Finding Orion (20 page)

Something wet
brushed up against my leg. It was rough and about room temperature. I focused
on it, and was surprised when it spread somewhere else on my body entirely.
Again, I tried to concentrate on the strange sensation, but just as quickly as
I'd felt it, it was gone.
 

"Hands,"
Jace
murmured, tying something around my wrists when
I held them out for him.

He raised my
arms up over my head in the same way Orion had the first time I'd dreamed about
him. And if that wasn't enough to convince me they were the same person, the
way
Jace
spoke just then certainly was.
 

"Are you
ready?"

"Ready
for—" My breath caught as something cold kissed the skin along the side of
my neck. Beads of water slowly dripped down to the towel underneath me. The ice
moved, jumping over to my one side, just under the ribs. I squirmed and tried
to get out of the way. The ice remained, even after cold droplets of water fell
onto my stomach.

"See
that?"
Jace
asked. "You feel the ice in one
spot, but even after I take it off your skin, you still think it's there."

I shivered. "Isn't
it?"

"Nope.
I removed it
a bit ago." I couldn't see if he was smiling or not, but I could hear it
in his voice. "Your mind
thinks
it's
still there, so until I put it somewhere else..."

He pressed it
against one of my breasts, and I flinched. Tightening my jaw, I drew in a deep
breath.

"See? That's
what makes it so effective. And I haven't even done anything."

"The
hell you haven't," I growled, whimpering when the ice moved down to my
hip.

While he
moved the ice yet again, I was still stuck trying to wrap my head around how it
worked. And without my hands, I couldn't remove the blindfold to see if what he
said was true. But as he set the ice on my stomach, I felt it in just about
every other place he'd touched.

The puddle of
liquid on my stomach grew, and as it did, the ice slowly began to melt.
Jace
used the side of the towel to wipe off any excess
liquid before pressing something warm against my stomach.
Along
the inside of my hip.
My clit.

"Fuck,"
I moaned, realizing the
grip on my hands was gone.

I'm not sure
when he'd done it, but
Jace
had moved down to the
foot of the bed without me even noticing. My feet were on his shoulders as he
used his tongue to draw quick circles around my clit. He curled his arms around
my hips, holding me in place as I rocked them back.

Every time
his tongue hit my clit, I floated a little further away from the bed. My mind
went blank. I couldn't hear a damned thing. All I could do was
feel
. And I felt
everything!
The kiss of his lips.
The tip of
his tongue.
His fingers as they slipped inside.
Hooking.
Brushing against my g-spot.
I sucked in a breath, and
I wouldn't have been surprised if my lungs were filled with whatever air had
been left in the room.

My body
shuddered as white specks flew past my vision. I reached down toward
Jace
, burying my hands in his hair. My mind told me to push
him away so I could come up for air, but my body wanted him closer, deeper,
harder.

"Faster,"
I moaned, snapping my mouth shut when I realized it wasn't just a moan. I was
talking. Using words one should never use in bed. Worse part was
,
Jace
didn't seem to mind.

Do I always talk like that?
I was
swimming for the surface, but another tremor sent me back down again. Silence
fell around me, and I submitted to the sensation, the warmth coming from
Jace's
body.

I was so
close. But so long as I didn't think about his lips on my clit—so long as I
didn't focus on what he was doing with his fingers... "Oh, God," I arched
my back away from the bed. "That. Just...like..."
Just like that.

Jace
went a
little faster. And as he came up to kiss me on the lips, the world around me
broke into a million little pieces. White stars flew past me, and as another
wave hit, I let go.
 
 

When the last
tremors of my orgasm had passed, the light in my room was on, and
Jace
had removed the blindfold from over my eyes. He untied
my wrists and handed me a bottle of water when I sat up.

Blinking, I
glanced around the room, trying to place all the sounds and textures I'd
experienced earlier. The ice was pretty obvious, but in addition to that, there
was a bowl with water in it, a fork, a washcloth, and our shirts. Looking at
him, I asked, "What was the fork for, or should I not ask?"

Jace
grinned. "Lift
your arms."

I did, and right
away I flew into a fit of giggles when he touched the fork to my ribs. "Okay,
that's just cruel."

"Is it?"
he asked, leaning in to kiss me. "You have no idea how badly I've wanted
to do that."

"What?"

"Fork
you." He ducked when I went to hit him on the head. "Oh come on, at
least give me that one."

"That
was lame."

"You
just haven't found an appreciation for them yet."

I rolled my
eyes and hugged my arms around him when he pressed his lips to mine. Taking the
water from my hands, he set it on the end table before lowering me onto the
bed. My feet didn't hang off the end this time, and when he parted my lips with
his tongue, I molded against him.

In a mess of
arms and legs, he rolled on top of me, reaching up toward the head of the bed
for a condom he'd just happened to put there. Breaking our kiss, he sat between
my legs and tore the wrapper with his teeth.

He put it on
and kept one hand against the small of my back as he guided his cock to my
pussy lips. He pressed down toward the bed, hissing around a breath of air as
he slowly slipped inside. Adjusting my hips, I hooked my legs behind his back
and closed my eyes.

I returned to
the same place he'd sent me less than an hour before. I'd removed my sight by
shutting my eyes, and even though I could still hear him,
Jace's
movements were muffled. And as he drove into me, I met him thrust for thrust.

I shivered
and clawed at his back with every slow stroke he made. The fever we'd both
experienced on the way home had passed, leaving us with more than enough time
to feel and experience what was left of this hunger.

My body
tensed, and as it did,
Jace's
pace increased. His
arms shook, and I couldn't help noticing his grip on the bed. He clenched his
jaw and pounded even harder. I arched my back, rocked my hips. But soon, I fell
out of rhythm with him and tightened my
kegels
instead.

Jace
gasped as
the air rushed from his lungs and he looked down at me. His face was unreadable,
yet the lust in his eyes was unmistakable.
 

His head fell
back, and with a throaty growl, he came.

Sweat covered
his brow and he released a shaky breath. His lips barely touched mine when he
rolled off the bed to dispose of the condom. When he came back, I offered him a
sympathetic smile.

He looked
like hell. He looked exhausted. I went to get up, and he stopped me.

"Don't
think you're getting off that easily," he said, layering kisses along my jaw
line. "I'm not done with you yet."

"Well in
that case." I settled onto my back and held my arms over my head. "I'm
looking forward to it."

Jace's
smile was
the last thing I saw, because as soon as he replaced the blindfold, my world
went dark.

****

Unlike all
the other times I'd dreamed of Orion, my room was filled with light as soon as
I opened my eyes. And after looking around the room, I spotted him at the foot
of my bed, off to one side, arms crossed over his chest. His eyes were dark.
His suit rumpled in places almost as if he'd walked through the pouring rain
just to get here.

Sitting up in
the middle of my bed, I hugged the comforter to my chest, which was probably as
bare as it had been many times before. I suddenly felt self-conscious around
him,
as if he didn't deserve to see half the things I'd
shown him in the time I'd been seeing him in my dreams.

My hesitation
wasn't lost on him, and the stern look on his face slowly turned into something
a little more familiar. More like
Jace
.
A lot
like
Jace
.
His eyes were softer, understanding, and patient.

I chewed at
my bottom lip as I tried to decide on what to call him. I knew he was Orion, or
at least a small part of him was. He was still there, hidden under the surface,
under
Jace's
skin.

I waited for
him to speak, willed him to move, to give me some inclination of who he was. And
when he did, I was just as confused as before.

"You're
quiet again," he said, his voice stuck somewhere between stern and almost
gentle.

"Sorry."

I didn't call
him Master. Just the thought of saying that word made my teeth ache. It didn't
feel right. Not anymore. Not after the time I'd spent with
Jace
.
With the real one.
Jace
was
real. He didn't disappear when it got light outside. He was there when I sent
him a text, when I called.

I couldn't do
any of that with Orion, and the relationship I thought I wanted before had
changed. It wasn't just about sex or being tied to the bed.
Jace
offered something more. He offered a connection. He was someone I could relate
to who wasn't created from my subconscious.

But maybe I
could feel the same way about Orion.
And
maybe he could come to life and be a real boy.
I sighed and set my hands in
my lap.

Orion sat at
the foot of the bed and inclined his head. "You need to tell me whatever
it is that's keeping you so quiet this evening. Even if I am just a part of
this dream, I'm not a mind reader. No Dom is."

I frowned. I
hadn't even thought of that. From everything I read, it just seemed as if the
Dom knew how hard to push a sub, when to back off, and the answers to all his
questions before he could even asked.
Books
aren't real.
Dreams weren't real either.

"I..."
I took a breath and tried again. "How come we never talk?"

"We're
talking now, aren't we?"

"Well,
yeah, but I mean about other things."

He cocked his
head. "Like I said,
Bree
, I'm not a mind reader."

No getting out of it now.
"We
never talk about us.
About you."

"You
mean about my past?"

I nodded. At
least I was making some kind of sense with myself.

"Well,
in order for me to tell you my past, you'd have to give me one. I can't tell
you something about myself if it doesn't exist yet."

I glanced at
the window, but we had hours left until dawn. For once I wanted the night to
end, to get out of this awkward situation, but I couldn't.
And
staying quiet for hours without trying to sleep in my dreams wasn't possible.
What are you afraid of?
I could hurt
him if I said the wrong thing.
He isn't
real. He never was.
Then why was it so hard to tell him how I felt—how I
didn't need him anymore?

I could've
made up some story for him, but how can a relationship grow if I know
everything about it? Sighing, I glanced back at him, awed by how much he
reminded me of
Jace
.

I no longer
thought of him as Orion. That part of my subconscious was slowly beginning to
fade. He may have been the stronger out of the two, but he didn't have room to
grow unless I gave it to him, and I wouldn't know where to begin even if I'd
wanted to. Orion came about on his own, and I had no idea how to do whatever it
was that had happened again.

"I'm
sorry," I said, lying back down. "It was a silly thing to ask."

"It was."
Orion settled down beside me and stared at the ceiling.

He didn't
speak after that, and neither did I. What was there to talk about? And as the
minutes slipped by, I closed my eyes, waiting...begging for the dream to end.

Chapter Fourteen

Between my
night with
Jace
and the dream I had about Orion, it
was hard to tell if I was awake when someone knocked on my apartment door.
Squinting at the clock beside my bed, I read the time. It was still early, but
then reality set in and I remember how David was supposed to drop by to fix the
fan in the bathroom.