dreamless ch 3 (final sneak peek)
A dark monster romance
The monsters are rarely the monsters. The monsters are always the men.
CW: Domestic Violence
Chapter 3
Ere sits on a wooden chair, knees bent and legs spread wide, his hands grasped together in the gap at his crotch. We’re face to face, almost casually, like he wants some kind of tete a tete, just a little chit chat, despite the fact that I’ve been kidnapped and bound in place with my arms tied behind my back and my legs tied to the chair. He’s remains in this form. The sexy one. The one meant to allure. But what is he trying to lure from me?
“If you want to have a chat, I’d like some tea,” I say. “Maybe a croissant. Some butter. Brie, if you’re fancy. And I know you are.”
A smile curves on his features. “I’d thought you’d never ask.”
With a wave of his hand, a table appears, all its parts coming together like something out of Mary Poppins, first the legs and then the nuts and bolts and the wooden surface, snapping in place. Plates clatter gently to the tabletop, forks and knives dance their way around the settings, and then a spread of delicious pastries, chocolates, and fruit landing gently atop it all. I recognize the pastries. From my favorite cafe in Chicago, the one that serves the real croissants with French butter and the lemon posettes in the lemon rinds, and the chocolate galettes with the powdered sugar finish. In the center, a delicate pot of tea, decorated in small pink and blue flowers. The exact pattern from the set my mother had growing up. I had almost forgotten.
“Well…” I prompt, knowing he won’t untie me so that I can eat. I know the game we play now. I can play it too. “Do what you will.”
Again, a smile. He likes this. He’s always liked to tease. Me too, I guess. It’s been so long since I’ve felt it, but even now, a simmer of heat is bubbling in the pit of my belly. Draw him in. Then escape.
He stands from the wooden chair and it disappears as if it never even existed. Then I watch as he fills a small, porcelain plate. Half a croissant, cut with thick butter and apricot jam, a chunk of camembert paired with a slice of a perfectly red, perfectly ripe strawberry. A handful of almonds, the skinned kind, already soaked in olive oil. And a small slab of chocolate. Dark. The kind that snaps loudly between your fingers if you exert enough force.
He holds the plate with ease. He slices through the pastries as if a professional chef. He is languid and fluid and gliding. Opposite of me. I’m still. Stuck. Sweating. Desperate. But for what? As I watch him, I can’t quite remember.
Get out.
That’s right. I have to get out.
But my thoughts haze once again as he saunters up beside me, kneeling so that we’re at the same level. He lifts up the chocolate first. Brings it to my lips.
His eyes are on mine as my lips part. Reflexively, my thighs tightened. I haven’t forgotten him although I’ve tried. Lord, have I tried.
And as the deep, rich, bold flavor of the chocolate touches my tongue, my eyes shutter closed, and a moan touches my lips. “Oh my god, that’s amazing. Where did you get it?” The taste is like an orgasm. It’s like nothing I’ve ever had in the earthly realm. Not at any cafe in Chicago or Paris or London.
“Delicacies like this only exist here in the void, but I love to see you enjoy things. What have you enjoyed lately? Anything at all?”
“MMmm…” another bite, another moan. “I don’t know. I really don’t.” My guards are falling. Is the chocolate drugged? Or is he right? I just haven’t enjoyed anything in so long. No joy. Only darkness.
And when a cold strawberry touches my lips, my eyes practically roll back in my head. I’ve eaten strawberries before, of course, but never never in my entire life have I eaten a strawberry like this. Chilled and sweet, my teeth slicing through like butter, the flesh bursting and then disintegrating into decadent, sugary juice. My mind wavers, I’ve been overzealous with the enjoyment.
My eyes flicker open, and he’s watching me, and now my inner thighs are throbbing. Surely, I’m being put under a spell. But surely, I don’t care.
I hold his eye as I slide my tongue along the line of my lip to get another taste of the juice. His eyes darken, his head moving to a tilt, watchful and full of desire.
This form of him, the form of a man with the jet black hair and earily light blue yes, with the lean but rippling muscles and smooth tan skin, might be my favorite form. At least it is for now.
My pulse picks up speed like an allegretto metronome when his hand cups my chin. He leans in and his tongue finds the tip of my upper lip, sliding across the sensitive skin, collecting the rest of the juice from the strawberry.
My lips part for more. I want his tongue in my mouth, if only for a second. It’s been so long…it’s been so long that I’ve forgotten arousal. But his fingers trail away from my chin and his tongue’s touch is fleeting.
My pussy slickens in response. I’m ashamed that I want my captor to kiss me now. I’m even more ashamed because I know he won’t. This is his game, not mine.
And he is my captor.
“Good girl, my sunflower. You’ve calmed down. No more kicking or swearing or death threats. Although, if we’re honest, I quite like all that. But sometimes, a woman just needs to be fed, does she not? Filled. Up?” His words pop on the p at the end of up.
I lower my gaze, eyelashes fluttering, and when I raise it again, I stare at him. Doe eyed. Innocent. Or at least what I hope is innocent. “Let me out of these bindings and maybe we can relive the old days. The days when I would visit you, and you…in turn…would put me on my knees.”
The truth is, even saying the words has my pulse fluttering, my pussy throbbing, my nipples tight. The things we used to do. Unspeakable.
He clears his throat—have I unnerved him?—sets the plate on the spread which he flips into non existence with the flick of his large, dexterous hand.
He disappears. I sense a shift in the atmosphere. Then poof. His hands are on my neck behind me, they’re trailing down my collar bone, into the cleavage of my tank top.
“Let’s see what we can remember first,” he says, his voice almost a threat.
My body clenches despite my brain’s will for it to remain calm. His finger hooks beneath the stitched collar of the thin cami. I’m not wearing a bra. From his vantage point, I’m sure he can see down my shirt, my breasts aren’t small, in fact, they're quite large, and my hard nipples are now making dark pointed shadows against the white fabric.
Not to mention, he knows how I like to be touched. He’s an expert from our time together…before…before…my boyfriend came into the picture. My boyfriend, who never touched me in quite the right way, who, in fact, touched me in very, very wrong ways, but who was a man. A human. Made of the same flesh and blood as me.
Not just an apparition standing behind me, who’s human-like glamour is now grazing the sensitive skin at the swelling top of my breast. My nipples throb in anticipation.
Touch them. Touch them. Push my shirt down and put your tongue on them. Just as you used to.
His finger brushes back and forth, dipping aching centimeter after centimeter lower until he’s merely brushing the tiny perimeter of an areola, circling around the nipple, again and again and again. My head turns to the side in a wince. The ache is worse than the restraints. Worse than any pain I’ve felt before in my life.
His voice comes at my neck, like a cotton ball gliding up the taut skin. My arms prick with goosebumps. “Is this what you want, my little Sunflower.”
“Yes…” I whisper. His breath is hot at my ear.
“You want me to bring back your joy, in all the ways I know how. You like me in this form, don’t you? You’ve always liked this form best, I think.”
“Undo the ropes. I can see how much you this…” I breathe, and the sensuality of the moment swirls heavily in the air.
My pulse leaps yet again and his fingertips disappear from my nipple, back up my collarbone, over my shoulders and trail down my arms and to the bindings at my wrists. My body threatens to respond with involuntary little jerks at his touch.
And with the gentlest caress, the ropes disappear. Poof. My arms fall forward, and I rotate my wrists, flinging out my hands, in their freedom, but I don’t move yet. My ankles are still bound to the legs of the chair. I wait, with a watchful gaze.
Poof. Again, he kneels before me, and memories flash at the sight of his dark hair in between my legs. I rub my shoulders to prevent myself from running my hands through his hair and pulling him against my throbbing clit. Reliving the days before I changed. The days when I was ravenous. And wanton. And shameless.
The days before he could come to me. When only I could go to him.
Just as with the restraints at my wrists, my ankles are freed as well.
I stretch in relief. Standing as he stands. “There, are you happy now, Sunflower?”
I smile at him, reach out to touch the waistband of his leather pants, watch him stutter steps towards me and I pull him forward with the merely the strength of my index finger. I let my hand glide downwards. He’s hard, his familiar heft fills my hand, his jaw tightens, head tilting back ever so slightly at my touch, nostrils flared. I lick my lips and he smirks back.
“I’m not happy, yet,” I say.
And then, before I can change my mind…
I run.
And poof he disappears into a shadow.
“You must think I’m a fool if you think I’d let you escape so easily.” His voice echoes from everywhere, his shadow looms in the air above.
“I own this place! Not you!” I yell as I juke back and forth, as if I’m running from an alligator. “I control who comes in. I control who goes out.”
His shadow appears before me, like a towering mountain, the form of a monster, the outstretched arms that end in hook like claws, the light blue slits that peep out from his shadow face, and I burst right through it, sprinting now, lungs gasping for air.
Still, his voice disturbs me. “Not anymore, you don’t. You gave up that power some time ago, didn’t you?”
“You’re lying!” Again I kick and punch searching for any sign of a hidden door or window or wall. There used to be one somewhere.
His large black shadow hovers, it slides across the Void as if there are walls, which there aren’t, at least none that I can find. The only way I even have a sense of distance is from the disappearing view of a fireplace.
The void is confusing in that it doesn’t begin and it doesn’t end. There is no up, no down.
No up…no down. No up, no down.
“You can run, but where will you go, Sunflower?” his voice echoes again.
Then I remember, and I leap into the air, pushing upwards as high as I possibly can, and for a moment I float, suspended in the nothingness.
And everything tumbles, my whole world shifts sideways.
Suddenly, I’m caught in a curtain. Tangled like a web, but I’ve found something. A way out. An exit. “Ahhh!” I scream out in frustration. Tearing at the curtain with my nails.
“Your frustration won’t help you,” Ere’s voice surrounds me. “Fighting won’t help you.”
“Giving up doesn’t help either,” I spit. Finally, I find an edge of the material and grasp at it, flinging as hard as I can. Light breaks through the darkness with such force that I’m blasted backwards onto my ass. I cover my eyes with my hands so that I’m not blinded, but my eyes adjust although still in pain. And then my jaw drops at the images before me.
“Ere,” I say. “What have you done?”
His form falls from above, floats before me. Although he radiates in front of the bright light, his shadow remains. No light can compete with his darkness. His size grows and shrinks in a drunken haze. “I’ve returned a gift to you. One you gave away long ago.”
“What gift?” my voice sounds hoarse. My chest heaves, my lungs gasp.
His shadow floats to my side now, helping me up as it encompasses my whole body. “The gift of choice.”
I’m standing now, engulfed in the shadow, but in front of me, suspended like a marionette in the light…is my boyfriend.
***
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xoxo,
Cat