I woke up gasping. My skin burned. The sheets tangled around my legs felt too hot, too heavy, soaked with heat that wasn't mine alone, clinging to my sweat-dampened skin. But it was the dream—still clinging to the back of my eyelids like fog that wouldn't lift—that had me trembling, heart racing, breath coming in shallow gasps.
Draven. It felt real. Too real. So vivid I could still feel the ghost of his touch on my skin, could still taste him on my lips.
The way his hands slid up my thighs, slow and reverent, like he was memorizing every inch of me, every curve and line. The way his voice rasped my name like it was both a question and a vow, rough with desire and something deeper.
And goddess… the way he kissed me. Not rushed or careless. Not rough or demanding.
But deep. Hungry. Consuming. Like he'd waited years for the right moment, and now that he had it, he would never let it go. Like he was drowning and I was air.
I curled onto my side and squeezed my eyes shut, willing the memory to fade, to release its grip on me, but it only sharpened, became more vivid with each passing second.
As if the dream weren't just a fantasy but a continuation—a consequence—of everything that happened in the forest tonight, as if my subconscious was showing me what could have been. It had started the same way as it was in the forest, like a memory replaying.
His voice. That growl. That storm in his eyes after seeing Evan, the jealousy that had made them burn like molten gold. His jealousy had cracked something open between us, something raw and terrifying and irresistible.
And in the dream, he didn't hold back. In the dream, there was no one to interrupt. In the dream, he claimed me completely.
I remembered the way he'd pressed me against the tree, his body a wall of heat and tension, muscles coiled tight beneath his skin. But in the dream, it hadn't stopped there. It had only begun.
He undressed me slowly, never breaking eye contact, holding my gaze as if daring me to look away, to say no, to stop him.
Every button undone was a promise. Every inch of exposed skin, a temptation fulfilled. Every piece of clothing that fell away was another barrier crumbling between us.
I could still feel his fingertips brushing along my collarbone, tracing the hollow of my throat, down my sides, slipping under the hem of my clothes with deliberate slowness. The calluses on his palms creating friction against my sensitive skin, making me shiver.
His mouth followed the trail his fingers left, warm and demanding, lips parting against the curve of my shoulder, tasting the salt on my skin. Down the dip of my spine, making me arch into his touch. The inside of my thighs, breath hot and teasing, driving me mad with anticipation.
I had moaned. Not just in the dream, but now, in waking, the sound escaping before I could stop it.
It slipped from me like a secret, flushed and helpless, echoing in the darkness of my empty room. His mouth, his tongue, his fingers… there. Touching me in ways I'd never been touched, in places that made heat coil tight in my belly.
I bit down on the inside of my cheek hard enough to taste copper and squeezed my thighs together, but it didn't help. Nothing could ease the ache that bloomed inside me, the need that throbbed with every heartbeat, insistent and demanding.
The memory of his hands was seared into my skin like a brand. The rough scrape of his calluses, earned from years of training and fighting. The way his palm pressed over my ribs like he was grounding me, claiming me, owning me, like he had every right to touch me this way.
And then—his mouth on mine. Finally. After all the teasing, all the wanting, all the denial.
It wasn't gentle. It was desperate, urgent, like he'd been holding back for too long and his control had finally snapped. As if kissing me was the only thing keeping him from losing control completely, from giving in to the wild thing inside him that demanded more.
His teeth scraped my bottom lip, sharp enough to sting, to make me gasp. His tongue claimed my mouth like he had the right to it, like I belonged to him and always had.
And I gave in without hesitation, without question, arms curling around his shoulders, fingers tangling in his hair, nails digging into his back through his shirt, needing more, always more.
In the dream, there was no Piper to interrupt us with a well-aimed rock and a disapproving glare.
No fear. No shame. No consequences. Only him. Only us. And the truth we'd both been too afraid to admit, the connection we'd both been fighting against since the moment we met.
I wanted him. Desperately. With an intensity that scared me, that made me question everything I thought I knew about myself.
In the dream, he'd whispered my name against my skin like a prayer, like I was sacred, like I was his. And I'd answered with his name on my lips, with my body yielding to his touch, with everything I had to give.
The dream had felt more real than waking. More honest than anything I'd allowed myself to feel in the harsh light of day, when I could pretend that the pull between us was manageable, that I could resist it if I tried hard enough.
But now, lying here in the dark with my heart racing and my skin still burning with phantom touches, I knew the truth.
I couldn't resist him. Didn't want to resist him. Not anymore. And that terrified me more than anything else.
Because wanting Draven—really wanting him, not just physically but with everything I was—meant risking everything.
Meant opening myself up to the kind of vulnerability I'd spent years protecting myself from. Meant trusting someone with the parts of me I'd learned to keep hidden, the parts that had been rejected and scorned by everyone who was supposed to love me.
I rolled onto my back, staring up at the ceiling in the darkness, trying to calm my racing heart, trying to think of anything other than the dream, other than him, other than the way his hands had felt on my skin. It didn't work. Nothing worked. Because I could still feel him.
Still smell pine and cedar and something uniquely Draven clinging to my sheets, as if the dream had been so powerful it had bled into reality, crossing the boundary between sleep and waking. Still taste him on my lips even though we'd never actually kissed, even though Piper had interrupted before that final barrier could fall.
I wanted him. Desperately. With a hunger that went beyond physical need, beyond simple attraction.
And I was beginning to suspect that want would consume me if I let it. Would burn through every defense I'd built, every wall I'd erected to protect myself. The question was: did I have the courage to let it?