Page 8 of Once Upon a Dream
I can’t think straight, I’m not Lorne-sober, I’m flushed and flying under his drugging kisses and his demanding mouth. All my carefully constructed defenses, all the reasons why I shouldn’t, why I left him—they’re so flimsy in the face of this.
In the face of him.
Somehow, we’ve moved back, back against the ballroom wall, and his hand is cupping my nape while the wall presses fire against my bottom and my wings flatten behind me. His erection is pressing hot and thick against my stomach, and my heart is crashing against my ribs, and I can barely drag in enough air, and I think if I could do this for the rest of my life, I’d be happy. This dance of pain, this symphony of hungry but deliberate force.
It’s why I had to leave.
Because with him, I can let go of all the things that have kept me safe and strong, and what happens if I let them go? Who would I even be then? How can anyone live with their mind, their heart, their everything just out there, in the open? Defenseless?
Beating raw and bloody in the open air?
Fear climbs up my throat, and I break away from the kiss. “Lorne, I can’t.”
He doesn’t chase my mouth, he doesn’t press any harder against me. But I still feel caught like a fly in a web—the hot need between my legs and the heat on my backside. The wall at my back and his beautiful eyes in front of me.
As always with him, I’m caught between what I want and what I should want. And it’s just as miserable now as it was years ago.
“Tell me why you can’t,” he says.
He’s not angry—no good Dom would be, and he’s one of the best—but he is infuriatingly patient, which is almost worse.
My jaw tightens. “Because I’m waiting for a date,” I half-lie.
“Ah yes, this mysterious date of yours. When will they be here? Where are they while I kiss you? Where are they while I touch your pussy, while I check to see if it needs more from me?”
“You’re not—”
His hand echoes his words then, coming between my legs and finding me wetter than ever. I don’t even know what I feel right now. Indignation, arousal, shame.
Vulnerability.
Why does the vulnerability feel so good? Why has it always felt so good with him?
“They should be here soon,” I answer with as much defiance as I can muster.
His fingers search me, search out the lies. “Then you still have time, Morgan. You know how good I can make you feel.”
“But there’s a price, isn’t there? There’s always a price with you.”
He ducks his head to meet my gaze then, his eyes burning behind his mask. “Yes,” he says. “But like I tried to tell you four years ago, the price has never been what you thought it was.”
It’s so hard to think with his mouth so close to mine. With his fingers so expertly filthy between my legs. How long has it been since I came with a partner? A year? Two? And how long since I let a partner pin me by the neck and wring orgasms from me like it was their job?
Well, I know the answer to that. It was the night before I filed for divorce.
“What is the price, Lorne?” I manage to ask, as if I’m not already writhing against his touch, as if my nipples aren’t already threatening to punch holes through my bodice.
Lorne’s hand slides free from my hair, and he touches a finger to the corner of my mouth. “The price is that you forgive yourself for wanting what you want. That you let go of your fear.”
“I’m not afraid,” I say.
I’m so afraid.
He gives me a look like he knows I’m lying. “If a sub came to you, and told you they felt ashamed of what they want, that they felt like they were letting all women globally and historically down by what got them off behind closed doors—”
“You’re being deliberately reductive,” I protest. “I’m hardly just any woman, Lorne, and anyway, the fact that I’m a woman and you’re a man automatically reinforces norms that I refuse to reinforce.”
“Not if we choose it,” he says. “Choice is different than what you’re talking about, and choice is what we have. We don’t have to inherit any part of those norms we don’t want, Morgan. I swear it.”
