monster.” Teasing laughter trilled out of her mouth. “I suppose I should set it free. Then we can talk.”
She propped herself up on a knee, unfastened his jeans, and pulled his cock free. Eddie scrambled to push the jeans down around his knees while Giselle stroked the engorged shaft. He moaned and flopped onto his back. She settled onto him, easing him inside her one heavenly inch at a time. When he was all the way in, she started riding him like an urban cowgirl atop a mechanical bull. Eddie thought he would come right away, given his unusually intense state of arousal, but it turned out she controlled his ability to achieve orgasm, as well.
He cupped her breasts through the fabric of the dress, and she arched her back. Her mouth stretched open wide. Her eyes closed. Her head whipped side to side, making her raven hair fly. A series of high-pitched gasps escaped her mouth, building to one long crescendo of uninhibited pleasure. She abruptly seized him about the wrists and stopped bucking. She got to her feet, pulled the dress off over head, and tossed it away. Eddie stared up at her, rapt, and ran a hand along one of her perfect legs. He was dimly aware of any will, any resistance to her desires, dying quietly. Whatever else she might be-monster, killer, sadist, what have you-she was unquestionably a goddess.
There was nothing he wouldn’t do for her.
She smiled, as if sensing his thoughts.
And she sat on his face, wedging the pink slit of her sex against his open mouth. He worked her with his tongue, determined to pleasure her as no one else had, convince her of his worthiness. A piece of knowledge arrived wholly formed from seemingly nowhere. His arrival in her room was no accident. She had directed him here. She had plans for him. Grand, dangerous plans. He didn’t know what she had in mind-couldn’t know-but he sensed whatever it was might be his only true hope for salvation.
She screamed.
Slapped the wall behind her with open palms.
She rolled off him and beckoned him to her. He came to her without hesitation, planting his hands beneath her arms. She arched toward him and he thrust into her, gasping at the hot wetness that enveloped him. She locked her legs around him, the balls of her feet gouging the small of his back. Eddie thrust and thrust, arching his back, crying out, and it went on and on, until finally, mercifully, release was achieved. His eyes clenched shut, he groaned, twisted handfuls of rumpled bedsheets, gasped in air, and slumped against her.
No words were exchanged for a while. Silence was better. Eddie’s head rested between her breasts while she slowly stroked his tangled hair. Her legs still clung loosely to his hips. It was beautiful, a natural physical joining. Eddie had engaged in sexual activity during his time Below, but never had there been an opportunity to enjoy the luxury of afterglow. For that matter, sex Below had never remotely approached anything like what had just transpired. The memory of those quick, animalistic couplings saddened him, served as a reminder of just how grim his situation remained. And he didn’t want reminders. He just wanted to enjoy this moment. To savor the feel of Giselle’s soft, deceptively fragile body beneath him.
He’d just made love to a woman.
Really made love to a woman.
A beautiful, transcendent thing, one of nature’s greatest gifts. The most natural, normal thing in the world. How good it was to feel normal again, even if for only a few fleeting moments. How he would love to perpetuate this moment forever, render this carnal interlude eternal.
But that could not be.
Somehow he knew it.
And so he was not surprised when Giselle said, “Our time here is short.”
Eddie sighed. “I thought you might say something like that.”
She stroked his cheek. “A time of reckoning is nearly at hand. Now… tell me about your dreams.”
So he told her. He described the woman called Dream, whose recurring presence in his dreams was so like a portent, a sign of some momentous event, something he was somehow tied to. He told her of his growing surety that Dream was a real person, not merely some symbol of the subconscious.
“But the dreams themselves, I think, are symbolic. Something catastrophic will happen. I keep picturing fiery conflagrations. There’s a sense of temptation, a psychic war for this woman’s soul.” Eddie shook his head. “I can’t make sense of a lot of it, but I get the feeling she’s the key to… everything.”
Giselle’s gaze flicked to the bed canopy. She looked thoughtful. “Tell me about your escape. Leave nothing out. Spare no detail, no matter how minor.”
So he told her about the escape. The supply run to the checkpoint. How he’d slipped into one of the upbound tunnels while the guards at the undermanned station were busy taking advantage of the female members of the supply team. He was more than a hundred yards into the tunnel before he heard the dim echo of raised voices behind him. He told her of his frantic dash through the tunnels. At some point the shapeshifters picked up his scent. The memory of that awful snorting, a hungry intake of unnatural breath, made him shudder in Giselle’s arms. Next he related his passage through the security booth and the surreal trip up the endless staircase.
Giselle made a sound.
Eddie frowned. “What?”
She ran fingers through his hair. “I was thinking how much easier this would have been for you had we been able to approach you.”
“We?”
Giselle just smiled.
Eddie’s mind reeled. There was so much he didn’t understand. “Shit. Look, I don’t care who all’s involved in … whatever’s happening. But if you needed me up here, if I’ve really got some kind of destiny to meet… why not tell me up front?”
Giselle’s smile never wavered. “Destiny can’t be coerced.”
“I don’t get it.”
She kissed him lightly on the mouth. “You had to come to me of your own free will, Eddie, with no foreknowledge of the role you’re to play here.”
“But why?”
She sighed. “A higher power decreed it.” Her smile finally faltered. “I doubt you would have come here had you known what was in store for you.”
Eddie didn’t like the sound of that. This rendezvous with so-called destiny gave every indication of placing him in great danger.
Life-threatening danger.
Which wasn’t his cuppa Joe, thank you very fucking much.
He cleared his throat. “Look…”
“Shush.” She placed a finger to his mouth. “You have a rare opportunity, Eddie, a chance to achieve greatness. To do a good thing.” Something flickered in her eyes, a barely glimpsed shadow of regret. “And to help me atone …”
He frowned again. “Wait… are you saying what I think-“
She cut him off again. “Yes. Then we’ll be gone from here.”
Gone?
Eddie knew better than to hope.
Hope was heartache waiting to happen.
But Giselle said, “Yes, Eddie, we will.”
She drew him into her again.
And gasped.
“I promise.”
Dream couldn’t get over how gorgeous King was. His square jaw and cool blue eyes were the stuff of steamy erotic fantasies. A wavy wedge of brown hair swept back from his brow. He was dressed in black slacks with razor creases, a starched white shirt open at the collar, and polished nut-brown loafers. A class ring of some sort glittered on one of his fingers. But the attraction was about more than appearance. There was something in the knowing way he looked at her that made her weak in the knees.
A shudder went through her every time he turned that dazzling smile on her, as he did now. “Tell me, Dream, if you don’t mind my asking, were your parents…” He pursed his lips, as if considering the proper way to address a potentially delicate subject.”… the sort who lived on communes and traveled around the country in the wake of
