Fifty Degrees of Shade - The Billionaire's Badass Mate - On hold for a bit!

9. I Never Touch Myself ... Like That

In the morning I wake from one of those intense morning dreams, heart racing. The dream involved something about golden eyes and priceless stained-glass windows in a mountaintop palace.

The hazy clouds of memory part, and I remember.

I was being chased by a predator, up up up thousands of stone steps, struggling with layers of fabric in a heavy medieval gown that smelled like old sweat. Though my pursuer was still a way off, I could practically feel his breath as a torrent of heat at my neck.

I burst into a circular room at the top of the tower, head whipping back and forth as I searched for an escape route, but the entire room was surrounded by elaborate twenty-foot stained-glass windows. The light streaking through created a garden of color on the white marble floors.

There was nowhere to go.

I was trapped.

The footsteps in the stairwell grew closer and more frenzied.

For a moment I left my body and became an observer.

Damn! I looked hot in that medieval gown. And my hair was amazing in a tiara. I totally rocked the damsel in distress look.

Maybe I need to buy a crown when I wake up. And not one of those cheap Halloween jobs. I'm talking emeralds, diamonds, rubies, maybe a nice ermine trim. Wonder what they cost on eBay?

I dropped back into my body just as a golden-eyed wolf leaped into the room. I smiled at him before pulling up my skirts and throwing myself at the windows. The glass splintered into a million shards and fell in an iridescent cascade toward the snow; my body followed, the wind whooshing at my skirts, whipping them above my head like a parachute, slowing my fall. I woke before crashing into the glass-littered snow.

What an imagination!

Not only did I have this random dream, but there's also a mysterious wet spot on the bed.

I hate mysteries AND wet spots AND having rando dreams with absolutely no metaphorical significance.

There's a knock at the door. "Ani, you alive in there?"

"Of course, I am. Why wouldn't I be?" I rasp. My voice sounds like I've been screaming out a lover's name or something. Yet another conundrum.

The door bangs open, and Clarry barges in. She's smirking. It really isn't a good look for her in those SpongeBob pajamas. She looks deranged. "Don't you remember?"

"Remember what?" I say, my stomach twisting. Had I forgotten something? With all the mysteries, it is possible.

"Last night. Your ... outcry?"

That's when the whole sex dream memory crashes down on me like a shower with over-enthusiastic water pressure.

Did I really beg Crispin to finish me with his long skilled fingers?

Did I really try to finish myself with my ordinary-length fingers?

Did I really call him 'sir?'

I blush. I flush.

I have a reputation to maintain.

Or lose.

Vowing never to eat day-old oysters again, I pull the covers up to my chin. My internal goddess has skulked off to wherever internal goddesses go after a realistic sex dream. Probably to buy cigarettes or take a cold shower. Honestly, I don't want to show myself in public again. I am an innocent college graduate, not a sex-crazed harridan.

I never touch myself ... like that.

And I most certainly do not have random sex with nocturnal visitors. I have normal dreams that involve giant wolves, smelly costumes, and expensive tiaras.