Category Archives: Blog

New Episode of Interview with a Demon

Author’s Note:

It’s been awhile since I’ve put up the next part of my interview with the Guardian. I apologise. You have to remember that interviewing a demon is not actually my forte. I’m not a journalist, and I’m certainly not comfortable with my first big interview being the Guardian. I would like to say that I have more control of the situation than I do, but I wouldn’t want to lie. Needless to say the efforts have taken their toll. I’ve had to have a bit of recovery time before I could face our next session. I’m not sleeping well. I find myself fearing that I will drift off and end up back in the Guardian’s prison even without Talia, the succubus, to guide me there and safeguard my time with him.

 

When I’m not involved with the interview, I’m thinking about it, obsessing over it, over him. In the beginning I wanted to hurry and get it over. I had hoped for one meeting with him to do it all. Now, I find myself dragging it out, struggling to stay away, and yet dying to hurry back and finish.

 

Both Susan and Talia have banned me from his prison for a few weeks, fearing for my health, even though he has been nothing but polite to me, and done nothing that should affect me so. But he is a demon, and I have no special powers, no abilities to protect myself from him, so the interview has not been an easy thing to write.

 

While the Guardian has asked that our efforts be kept secret from Magda Gardener, I have heard the whispers between Talia and Susan about bringing her into the situation just in case. The Guardian, I think would not like that, and we all fear that to do so would mean having to abort the interview, since we can’t really imagine Magda being best pleased about our efforts.

 

In the meantime, I drink lots of coffee. Read into the night to distract myself and wander about the house and the garden at all hours. Having a bit of a break has helped, and I’ve had time to organise my notes and prepare this posts. But I know what is ahead. I know Susan’s version of the horrors that happened in Chapel House. I know what the Guardian has done. The idea of hearing his view on what went on there, I have to admit, I find both daunting and very frightening.

 

 

The links to the interview so far are at the bottom of this instalment. 

 

 

Chapter 7  Disappointments and Possibilities

“As my lovely Annie immersed herself in the scented waters of the big bath, I did all that was in my power, limited as it was at the time, to surround her, embrace her. I wanted her to feel as though the lover she imagined sharing such an experience with was, indeed there with her, delighting in her every touch, in her every sigh, in her every moan, and oh, how she moaned.”

 

I did my best not to let my own discomfort show. While it was true I didn’t want it to interfere with the interview, it was also true that I didn’t want the Guardian knowing just how uncomfortable the thought of his love life made me, and as I’ve already stated, I feared if he couldn’t actually read my mind, he could certainly read me. After all, he fed off body language, off emotions, off of physical responses, and the more visceral the better. But thankfully he seemed wholly caught up in his story.

 

“Perhaps it is not mine to tell, perhaps Susan would admonish me for sharing such a detail, but my dear Annie had come to Chapel House with the very idea of pleasuring herself, of enjoying an evening of carnal delights at her own hand. How I longed for it to be my hand, my mouth, my sex fulfilling her deepest desires. So convinced was I that she could sense my presence, that she had come clandestinely to Chapel House in hopes of drawing me to her, even seducing me, if you will, that I brought all of my essence to her that night. Understand, my dear KD, that I have no need to do such a thing, for by nature I am not limited to one space, having no fleshly container.

 

As I moved over the surface of the water, as I stirred it gently with my presence, oh how she writhed and shuddered and cried out in her pleasure. So very responsive was she that I became as a breath across ruby-hard nipples. I became as lips and tongue and teeth teasing across warm supple flesh. I became as a lover’s urgency moving down, down, down into the water. With my very will I cupped her, fondled her. I traced the crook and role, the stroke and plunge of her delicate fingers, as though they were my own reveling in that sweet, briny landscape, which I wanted desperately to touch, to kiss, to feast upon. I ached to plunge my essence deep inside of her again and again. With every fiber of myself, I willed her to acknowledge me. I was intoxicated with her presence, delighted in her pleasure.

 

I pressed as close to her as my imprisonment allowed me, close enough that my embrace was nearly a second skin. At that moment, that very second before she cried out, I was certain, so very certain that she felt my presence, that she knew I was there. And oh, how she did cry out, a cry worthy of a wild beast at the moment of the kill. In that second before her convulsions of release moved in waves over the water, I could have wept for the joy of it, as I waited for her to acknowledge me, for her ecstasy to be followed by terror. And then, I knew that terror would vanish, and she would delight in my presence, and yield to me. You cannot imagine how I felt, K D. And …”

 

Once again he stood and moved to the cliff edge. And I began to breathe again, wondering how long I had held it tight in my chest. I sat very still not daring to acknowledge to myself the impact of his tale upon my own flesh. After all, none of this was real. I was only here through a dream.

 

Suddenly his shoulders tightened, his hands clenched into angry fists and the air around us felt like that charged moment before a lightning strike. I white knuckled the arms of the chair, and my heart went racing again, at the raw, explosive emotion expressed in flesh that was not real. He continued. “You cannot imagine my disappointment, my raged at my own powerlessness when, instead, she dried her hands and reached for her mobile phone. Then she began taking photos of herself in her post orgasmic bliss. Oh they were nothing obscene, not really, just very … shall we say provocative. That she might share this moment with another enraged me, disappointed me. In my unhappy state, I caught only the fact that she was quite pleased with herself as she texted some friend named Susan about what she had just done. Before she sent the text, I read over her shoulder, her final words as she closed.

 

Think what a story you could make from this!

 

“She could not possibly have known that I had already imagined the story of her little exploits, only my ending was not the one she had chosen. I watched helplessly while she got out of the tub, as though nothing at all had happened, and dried herself. I was desperately disappointed, and had I been able, I would have punished her thoroughly for her behavior. In the end, this woman, who I had fantasized about, dreamed about, this woman who I was so convinced would surely feel my essence and discover I was there, was no different than all of the others had been throughout my endless imprisonment. In the end she would only be a vicarious experience once removed.

 

“I remind you again, KD, that these emotions I now ascribe to myself are only my way of trying to make you understand a little better my desperate loneliness, which of course, was not really loneliness at all so much as perhaps a loss of purpose. Even that’s a mortal way of describing what I experienced that night in Chapel House, my first time alone with Annie. If you had chosen to interview me before my current incarceration, you would have found the experience far more disturbing and far more difficult to understand. While Susan is certainly no longer mortal, she is still human in so many ways. I would have been far less able to tell you my story if not for my experience of her lingering humanity.

 

“Of course, if you had come to me before,” I felt his presence bloom around me like heat from a fire, “you would most likely not have survived the experience, but then,” he added quickly, “neither would you have cared.”

 

The heat receded in a heartbeat, and at that moment, mine was a heart beating very fast. He continued as if he had done nothing out of the ordinary, and perhaps he hadn’t. “Annie removed herself to the chapel for her repast. She boldly walked up the aisle between the pews all the way to the altar and brazenly seated herself atop it. Oh how I wanted her to notice me at that point, so intriguing did I find her. She had opened the wine and was nibbling on a few grapes when the response to her text came.

 

TMI

 

“That was all the first text said. At the time I didn’t know what that meant. Susan has since enlightened me.

 

“Annie only laughed her lovely silver-bell of a laugh, and then she proceeded to take several unholy selfies from her perch. Irreverent, I suspect is a better word, for that would describe my dear Annie. Then, with the laughter of a misbehaving child, she sent them to this Susan, and my jealousy bloomed again at the thought that perhaps the woman was Annie’s lover, though I didn’t think Annie had a taste for women. The text that returned piqued my interest.

 

Oh I can think of a few stories, all right, but no respectable publisher would buy them.

 

“Oh yes, this text very much piqued my interest. That this Susan was a scribe made
me lean close, my attention focused wholly on Annie’s reply.

 

You have to come, Susan. You’ll love the place. You can’t help but be inspired by it. I’m inspired, and I have no imagination. Come next weekend. Can you?

 

The response was almost immediate.

 

Dying to see. No pressing deadlines. All right! I’ll drive up Friday afternoon.

Read previous instalments here:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Out Now – In Bed with the Enemy, Undercover Lovers: Book Two by Ellie Barker (@sinfulpress @EllieBa3)

Released on June 15th 2018 from Sinful Press, In Bed with the Enemy is the new LGBT erotic crime novella by Ellie Barker, and is the second novella in the Undercover Lovers trilogy.

In Bed with the Enemy continues the story of Nikolas, a bisexual police mole, and Sky, a transgender thief, as they work to infiltrate the local crime syndicate. Ellie Barker has created a fast paced and highly entertaining trilogy, with a diverse range of characters, various sexual encounters, and unconventional romance. Secrets and Spies, the first in the trilogy, was released in May 2018, and For Queen and Country, the remaining book in the trilogy, is due for release on July 13th 2018.

In Bed with the Enemy is Amazon exclusive for a limited time before being released across all main platforms. It is available to read through Kindle Unlimited.

Blurb:

Nikolas Jinsen, police mole and mafia odd-job man, is given an ultimatum; stop seeing his girlfriend, or lose his job. When a hasty attempt to keep both goes wrong, he does the only thing he can think of: he lies. But with his new roommate a member of the elite gang that Nikolas has been tasked to look into, and his assignations with his girlfriend constantly interrupted by calls on his services as a lover, Nikolas finds that work isn’t all fun and games.

Excerpt:

I pulled out my phone.

Bear answered within two rings. “Nikolas! This is a pleasant surprise.”

“I changed my mind about that nightcap, if the offer’s still open,” I told him.

Why the change of heart?” He sounded a bit surprised.

“I can’t stop thinking about you.” And actually, it was true. I wanted to know what he was like in bed. How far down that beard went. What was under that suit. What he looked like when he came.

I thought you didn’t do one-offs?”

“Sky wants to hear all about it afterwards.”

I heard the bellow of laughter down the phone, and then he came back on the line, still chuckling. “Well, I can’t disappoint her, can I. When?”

“What’s wrong with now?”

Forty-five minutes later, I was getting out of a taxi at the foot of a tower block. Ten minutes had been picking up a bottle of wine that I liked, wondering if he’d like it, checking with Sky—who told me she didn’t have a fucking clue and I’d just got her killed, which meant she was playing something with Benny—and going back to my original choice. And now I was here, looking up at the lit windows above me and thinking about Tanya’s exhibitionism.

I’d wondered about getting a hotel room, but Bear had invited me over and I’d accepted. It meant if there was a trap I was walking into it, but then a hotel room had a veneer of anonymity that I didn’t necessarily like. Sky knew where I was going, and had offered to come and rescue me if needed—and that meant she could potentially bring both the Queen and Tanya’s resources down on someone’s head. Tanya Mardos didn’t care about much in the world, but I figured she’d probably have something to say if her current sex toy wasn’t available on demand.

And so I headed for the main door and pushed the button for the flat intercom.

Yes?” Bear’s voice said almost immediately.

“Nikolas.”

Come on up.”

Book links:

Amazon: http://smarturl.it/IBWTEkindle

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38908122-in-bed-with-the-enemy

 

Author Bio:

Ellie mostly writes short’n’dirty flash fiction and short erotic fiction in any genre going. She prefers vampires over werewolves, and is always hot for a rainy night.

You can find out more about Ellie over at http://elliebarker.co.uk/, or follow her on Twitter as @EllieBa3

Release blitz organized by Writer Marketing Services.

Demon Dreams

Dreams have been a driving force in story and magic since our ancestors told tales
around the campfire. The connection between what goes on in our dreams and our unconscious is so startling that it’s no wonder mythology and religion are full of stories in which dreams are the way for the divine to speak to mortals. When we dream, it feels like we’ve fallen asleep in one dimension and awakened in another where different rules apply every night – every dream in fact – and where, struggle though we might, we are most definitely not in control.

 

People have always believed that there’s something magical about dreams, that in our sleep, we can see the future, be warned of coming catastrophe, see the face of a lover, even see our own doom. These days there’s not a lot that can’t be explained by science and technology. Magic is the realm of fantasy novels and super heroes, but dreams, well there’s still something almost magical about them. We can tell when someone is dreaming; we understand the physiological process, we can understand in part why we dream certain things. But even knowing what we do about the anatomy of sleep and dreams, a nightmare is still terrifying, a disturbing dream still stays with us for ages after it happens, and a sexy dream, well who doesn’t wish we had a lot more of those?

 

One of my very favorite classes in Uni was a psychology class that involved keeping a dream journal. All we had to do was write down what we’d dreamed every night. I was surprised to find that, in the beginning, I had trouble remembering much more than an image here and there, but then I’d never thought much about my dreams before that class. My teacher suggested I keep a spiral notebook and a pencil on my bedside table and that I set my alarm at two-hour intervals. Each time the alarm went off, I was to jot down just a few key words that would kick-start my memory in the morning, then go back to sleep. At first it was mostly mundane bits and pieces that I remembered, but it didn’t take long until I was remembering multiple dreams and detailed sequences.

 

I was so impressed with the results that I kept a dream journal for a long time after the class came to an end. I only stopped because it was beginning to take more and more time as I remembered more and more details. Later, when I worked with a Jungian analyst for a couple of years, dreams once again took center stage in exploring my inner workings. The thing about dreams is that every image, every action, can either symbolize something that could be important for the dreamer or, as Freud observed, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

 

Long after I stopped keeping a dream journal, I still wrote down powerful dreams, dreams that disturb me, or dreams that left me feeling like maybe I’d touched something deeper in myself. I recorded them and then I analyzed them and explored what they meant to me, what the Self was trying to communicate. I almost always found my efforts rewarding and enlightening.

 

There are dreams we’d like to linger in a little longer, there are also dreams we can’t wake up from fast enough. In the interviewing of the Guardian, which I am sharing now on my blog, as it unfolds, I am doing a lot of dreaming. In fact, I must approach the Guardian’s prison inside of Susan through a dream, and even from there, I am never sure I am in a nightmare I can’t wake up from or a dream I want to linger in.
While Talia, the succubus who helps me enter that dream state, promises me I’m perfectly safe … well, between a powerful succubus and a demon imprisoned inside a vampire who is herself a Scribe, with a capital S, I’ve seldom felt truly safe since I began the interviews. And no matter the reassurances I get from both succubus and vampire, how can anyone guarantee my safety in the Guardian’s presence.

 

New episode of Interview with a Demon coming up Tuesday.

Stay tuned.

Kay Jaybee Releases Knowing Her Place

Knowing Her Place

The Perfect Submissive Trilogy (Book 3)

Kay Jaybee

Miss Jess Sanders has come a long way since she first took the role of admin clerk and book keeper at The Fables Hotel in Oxford.

Her elevation to a position within Mrs Peters adult exclusive adult entertainment team on the fifth floor of the hotel took everyone by surprise- especially Jess herself.

Now, an experienced submissive, Jess has some decisions to make about her future- but first she needs to get home…

***

Kay Jaybee was awarded an Honouree Mention at the 2015 National Leather Association Awards (in the Pauline Reage Novel Category) for “Knowing Her Place”

***

Knowing Her Place Blurb:

Full of unanswered questions after her erotic fairytale experience at The Retreat in Scotland, Jess Sanders is desperate to return to her submissive position at the exclusive Fables Hotel in Oxfordshire.

Having been thwarted in his plans to keep Jess, The Retreat’s owner, David Proctor, isn’t willing to let her go without sending the so-called ‘perfect’ submissive on one final mission. Only if Jess succeeds in the task he sets her, will Proctor remove the collar of servitude he has locked around her neck.

With a list of five unfamiliar addresses to hand, Jess is placed in a car and driven away from The Retreat towards England. With no idea of what, or who, awaits her at the each location, all Jess can hope for is that the journey will eventually take her back to where she belongs.

To the fifth floor of the Fables Hotel, where Miss Jess Sanders truly knows her place.

 

Knowing Her Place Extract:

…Running her little finger along the outer edge of the collar for a second time, Jess fought back the constant reflex to choke. It was so tight. There was no way it could be cut free without damaging her skin.

David Proctor had forced Jess into his collar, declaring her his property unless she proved herself worthy of release. He was the only one with a key to the little silver padlock that held the tight band together at the front of her neck. Even if she did manage to prise the leather free somehow, as the car left the never-ending A9 that tracks the east side of Scotland and joined the motorway, Jess could hear Proctor’s warning words echo in her ears when she’d threatened to call Mrs Peters …

“If you call her, that collar is never coming off. There is only one key and I have it. And before you think it can be cut off, it can’t be done. Not without hurting you. Anyway, if you did get it cut off, you’d have failed, and part of you would always remain mine. I can’t see Mrs Peters liking that very much; can you?”

Jess hated that he was right. Her boss wouldn’t have liked it all. She tried to tell herself that Mrs Peters would come to her rescue – but she physically and mentally shrank back from wondering what the cost of making such a request of the Fables’ mistress would be.

Unbidden, her mind slipped from thoughts of her boss to Miss Sarah. She tried to ignore the increase in her pulse rate, and the automatic swell of her breasts that the image of the tall, slim, demanding dominatrix always caused. For a split second, while they’d been together at The Retreat, Jess had begun to hope Miss Sarah cared for her beyond the requirements of work.

Jess knew, although she would never have been foolish enough to say so out loud, that she had formed a strong emotional attachment to the woman who dominated her body day after day in the pursuit of other people’s pleasure. Sometimes she trusted that her personal feelings towards her mistress were genuine but, on other occasions, logical thought took over. Jess told herself, for the umpteenth time, as she looked out in the night, that she’d probably adopted some sort of warped Stockholm Syndrome feeling to Miss Sarah; like a victim falling for her kidnapper….

It had been Miss Sarah who Mrs Peters had ordered to train Jess when she’d first joined the team at Fables. A training which had included a vigorously kinky, and highly effective, exercise routine that gave Jess immense stamina; teaching her how to remain motionless for prolonged periods of time, and how to delay an orgasm for as long as humanly possible.

At first, Jess had been terrified of Miss Sarah. She’d suspected the dominatrix resented her arrival, especially when Mrs Peters began to refer to Jess as her “perfect submissive.” This was a title Jess now understood had been designed precisely to provoke her, and force her to work even harder for fear of not living up to her requirements. It had nothing to do with Mrs Peters thinking Jess was good at her job –although Jess hoped she did.

But she sent you away … Jess shook her head sharply. Mrs Peters couldn’t have known Proctor had planned to keep her. She couldn’t possibly have been in on this from the start. Her boss hadbeen conned by Proctor. They’d all been conned.

Trying to force away the paranoia that threatened to take hold as she sat, a prisoner in the back of an ostentatiously posh car, Jess attempted to reassure herself by recalling how many times Mrs Peters had stressed prior to their departure from Fables that she and Miss Sarah would be returning.

Only moments before they’d been taken away to Scotland, Jess had taken part in a mock-up of a most unusual version of Pin the Tail on the Donkey. It had been a rehearsal for a very adult birthday party that was to take place in just over a week’s time. The mere memory of what she’d gone through during the rehearsal made Jess’s pussy clench with desire. She longed to get back to Fables in time for the clients’ party – as Mrs Peters had promised she would.

Staring through the car window now, Jess searched her memories of her days at The Retreat for further reassurance that Mrs Peters had not betrayed her. On two separate occasions while they’d been in their bedroom in the castle, Miss Sarah had warned Jess to believe nothingProctor said. She’d told Jess that he would probably tell her Mrs Peters no longer wanted her at Fables; and that he would be lying.

That was exactly what had happened. But was it a lie? Jess couldn’t help letting doubt creep in as the night sky began to give way to the first glimmer of dawn. Why had Miss Sarah been allowed to go home and not her? Proctor had a submissive of his own. A girl called Alisha, who was more than willing to fulfil his every whim. He didn’t need Jess at all. This was pure spite.

Available from:

 

You can find all the buy links for The Fifth Floor (Book 1) and The Retreat (Book 2) here:

The Fifth Floorhttps://wp.me/P75ZDl-u9

The Retreathttps://wp.me/P75ZDl-10E

 

About Kay:

 

 

Kay Jaybee was named Best Erotica Writer of 2015 by the ETO

Kay received an honouree mention at the NLA Awards 2015 for excellence in BDSM
writing.

Kay Jaybee has over 180 erotica publications including, The Retreat- Book2: The Perfect Submissive Trilogy(KJBooks, 2018), Making Him Wait (Sinful Press, 2018), The Fifth Floor- Book1;The Perfect Submissive Trilogy(KJBooks, 2017), Wednesday on Thursday, (KDP, 2017), The Collector(KDP, 2016), A Sticky Situation(Xcite, 2013), Digging Deep, (Xcite 2013), Take Control, (1001 NightsPress, 2014), and Not Her Type(1001 NightsPress), 2013.

Details of all her short stories and other publications can be found at www.kayjaybee.me.uk

You can follow Kay on –

Twitter- https://twitter.com/kay_jaybee

Facebook -http://www.facebook.com/KayJaybeeAuthor

Goodreads- http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/3541958-kay-jaybee

Brit Babes Site- http://thebritbabes.blogspot.co.uk/p/kay-jaybee.html

Kay also writes contemporary romance and children’s picture books as Jenny Kane www.jennykane.co.uk  and historical fiction as Jennifer Ash www.jenniferash.co.uk

Concerto Chapter 9

Sorry that it’s taken me a bit longer to get the next chapter of Concerto to you. It’s been a wild couple of weeks. Because I’ve made you wait, I’ve put the link from the last chapter up at the top for continuity sake. The rest are at the end. Enjoy!

 

 

Chapter 9: Me, But Somebody Else

In the blink of an eye I was transported into the opulent music room, lit only by moonlight. I looked out through eyes that were not my own, I wore clothes that were uncomfortable and unfamiliar. On slippered feet, I approached the pianist from behind. His music was angry, violent, his fingers harsh on the keys. There was no one else in the room. “What you want can never be, you realize?” He spoke without looking away from the keyboard. “Your father will never let us be together, you must know this.”

“I don’t care what my father wants. I want you,” I said in a voice that was not my own. It was softer, more treble, like a bird singing – one you could listen to for hours.

“You don’t care because you’ve never gone hungry, never known what it’s like to live without. Do you suppose for even a moment your father will continue as my patron if I run away with his only daughter? Do you not think that he’ll use all of his power and influence to make sure no one else will do me the honor either?” The music stopped. He fisted his hands and brought them down hard against the keys.

“But you’re the best. You’re astonishing. It’s only a matter of time before you’ll be sought out to perform all over the world, and then you won’t need my father or anyone else.”

“But I do need your father now. One mistake, take one false step, and he’ll cast me aside as easily as he does anything else that makes him unhappy.”

“I don’t care. I love you.” I moved to stand close behind him and threw my arms around his neck. “I want you and no one else.” As he pushed back the bench, I took his face in my hands and kissed him, and I was her – this woman who loved him — but at the same time I wasn’t her. Still one thing was clear, he was my pianist – the same — as surely as night was dark. And the kiss he returned, the kiss that wasn’t for me, was offered with that familiar passion, the same sense of need and hunger.

At last he pulled away and held me at arm’s length. “Then we have to wait. We have to wait until the time is right, until I no longer am a beggar at the gate.”

With a flash of light, the scene changed, and we were naked, rolling and tumbling in a big curtained bed, and he was deep inside me, the roar of our breath and our passion drowning out the storm.

“I shouldn’t have come, Felicity.” I heard his voice from far away. “You shouldn’t have invited me here of all places. Don’t you realize what we’ve done? We should have waited.”

“I’m tired of waiting.” Once again the bird like voice came from my lips. “Take me with you. Take me with you my love, and we will find a way.”

“We’ll find a way. Just take me with you, and we’ll find a way.”  I came back to myself wet and warm and sitting between the pianist’s legs in the big claw footed tub. I was leaning back against his bare chest, his arms wrapped tightly around me. “What happened,” I managed through a throat that felt like I’d eaten sand.

“You followed me into the storm. You fell,” came the clipped reply.

For a moment I sat silent, the heat of the water curling tendrils of steam in front of my face. “But, I saw …” I saw what I couldn’t have possibly seen, that’s what I saw. For a moment I debated how much to tell him. “Did I hit my head?”

“You fell, and then you were delirious.”

In a convulsive move, he pulled me closer until I gasped for breath as his arms tightened around my body and his breathing became more labored.

“I remember falling,” I replied, wriggling to get more comfortable. “And the rest was more like a dream. The manor house was there and we were there alone in the music room and you were playing the piano. And then we were making love. It was me, but it wasn’t me.” I forced a laugh as he all but mantled me from behind, his breath skimming my neck. “Dreams are funny like that.” And then I remembered why I’d gone to the overlook in the middle of a storm. “What were you doing up there in this horrible weather, and you were naked. Why?” My stomach dropped, as I recalled how I’d found him and, in spite of the heat of the water, gooseflesh climbed my arms. “Surely you weren’t trying to … I mean you were so close to the cliff’s edge. I was so scared.”

“No,” his voice was suddenly cold, distant. “I wasn’t trying to kill myself. You needn’t have been scared. I won’t, I can’t … do that.”

I turned as best as I could, slopping water over the floor, so that I could see his face over my shoulder. “Were you dreaming, then? Sleepwalking.”

His laugh was no more than a puff of breath against my ear that held little humor. “These days I’m never sure.”

Something in the way he said it made me shiver, but I forced a chuckle. “I think we all feel that way sometimes.”

He didn’t answer, only kissed the top of my head. For a long moment we sat in silent, the only sound the wind howling around the corner of the cottage.

“You called me Felicity,” I ventured.

He flinched at the name. Though he caught himself soon enough, we were skin to skin, I felt it like a tremor through my chest. He sighed out a deep breath then slid a hand up to cup my breast. “What, are you holding me responsible for your dreams now?”

“No. It just seemed so real. I couldn’t have been unconscious that long, if I was unconscious. It was less like a dream than it was flashes of memory.”

“You were stressed, concerned for me, and you fell. That’s all. What matters is that we’re both warm and safe and there are better things to think about right now.” He kissed my ear, then ran a hand down over my belly and between my thighs. I bucked and gasped, setting off another tidal wave of bath water. In spite of what had just happened, in spite of all my questions and doubts, I was ready, anxious for his touch.

“What’s your name?” I spoke around my efforts to concentrate as he nibbled and kissed my neck and shoulder and reacquainted himself with every furrow, every swollen fold, of me. Then with more splashing and awkward wallowing, he helped me turn in the tub to straddle him. “I don’t even know your name,” I said, my mind hanging on to at least that much in the heat of arousal he was stoking.

“Does it matter? Maybe you can find one in your dreams, Felicity.” Before I could respond, he thrust up into me with such force, with such desire, that all I could do was wrap my legs around him and hold on for the ride. Everything else went away. The rest of the world disappeared again, but this time in a storm of desperate lust.

 

If you’ve missed an episode of Concerto, here are the links.

Concerto Part 1: A little Night Music

Concerto Part 2: Distractions

Concerto Part 3: Too Much to Bear Alone

Concerto Part 4: Writing and Waiting

Concerto Part 5: A Duet in a Storm

Concerto Part 6: Remember How it Feels

Concerto Part 7: Unsettled

Concerto Part 8: Into the Storm