9

I try to push the duvet off me, but it seems to have gained a few pounds overnight.

I shove it again, but nothing happens. My eyes are closed, my brain foggy from just waking up, and I’m hot. Really, really hot. A thin layer of sweat covers my skin, and when I try to sit up, so I can go wash my face in the bathroom, an immovable object stops me.

Said object being the heir to the Shadow Realm. No age. No patience. Someone who doesn’t know when to leave a woman’s bedroom.

His arm is heavy, and I turn my head to find his face is relaxed, lips slightly parted as he sleeps. Cute yet handsome. From this angle, I catch a glimpse of a scar on his neck, as if someone once tried to cut it open.

Knowing him, he probably can’t die. Or won’t.

I scowl at him before shouldering into his chest.

He groans, his already closed eyes screwing tight, but his face relaxes and he’s asleep once more.

I do it again. Harder.

“Insufferable,” he mutters. “We have eighteen minutes left. Stay quiet and pretend I’m not here.”

“Pretend you’re not here? You’re like a man-sized heat pack!”

He groans again. “Stop yelling.”

There’s silence for a beat, then he lifts his head. “Is a heat pack something I should be aware of in your world?”

I try not to giggle, my body trembling when I fail. “What do you do if you have a stomach ache?”

“Pain is a sign that I’m alive. When one feels such—”

“Oh my God. Stop. Let’s go back to being silent.”

He drops his head onto the pillow, getting comfortable behind me. The duvet shifts, then Dane, being the pain in the ass he is, yanks it off the bed completely.

The fabric lands on the other side of the room.

“Was that necessary?”

“Very.”

I note that he doesn’t move his arm or the close proximity of his chest to my back.

I can feel him breathing on my neck, and I’m confused as to whether it’s turning me on or if I’m slowly losing my mind by even thinking that this feels intimate .

“Nine minutes left,” he says. “I’ve never wanted time to pass so badly. I don’t know how Orsen can do this with your friend every night.”

I narrow my eyes into the morning sunlight shining through the window. “He sleeps in her dorm every night?”

Dane nods behind me, and the stubble on his chin grazes my ear.

A pulse between my legs has my eyes widening.

My body needs to stop. Now.

“Seven minutes. And please, for the billionth time, keep your thoughts to yourself.”

“If you keep reading my mind, I’m going to hurt you. It’s weird and creepy.”

“I can’t help it,” he replies. “It’s intrusive.”

I try to sit up and fail. “You’re intrusive!” Childish response, but oh well.

“For a weak human, you are incredibly rude.”

Against my better judgment, I somehow smile. “Thank you. Except for the weak part. That’s getting a little overused. Get a better vocabulary.”

“The human vocabulary makes me question life itself. Your dictionaries are even worse.”

“Get used to it all, or you’ll perish.”

“The latter seems the best option.” He inhales. Holds it. Exhales. “Five minutes, mortal.”

“Sera.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“Grow up,” he mutters under his breath.

I sigh.

So does he.

“Do you still want to kill me?”

I can sense his smile as he replies, “Very much so. Don’t get confused by me sleeping in your bed. This is a task.” He stops, waits a few heartbeats, then adds, “I’d rather fuck a cactus.”

“You’d rather feel excruciating pain?”

“How so?” he asks as he dips his chin, his cheek against my hair.

I imagine falling down the stairs dressed as a clown so he doesn’t see that I’m absolutely dying for his touch right now. If he were to reach into my panties, his fingers would end up soaked.

Is this normal? To lie in bed with an enemy who wants to kill you and to be… sexually frustrated?

To ease the tension between my thighs, I rub them together and say, “Explain to me how you’d even do that?”

“Explain to me what a cactus is and I will.”

I purse my lips. “You don’t have them in the Shadow Realm?”

“No.” His response is blunt and bored and full of tiredness. He’s falling asleep again.

I laugh. “You are doomed. It’s basically a penis-shaped plant covered in spikes.”

Dane doesn’t respond; I can feel just a slight shake of his head behind me as his breaths grow heavier, like the arm still bracketing my body.

Three hundred seconds drag in, and neither of us speaks; neither of us mention the silhouettes waking up within the walls and watching us. A little dog wags its tail and shows us a ball. A little girl waves, and when I unravel my arm from beneath Dane’s, I wave back.

The motion must wake him.

“Time’s up,” is all he says.

My heart stops, and I have no idea why. I don’t like Dane. I hate him. And he wants me six feet under or tossed in a river somewhere. But a huge part of me wants to stay like this a little longer.

Dane doesn’t move, and neither do I.

“Has it definitely been six hours?” I ask, trying to turn my head to look at him.

He tightens his hold around my body, stopping me. “Yes. I believe so.”

“Then you should probably go.”

He hums. “I should.”

A calm silence falls between us.

But then he loosens his hold; however, the touch of his skin against mine doesn’t vanish instantly. My nightdress has dangerously hiked up, bunching at my hips. And with him slowly putting distance between us, the heated area of my back turns cold.

I almost reach for his hand to keep him there.

Almost.

Dane sits up; runs both hands across his jaw and into his hair, messing it even more. “It’s five in the morning.”

“Are you so magical that you have an invisible watch?”

The confusion on his face makes me giggle, and I cover my mouth with my hand as I turn onto my side to watch him.

“What is funny?”

“Did you have anything in your world? You have no idea who Peter Pan is, or the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. What did you watch growing up? Wait. No TV, I’m guessing. No phones or internet. No plants apparently. And you don’t have goddamn hot-water bottles! What did you do for fun?”

“We aren’t doing task one again, human.”

My mouth opens. Closes. “Oh.”

He looks at me as if he wants to speak some more, yet neither of us bother, and, right now, I can’t avert my tired gaze. Dane has sleepy eyes all the time, even more so when he just wakes. I would say he was cute if it wasn’t for the personality transplant he needs and the obvious darkness in his soul.

“Stop looking at me,” I say. “It’s creepy.”

Dane groans and lies back down, his strong shoulder right there, in my line of sight. And my God is it a nice shoulder. The arch of his neck makes me want to dig my nails into it, my teeth, to mark it by sucking on the skin.

Dane grimaces, and I fight a scoff before turning away from him to face the wall. “If you thought task two was bad, we’ll never survive the rest. They get more intense.”

“Elaborate.”

“I’d rather not. Go read the list.”

He yawns and replies, “I’d rather not.”

I grunt, but my eyes close once more.

For some reason, he isn’t leaving, and I’m not telling him to.

A few moments pass, then I’m pulled against him again. “Just to be sure we did the full six hours,” he whispers against my ear. “Okay?”

I nod. “Okay.”

We fall asleep for what feels like hours, but in reality, going by the sunlight still barely lighting up the room, it’s only been about twenty minutes.

But his hand is on my hip, and the electricity strumming between us is intense and indestructible.

Like two magnets, stronger than anything I’ve ever come across, our bodies press against each other. A force not even Dane can fight. It’s not uncomfortable or sickening. It’s the total opposite.

A steady calm of two heartbeats.

Blood pumping through veins.

Lungs expanding and contracting.

Each breath from Dane fills me, and the touch of his hand on my bare skin isn’t burning like my dreams but like ice melting on a hot day.

I could lie here forever, if the world allowed me to.

When I shift, my eyes ping open at what I feel.

He’s hard as granite. Long. Big. There. Pressing against my ass, only my panties to create a barrier, because my nightdress has risen up even further. But instead of tensing or wincing or trying to pull away, if only to stop embarrassment on his part, I stay still.

His arm—which is still on top of me—is in full view now that the room is brighter. Naked. There’s no shirt to hide the tanned skin, or the strange writing and symbols that are tattooed on his forearm.

I’ve never been able to make out his ink before, but now that he’s all over me, I allow my eyes to explore what I can.

The hairs on his arm stick up as I trace the black writing, the symbols I don’t recognize. An immortal who gets goose pimples across his skin seems bizarre.

As if my touch has woken him, his fingers bury into my skin as he yanks me against him.

He’s still hard; still pressed to my ass. The impressive rigidness could likely rip through my panties, if he really wanted to go there.

Against my better judgment, for the hundredth time in the past six hours, I arch my back and push my ass into his erection. The groan that leaves his throat vibrates all over me. From my chest, down my spine and right between my legs. Deep. Dangerous. Deadly.

The walls are empty of shadows as Dane reaches down and grabs my inner thigh, the other hand pushing under my pillow and snatching my throat. Firm, yet gentle—enough to show he can dominate me without even trying.

My erratic pulse is thudding against his palm.

His fingers dig into my flesh as he dips his face to the space between my shoulder and neck.

“Do that again,” he orders quietly through gritted teeth.

I do as I’m told. I arch my back, rubbing my ass against his hard cock. I can tell by the thickness that he’s considerably larger than a human. Quite frankly, I reckon he’d snap my body into pieces if it went anywhere near me.

He exhales through his nose, each breath harsh and forced out as I move against him again and again.

A sound vibrates from his chest once more, making me close my eyes as he yanks my head back by the throat, so we’re cheek to cheek. He grips my thigh harder, lifting it so he can thrust between my legs from behind.

Slowly, we both move our hips. The coiling deep within me starts as a dull pulse, and it’s as if one of Dane’s shadows is snaking up my spine, wrapping around each vertebra and whispering sweet nothings to my soul. Promises to seek revenge.

On what, I don’t know.

Again and again, the concealed length of him rubs against my ass, pushing between my legs to run over my soaking pussy. And the urge to turn and face him so I can feel his cock from the front is unbearable.

But I won’t turn.

It might break whatever spell we’re in. Need. Desire. Black liquid lust injecting into our veins until we both peak, and I realize the sunlight is no longer shining through my window.

The room has fallen into darkness, and neither of us has noticed until now. We both freeze. Our orgasms are fading.

We look up to the ceiling. A black vortex filled with flashes of lightning swirls above us.

Dane removes his hands from my throat and thigh.

We swallow, gulping down the need to continue. We breathe in unison. When the warmth between us dims, the moment is gone, the veil of black is lifted, and the sun shines once more.

The vortex shimmers to nothing until it’s gone. Everything is. Even the tenderness of Dane that comforted me all night. It felt familiar somehow, as if I’ve been in that position a thousand times before. I look over my shoulder to my school bully. Half-lidded eyes are on me.

“What was that?” he asks, running his hand through his unruly hair. “Fuck, where are my clothes?”

I shake my head. “I don’t know what that was. I thought your shadow pets were getting excited again.”

He pulls away from me completely, breaking our touch and connection. And instantly, everything feels different. It feels wrong.

“They are not pets. They are the only shadows that remain from my realm and will be treated with respect.”

He gets to his feet and pulls his shirt on, keeping it unbuttoned. His abs strain, and my gaze fixes on the prominent V leading down to his boxers. Without sparing me a glance, he shoves his legs into his pants.

Eventually, his eyes meet mine then trail down the length of me before he shakes his head and mutters deeply, “Fuck.”

“It was a pleasure doing business with you, Mr. Dalton. I’ll see you soon for task three. Wear some ChapStick.”

He narrows his eyes. Then the air shifts, taking all the energy with it, and Dane is gone.