I awoke to a light shining directly in my eyes as someone pried the lids open. I grumble-moaned my displeasure.

“Relax,” Vair’s voice soothed in my ear. “Let us have a look, darling.” I felt his arms around me. They felt so good, so comforting as they held my dead weight upright in his lap.

I was dreaming. And I didn’t want to interrupt what I already sensed was going to be a pleasant dream about Vair.

Even in my dream state, I felt drugged—unnaturally exhausted—making it easier to do as he’d asked and relax into his embrace despite the blinding light presently in my eyes. I reveled in the masculine scent of him, in the sensation of his full lips pressing against my temple and his warm fingers gently stroking the side of my head.

My eyelids were released and the light extinguished. It occurred to me that someone other than Vair had been holding them open. He was talking in that foreign language of his again. And not to me, I deduced when a female voice responded in kind.

Cool, feminine fingers palpated the glands on either side of my neck next, and an irrational sense of jealousy washed over me when Vair laughed softly at whatever the woman who spoke his language had said.

“No,” I murmured. “Not funny.” I wasn’t sure why. And my words came out slurred. Garbled.

They both laughed this time.

“Agreed,” Vair said. “It’s not at all funny how you make me worry. Never mind the way you disregard your liver.”

He was chastising me. But any sense of indignation I might’ve felt was forgotten as he hugged me tighter against the warm, solid mass of his chest.

Because in that moment, he felt safe. Normal. Better than normal. Nearly human.

And in my dream, I believed him. I believed Vair truly was concerned with my well-being. And it felt… nice. So nice that I didn’t object when a glass was pressed to my lips and Vair told me to drink.

I swallowed all of the strange-tasting, sweet liquid as he stroked my hair and made promises that I was safe with him, that he would never do anything to harm me.

After a while, I got the sense that we were alone. I didn’t open my eyes, though. I was too afraid that the dream would vanish and I’d wake up.

My brain felt more lucid after the drink he’d given me, my tongue certainly more adroit as I mumbled in response that I would never harm him either, and assured him that he was also safe with me… if he turned over all copies of that video footage he was blackmailing me with.

My declaration was met with a barely suppressed shout of laughter. I felt his body quake beneath me.

“Clever, delicious little minx,” he half-chuckled, half-growled against my neck.

My equilibrium shifted and I found myself flat on my back, trapped beneath him. His weight settled between my legs.

My nipples instantly tightened.

I moaned as his lips brushed mine, his tongue flicking out to tease me as the hard length of his erection did the same, grinding into the soft, pulsating notch between my thighs.

In my dream, I lacked the arm muscle strength and coordination to reach up and pull his head down to me. But I wanted him to kiss me. Really kiss me.

So badly.

Who was I kidding? I wanted him to fuck me. Consume me.

I told him so.

He groaned and told me to “shut the fuck up.” It sounded so out of calm, collected alien character for him that I giggled. And then he shut me up with his hard, insistent mouth.

The sensation of his tongue thrusting between my lips to stroke my own was torture, especially coupled with the masculine grunts of arousal that reverberated to the back of my throat as he ground his massive cock where I wanted him most.

Torture of the best kind.

“I should fuck you,” he managed between kisses. He sounded angry.

I liked it.

My inner muscles squeezed in anticipation. My pajama bottoms were already soaked.

“Until you can’t”—he thrust his pelvis against me just right—“fucking walk.”

“Who’s stopping you?” I gasped out.

He growled and rotated his pelvis hard into me once more.

Then twice. And by the third time—

Oh, God…

I was on the brink of orgasm when he stopped, released my mouth, and abruptly pulled his delicious weight from me.

My hands that had been too weak to lift a moment ago were somehow gripping his T-shirt in an effort to halt his retreat. I made a wounded sound that didn’t even sound human as his panted breaths fanned my forehead.

“Don’t want you to go.” My voice emerged shaky. I sounded so forlorn. Lost. So… needy.

So god-awful!

I opened my eyes to end this dream-turned-sudden-nightmare and found Vair’s hungry gaze studying me through the darkness surrounding us—a pained, vulnerable expression on his face that somehow mirrored my own tortured emotions.

I couldn’t decide if I should take comfort in that or feel worse about it.

His irises were so black they were nearly the same shade as his pupils, making him look scary. And yet hot.

Creepy otherworldly.

Still hot.

But most of all, he looked real. Very real. Felt real. Smelled real.

“I’m dreaming.” Please say yes. Please say yes. “This is a dream.”

He simply stared. Didn’t answer. Eventually, he told me to close my eyes.

I did.

His lips brushed my forehead. He told me he had to leave so I could finish dreaming—neither confirming nor negating whether I was, in fact, dreaming at present.

I was still clutching his T-shirt. He told me to let go, joking that even aliens needed rest on occasion.

“I promise you, I don’t want to leave you. But you need your rest now.”

He told me he hoped I was brave enough to come to his club that evening. Way to throw down the gauntlet. His implication that I had a choice in the matter was as odd as my feelings and behavior toward him in that moment, further corroborating that I had to be dreaming.

I felt him gently removing my fingers from his shoulders.

He told me he would stay until I fell asleep. I told him I was asleep.

The last thing I remembered was letting him know that he was wrong.

I didn’t have an intimacy problem.