Page 35 of Somno Slave

I hold still long enough to measure the reaction. Another breath leaves her, quieter this time. The seconds pass until it’s impossible to remain still.

Slowly, deliberately, I continue down her spine. Each vertebra seems to touch me back this time. Hard. Small. Pressing into me with more intensity than I’m pressing into her.

“You’re so beautiful when you sleep,” I whisper. “Who could blame me for touching you?”

My fingers wander until I’m met by the edge of the duvet. I move it off her slowly, watching for any shift that might betray her waking. Inch by inch, I draw it down carefully, desperate to see all of her again.

She stirs. Just a faint pull through her shoulders, a deeper breath that lifts her chest before settling again.

I pause.

Wait.

She’s still asleep.

My gaze lingers, taking in what she hasn’t protected. No instinct to cover. No awareness of danger. She sleeps like someone who still trusts locked doors.

My breathing shudders.

I continue, slower now, letting the fabric slip from her in measured movements until it gathers loosely below her hips, revealing her soft, full ass. Skin like hers would betray every bruise. It would carry the evidence of my hands long after I was gone.

The cooler air brushes over the newly exposed skin. She shifts. I stare at her long, slender legs.

“Open for me,” I murmur. And her legs shift on command, bending at the knee. It changes the line of her completely.

She’s wearing knickers. The fabric is minimal, dark against her skin, stretched just enough to define rather than conceal. I stare. Hard.

My cock twitches.

I move closer because there is no version of this where I don’t.

The space between us dissolves. My hand follows, settling against her sex with a restraint that feels almost mocking in its gentleness. Her body turns traitor beneath my hand, warmth rising, blooming beneath my calloused palm. I curl my fingers slightly until the tips of them are brushing against her clit. I circle it, light, soft.

A test.

She responds—fuck, she responds—like something breaking loose beneath the surface. A sound slips from her, small and strained. Her toes curl. Her body tightens, anticipation without permission.

It’s increasingly difficult to keep my touch light. It’s jarring, unfamiliar.

I continue my experiment, scanning every reaction she’s forced to give me. Another sound. Sharper this time, fear threaded through it like she knows something has her.

She shifts again, too close to the surface.

I lift my other hand, slow, deliberate, until my fingers hover just shy of her skull. I slip inside the gap where she can’t hold herself together; unhook her from the room, from the bed, from the safety her body is trying to cling to. I drag her far away from here.

She feels it immediately.

Her breathing stutters. Her face slackens. And then she’s falling to somewhere colder. Somewhere stripped of shape and certainty, where waking up isn’t something she gets to decide.

My Realm takes her greedily.

I watch the moment her physical body stills completely now. Just... surrender. Total and quiet, and forced to let me do whatever I want to it.

I toss her lifeless body over so she’s laying on her back and move over her.

Her hair is wrong, I notice immediately. It’s forced into a neat, suffocating bun she hides behind. My hand rises and slips into her hair band. I pull. Pins loosen. Strands slip free. And then it falls slowly. A dark spill across the pillow, across her shoulders—softer than it has any right to be, untamed in a way she would never allow while she’s awake.

That’s easier to look at.