Page 24 of The Second Sight
I crawled into bed, pulling the covers up to my chin like a child afraid of the dark. But it wasn’t darkness I feared now. It was the light. This light of truth the glasses had shown me, the reality I could never unsee.
Sleep seemed impossible, but my exhausted body had other ideas. As I drifted off, one last coherent thought floated through my mind. Seven had said I wasn’t human. And something deep inside me, some instinct I hadn’t known I possessed, whispered that he was right.
Sleep came in restless waves. My mind refused to settle, replaying the night’s events in fragmented flashes. There was Seven’s cold grip on my arm, the blood staining his perfect mouth, and the weight of his warnings. The sheets twisted around my legs as I tossed and turned. My body was exhausted, but my brain was plugged back in.
Each time I drifted deeper into sleep, my dreams shifted and blurred. I saw in the club’s strobe lights, Brooklyn’s excited face, and Lily’s cold green eyes. I was in my bedroom, but not quite. The dimensions were wrong. The walls were painted a fiery shade of red. In this dream, I was lying on my back, still wearing the oversized t-shirt I’d fallen asleep in.
And I wasn’t alone.
Seven stood at the foot of my bed, his aqua eyes gleamed in the darkness. Unlike the threatening vampire from the club, thisversion of Seven moved with a different kind of intent. His gaze as it traveled over my body was hungry. Not as before, but in a way that sent heat rather than ice through my veins.
“Kasinda,” he said my full name, and it sounded like music. His voice was deeper in this dreamscape. His tone resonated in my ears and traveled throughout my entire body.
I should have been afraid. I should’ve screamed. It was fight or flight. Instead, I found myself watching his fluid movements with fascination as he approached the side of my bed.
“I’ve been waiting,” he murmured. “Waiting to show you what you are. What we could be together.”
His hand reached toward me, but this touch was different. His fingers brushed my cheek with gentleness. Cold, yes, but not unpleasantly so.
“I won’t hurt you.” The dream version of Seven promised.
I believed him, though I had no reason to. My dream-self responded to him without the filters of fear and common sense that my waking self possessed. When he lowered himself beside me on the bed, I didn’t pull away.
His hands moved to my shoulders, trailing down my arms with measured slowness. Each point of contact left a trail of goosebumps. My body responded to his touch with a heat that seemed to build from my core and outward. This wasn’t real, I told myself. It was just a dream. Just my subconscious processing the night’s events in the most unexpected way.
But it felt real. So real.
“You’re extraordinary,” he whispered, with his lips close to my ear. “Do you know that?”
His hands slid lower, finding the hem of my t-shirt and slipping his fingers beneath it. I should have stopped him. Should have pushed him away. Instead, I arched toward him. A soft sound escaped my throat as his fingers traced patterns on my stomach, my ribcage, and then higher still.
“So warm,” he groaned. “Like touching the sun.”
His mouth found my neck, and a new kind of fear spiked through me. The fear was quickly replaced by a wave of pleasure as his lips pressed against my pulse point. No bite. Not yet. Just the promise of it in the way his tongue traced my racing heartbeat. Then the sensation of the slight scrape of his teeth against my sensitive skin.
“Seven,” I breathed, my hands finding his shoulders and pulling him closer to me.
He raised his head to look at me, and in the dreamy light of this night, his face was transformed into a hungry animal. He was still beautiful, still predatory, but with a vulnerability I hadn’t seen before.
“I’ve waited centuries for someone like you,” he said, with a voice rough with emotion.
His hands moved to my thighs, sliding upward with a confidence that spoke of experience. My body responded eagerly, shamefully and painfully. My dream-self was free from all the constraints that would have paralyzed me if I were awake. I pulled him closer, surprised by my own boldness.
When his mouth found mine, the kiss was foreign at first. Then the warmth of familiarity bloomed between us. His masterful tongue traced the seam of my lips, demanding entry. I opened up to him willingly. My desire overriding everything else.
He tasted like nothing I’d experienced before. His tongue wasn’t sweet or bitter, but something intoxicating. Like that Cowboy Carter lady claimed, I was drunk in love. His weight settled over me. His body fit against mine like it was designed for that purpose. One of his hands tangled in my hair, tilting my head back to deepen the kiss while the other hand continued its exploration beneath my shirt.
“Give yourself to me,” he whispered against my lips.
I felt the sharp points of his fangs then, not breaking my skin but pressing just enough against my lower lip to remind me that he was no ordinary man. The danger should have quashed my desire. Instead, it ignited everything within me. Each burning sensation became almost painfully intense.
His hand moved higher on my thigh, and I gasped into his mouth. My body arched instinctively to meet his touch. Through the fabric of my wet panties, his fingers found me. Even in my dream, I blushed at how ready I was for him, and how quickly my body had betrayed my mind.
“Kasinda,” he murmured, as his mouth moved from my lips to my jaw and to my neck. His lips lingered at the place where my pulse thumped strongest. “You’re perfect.”
My hands clutched at his shoulders. My fingers clawed at his back. I felt every firm muscle move beneath my palms as he shifted above me. Our bodies moved together in my idyllic dreamworld. This was a place I could live in forever.
His fangs grazed my neck again, the sharp points pressing just enough to send sparks of pleasure radiating through my body. He didn’t break the skin. He didn’t drink from me. There was just the promise of a future possibility that seemed less frightening with every passing moment.
