Page 158 of In Somnis

I wait.

The panting evens out before going quiet.

I keep waiting, keep staring at the wall to my left.

Nothing.

No footsteps. No knock. No soft curse under her breath as she second-guesses herself and decides to come over anyway.

She’s not coming.

My arm is still tingling where her nails bit in—phantom crescents I can almost see in the dark. Every nerve is still buzzing, skin too tight, my dick surprisingly still aching and throbbing with the phantom memory of her clenching around my fingers. I can still taste lemon and salt on my tongue, can still feel the exact shape of her nipple under it, how her thighs shook when she came with my name in her mouth.

The thing about lucid sex dreams is that they feel fucking real, which is one of the reasons so many people love to use lucid dreaming for sex and sex only. I had sex in my dreams, too, often, but they’ve never once followed me back. I’ve been doing this for years. I know exactly where the line is between dream body and waking body, and they have always, without exception, stayed on their respective sides of it.

Apparently, that rule no longer applies.

I reach for the nightstand and grab a lollipop, unwrap it in the dark, and put it in my mouth. The first hit of tartness mixes immediately with the ghost of her taste, and fuck, it’s instant. Her moan vibrating through the candy, the wet sound of her sucking it, her tongue curling as though she were starving.

My hand drifts down my stomach and wraps around my dick.

I don’t rush.

I don’t want to.

I want to drag this out, stay suspended between what just happened and having to think about it, where it’s only her taste on the lollipop, the memory of her voice, and my own hand. I let it build slowly and thoroughly the same way I’d taken my time with her.

Ridge…

Please.

I need you.

My grip tightens, but my pace stays lazy, teasing myself like I teased her, because if I go faster, it’ll be over too soon, and I’m not ready to let her go yet. Not when I can still see how her back bowed, feel the way she gave it to me like she’d been waiting to fall apart like that.

My breath hitches at the thought, and my balls draw up as heat coils low.

The orgasm hits me like something I didn’t see coming, which makes no sense because I was building to it deliberately, but it still catches me, hard and sudden, my upper body locking up with it, her name leaving my mouth before I can stop it.

“Lennon—”

I moan as my cock pulses in my fist, spilling over my stomach in hot ropes that seem to go on forever. I’m gone, completely fucking gone, teeth clenched around the lollipop stick, vision whitening out for long seconds while her name echoes in the dark.

From the other side of the wall comes a gasp.

Her gasp.

Fuck.

I lie there, chest heaving, cum cooling on my skin, lollipop still clamped between my teeth, staring at the ceiling.

She heard that.

She was right there on the other side of the wall, awake and listening, and she heard me say her name like that and…

What the fuck did we just do?

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE