He freezes. My stalker and his shadow stop touching my body, and I almost tell them to disregard what I said and keep going. But I don’t want to have to call him the Faceless Man, not when he’s eating me like I’m his last meal.
“What’s your name? What are you?” I breathe out, my throat beginning to tingle from my screams.
God, Lili, it’s a dream. How the hell would he tell you his name?
“I want you to figure out what I am.” He kisses the inside of my thigh. “But the only word I want you screaming is my name: Letum.”
I bite my tongue because moaning his name is going to be a mouthful. What sort of name is that? Roman? What does it even mean? How did my mind conjure such an ancient-sounding name?
“Okay, Letum.”
He snarls and dives back to fucking me with his fingers and licking me like he might find religion somewhere inside me. A shadowed hand fists my hair and pulls me up onto my elbows so that I can watch his ruthless movements. Letum’s hood angles upwards, as if he’s watching me too, and he’s waiting for me to come undone.
I gaze up at the shadow, and just make out the faintest outline of eyes boring down on me, as if committing the sight to memory. Is the shadow just his soul? What exactly is it—he? I don’t know.
Letum’s hand grips my thigh with his free hand hard enough to leave an imprint on my skin that will bruise come morning, and his shadowed one reaches for my face, tracing my lips like he’s trying to capture my moans with his touch so that he can write about it in a letter. The move is so intimate, making my heart squeeze.
“Sing for me, my love,” he whispers against my skin as he curls his fingers and hits the part of me that I forgot existed.
I scream his name out like a curse, and buck my hips. Unbridled ecstasy rips through every inch of me. He continues with his feast, sucking and licking until there is nothing left for me to give him, my body and mind going limp with the pleasure I have been starved of.
“Oh, my love,” he mumbles against the inside of my thigh, grazing his lips along the soft skin before biting down, leaving small marks along my skin. “Oh, my night monster. You are a dream. Nothing could compare to the taste of you.”
Heat flushes my cheeks at the compliment. I have never felt so satisfied. For the first time since the accident, the tension in my body subsides and muscles relax, like I can finally breathe and not feel the weight of everything that’s gone wrong.
I watch with curiosity as the shadow moves behind me, pulling me upright and digging its cool fingers into my shoulders,working out the knots.
Letum rises to his feet and places his hands on the bed on either side of me, caging me in between him and the shadow. His hips are in between my legs and it would be so easy to give into the fantasy and feel one of the many things that have been hidden from me. I drop my gaze down to his bulge that is straining against his pants like it is begging to be free. I don’t need to let it out of its cage to know that the stretch will sting.
“Use your words,” he says, noticing my stare. I reach for the hem of his pants, only for my wrists to be caught in his iron grip. “Your words.” He takes my chin and lifts it up to darkness beneath the hood. “Your voice is an aphrodisiac, my Lilith. You should use it more often.”
I swallow the lump in my throat and wet my bottom lip. The shadow’s massage halts for a moment, as if I’ve done something to bother it. Then it moves closer, pressing against my back as if it were completely solid.
I look down at his chest, then at his bulge, then slowly make my way back up to his concealed face, taking my time to relish every inch of his body. The pulsing between my legs springs back to life with new vigor. “May I?”
A low chuckle resonates through the forest, and he fulfills another one of my fantasies: He makes a necklace out of his hands by wrapping his fingers around my throat, only he doesn’t squeeze. The veins in his arms move and pulse under the candle light. I let myself give into temptation and skim the masculine ridges of his forearms, making his hold around my neck tighten.
The shadow shifts its large hands to knead my breast and send more heat to my core. The shadow’s hand practically covers my whole chest, making me feel small and—dare I say it—dainty.
“Lilith. My sweet night monster. I told you that I would taste you. I told you that you would be screaming my name.” I swear I can hear the grin on his face in his words “I did not say that I would fuck you.”
Embarrassment turns my blood cold. I’ve been a dark cloud since the accident and have done practically nothing to be appealing or even feel sexy. Even the Faceless Man in my dream doesn’t want me. Evan doesn’t, so why should Letum—if that’s even his actual name—find me attractive with all my scars.
He presses his soft lips to mine, and the smell of morning dew and a summer’s breeze wafts over me, dissolving my doubts. His warm breath fans the shell of my ear as he says, “I have longed for the taste of you, and now that I have it, I will never know another. When I fuck you, there won’t be any candles. It won’t be in a dream. When I claim you, it will be on my terms. But it will not be tonight.”
I let a whimper escape my lips, after being left high and dry. He can’t seriously just leave me a wet and needy mess and deny me the simple pleasure of a second orgasm, especially when my raw nipples are still getting the shadow’s undivided attention.
Letum taps his symbol that is hanging around my neck. “You were made to wear me.”
“Please,” I whisper, grinding my hips into the bed to reach another release.
“Please?”
He’s taunting me, I know he is. He wants me to become completely his, just so that I can give him all of me while he gives me nothing in return. But this is just a dream. He’s not real. I remind myself.
“Please,” I beg, “Letum.”
He growls in approval as the shadows’ attention to my breasts becomes rougher and more hungry. I’m too distracted by the shadow to notice that Letum moved his hand until he pressed a heavy thumb right on my clit, sending electric fire straight to my core.
“Go on.”
He wants me to say it, to voice my needs. That’s the opposite of what has always happened between me and the Faceless Man. I don’t voice the troubles on my mind to anyone other than Dr. Mallory. Even then, I don’t tell her about my issues with getting food into my cupboard or paying for things. Letum has known exactly what I need without me having to say it. Whether it’s to hear that I look beautiful, or just to know that someone recognizes my pain.
“Please, Letum. I want to come again,” I beg, voice low and meek.
He does nothing for a moment, then he finally leans in and kisses me. It isn’t hungry or demanding, isn’t filled with lust or need. The kiss is one of silent understanding and mutual connection, but also like he’s proud of me.
Then he pulls away. Before I can blink, I’m thrown onto my hands and knees. Just as before, the shadow stays behind me. Except this time, a thick finger slides through my wet heat, then pushes into me.
I throw my head back and groan, my eyes automatically rolling to the back of my head. The Faceless Man takes the opening as a chance to grip my hair to force me to look up at him.
One of the shadow’s fingers is bigger than two of Letum’s. I grind my hips, drawing pleasure from the shadow as his finger slams into me. What does it say about me that the thought of being finger fucked by a shadow that has no real features other than a silhouette is the hottest thing I could ever think of? I want it to be Letum’s cock that I’m riding, but my god, the fact that the shadow is near invisible is doing more to me than it should.