Chapter 16: The Fever Dream
The dream came on soft, greasy paws, dragging her under before she could fight.
It wasn’t memory. It was deeper, primal, a thing woven from scent and the phantom ache between her legs. In the dream, she was on her back in the crimson silk, but the sheets were cool, not rumpled and damp. The light was different—golden, hazy, like late afternoon sun through the velvet drapes.
And he was there, above her, not behind. Naked. The hard lines of his torso cut shadows across her skin. His pale hair was mussed, his grey eyes not cold at all. They burned. They devoured.
“Look at you,” he murmured, his voice a rough caress. His hands slid up her thighs, pushing them wider. “Soaked for me. Always for me.”
In the dream, there was no hesitation. No duvet. No thread of control to hang by. He fitted himself to her entrance, the broad, blunt head of his cock notching against her, and she could feel every vein, every pulsing inch of him. He didn’t ask. He pushed.
Her back arched off the bed, a silent scream on her lips. He filled her in one long, relentless stroke, stretching her, burning her open. It was too much. It was everything.
“That’s it,” he growled, hips flush against hers. He was buried to the hilt, a full, devastating possession. “Take it. Take all of me, omega.”
He began to move. Withdrawing almost completely, then slamming back home. Each thrust was a punishment and a blessing, jolting her up the bed, knocking the air from her lungs. The sound was obscene—wet, rhythmic slaps of skin on skin, her choked cries, his guttural grunts.
“Fuck,” he snarled, pace turning brutal. “Your cunt is perfect. So fucking tight and hot, milking me already.” He leaned down, captured her mouth in a kiss that tasted of copper and want. “Come for me. I want to feel you shatter.”
His thumb found her clit, circling with cruel precision. The coil inside her, wound so tight for so long, snapped.
Pleasure detonated, white-hot and catastrophic. She screamed into his mouth, her body seizing, clenching around the invading thickness of him in rhythmic, desperate pulses. He groaned, the sound vibrating through his chest into hers.
“Again,” he commanded, and somehow, another wave was there, crashing over the first, her vision spotting at the edges.
His thrusts became erratic, desperate. He was chasing his own end. She felt him swell more—an impossible, thickening expansion at the base of his cock, stretching her wider, locking them together.
“Draco!” Her voice was raw.
“I know,” he breathed, his face a mask of agonized ecstasy. “Gonna knot you. Gonna fill you up. Gonna pump my come so deep into you it’ll never leave.”
The knot seated fully, an irrevocable, breathtaking lock. He came with a shout that was almost a roar, his body bowing over hers. She felt it—the hot, pulsing flood of his release, jetting inside her, claim and promise and biology all in one. It seemed to go on forever, stuffing her, marking her, a primal completion that shook the very foundations of the world.
“Mine,” he whispered into the sweat-damp hollow of her throat, his voice gone soft with wonder. “Finally mine.”
She clung to him, sobbing from the overwhelming fullness, the rightness of it—
And woke up.
The orgasm was real. It racked her, a silent, violent convulsion that arched her off the mattress in the dark. Her thighs were clenched tight, her core throbbing with phantom fullness, soaked with her own slick. A choked gasp was the only sound she allowed herself.
The room was silent. Still. The crimson sheets were just sheets. The space beside her was warm, but he was on his back, one arm thrown over his eyes, his breathing deep and even. Asleep.
She lay there, heart hammering against her ribs, the delicious, empty ache between her legs a taunt. The scent of her own climax was cloying in the air. Shame, hot and immediate, washed over her. Dreaming of that. Of him. Of being knotted and claimed like some common omega in a pulp novel.
She squeezed her eyes shut, forcing her breathing to slow. The aftershocks tingled through her. She was mortified. He was right there. Had he heard? Had he smelled it?
Minutes ticked by. The heat, temporarily sated by the dream, simmered down to a low, manageable hum. Exhaustion, deeper than before, pulled at her bones. Carefully, she turned onto her side, facing away from him, curling into herself.
Behind her, Draco did not move.
But beneath the feigned cadence of sleep, his jaw was clenched so tight it ached. Every muscle in his body was wire. He had been awake when the first sweet, desperate scent of her dreaming arousal had perfumed the air. He had listened to her breathing change, felt the subtle tremors in the mattress. He had smelled the precise moment she’d tipped over the edge, the fragrance of her release so potent it had made his cock twitch against his thigh, already hard again.
The alpha in him had roared to life, demanding he roll over, pin her down, and make the dream a reality. To finally sink his teeth into that tender junction of her neck and shoulder and give her the claiming bite she’d just fantasized about.
He had counted the cracks in the dark ceiling instead. He had focused on the damp spot on the duvet from hours before, a mundane anchor. He had mastered the ragged pull of his own lungs until they mimicked sleep.
Now, as her breathing evened out into true slumber, he allowed his eyes to open. He stared at the dark curve of her shoulder, at the wild knot of her hair on his pillow.
His fist clenched in the sheets. The control was a live thing in his chest, sharp and bleeding, but he held it. He held it until the violent need subsided into a dull, perpetual throb.
Only then did he close his eyes again, waiting for the dawn, and the next wave of her torment, alone.