Dream Lover

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Foreword

  Introduction

  LOVE RESURRECTION

  DREAMING BY THE SEA

  DEVIL’S FOOD

  RAINMAKER

  SHATTERED BELLE

  LIVING OFF LOVERS

  WHERE THE HEART IS

  FREEING THE DEMON

  OLD-FASHIONED GLAMOUR

  MOONGIRL MEETS THE WOLF MAN

  VANILLA

  FOR HUMANS, LOVE’S ALL ABOUT WEIGHT

  SUCCUBUS COMES HOME

  FOLLY

  LUST AS OLD AS US

  THE EYE OF PEARL

  THIEF OF DREAMS

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  ABOUT THE EDITOR

  Copyright Page

  FOREWORD

  Megan Hart

  Fantasy.

  It’s what sex is all about, isn’t it? The interest in a stranger’s glance. A wink from across the room, the shift of thighs casually touching on a subway train, a carefully orchestrated nudge in a crowd, an overheard conversation in a room that was supposed to be empty. Anything can become part of a fantasy. Snippets of dialogue, a scent, a certain sensation, a position, an article of clothing, a song, a sound, the twist of a smile or the way a curtain blows—there’s no restriction on what can trigger a sexual fantasy except the limitless confines of our imaginations.

  Sexual fantasy can be a simple, single scenario, or it can be a complex mental drama complete with scene changes, costumes and a musical score. It can be varied, ever shifting and different each time, dependent on our whims and moods. Sexual fantasy can be reliable, something we turn to time after time when we need a little boost—a helping hand, so to speak. It can be based on reality or memory, or it can be fabricated wholly from bits and pieces of everything we’ve experienced, woven into entirely new scenarios. Sexual fantasy can be deliberate or unconscious—the small mental “mmm” we make at the sight of something that arouses us might not even register as a fantasy…until later when we find our imaginations returning to the image or situation that prompted that arousal. And, with statistics on the frequency of sexual fantasy in men and women ranging anywhere from every seven to fifty-two seconds, to once a day or once a month, it’s clear that sexual fantasy is as intricate and complicated and inexplicable as we all are as individuals.

  It can be exciting and erotic to imagine making love to that hot construction worker we pass on the way to work or having a break-time quickie with a coworker, and maybe part of what makes those fantasies so sexy is that no matter how outrageous or unlikely they might seem, they are still possible. We might never act on them; we might be appalled if that sexy construction guy does more than whistle at us as we pass (or more appalled if he doesn’t) but the fact remains that the potential is there. It could happen.

  Fantasy is all about potential.

  It’s also about freedom. Fantasizing allows us to give ourselves up to something different from what is right there in front of us. In fantasy we can find something we crave, something we remember but have lost, even what we might fear or avoid in real life if it were put in front of us. We can save someone’s life—or be saved; climb a mountain, win a race, never lack for money, luck, or desire. In our fantasies we can play any role we like or simply sit back and observe the roles played by others. We can do and say things we’d never do in our real lives. We can do whatever we want without fear of repercussion or consequence.

  In fantasies, we’re safe.

  And what better way to elaborate on our fantasies than with the help of a great story? The right words on the page can paint ornate pictures in our minds or simply draw the outlines, leaving us to fill in all the details. Great fiction can be the springboard to hours of passing pleasure, both in the time we take reading the stories and later, how we use those stories to fuel our private imaginings. Those of us who love romance (and let’s face it, if you’ve picked up this collection, you’re one of “us”) know the delight of falling in love through the fictional lives of others, and readers of erotic romance have discovered the added thrill of those vicarious encounters that can certainly serve to enhance our fantasies…and our real lives, too!

  But what about the sorts of fantasies that take us to places just a little darker? There’s a reason why vampires, demons, shifters, ghosts, weres, and other denizens of the night have become such popular paramours for those of us who like our love and lust with a little bite. If sexual fantasy is freedom and safety, allowing us to explore within the privacy of our imaginations situations and partners we don’t experience in real life, paranormal fantasy takes such exploration to a whole other level. No longer constrained by something as simple as time, space, or even the necessity of a heartbeat, paranormal lovers take us to places the real world denies us.

  Darker fantasies bend the boundaries of reality. They blur the edges. There’s no ignoring the man behind the curtain here—paranormal fantasies are the curtain. If fantasy is already giving us that little bit of distance from the real world, paranormal fantasies push us just a little further. All at once it’s no longer about potential or freedom or safety, because paranormal romance isn’t about being safe; it’s just the opposite. What could be more dangerous than making yourself vulnerable to a lover who feeds on your blood, who could kill you with a single bite, who’s come back from the dead…one who could change you from what you are into something you should rightly fear?

  Paranormal romance takes the monster out from under the bed and puts him right there next to us on the pillow—and we love it.

  This collection of short, paranormal erotic romances takes the best of things that go bump in the night and puts them in stories that range from achingly romantic reunions to scorching encounters of the sexy kind. Whether you love the whimsy of magical fantasy, a modern-day fairy tale, the recreation of a favorite myth, or a nontraditional ghost story, Dream Lover provides a little something for every taste. Spirits, demons (or are they angels?), witches, merfolk, and more take us away to worlds that might look like ours on the surface, but most definitely are not. Haunted people and haunted places abound. Here you’ll find lovers with rapacious appetites who make love like they’re devouring one another; some have been torn apart by the same magic that later brings them back together, others find one another across not just distance, but time itself. In short, Dream Lover is a feast for those of us who hunger for great stories full of sex and romance, along with the strange and unusual.

  So, dear reader, snuggle up with this collection in your favorite spot and get ready to lose a few hours to delicious fantasy. Oh... and you really don’t need to leave all those lights on. After all, as these stories show you, sometimes love is better in the dark.

  Megan Hart

  INTRODUCTION: ALL I HAVE TO DO IS DREAM

  Who is your dream lover? Who creeps into your fantasies when the sun slips down past the horizon and the night takes over? Who makes you shiver with both desire and anticipation? Who do you dream about?

  My dream lover is Stephen King. His writing taps into my desire for stories that explore the possibilities beyond my dayto-day existence. His stories have taken me, sometimes unwillingly, into the darkest recesses of his incredible mind. There, in that shadowy place between reality and fantasy, I found my soul mate in the writer who could weave a story so real, so believable, I had to sleep with the lights on. King is my dream lover because he has gone where other lovers have never gone and he has taken me along for the ride. Who does that for you?

  I have been crushing on Mr. King since I was thirteen years old, but my desire to write horror gave way to other genres that enticed me more—genres like romance and erotica that go for the heart and erogenous zones instead of the jugular. I can climb betwe
en the sheets with King’s monsters, but they won’t love me in a way I want to be loved—and I like to read and write about love, even if it’s obsessive, dangerous love—even if it has claws and fangs. Those supernatural bad boys—the ones who can get into my head and discover my darkest desires—are the ones I crave late at night when the world sleeps and I’m alone with my fantasies.

  Dream Lover is not a horror collection, though some of the monsters that lurk between these covers might seem a little scary until you get up close and personal. Succubi, fairies, demons, shape shifters of every stripe, even the occasional ghost flits through the ether to reach out and touch you…and love you. Some will do it with a wink and a smile, others will make you beg for what you need before granting your desires. Every one will be the stuff of dreams; dark dreams, to be sure, but aren’t those the best kind? The ones that cling to your skin when you wake up, the ones that make you believe that anything…anything…is possible.

  Ericka Hiatt is an exciting new voice in erotic romance. Her story “The Eye of Pearl” captured the spirit of what I wanted for Dream Lover—women who give as good as they get, whether they are human, supernatural, or somewhere in between:

  “He caught her wrists, pinned her down, moved his weight over her, not sparing her his strength as he took her. She looked up into his eyes with ferocity, daring him to it, every inch as strong as he, every bit as much a warrior.”

  These are the kinds of stories you will find in this anthology: tales of desire that know no earthly bounds and defy the rules of life, death, and even gravity. I invite you to discover the otherworldly side of love and passion. Find your dream lover among these tantalizing stories, the lover who will take you where you’ve never gone before. I promise you’ll be glad you took the ride. As Justine Elyot’s ghostly poet Lucien says in “Love Resurrection”: “Everything good in life leads to madness.” This collection of wicked dream lovers invokes the sweetest kind of madness.

  Kristina Lloyd will give you delicious shivers with her dark tale of obsession and possession, “Living Off Lovers.” You will chuckle at Shanna Germain’s talking frog and squirm over her sexy fairy in her delicious “Devil’s Food.” And A. D. R. Forte creates so much sexual tension in the atmospheric “Rainmaker” that you may find yourself longing for a rainstorm to quench your own thirst. Each story in this collection was lovingly chosen not only for how it made me feel, but how it stayed with me hours, days, weeks after I read it. I hope these stories will stay with you, as well.

  Thanks to Brenda Knight and my fabulous team at Cleis Press who shared my vision for a collection of paranormal erotic romance. Thanks also to my husband, Jay, for sharing his life with a woman who lives as much in her own head as she does in the real world, if not more. And thanks to you, the reader, for allowing me the opportunity to entice you to the supernatural side of love and desire. This book wouldn’t be possible if not for the people on both sides of the page who have supported me. My fondest wish is that these stories will inspire your own wicked dreams.

  Finally, I owe tremendous gratitude for my love of all things otherworldly to Stephen King. Thank you, Mr. King, for thirty years of inspiration. You haunt my dreams in the best possible way.

  Kristina Wright

  The dark woods of Virginia

  LOVE RESURRECTION

  Justine Elyot

  She knows the way it starts, and she knows the way it will end. Only the intervals between the first soft hiss by the bedroom curtains and the final valiant ungluing of Freya’s eyelids ever offer anything in the way of variation.

  First, her book will slide out of her hand and the curling fog of sleep will claim the outer fringes of her consciousness.

  Next, the room will darken and her limbs will lose mobility, sinking into the mattress in fixed positions.

  There will be a fluttering by the curtains, which aren’t the fluttery type—heavily lined brocade with gold embroidery—and then a sound, a continuous gentle exhalation, like the escape of air from a child’s inflatable toy. But it gets louder, and Freya’s limbs are made of lead, and her eyes can see shapes but no definition, and then there is something there.

  She wants to cry out, “Who are you? What are you?” but her lips are frozen speechless. That might be the end of it, on a good night, but more often there will be sensations, as if her body is being flung hither and thither. One night, the mattress lurched her statue-body to the right, as if someone had sat down beside her. One night, the rushing, hissing breath came right up to her ear, and she felt its urgent heat. She waited for words, but none came. Every time, she waits for some concrete statement of intent, and every time she is frustrated, left to battle for the return of her waking perception, when the room goes back to normal. Whatever normal is.

  Nothing is normal in my life she thinks fretfully, waiting for Him—she knows it is Him—to come to her again. She came here to be closer to Him, so why should she be dismayed when it seems to be working?

  Speak to me, Lucien, she appeals, without saying the words, to the shadows thrown by the curtains. Speak to me, lover.

  The sound is like the roar of millions of crickets now, all around the bed, pressing into her ears and her face and her skin. She is surrounded by a presence so intense it is almost tangible. She thinks of that medieval punishment, Pressing to Death, and feels she might have an idea how that would be: the weights on chest and belly, the forceful downward pressure, the fear and the helplessness. Only the pain is absent, but perhaps that will come later.

  If Freya could move, she would pivot sharply at the waist and sit bolt upright at the sudden sensation of lips brushing her ear. Warmth circulates around the lobe and then the slight dampness of human breath settles like dew on the flesh.

  Words, I need words. Speak to me.

  But no words come. Instead, her body blooms into a state she has not experienced for some time—a state of sexual receptiveness. Her nipples stiffen beneath the flimsy nightdress and she wonders if she is blushing. She has a strong urge to grab the bedspread she kicked off in the remains of the summer evening humidity and pull it over her for protection, but she cannot. She knows that there are eyes upon her, devouring her long white legs, naked where her nightdress has rucked up while she tossed and turned over her late-night reading. If they follow the line of those sweat-sheened thighs, they will come to her unprotected sex, which now fattens and grows wetter under the phantom gaze, ready for it, offering itself to it. Oh, god, is this what you wanted all along? Is this what I am here for?

  A lingering vapor settles over her breasts and belly, extending downward, tingling along the line from her navel to her pubic triangle and then diving closer, to fit itself between her sex lips, enjoying the answering moistness it finds there. Can a presence, a vapor, express enjoyment? It really seems to do so, reveling in the prepared state of Freya’s most intimate places. She feels an insidious rubbing, something softer than fingers but drier than a tongue, curling around her clitoris and teasing it with an expertise that is entirely new to her.

  This is weird, this is bad, this is… But Freya cannot articulate thought anymore, not with this divine, forbidden rush charging around inside her.

  Her lips cannot frame words, but when the surge of orgasm breaks through the walls of her reserve, her mind cries, Lucien, Lucien, Lucien.

  “Sleep well, madam?” asked the receptionist politely as Freya crossed the marble-floored lobby to the breakfast room.

  “Fine…thanks.” Freya was distracted, forgetting to engage in her usual mental rant about the insulting inappropriateness of turning Lucien Mountfitchet’s ancestral home into a tourist trap. Not even a Blue Plaque, for heavens sake, when the whole place should be a museum, hallowed to the memory of the great poet.

  But then—she sipped at orange juice, nodded when the waiter hovered beside her with a coffee pot—nobody else appreciates his genius. He is a victim of fashion. Lucien Mountfitchet was considered by the academic establishment to be a minor Victorian poet, ra
ther a novelty, more celebrated, like de Sade, for his shock value than his writing. Freya had been trying to stage a revival of his fortunes for more than a decade, ever since she happened across a copy of his epic poem Lysistrata Avenged in a secondhand bookshop.

  “I can’t understand his obscurity,” she had raged at her friends. “He’s sexier than Byron, angstier than Keats, kinkier than Swinburne. He didn’t get published much in his lifetime because he antagonized so many people, but now—I don’t know what’s holding us back. He is…zeitgeisty. Don’t you think? And his life would make such a brilliant movie. Just…think about it.”

  Her friends were editorial assistants and film students, so she was hoping her pleas would fall on some fertile ground, but they laughed politely, promised to read a few of his poems and promptly forgot all about it. She had managed to snag some funding for research, though, and this was what she was spending on an extended stay at Hatton Stacey, the former pile of the Mountfitchets, now tragically reduced to its current commercial purpose.

  So what was that last night? Freya found herself unable to face digestion of anything other than liquids. She had a high, airy feeling at the top of her lungs that reminded her of the one and only time she had been in love, all those years ago. It was Lucien, it had to be. She had booked that room—his room—deliberately, in the hope that some trace of his spirit would reveal itself to her, and it was certainly answering the call. The first lines of one of his schoolboy poems, “Uncorseted,” wandered into her mind: Athena had no need of stays/ No, nor Aphrodite laces/ Coy mistresses must give their way/ To bawdy girls with brazen faces. A slut’s charter, she had called it in her sketched-out introduction to the book she meant to write. Lucien loved bold girls, fast girls, girls who enjoyed sex and made no bones about it. Was she such a girl? If she was, Lucien had made her so, for she had had the reputation of ice maiden at university and beyond. He had come to her and…touched her, in a way she had never been touched. She had offered no resistance. She had welcomed him, encouraged him. He had chosen her for a lover.