The Red Collection (33 page)

But then she forgot about qualms and wetness and jeans and everything. His mouth came down on hers, and she almost drowned in his sweet floral odour.

The contact of his lips on hers was soft at first, almost ethereal, like chilled velvet. Then, after a few seconds, the kiss grew wild and his tongue pushed inside her mouth, bringing with it a taste that was as heady as his smell. Lois gasped. His lips were candy sweet, and his tongue was cool and wicked, darting like a benevolent serpent inside her mouth, tasting and probing, then powerfully devouring. The pressure of the kiss became so intense that her jaw ached a little from the effort of giving back as good as she was getting.

Big hands settled over her smaller ones where they were fastened to the bedhead. He laced his fingers between hers as he used his entire body to caress and excite her, rubbing her with silky skin and with the denim and with the hardness
of
his muscles and his cock. His strong hips rocked and rocked, and the bulge of his erection somehow worked its way between her thighs, spreading her sex-lips so it could stimulate her clitoris.

And suddenly it was all too much … and yet not enough.

Muffled by his tongue, Lois growled a garbled sound of protest, her pelvis jerking against his, commanding him to give her more, more, more.

In return, Dream Lover laughed, his glee as sweet in her mouth as his taste was. Then he slid one hand down her body, visiting her breasts and her belly. His cool skin was a satin kiss against her heat.

Touch me! Touch me down there! Masturbate my clit and make me come and make me come before I die!

But, even if he’d heard her, he was determined to do what
he
wanted.

Working blind, still kissing, he worked deftly at the button and zip of his jeans and uncovered himself. Lois couldn’t see his size, but, hot damn, she could feel it. He was huge and breathtaking against her thighs, hard and determined as he sought his target. With just a little help from his hand, he navigated himself inside her. His sex was as strong and sturdy as the rest of him and just its presence, cool inside her, was a thrill.

Aroused beyond anything she’d ever known before, she was stretched around him, and the bulk of his penis almost made her come without him moving. She lay beneath him, trembling on the brink, gasping and dreaming.

But he was a man – even in the dream – and he wanted action. With barely a stroke or two he had her in rhapsodies. Her body clutched and clutched at him, clenching and contracting, the sensations twice as spicy because she was
helpless
and couldn’t wrap her limbs around him. When he freed her lips, she peaked again, howling and whimpering. When he thrust again, her soul soared, swooping and flying.

Higher, higher, higher she arced, and then descended, barrelling back down into her body like the little shooting star she suddenly and distinctly remembered watching earlier.

And with that, she achieved oblivion.

All went dark.

‘Shit!’

Lois Hillyard jerked upright, her heart lurching with the sudden disorientation of waking up far too fast and not quite knowing where she was. She stared around wildly, her eyes skittering from object to object in the unfamiliar room.

What the hell am I doing in a log cabin and why is it so bloody cold?

She scrabbled for the quilt, which was on the floor beside her bed and, as she swaddled it around herself, she started to remember things. Things like why she was here in a log cabin in the wilds of nowhere beside the sea, which she could hear rolling outside instead of traffic noises to which she was more accustomed.

And things like stray hot fragments of the dream from which she’d just woken.

‘Shit,’ she muttered again, burrowing even deeper into the quilt and puffing out her cheeks, still in shock.

What the hell was all that about?

She’d had sex dreams before, but never one so vivid, so strange … or so kinky.

Bondage with an unknown man who had gold in his hair and smelt of lavender … Where had that madness come from?

Dreams were weird. You usually forgot most of them within moments of waking. But not this one.

Her Dream Lover sprang into her mind instantaneously, every detail like crystal.

He’d been tall, muscular, and graceful with the most astonishing hair and eyes. What possessed someone’s subconscious to cook up details like that? Still in her duvet, gripped by the shakes, she tried to analyse him.

Well, the height might have come from a TV actor she was keen on, and the long black coat and funereal garb in general was
de rigueur
for vaguely threatening men of mystery.

But the hair? The eyes? The strangely cool skin? She hadn’t the faintest …

Face? Well, funny as it seemed, she could pin that. The basic features were her actor again, but there was a touch, just a touch, of the man sharing the beach with her as well.

But why the hell dream about
him
though? It wasn’t as if there was any chance, she’d quickly discovered, of getting off with him. No holiday romance there, no way.

Neighbour Guy, as she called him, seemed to have been going out of his way to avoid her, and when they had run into each other he’d been surly at best. He was worthy of fancying, in a purely physical sense, but, in terms of conversation, he seemed to begrudge every monosyllable.

Well, sod you, she’d thought, catching sight of him once or twice, stalking the beach or the rough gravelled track to the local shop, but, somehow, she couldn’t help feeling sorry for him too. Somehow, without knowing why, she’d formed a distinct impression that he was a man with a load of sorrow hanging over him. And for that she could almost forgive his chilly grumpiness.

Yes, her fantasy guy of the gilded hair and other
magnificent
accoutrements had resembled her unhappy neighbour ever so slightly, but otherwise they couldn’t have been more different.

Dream Lover had been full of the joys of life. And rambunctiously overflowing with the joys of vigorous pervy sex!

Her body was still tingling with the aftermath, and between her legs she was humid and sticky.

Ohmigod, I must have come in my sleep!

Well, all this sea air and the woodland ambience must be good for something. It had put her in touch with her earth goddess self, or something like that. Being out here in the wild beyonds of unconnected nowhere was going to be a blast if she had a dream like that every night, and with any luck she’d not miss the internet at all. With no television, and a mobile connection that kept dropping out every two minutes, all she had for entertainment otherwise were a couple of uninspiring novels.

You knew this, didn’t you, Sand!

Sandy, her friend and partner in their small web-development business, had been moaning at her for long enough to take a well-earned holiday and get away from it all for a while, and had more or less strong-armed her into accepting this offer of a seaside-cabin break from one of their grateful clients.

Unbeknown to Sandy, Lois had brought her laptop, and had planned to work anyway … until, of course, it had dawned on her that she was miles and miles from the nearest wi-fi hotspot!

‘Twit!’

That would teach her to take the digital, technological world so completely for granted. It served her right for
trying
to wriggle out of the rest that Sandy had so kindly levered upon her.

It was still frustrating though. Especially when the weather was unseasonably grim and icy for the end of May and the best place to be was inside the cabin, tucked up with a steaming-hot laptop. But her mobile connection was too erratic and slow and, even if she did work, she had no way to upload anything to the testing server without tearing her hair out waiting for minute after minute after minute.

Better just concentrate on erotic fantasies then … They seem to be downloading just fine!

Either that or do some cleaning.

Why the hell is this stupid place suddenly covered in dust? It wasn’t here earlier … Where is it all coming from?

The cabin had been impressively spick and span when she’d arrived but now a delicate veil of dust lay over most of the surfaces and drifted across the floor. There were even whorls of dust scattered over the bed and on the pillows, with several strange heaps against the head and the foot rails.

What the f–?

She shivered. She sniffed the air. And then tentatively, almost reluctantly, she slipped a hand down into her knickers and touched her wetness. Of which there was a lot. Far more than there ought to have been from simply playing with herself.

But it wasn’t the quantity that bothered her, it was the way it smelt.

As she withdrew her fingers, a familiar odour made her head spin.

Lavender … It was lavender … Why does my crotch smell of lavender?

Pulling the quilt over her head, she tried hard not to think.

2

In human form, Robin crouched on the woodshed roof and tasted the flutters of fear in Lois’s mind.

No, this was not what he wanted. Not at all. He’d wanted to give her pleasure, not scare the living daylights out of her. Savouring the physical sensations of sighing, he sent out his mind, and touched hers again, filling it with soothing waves of peace that granted sleep.

There, that was better. Unable to resist the temptation, he disassociated and floated through the roof of the cabin so he could be close to his new object of curiosity.

Touching down, he reassociated, and stood by the bed, just looking at her. Not that there was much to see with human eyes. She was curled up beneath the thick quilt like a hibernating dormouse, and only a few tufts of her tousled blonde hair were protruding from the top of it.

There was much to be said for being what he was though. If she woke up now, and emerged from her hiding place, she would see a man … but what she couldn’t perceive were the powers he still retained.

He could see through the quilt to the pretty face, and even prettier body that lay beneath.

She was delightful and complex and Robin liked that. Connecting with her gave him everything that was delicious about assuming human form. Every year in the month of May, when the transformation was possible, he tasted and interacted with humans, feasting indulgently on their complicated and sometimes turbulent feelings. His own kind had emotions, true, but they were mild, bland and somewhat basic. Contentment. Satisfaction. A kind of wistful regret, occasionally. The only emotion that really stirred him while
discarnate
was curiosity. And, in that, he knew he was unusual among his breed.

And one of the very few to pursue the ancient privileges of merry May.

But look where it had got him!

He was addicted now, perhaps polluted somehow. Even while discarnate, he was gripped by powerful yearnings. Feelings had filtered through by osmosis into the whole of his existence and he only felt truly alive when he was ‘human’ … or as near to that condition as he could approximate.

And tonight, with beautiful Lois, he’d almost believed for a moment that he was a man.

Dipping lightly into her mind, he relived the delicious episode, smiling at the way her own subconscious had provided all the elements of the scenario.

You didn’t realise you were so kinky, did you?
he told her sub-vocally, relishing the words he’d picked up from her vocabulary and from others, over the years.

Binding her to the bed and tormenting her with pleasure had stirred him mightily. And it stiffened his temporary flesh now in a way that made his spirit swirl with emotion and heady pleasure.

Now this, he thought, placing his large hand over his swelling groin and giving it a gentle squeeze, was something his own kind were really missing. Yes, they had a melding of sorts, and it was exceptionally pleasant, but it was a pale shadow in comparison to the hot, wild, sweaty, pumping chaos of human sex with its pungent fluids, its loss of control and ecstatic release.

For that alone, with a special woman like Lois, he might be prepared to lose the many powers humans lacked.

As Lois stirred, probably sensing him, he stepped back
from
the bed, ready to disassociate and disappear instantaneously. Her head emerged from under the coverlet, and he was struck again by the sweet appeal of her human face.

It was elegant and oval, but with a soft rounding to the cheeks and a rather snub nose that he knew she sometimes fretted about. He’d modelled his own nose a little on it, to reassure her of the attractiveness of the shape. He’d noted too that, despite her qualms, she’d also found the very same feature subconsciously attractive in the man next door, so he’d taken elements of that face too, when creating the image of his own.

His thoughts balked for a moment, troubled as the consciousness of Lois’s neighbour briefly touched his own.

Now there was a human emotion he
didn’t
want too much of. Grief. Intense sadness. Inconsolable loss. The man in the next cabin had lost a lover, and lost her here, in this place, to the force of the sea. Robin knew what was in the thoughts of Lois’s neighbour and, though he felt he understood them, the course of action that the man was planning was anathema to him. Did he not know how precious a thing the human condition was? Even in its darkest, direst hours …

Shaking his head as if that might dispel the received sorrow, Robin returned his attention to the warm sleeping woman who lay before him.

Her hair, he considered, was delightful; the shimmering golden colour of sunlight. He knew, of course, that it had been tampered with to make it look that way, but who was he, an entirely artificial human form, inspired by elements from many sources, to disapprove of a bit of creative enhancement? He’d taken his cue from her in acquiring his own sunlit streaks.

She was deeply asleep again now, without dreams, but the
temptation
to intervene once more was vivid. His penis was hard, stiff and aching, although the sensation was deliciously pleasant, despite the discomfort. Her body was smooth and warm beneath her untidy T-shirt and panties, and the odour of her sex teased his senses and reinforced them.