I knew he kept an apartment away from Sword & Arrow. He told me it was for privacy since everyone there knew everyone else’s business. At least this way he could keep some things out of the gossip mill. It was as private as we could get.
When I woke up in the early hours of the morning, the light from the sun just touching the horizon, I was regretting that last shot of whiskey. And the one before it and the two martinis before that. Bare skin was under my face, an arm draped around my waist.
My whole body locked up, freezing instantly.
This was not something I was used to. Michael was gone when I woke up that last morning and Aidan…well, the final time with him was probably a mistake. Loving him was a mistake. Everything with him was a mistake. I’d decided that a long time ago and it wasn’t hard to convince myself of that.
But now…I was at a loss on what to do next.
Gregori’s breath was even so I knew he was still asleep. I moved slowly so I wouldn’t wake him when I got up and grabbed his shirt from the night before. I needed to leave and think this over. Because right then, looking down at him while he was asleep, I was having a hard time deciding what was right and what was wrong.
And this was so many levels of wrong.
I crept around the bed, looking for my panties and dress. I found my underwear tucked halfway under the bed but there was no sign of my dress. I sat up once I was done pawing at nothing under the bed and was suddenly met with a pair of green eyes.
“Jesus!”
I startled and fell back on my butt. I pressed my hand against my chest where my heart was pulling double time.
“You…you’re supposed to be asleep.”
He looked tired but smiled. “Don’t tell me my training is already fading. It’s not a good sign if it is.”
I shut my one eye which started throbbing after he said something. A major headache was brewing just behind it and the ache was quickly spreading to the rest of my brain. “I can’t really think right now so you’re going to have to remind me.”
“If you’re going to go, just go. You should never wait around for…”
It clicked in my head. “For the other person to become aware of your presence or come back. Yeah…I forgot that one.”
He tried really hard not to look amused as I stood up.
“I was looking for…”
“Dress is downstairs.”
His bedroom was technically a loft above the rest of the apartment. I went over to the half wall and looked down. I spotted my dress draped over the chair like a blanket.
“Um…” I turned and looked at him. “I…I’m just…god, would you stop looking at me like that? I can’t think with you doing that.”
He reached out and took my hand, that electric shock traveling up my arm and to my special places. He trapped me with his eyes, that tunnel vision kicking in, and I was unable to do anything other than let him pull me back in.
Before I knew what was happening, his weight was pressing my naked body down and I didn’t want to stop kissing him. When the shirt had come off, I have no idea.
“What are you doing to me?” I asked a little breathlessly. I wanted to sound sterner but it didn’t work that way.
“Nothing you’re not doing to me.” He lowered his face until he was a breath away. “You make me forget where I am when you look at me and a shock, like electricity, runs across my skin when you touch me.”
As if demonstrating, I ran my fingers up his side and I felt him shiver.
“What is it?”
He opened his eyes and looked down at me. “I don’t know, Geo, but I like it.”
The kissing started up again and for what felt like the hundredth time in twenty-four hours, I forgot about everything else.
* * *
“Georgiana.”
I rolled over, the light blue comforter restricting my movements. Why he got to stand but I always woke up in the bed, I didn’t get. I blinked against the bright sunlight.
“Michael?”
I hadn’t shared a dream with him since my first couple of days as a recruit. He stood over in shadow, refusing to come into the light, and I couldn’t see his face. When I looked at it, I noticed my portion of the room was saturated in sunlight but his was drenched in darkness.
“What. Are. You. Doing?”
“I don’t know…”
He stepped forward and I stopped talking. The now clear look on his face told me he knew exactly where I was and what I did. He was dark, so much darker than I remembered, and angry. I’d never seen him this angry. At least not towards me.
“Michael…”
“Not him. Anyone else but him.”
“What’s so wrong about him? It’s been close to a year…”
“I know how long it’s been but not him.”
“Why?”
“Because I said…” I glared at him. “I’m asking you. Please not him.”
“Why? Give me one good reason why.”
“Because of the way he makes you feel.”
“That doesn’t make any sense…” My eyes darted over his face, read his body language, and it clicked in my head. “You’re afraid I’m going to fall in love with him.” I looked away from him and down at my hands. “Michael, I’m never going to fall in love with someone else. I learned my lesson on that front.”
His anger melted away so his hurt shone through when I chanced a glance at him. “You don’t know that.”
I got up and walked over to him, out of the light and into the dark, the shadows.
“No,” I reached out and took his hand, placing it over my heart, “you’re the only one in here now and it will always be that way.”
He pulled me to him by bunching my shirt in his hand and hugged me. I sighed and rested my forehead on his chest.
“But you and I both know nothing will ever come of it,” I whispered.
His arm tightened around me possessively. “It’s not my choice. I would rather spend my forever with you then let someone else touch you.”
“You want me to be alone for the rest of my life?”
“You won’t be alone. You have me, you’ll always have me.”
“But not in person. I’m never going to feel…what this really feels like again. I’ll never feel your skin against mine….” I looked up at him. “It’s not enough for me and it shouldn’t be for you either.”
He placed a hand on my face. “This isn’t…what I wanted.”
That made my heart ache but I knew it wasn’t what anyone would want.
“I asked you once, if you could change it, us, if you would do it. You said no. Is your answer still the same?”
His face turned tortured, angry almost, as he released me and took several steps backwards. Further into the dark than he already was.
“You can’t ask me that,” he whispered.
“Why? Because your answer has changed? Being in love with me then was clearly easier than it is now. Maybe there was a reason why you were never supposed to fall in love.”
“I will never regret falling in love with you, Georgiana. Never. And you’re right, being in love with you now isn’t easy, it’s torture.”
“But you’d change it, wouldn’t you?”
He nodded. “There are so many things I would change. Like the fact that you fell in love with that…boy.” He literally spit out the word with as much hatred as I’d ever heard someone use to form a word. “I would make sure he was dead and gone long before the Earth even felt your presence.”
I looked down at my hands. Aidan had made quite a splash in the tabloids lately. He’d gone through a string of starlets, none lasting longer than a few weeks but the latest came with a scandal. It hurt me every time I saw it. I envied how easy it was for him to just move on and forget. I couldn’t do that, not with either of them.
“You don’t…”
“I do. I mean it and I would kill him now if I knew it wouldn’t cause you pain. I’m not afraid to admit I’ve come close. Maybe then this whole…pact would be over. He’d be gone therefore eliminating the back and forth Raphael spoke of. You could really be mine then.”
I looked up at him, tears streaming down my face. “You can’t.”
“Why not?” His eyes were dark, murderous. “No one would ever have to know.”
“We’d know, both of us. That would make us no better than…” I swallowed, not wanting to say that monster’s name again. “You’re not like him, Michael. Maybe once you were but not anymore. So you can’t…promise me you won’t.”
I could feel myself trying to wake up but Michael remained firm, not allowing it to happen. That was the thing about dream walking, if you were strong enough, like Michael, you could keep people in their dreams. He normally didn’t do it on purpose, not unless he had something else to say. Then again it could be because we hadn’t been this close to each other in while and he wanted to hold on to it as long as possible.
“You’re mine, Georgiana. Mine. You’ll never be his or the boy’s or anyone else’s. If I have to prove that to you then I will.”
“I know you’re not threatening me. You would never do that.”
He turned like he was leaving but stopped to look at me.
“It’s just a friendly reminder that I am who I am and you…you’re the woman I love. I want you happy, as happy as you can be without me but don’t think I won’t…prove what I’ll do to keep you mine and mine alone.”
He opened the door and left, the dream walk officially ending. That was how they worked. You had to “exit” through a portal, a door or window. Since I wasn’t holding him here, he could go as he wanted. I remained standing there for a few moments, remembering the last night we’d spent in this room together for real.
He was right though. No matter how much I wanted to move passed everything, I couldn’t because my heart kept me rooted here, the one place we’d claimed each other as our own. He was mine surely as I was his, neither time nor space would change that.
And that was the problem.