Chapter 12

She stiffened, a flash of guilt crossing her beautiful features. She averted her eyes and lost a bit of the righteous attitude she’d been broadcasting.

“That was a moment of weakness. I apologize,” she said in a defensive tone. “You made the right call by walking away.”

“I didn’t walk away,” I said, continuing my advance. Naima began backing away. The wondrous mix of fear, desire, and confused anticipation emanating from her further turned me on. “I simply didn”t start what I knew we couldn”t properly finish with an audience spying through the cameras. Our first time together would never happen in that closet you call the bathroom. It is not an appropriate setting for my bride.”

Naima’s lips parted with a mix of shock, arousal, and another emotion that I could only interpret as her being flattered at me showing that consideration towards her. And yet, I could hear her mind racing to come up with an argument that might convince me to not pursue what she knew to be inevitable, and that she secretly desired in spite of all her denial.

“I appreciate your restraint when I failed to display the same,” Naima said. “However, what I told you earlier still stands. There is no us. I am here to be—”

A gasp escaped her when her back met the footboard of the bed. The expression of a trapped animal that descended onto her features sent a jolt of lust and excitement straight to my groin. My predatory instincts roared to the forefront. Judging by the panicked way Naima began to look for a place to flee, the emotions her reaction had awakened in me must have shown in my face.

“Why are you fighting this?” I asked, my shadowy tendrils emerging, ready to kick into action and catch her should she attempt to run. “I can read your mind in this realm, remember? You want me as fiercely as I want you. You ache to touch me just like I am starved with the need to touch you, to taste you, to make you mine.”

Naima faced away from me, unable to hold my stare as she prepared to spew the lies forming on her tongue.

“Your expectations for us are unrealistic,” Naima argued. “You are my Nightmare, not my mate.”

“I am your Darkest Desire,” I snapped back, slightly angered by her continued denial. “I hear the ridiculous thoughts you”re trying to use as a shield to deny us both.”

“They”re not ridiculous!” she exclaimed, seizing on to her outrage to give herself the strength to resist in a battle lost before it had even begun. “What would you know about—?”

“About what?” I interrupted, invading her personal space. “About those intangible and repressive concepts that you humans call morals? Virtue? Being a proper little lady?” I asked, my voice dripping with contempt. “What crime are you committing by yielding to what you want? We’re both consenting adults, burning with desire for each other, unattached to any other partner, and shielded from wandering eyes by the privacy of my domain. So, what the fuck is the hold up?”

“Being able to do something doesn’t automatically mean that you should,” Naima countered harshly. “Choices have consequences. Acting on an impulse, especially in response to our baser instincts, often leads to people getting hurt!”

“And refusing to act on what you know can never cause you pain is hurting the both of us,” I snapped.

“You spent your entire existence terrorizing me!” Naima exclaimed.

“Because it’s what you wanted!”

“I never wanted this!” she shouted, slapping her chest angrily.

“Your subconscious did because, deep down, you thought you deserved it. And I can only ever do to you things that you want me to,” I retorted, just as heated. “You dated all those fucked up boyfriends looking for me. I can fulfill any of your fantasies, however dark, however twisted, or however innocent, no judgement, no condemnation, no boundaries. And I will never go beyond what you want or can tolerate, because it is physically impossible for me to harm you or go against your will.”

“And yet, here you are trying to force me into something I repeatedly told you I didn’t want,” Naima snapped back.

I placed my hands on top of the footboard on each side of my woman, caging her in. She leaned back, away from me, holding my stare unwaveringly.

I tilted my head to the side and gave her a smug smile. “Yes, I am. Because you want me to. You want me to give you the arguments that will allow you to yield to your desires without guilt or fear. And deep down, you know it.”

The expression on my woman’s face was all the confirmation I needed. I leaned forward and brushed my lips against hers. Naima placed her palms on my chest and tried to push me away with a complete lack of conviction.

“Zain…” she whispered pleadingly, while the last of her defenses collapsed.

“Consent, my mate,” I whispered, against her mouth before biting her bottom lip. She shivered and inhaled sharply through her parted lips when my hands slipped under the diaphanous frontal panels of her negligee to wrap around her waist. “Consent, Naima. I need your permission. I ache for you.”

I captured her lips in a searing kiss. Naima didn’t fight it. Her hands resting on my chest slipped under my robe, parting it before she pressed herself against me. An approving growl rose from my throat, and my tongue invaded her mouth like a conqueror, demanding her complete surrender. She yielded willingly, responding to each caress of my tongue in kind, while shivering in my embrace.

The sweet sound of Naima’s moan in my ear had my cock throbbing with need. Breaking the kiss, I fisted her curly hair at the nape, and my gaze bore into hers, unyielding.

“Say yes, Naima,” I commanded in a tone that brooked no argument.

A glimmer of confusion flashed through her hazel eyes, darkened by desire. Technically, I didn’t need her to say the words. Both her conscious and subconscious minds had given me their blessing. But I wanted her to acknowledge it out loud so there would be no question where we stood as I eventually led her to a full bonding over the upcoming days or weeks.

“Say it, my mate,” I ordered, this time in a more pressing tone.

“Yes,” she breathily whispered, so low I barely heard it.

I was about to demand she repeats it louder, but a sudden shift took place within my woman. It was as if a switch had been turned on. With an air of almost angry determination, my female stared me straight in the eyes.

“Yes,” she said, loud and clear, a challenge in her voice.

Naima violently yanked wide open the panes of my robe exposing my naked body to her. My blood rushed to my groin, and my cock jerked in response to the almost feral hunger with which she feasted her eyes on me.

“For me. By me,” she whispered to herself while her hands roamed over my chest. “I consent.”

My mate no sooner spoke those words than she lunged for me, her lips immediately closing around my left nipple. I hissed with pleasure, my hand fisting her hair tightening as she laved my little bud before sucking on it. Naima raked her nails down my back while she covered my chest and my neck with kisses. Her hands and lips left a blazing trail in their wake, driving me mad with lust.

I hastily discarded my robe. She yelped in surprise when I picked her up and walked around to the side of the bed. I laid her down at the edge, intent on feasting at last on what was mine, but the wretched female seemed determined to keep challenging my dominance. Instead of remaining on her back, her legs dangling at the edge of the bed, Naima promptly sat up and closed her delicate fingers around my cock. A strangled cry escaped me as she stroked me with both hands. The blissful caress was quickly accompanied by the inferno of her mouth closing around me. I hissed again, liquid fire running through my veins as my female greedily bobbed in front of me.

I threw my head back, tortured moans dripping out of my mouth while my hips gently thrust with a will of their own in counterpoint to my mate’s movements. Between licks, and nips, Naima took me all the way to the back of her mouth and then grazed her teeth along my length as she pulled me out. I thought I would die with pleasure. Considering my girth, she shouldn’t be able to take so much of me, so deeply. Without realizing it, my mate had instinctively manipulated the Mist to adapt her ethereal form. As my creator, she had complete control over everything within my domain. She just didn’t know it… yet.

As I neared the edge, it took every ounce of my willpower to pull away from my woman. While I always sought to sate my constant need for pleasure and gratification, this evening was first and foremost about seducing my mate and breaking down her last barriers to our relationship. I needed her to be the first to climax, many times over, before I allowed myself to yield to ecstasy.

When Naima tried to reclaim her prize, I caught her by the neck. She tried to resist, but I squeezed tighter and snarled menacingly. She gasped, her fingers closing around my wrist, but didn’t attempt to break free. Her lips swollen and glistening, her eyes smoldering, my woman submitted as I forced her to lie back onto the mattress. Holding her pinned down by the neck, I parted her legs with a rough sideways swipe of my knee. Naima’s pupils dilated, and her breath shortened into short gasps caused equally by her slightly constricted airways, her growing arousal, and the sliver of fear and excitement that my predatory expression awakened in her.

My mate’s eyes widened when my shadowy tendrils wrapped around her wrists and ankles, immobilizing her, spread in a vulnerable position. Leaning forward, one hand resting on the mattress next to her head for support, I released her neck and claimed her mouth in a possessive kiss. My free hand explored her body over her thin negligee, squeezing and fondling her breast while my tongue continued to plunder her mouth.

She moaned against my lips, a violent shiver coursing through her when my hand ventured lower, slipping under the tiny triangle of her thong. My fingers zeroed in on her engorged little nub, scissoring and massaging it while Naima writhed beneath my touch. I dipped two fingers inside her opening. My cock jerked with impatience at finding my mate already soaking wet for me—a need further fueled by the maddening scent of her musk. I pulled my fingers out and, breaking the kiss, I shoved them in my mouth, licking off my woman’s essence.

Something snapped inside of me.

With a savage growl, I ripped her negligee to shreds, tearing if off her. Naima cried out in equal parts of fear and excitement. Her mind was shouting for me to ravage her, to take her like a beast. Every part of me was far too eager to comply. I buried my face in her neck, kissing, licking, sucking, and biting my way down her body. I paused only long enough to give one of her erect nipples a solid nip, hard enough to sting, keeping it just on this side of pain. Naima cried out, but her mind chanted ‘yes’ in a litany.

When my mouth closed on her clit, my woman shouted my name, her back arching off the bed. She struggled against my shadowy tendrils keeping her prisoner and at my complete mercy—none of which would be granted. An endless string of blissful moans dripped from Naima’s lips, her hips gyrating under my relentless assault. Between my lips sucking on her sensitive nub and my fingers making love to her, my woman’s body quickly seized, swept away by a violent orgasm.

Normally, I would have wrested at least one more climax from her before I took her, but Naima’s mind kept shouting for me to fuck her into next week. I was too eager to comply. I climbed onto the bed, dragging her with me closer to the center. While my tendrils kept her arms pinned down to the bed above her head, they set free her ankles. Naima immediately wrapped her legs around me as I rubbed my shaft over her exposed sex, covering it with her essence.

“Please,” she pleaded in a needy whisper that resonated straight in my loins.

I always loved the sound of her begging me.

“You want my cock, Naima?” I asked, rubbing myself against her even more strongly, my lips a hair’s breadth from hers.

“Yes,” she breathed out.

“Then you shall have it,” I replied, claiming her mouth at the same time I began inserting myself within the burning heat of her sheath.

She was delightfully tight, her inner walls’ resistance to my invasion eased by how wet I had gotten her. Although her mind was spurring me on to ram myself home, caution be damned, I ignored that request.

Since my mate and I had finally spoken on a conscious level rather than through the semi-consciousness of her dreams, I had realized that what humans thought and believed was right for them sometimes couldn”t be further from the truth. Complying with her request would actually harm her. Granted, this was the dream world, and no permanent damage would befall her. But I needed to define the proper rules of engagement between us going forward. In the real world, ramming myself home would have torn her up.

I considered cheating in my impatience to sate my own burning desire. With a simple thought, I could make her instantly accommodate my girth. However, remembering how much more intense sensations were in a human body, this would serve as my rehearsal in exerting self-control when in the throes of passion with my mate.

With slow thrusts, increasingly forceful, I eventually found myself fully sheathed inside my woman. Moving with deep and controlled strokes, I didn’t give her much time to adapt. I hissed at the overwhelming pleasure of the exquisitely tight grip of my woman’s inner wall caressing my cock. I rapidly picked up the pace as a raging inferno roared in my loins and the pit of my stomach. As much as I hungered for my Naima’s hands touching me, seeing her helpless beneath my body, having no other choice than to accept the punishing way I pounded into her, was driving me too wild with lust and an intense sense of power. The sound of her voluptuous moans, her strangled cries as I pummeled her sweet spot, the clapping of our flesh meeting, and the burning feel of her feverish skin against mine made me feel like a god.

Naima shouted as another orgasm came crashing down on her. Her inner walls clamped down on my cock, making me roar with the excruciating need to surrender to my own release. But no… not yet. Clenching my teeth, my tendrils released her wrists, and I pulled out of her only long enough to flip her onto her stomach. Before she could react, I drew her hips towards me, forcing her onto her knees, and rammed myself home in one powerful stroke. Naima cried out, throwing her head backwards. But even as I resumed my brutal assault, my woman moaned my name and began rocking back and forth, meeting my cock stroke for stroke.

Floating in an endless sea of pleasure, I leaned forward to caress my woman’s back, fondle her breasts, and rub her clit. As I sensed her nearing another climax, I summoned a standing mirror right in front of us. Fisting Naima’s curly hair, I yanked her head back hard enough to make her gasp, but not harm her, so that she could see our reflection. Her eyes widened with shock, fear, and sinful excitement as she saw me behind her, still pounding into her. A dozen shadowy tendrils waved like dancing flames around me, my green eyes having turned a glowing red—including the sclera—and my mouth contorted in a vicious snarl as my fangs descended.

I didn’t actually have fangs. However, in the Mist, I could become anything I wished—in this instance, anything my woman fantasized about. I wouldn’t drink her blood—she had no real blood to give here anyway—but only give her the illusion I was. Letting go of her hair, I slipped my hand around her neck and forced her to arc back against me. My other arm wrapped around her midsection to give her support, I pressed my lips to her ears.

“You are mine, Naima. Body and soul,” I whispered in an almost menacing fashion.

I didn’t wait for her to answer and sank my fangs in the fleshy part of her shoulder. My woman’s scream from the initial sharp pain—which I deliberately gave her before taking it away—turned into a blissful cry as a third orgasm swept her away.

This time, I didn’t resist further, my roar of ecstasy mixed with her voice. I rammed myself deep, holding my mate in a bruising hold against me as my ethereal essence flowed into her, binding her to this realm. Even as I gave myself to her, I gorged on the powerful tsunami of energy and emotions that rushed out of my woman and slammed into me. We collapsed on the bed, and I carefully gathered Naima in my arms. She held on to me as if fearing I would disappear. Her face buried in my neck, her breathing labored, my woman continued to tremble against me, shaken by the lingering throes of bliss.

I took her four more times that night. With my insatiable hunger far from being sated, I would have continued for countless more hours. However, both our human bodies required our conscious minds to shut down for a while in order to function at optimal capacity in the morning. With the challenge that awaited me, I needed to make the most of the next day of training before the end of the Mist.

With much reluctance, I sent my woman’s consciousness into a pleasant and peaceful dream, before allowing my own to drift away and dream of the day I’d bind her to me in the Mortal Plane.