But now, in this dream, Yaromir has not even touched me. And I’m already aching.
He leans closer. The scar on his face is inches from mine. His breath warms my lips. My hands rise before I decide to move, gripping the front of his shirt, holding him there.
“Tell me to go,” he says.
I don’t.
I can’t.
His mouth brushes my jaw, and the sound that leaves me is so needy I don’t recognize it as mine. My knees weaken. His arm comes around my waist, hard and steady, pulling me against him before I can fall.
The dream turns feverish after that.
His mouth on my neck. His hand sliding over my waist. My body arching into his like it has been waiting for permission. There’s no awkwardness. No careful politeness. No pressure to perform. Only heat, deep and terrifying, building so quickly I can’t breathe around it.
“Yaromir,” I gasp.
He holds me tighter. The pleasure breaks through me so suddenly that I wake with a sharp cry.
For a second, I don’t know where I am.
The room is dark. The curtains are half-open. A car passes outside, throwing light across the cracked ceiling. I lie frozen under the thin blanket, chest heaving, thighs pressed together, my whole body pulsing with aftershocks I don’t understand.
Then I realize.
Oh God.
My face goes hot.
I’m wet. Not just warm or restless. Wet in a way that makes shame and wonder crash together until I don’t know which one is stronger.
I press a trembling hand over my mouth.
I’ve never orgasmed before. Not with Dmitri. Not by myself.
Never.
And now it happens in a filthy hotel bed after a nightmare about blood and a man with a scar.
I stare into the darkness, breathing hard. My body still feels open somehow. Awake. Betraying me. Like it has discovered a language the rest of me doesn’t know how to speak.
I should be horrified. Iamhorrified. But underneath that, buried deep where I don’t want to look, is something worse.
I want the dream back.
In the morning, someone knocks on my door.
At first, I think I dreamed it.
I’m lying on my side under a thin blanket that smells faintly of detergent and cigarettes, my hair still damp at the ends, my body heavy from the kind of sleep that doesn’t feel like rest. Gray light slips through the gap in the curtains. Outside, somewhere below, a truck reverses with a shrill beep.
Then the knock comes again. Three hard hits.
My eyes open, and for a second, I don’t move.
No one knows I’m here.
That’s my first thought.