ChapterTwenty-Eight
SUNDAY
“Sunday, wake up!” Noah’s voice reached me like a lifeline, tearing me from the horrific scene I’d been trapped inside.
I gasped for breath, bolting to a sitting position, my throat raw, limbs shaking. “I couldn’t save you.”
He reached for me, and I jerked out of his grasp, chest still heavy as I tried to draw air into my lungs. His expression clouded, hurt mixing with confusion at my instinctive reaction.
“Don’t touch me,” I hissed.
“Sunday... what’s this all about? I won’t be so rough again. I’m so sorry if I hurt you.”
“No. It’s not that,” I started, my head still filled with the images of a world on fire.
I could still feel the heat in my palms and taste the soot in my mouth as, one by one, the people I tried to save caught flame. Orange and red flickered in my vision as their horrified gazes latched onto mine, their screams overwhelming me almost as badly as the acrid scent of charred flesh in my nose. All because they touched me. I wasn’t their saving grace. I was their death. And throughout this nightmare, I’d laughed with wicked glee at the destruction I’d wrought.
“Then tell me what it is. Or better yet, let me inside your mind and show me.”
I cringed away, not wanting to relive how awful the nightmare had been. I didn’t want Noah to have the image of the monster I’d become living inside his mind. How could he ever look at me the same if he knew what I might be capable of?
“I could never fear you.”
He must have read my expression, or perhaps even my thoughts. While comforting, his words still weren’t enough to make me want to share the horrors of my dream. I squeezed my eyes together and let out a ragged sigh. “How can you say that when you don’t know what I’ve done?”
“It was a dream, dove. You haven’t done anything wrong. If you knew the things I dreamt of doing, you’d run screaming for the hills. The vengeance I’ve craved against those who wronged my family has been played out time and time again in my subconscious. If we could be judged on our thoughts alone, I’d have been damned a long time ago.”
“Aren’t you already?” I lifted my lips in the ghost of a smile. “Vampire and all?”
He reached out again, stopping himself just before his fingers brushed against my skin. Then he gave me an apologetic smile and dropped his hand. “Probably. Though if I am, it has more to do with my other sins, not being born a beast.”
My pulse slowed to a normal pace, the panic ebbing, and now all I wanted was for him to touch me again. I needed to feel normal. To be reminded I wasn’t the monster the dream had portrayed. A shudder ran through me at the memory of my mother atop a blood-red horse at the crest of a hill, watching with a stoic expression as I’d lain waste to anyone who touched me.
Noah tensed, his eyes falling closed as he took a deep breath and slowly released it. “Is that all?”
I knew exactly what he was asking. He’d been inside my head. He’d seen it even though I didn’t want him to. “Not by a long shot.”
His eyes opened, his gaze warm and free of judgment as it met mine. “Show me. Let me see the worst, so you’ll know it’s nowhere near as bad as it seems. The dream will only hold power over you if you let it.”
I shook my head. “I don’t want to think about it anymore. Make me forget it, Noah. Take it away.”
He didn’t hesitate, my request the only permission he needed before he crossed the bed and pulled me into him. Rolling our bodies so I was straddled across his hips, he grinned, his smirk sexy and entirely unrepentant. “By all means, Sunday. Take what you need. I’m more than happy to provide you with a distraction.”
We were still fully nude, and my body, although recovering from the nightmare, was more than primed for him. There was something about Noah, about being near the man, that made me hot and slick, ready at the drop of a hat. I rocked my hips, rubbing my pussy across his hard length as it pressed to his lower stomach.
“Yes,” he groaned, his hands roaming up my legs to rest on my hips. “Just like that. Take me inside you and ride me.”
I shivered from head to toe, reaching down and notching him at my opening. Then, in purposefully slow motion, I sank down on him until he was buried to the hilt.
“Fuuuck, Sunday. You fit like a fucking dream. So tight and deliciously warm. I could live buried inside you. In fact, I think I will.”
I giggled. “We’ll have to separate sometime.”
His fingers spasmed on my hips, biting into my skin and holding me just tight enough to bruise. “Never. You’re stuck with me. Always. I’ll never leave you by choice. Now fuck me.”
“I don’t know what to do. What if I hurt you?”
“You’re not going to hurt me. Just chase your own pleasure. Be selfish and move in ways that feel good for you. I promise you’ll do it right.”