How could he want to make love to her when he'd already spent hours lost in her body? Yet there was no denying the fire he felt. The urge he had to free himself from his pants and press her hot, wet body down on him.
"You okay?" she asked, looking at him over her shoulder.
He nodded, even though his groin burned like an inferno.
In the first picture, they were cheek to cheek. The second was with her cradled in his arms, and for the last one she leaned over and kissed his cheek at the very last minute.
Erin took the pictures from the photographer and frowned. "Oh, good Lord," she breathed. "I look like the boobie prize."
"Excuse me?"
Her eyes sad, she handed him the pictures. "You're so incredibly handsome and I'm just a plump, round, average-looking nothing."
V'Aidan felt as though she'd slapped him. "Erin," he said, his voice thick. "You are not nothing. You are the most beautiful person I have ever known."
She smiled weakly. "You're sweet."
V'Aidan stopped her and turned her to face him. "No, I'm not. Do you want to know what I see when I look at you?"
Erin swallowed, her gaze searching his face. "Sure."
V'Aidan handed her the pictures again.
Looking at them, Erin gasped at what she saw. Her mouse-brown hair glowed with golden highlights. Her face had a perfect peachy complexion and her dark brown eyes were bright and shiny. She looked breathtaking.
And it was so not her.
"This is what you see?" she asked V'Aidan.
He nodded, his face grim. "That is what you are to me."
Erin reached to hug him, but before she could, a weird buzzing sounded.
V'Aidan vanished instantly.
"No!" she groaned as she woke up to the sound of someone ringing her doorbell.
Disappointed to the point of violence, she got up and answered the door.
She blinked in disbelief. Chrissy stood on the other side.
"Hey," Chrissy said brightly. "Sorry to disturb you, but John wanted me to drop off more data for the report."
Trying really hard not to be snappish, Erin opened the door and took the disks from Chrissy's hand. "Thanks. Sorry you had to come all the way out here."
"No prob." Chrissy frowned at her. "Were you asleep again?"
Erin blushed. "Yes, I was."
"Are you sure you're okay?"
"Positive."
"Nightmares?"
"Completely gone."
"Oh," Chrissy said, her voice strangely flat. "Glad to hear it. So then, normal dreams?"
Erin frowned at how choppy and odd their conversation was. "Wonderful dreams, anyway."
Chrissy nodded. "Ah, well, that's good. I'll see you later, okay?"
"Thanks again," Erin said as she closed the door.
She leaned her head against the door and cursed. Who or what did she have to kill to have an uninterrupted day with V'Aidan?
Over the next few days, Erin began to fear even more for her sanity. Not because of her nightmares anymore but because she no longer wanted to be awake.
Every night V'Aidan would come to her. She took him dancing and showed him all kinds of places and things he'd never seen before.
Worse, she learned that he had some degree of control over when she fell asleep. He'd told her he could borrow mist from his Uncle Wink and, much like the Sandman, Wink's mist could induce sleep.
On Friday afternoon when she felt a severe wave of tiredness come over her, she knew what V'Aidan had done.
He was becoming more and more impatient with waiting for her to fall asleep, and in the back of her mind she wondered if one day he would pull her into his realm and not let her go.
When she opened her eyes, she found him lying beside her, his eyes burning her with their intensity.
"Are you angry with me?" he asked, tracing her cheek with his hand.
"I should be. I really wanted to watch that movie."
"I'm sorry," he said, but his face told her he didn't have a smidgen of remorse.
"No, you're not."
He smiled down at her. "No, I'm not, but I don't want you to be angry with me for it."
She laughed at him. "You're evil."
His playfulness died instantly. "Why do you say that?"
She frowned at the hurt look she didn't understand. "I was joking, V'Aidan."
His jaw ticced angrily under her hand. "I never want you to think I'm truly evil."
"How could I?"
V'Aidan dipped his lips to hers, tasting her, wanting to devour her. He needed her and the more he was with her, the worse it became. He'd never known anything sweeter than those lips. Nothing more precious than her small, heart-shaped face.
Erin was overwhelmed by the passion in his kisses. Each one seemed to be even more possessive than the last.
Then he moved his lips lower, over her breasts, where he paused to take his time savoring each mound. As he teased her, white rose petals fell from the sky, covering her.
Erin laughed. "What is this?"
"My gift to you," V'Aidan said. "I want to bathe you in roses."
"Why white?"
"Because, like you, they are pure and beautiful."
Then he kissed her lower, across her stomach, her hip, down her leg, and then up her inner thigh until he kissed her where she ached.
Erin moaned at the feel of his mouth against her, his tongue sweeping across her nub, then down to where she throbbed. He growled, the sound vibrating through her.
He seemed to delight in giving her pleasure first. He never took his own until she'd climaxed at least twice before him.
She shook in the throes of her first release. When she was finished, V'Aidan pulled back with a devilish grin that made him appear boyish. "I love the way you taste. The way you smell."
She smiled warmly at him. "I love being with you. I don't even want to wake up anymore. I just live moment to moment, wishing I were asleep and waiting until I can see you again."
A dark look crossed his features.
Had those words hurt him? She couldn't imagine how or why they would, and yet… "V'Aidan?"
He moved away from her and his black clothes immediately returned to cover his body.
"V'Aidan, what is it?"
V'Aidan didn't answer.
What he was doing was wrong, and not just because it was forbidden. He didn't care about rules.
What he cared about was Erin.
And every time he pulled her into his realm he was robbing her of the pleasures of her own world. Of her life.
This was wrong, and for the first time he understood exactly how wrong it was.
"V'Aidan!" the howling shout echoed through the trees surrounding them.
He knew that angry bellow. "You must leave," he said, sweeping a quick kiss across her lips.
"But—"
He gave her no time to argue before he sent her back to her world and rolled over onto his back to appear nonchalant.
She had barely vanished before M'Ordant appeared to stand over him. Dressed in the same black clothes, M'Ordant looked very similar to V'Aidan. Same black hair, same silvery-blue eyes. The only thing they differed in was height. V'Aidan stood a good four inches taller and he wore the look of a deadly predator.
M'Ordant looked like a person the humans called a Boy Scout.
"What are you doing?" M'Ordant asked.
"I am lying in the sun," V'Aidan said, placing his hands behind his head. "You?"
"Is that an attempt at humor?"
V'Aidan shrugged as he looked up at his brother. M'Ordant was one of the oldest of the Oneroi and was one of Morpheus's most favored sons. "If it were an attempt, it would be wasted on you, now wouldn't it?"
"More humor?"
V'Aidan sighed. "Why are you here?"
"I have heard distressing news about you."
"And to think I thought all news about me was distressing."