, only barely. “I suppose you’re right.”
“I like you, Jamie,” she said, her voice devastatingly soft. “In the real world too. But I’m so fucking scared.”
I tightened my arm around her. “I’m scared too. Terrified, actually.”
She lifted her head to look at me. “Of what?”
“Of wanting something I can’t have. Of trusting again. Of being wrong about you.”
Jupiter gently traced the scars on my face with a feather-light touch of her fingertip. No one touched my scars. Ever. But her touch didn’t make me want to flinch away. Instead, I found myself leaning into it. I closed my eyes and let out a long breath, letting myself relax.
“I’m not Eliza. And you’re not like my old shield—not in the slightest. Maybe that’s a place to start.”
I nodded. “Maybe it is.”
The dream was beginning to fade around us, blurring as true unconsciousness pulled at us both. Jupiter’s form grew slightly translucent in my arms.
“See you in the morning?” she asked, her voice already distant.
“In the real world,” I confirmed, pressing my lips to her forehead before she disappeared completely.