to herself with a sigh. Well, she might as well get up and wipe herself down before turning in.
She just hoped she wouldn’t have any more disturbing dreams tonight. After the day she’d had, Alli had no more patience for the shadow man with the silver mirror eyes.
Just to be on the safe side, she tied the red ribbon around her left wrist. She would be ready if the dreams struck again. She would look at her wrist, see that there was no ribbon there, and know that she was dreaming. Then she would end the dream before it could really get started.
That was the plan anyway. But somehow, when the man with the mirror eyes came to her, things went very differently.
Five
“You’re throbbing, aren’t you?” The man’s black and silver eyes flashed, mirroring Alli’s face back to her.
“What?” She sat up, looking at him. What was he doing in her bedroom? They had always met in the hall of shadows before. He had often invaded her dreams but never in this setting. And he was so big—seven feet tall at least. He seemed to fill the small space beside her bed with his muscular presence.
“You’re throbbing between your legs, Allisandra,” he rumbled softly, his eyes flashing. “Because this sorry excuse for a male can’t satisfy you.”
He nodded at the other side of the bed and Alli saw that Douglas was in the dream with them. Her fiancé’s face was slack in sleep, his mouth half open in a snore. That was odd—Douglas had never come into the dreams before, just as her bedroom had never been the setting for the nighttime encounters.
“That’s all right, baby.” The shadow man’s voice was a soft, caressing growl. “I’m going to take you home with me and wash his stink off you and teach you how it feels to really be taken care of. I’m going to satisfy all your darkest desires.”
Finally, Alli found her voice.
“I…I don’t have any desires,” she told him breathlessly.
“Little liar.” His eyes flashed. “I’ve been watching you—seeing into you for months now. You want your pussy licked, don’t you? And that’s just to start with. Well, don’t worry, baby—I’m going to lick you. Going to taste all that sweet honey you make until you can’t stand it anymore and you beg me to let you come.” He gave her a slow, cruel smile. “But I won’t let you. Not until you learn to be a good girl for me, Allisandra.”
His words both terrified and excited her—they started a fire inside her that no water could quench and it frightened Alli to death.
“You’re not real,” she told him, her voice trembling. “You’re only a dream. Only a…”
Her voice died away as she caught a glimpse of her left wrist in the moonlight coming through the blinds. The red ribbon was there—tied firmly in place.
She wasn’t asleep.
Oh my God…he’s here—he’s really here. The man from the shadows—he’s here in my bedroom!
Terror filled her and she looked up at him again, feeling frozen to the spot.
“You were saying, Allisandra?” The man smirked at her, one black brow lifted above his mirrored eyes.
Suddenly her paralysis broke and Alli rolled out of bed, intending to run. Her heart was pounding, the blood rushing in her ears. She had to get out of here! Had to—
Suddenly her legs locked in place and then her feet left the floor. After a confused minute, she realized she was floating—but how?
Turning her head, she saw the shadow man pointing some kind of device at her. It looked a little like a penlight but the beam it was emitting was pale, silvery-blue. It was pointed directly at her legs, which were frozen in the running position.
For a moment, she felt ridiculous—like a cartoon where the character runs off a cliff and then freezes in place for a moment, looks down to realize they are in the middle of thin air, and then falls.
“Don’t worry, baby,” the man murmured. “You won’t fall—I’m not going to drop you.”
Could he read her mind?
“To a certain extent,” the man said, answering her question, though she certainly hadn’t spoken it aloud. “But what comes through most clearly are your desires.” He leaned forward and stroked her cheek gently with one long finger. “Your desires called to me, Allisandra. From across time and space and many layers of the Multiverse, you drew me to you.”
“No,” Alli whispered. “No, you’re wrong.” Her voice got a little stronger. “Let me go! Help—Douglas!”