Dream One, Chapter Four

(Anything in asterisks is supposed to be italicized.)

Fade and Lor disappeared shortly after we got back to the townhouse where I was staying. I hadn't eaten in hours and knew I wasn't going to be leaving my bed for quite some time so I heated up some leftovers.

"Are you ever going to tell me where you've been?" I asked as I stood at the counter and looked at him as he sat on one of the bar stools on the other side of the peninsula and watched me eat.

"Someone messed with one of my Silvers," he answered, surprising me. He almost never answers my questions.

"Someone should really do something about that curse."

The corner of his lips twitched. "Tried to use your tattoo as a beacon back."

"Did it work?" I ask around a mouthful. His sexy lips turn up at both corners.

"Sort of," he says with a noncommittal shrug. I know I'm not getting any more out of him about it. "I didn't have my phone on me when I died, Mac."

"I began to suspect that."

"And yet you called everyday. Sometimes multiple times a day."

"I never gave up hope you'd answer. And I really missed you. You should really set up a voicemail box."

"You'd have filled it up within no time."

"Yes, but if you had a personalized greeting, I wouldn't have had to wait seven months just to hear your voice." His eyes glitter with mockery as one of his eyebrows arches ever so slightly.

*You shouldn't need a voicemail greeting in order to hear my voice,* he tells me.

*Hearing you order me around in my head isn't the same as hearing you order me around in person* or *over the phone.*

I got a snort of laughter out of that one.

*Just finish eating. There are better things your mouth could be doing.*

His heavily-lidded eyes raked me with such an intensely lust-filled look that I couldn't eat fast enough. As soon as I had taken my last bite, the plate and fork were whisked out of my hands and into the dishwater. Before I could even blink I was up on the counter, his hands were slowly edging up under my shirt, his cheek was pressed against mine, and my hands were automatically going to his chest and sliding down over his abs.

*Mac.*

*What?* My chest was heaving and I went to undo his belt buckle but he caught both of my hands in one of his before I could.

"Finish chewing," he growled in my near as his free hand went from my waist to my hip before I felt his fingers lightly sliding up and down the outside of my thigh.

I was so happy to feel his hands on me, so excited to feel the slow and steady beat of his heart in his chest, so eager to hold him in my arms, so desperate to finally have him inside me again, that I had forgotten to finish eating my last bite. I was going to need all the energy I could get for what was coming.

He was on me once I had swallowed. He kept my hands trapped as my legs automatically spread for him, and he stepped in between them as his free hand pulled me to the edge of the counter. Then that free hand travelled up my body to my cheek before he kissed me slow and deep. He kissed me like that for a while, his tongue playing with mine. I kept trying to free my hands but he wouldn't let go.

It was difficult to tell how long he kissed me like that and as much as I had so missed having his mouth on mine, there were other things I wanted and other places I wanted his mouth. Only he wouldn't let me go. He just kept kissing me.

It was too much. I *needed* him inside me and a moan of frustration escaped me. He finally pulled his tongue out of my mouth and lowered his face to the hollow of my neck, inhaling.

"What the fuck are you waiting for?" I growl as I try to pull my hands free again.

"I'm waiting for you to tell me what I want to hear, Ms. Lane," he says patiently. Like it hasn't been seven months since he last had me. I have yet to gain the patience of an immortal.

Still, how could I possibly have forgotten what to say? He's been making me say it since I was *Pri-ya*. I had to tell him that I knew who he was and who I was, what I wanted and that I wanted it, that I was choosing to be in that moment with him of my own volition, and he likes his name thrown in there, too.

I think it's because of how much I had gotten under his skin from before he even met me, thanks to the mural on the ceiling of my bookstore. And even though I drove him bugfuck since the night he met me, I only got further and further under his skin. It took me invading his memories when he had his tongue in my mouth and my head held back to the point where I would have broken my neck had I tried to move for me to realize just how much he cared.

While he was fucking me back to my senses, he kept looking for any sign of me inside my head, any hint of sentient light in my eyes. It divided him; he finally had me again since the night I met him (a memory he had forced me to forget for a while) but he was going to extreme lengths to bring me back. He didn't want it to end because he knew how much I'd hate him for it afterwards, but he needed me back so I could help him find the *Sinsar Dubh* and get a spell of unmaking so he could free his long-suffering son. And because he knew having endless sex with him for months had not been a choice I'd made myself.

He'd had my body, but he wanted my heart.

I let my tongue slide over his cheek because driving him bugfuck crazy is one of my favorite things to do. Then I prepared to relish the words I hadn't spoken in seven months as I pressed my mouth to his ear. "Fuck—"

"Ahem." We both froze as someone cleared their throat. "Everything okay here, Mac?" Barrons lifted his head from my neck and I looked to see one of my roommates standing there, looking warily from his face to where he had my hands trapped in one of his while his other hand cupped part of my face and my neck.

"Hey, Evie, everything's fine," I assured her as I tugged on my hands and he finally let them go.

*Why is there someone else here?* he flashed at me with crimson sparks.

*If you had let Ryodan explain, he would have mentioned that I have roommates. *

"This is—" I had begun to explain, suddenly grateful I hadn't undone his belt yet—I've mentioned how possessive I am of him, right?—only for yet another roommate to walk in.

"Whoa," was all she said when she saw him.

"You're positive everything's okay?" Evie asked again, still eyeing Barrons warily while Ana's gaze was composed entirely of curiosity.

"Oh, quit being such a worrywart, Evie," Ana said with an eye-roll. "If she said it's fine, then I'm sure it's fine. Mac, are you going to introduce us to your, um, friend?"

"Uh, sure," I said, fighting off the urge to ignore them both and bring him up to my room and lock the door. "Evie, Ana, this is Barrons. Barrons, this is Evie and Ana. They're fellow *sidhe*-seers."

"Pleasure," he said with an incline of his head.

"We'll be in my room if you need us, so try not to need us," I said as I took his hand and pulled him up to my room, unable to resist the urge any longer. As soon as we were inside, I pushed him up against the door, locked it, and said, "Where were we?"

My hands had a hold on his suit coat and his hands found my waist. In a flash, he had me slammed up against the door and his mouth on mine, pinning my legs between his as his hands planted themselves on the door on either side of my head. That's when I began to unbutton his shirt before rubbing my hands all along his stomach and chest. He only pulled his mouth off of mine to pull my shirt off over my head. Then my hands finally undid his belt buckle and he was in my hands as he undid my bra.

Once it was off, I pushed him away so I could push him up against the door again in order for me to do with my mouth what he had inferred I use it for earlier. He stripped off his suit coat and shirt as I did before lacing his hands through my hair. After he had growled and shuddered in my mouth, he stepped out of his pants, picked me up, and tossed me onto the bed, rolling me onto my stomach before tugging my pants off. I scrabbled for the pillows and pushed them underneath me as he climbed up onto the bed behind me. His powerful arm wrapped around my waist and lifted me into the air so he could pile the pillows just right. When he set me back down, he grabbed my arms and pinned them behind me. (There is no battlefield I'd rather be on than the one I go to when I'm in bed with this man.)

"Tell me what you want, Mac," he growled in my ear as I squirmed beneath him. He had begun teasing me. He'll stick in an inch or two before withdrawing, and he'll continue to do it until I say what he wants me to say because he knows how much it undoes me when he finally slams home.

I flipped my hair out of my face as I turned my head and looked up at him, wetting my lips and smirking as my nose brushed against his. "Fuck me, Jericho Barrons."

My subsequent roar was muffled by the mattress as he slammed home and rocked into my climax.

&&&

His arms are around me later. My fingers are laced with one of his hands as I hold it to my chest while his other incredibly strong arm is wrapped tightly around my waist.

"As hard as you tried to be quiet," he eventually says, his mouth near my ear and sending pleasant shivers down my spine as amusement drips from his voice, "it was spectacular watching you fail."

"Jackass," I sweetly shoot back. He snorts a laugh.

"Do you think the entire bloody neighborhood enjoyed listening to you fuck?" he teases.

"What do you mean 'me,' Jericho? I'm not the only one who roars." I can't help but grin as he laughs; I love that laugh.

"Well, they had best get used to it," he growls in my ear.

I turned over in his arms and began tracing the features of his face with my fingers. "Does that mean you're staying?"

His finger tips my chin up and he kisses me slow and tender before his thumb brushes over my cheek. "Did you really think I wouldn't?"