Who could blame him, when he felt more alive in his dreams than when he was consciously awake?
The tear fit in the palm of his hand snugly, and quickly warmed to match his body heat. He held it in his fist and held his fist, in turn, against his heart, closing his eyes.
It was easy to fall asleep. It always was. As if his body and mind had been trained to welcome dreams, discarding the waking world as if it was the illusion instead.
A part of Wolfe wondered whether he would one day die this way. In his sleep. Because he didn’t intend, nor ever wanted, to wake up.
His breathing deepened, and his pulse slowed. Soon, the world around him disappeared, made hazy by a dense white fog.
As he always did, he walked fearlessly into the unknown, unarmed and unclothed. Unfettered by his past and present reality.
This was his world. His and Rui’s.
Only in his dreams did she exist. Only here in his imagination could they be together.
As the fog grew thinner, a lush, fantasy world unfolded before him. He never paid much attention to the details, for they weren’t real in any case. But he had the sense that it was a gorgeous place, filled with beauty and opulence, the likes of which his waking mind couldn’t grasp.
Wolfe focused solely on what was coming next: Rui, walking, then running, toward him from within the mist.
She threw herself into his arms as she always did, and kissed him eagerly all over his face, molding her slim body to his everywhere, just as naked as he was.
She never spoke in his dreams, but she conveyed so much with her kisses and touch, the joy overflowing from her bright lapis lazuli eyes.
They would make love endlessly, spending not a single moment apart, wrapped up in each other, entangled as one.
This was the only place he let his body come alive. To share with his woman, to give her pleasure and take his own. Only here. In his dreams with Rui.
And if he awoke in the morning aching for more, he shut down his urges and withstood the pain. Because he promised Rui he would have no other. He meant every word.
Strangely, this night, in this dream, Rui spoke to him.
“My Wolfe,” she murmured, kissing him urgently as she hugged him tight.
“How I’ve missed you!”
Somehow, this night, she felt more real.
Her skin was silkier than he’d ever imagined, her body soft and warm against his. He even felt her small, beaded nipples digging into his pecs; her core, soaking wet satin, where she ground against his lower stomach as she wrapped her legs around him, letting him hold her full weight in his arms.
He didn’t answer as he kissed her back, too overwhelmed to form words and sound.
He wrapped his arms like steel bands around her, one hand at the back of her head, one hand gripping her lithely muscular thigh to keep her in place.
Without preamble, he plundered, thrusting his tongue into her welcoming mouth, devouring her sweetness with a desperate groan.
God!
Had she ever felt this way before? He couldn’t recall.
He’d been a starving man dining on memories over the past five years. He no longer knew what real sustenance was. He hadn’t felt a woman’s touch in all this time. Never mind Rui’s.
And all the while, as he ate her mouth up, lapped at her honey, a part of his mind kept fearing that it would end too soon and he would lose her again.
He never wanted to wake up. He wished he’d never open his eyes again to the real world.
“Wolfe…” she whimpered, equally desperate for him.
“I need you… please… fill me, my love.”