With hooded eyes, I look over at Jared as he grips his massive erection in his hand. I gulp, my eyes widening with shock and delight at his size. He smiles at my reaction.
Well, shit. Aurora wasn't lying.
As if she heard her name in my salacious thoughts, Aurora licks a path up from my breasts to my mouth. Feeling her small, soft tongue in my mouth, her warm lips working against mine and smelling her scent drives me absolutely mad. My hand knots in her long hair, while the fingers of my other hook inside her panties.
When she lifts her face from mine, completely overcome with ecstasy and whimpering, I see that Jared and Dorian have switched places once more. Dorian is beside me, wearing his usual wicked grin as he watches Aurora and I touch each other. Jared's long fingers are inside me, preparing me, while he spreads my legs wider. And just as his insanely large length begins stretch me open, Dorian grabs Aurora by the back of her head and crushes her mouth to his …
I thrash awake, gasping for air, nearly naked and disoriented. The fuck? Did I just … No. It was just a dream. A ridiculously freaky, tempting dream, but just a dream. Whew.
Where am I? I can't remember anything past … being on the dance floor? Shit. I look around me, taking in my surroundings. Dorian's bedroom. I'm in his bed, dressed only in boy shorts and a sheer cami, the slick satin cool against my slightly stinging back. I look up to see Dorian hovering over me sitting on his knees, his hands alight with cold, blue flames touching my bare stomach. His eyes rapidly meet mine, too quickly for any human.
"Better?" he asks. He's shirtless, wearing only low-hung jeans around the severe cut of his hips.
I mentally assess my sudden coherency. Moments before, I didn't even know how I had arrived here, indicating that I was too inebriated to make it here on my own. What happened back at the club? Oh crap crap crap. Did I make a fool out of myself? I obviously blacked out and Dorian took care of me. But when?
"Yes," I respond. And I do; somehow I feel absolutely fine. A bit shaken by the dream, but fine nonetheless.
"Good" he replies solemnly. Dorian removes his hands from my abdomen, closing them to extinguish the mystical flames and sits up. I steadily do the same.
He must have felt my arousal. He must've sensed I was dreaming about more than just his body on mine. Shit. Oh well, might as well face the music.
"Did you feel … ?" I whisper, more than a bit ashamed at my colorful imagination.
"Yes."
Crap. "You didn't … I mean, you didn't plant that dream, right?"
He shakes his head. "No, little girl. I didn't."
I furrow my brow. "If not you, than who? Aurora?"
The corner of Dorian's lips twitch in amusement. "No, Gabriella. That was you. That was all you."
Me? Oh hell no! I would never even think of having an orgy, let alone participate in one. I mean, Dorian and Jared at the same time is the fantasy to top all fantasies, but Aurora … No, that'll never happen.
"I thought you said the Dark couldn't heal," I say, hoping to steer the conversation onto something a little less sexually immoral.
"We can't. I simply absorbed the alcohol in your body."
So that's what he did for me that night after our tequila-filled fiesta. The question had been gnawing at me for a week. A week? That's all it's been? Only a week since I saw him, dreamt of him. Only a week since I willingly touched myself in hopes to entice him on the beach. The Dark King. Crap. Get outta my head! I'm like a horny teenager on Red Bull and Viagra!
"Thank you. I would have been no fun." My eyes grow wide with terror. "Please tell me I didn't do anything embarrassing. Oh God … I didn't get on the stage, did I?"
Dorian laughs, and the sound is music to my ears, despite my anxiety. "No, little girl. Though you did give everyone quite a show. Sure you weren't an exotic dancer in a past life?" he chuckles.
I smack him on the arm and feign offense, eventually giggling at my own expense. Yup, that sounds like me.
"Jared and I had quite the relentless task of warding off young defenseless suitors."
"Jared?" I respond too quickly.
"Yes. He cares for you deeply. Wouldn't let a guy get close enough to touch you the entire time."
The sentiment makes my heart swell. I told Aurora the truth; Jared will always have a place in my heart. "Dorian, I don't want him to get hurt in all this."
He gathers me into his arms, and rests my head on his chest, reclining back onto the pillows. "I know, little girl." I am all too aware he hasn't assured me that Jared won't get hurt; he's just told me he understands.
"You said my Dark is showing tonight," I say after a few contemplative moments. "What'd you mean by that?"
I feel Dorian smile against the crown of my head. "You are drawn to Dark elements- eroticism, alcoholism, aggression, masochism. It's who you are. It's what sustains you. But you are unlike any of us. You want it all. And you have the power to manipulate it all. You invoke them in me often."
What? Hell no! Dorian feels the tension building in my body and squeezes me a bit tighter to soothe me.
"But you draw from Light. The sun strengthens you. You're compassionate, loving, nurturing. You're a natural protector. You see the good in people even when they don't see it in themselves. Even when there's none to be found. You're good. And you make me want to be good too. For you."
I take a moment to digest Dorian's assessment of the anomaly that is me. So many things to him, yet I don't even know who I am. Am I good? I hurt the people closest to me, the people I love, whenever I lose control. Nurturing? Compassionate? I've never considered myself either of those things. I still don't have a tight grasp on who I truly am. I'm still Unknown, still Nobody. Because even with the discovery of my paranormal heritage and the prophecy of what I was meant to be, I'm just not there. I'm just regular old Gabs. The girl who was never good enough.
"Do you want me to align with the Dark?" I say to break the deafening silence.
"Part of me does. Yes."
"Why? If you hate what you are so much?"
"So we can be together." Dorian rests his hands on my shoulders, looking me in my bewildered hazel eyes. "And I don't hate what I am, Gabriella. I know what I am. I accept it. You just still have not accepted that the same darkness that lives in me also lives in you."
He's right. I refer to his darkness as something foreign, unlike me in every way. But I harbor the same Dark element. It's in me. But because it has been a part of who I was for the past twenty years, I never deemed it as alien. Maybe I was built to be Dark. I didn't fall in love with someone from the Light. I didn't build an unbreakable bond with that side of me. It was the Dark who accepted me, while the Light chose to forsake me. Maybe my destiny is to rule the Dark with my Dark Prince.
"Now, little girl, if you are feeling better, I believe we have a score to settle," Dorian says sitting upright.
"What are you talking about?" I turn to him, a question in my hazel eyes.
"I think you know exactly what I am talking about. I told you that you would regret that little stunt. And after tonight, you will think twice about playing games with me." Dorian licks his lips and the pink of his tongue causes my breath to hitch.
"What are you going to do?"
"I'm going to give you what you need. What you crave," he responds with dark hooded eyes. He bears his teeth and my heartbeat quickens in response. "And when you think that you can't take anymore, when your body trembles with the intense waves of pleasure, and you cry because ecstasy completely overwhelms you, I'm going to do it again. And again. Until you are blissfully ruined. Until the only thing you see when you close your eyes is me."
And without further explanation, Dorian does just that.
Chapter Fourteen
"Just give it to me straight. How bad was it?"
Morgan pulls at a lock of her now honey blonde hair and cringes at the memory. "Well … it wasn't horrible. I've seen worse. Shit, I've done worse!" she giggles. She abandons her hair-of-the-month and commences to stabbing her overdressed salad. "But it was pretty shocking. Even for you, Gabs."
Shit. I've really done it this time. It's late afternoon on Sunday, two days after Carlos's birthday celebration at Aria. Morgan and I both have the day off, a first since we moved in together, and made a promise to catch up and have some girl time.
"That bad, huh?" I say, trying to piece together the foggy memories of Friday night. "It just seems like a blur to me. What was the worst part?"
Morgan's eyes turn towards the sky and she chews her lip as if lost in silent deliberation. "Well, when you pulled Dorian on the dance floor and sang along to Bad Romance, I think even I was a bit uncomfortable. It was like GaGa gone wrong. Terribly wrong," she laughs.
Bad Romance? I sang to him? Oh no, no, no! "And then what? He got me out of there?" Oh, please say he saved me from further embarrassment. Singing is bad enough, but me trying to be sexy at the same time? That is just cruel and unusual punishment.
Morgan shrugs. "Actually, no. He thought your crazy ass was funny. Maybe he was even a bit endeared by the whole thing. But you had to leave before you were thrown out for fighting."