For the Life of Us

Luke shivered with cold as he felt a warm hand caressing his cheek.

How had he ended up on the freezing stone floor of his cell?

Where was his plank bed?

A woman half knelt, half sat next to him.

She pulled a blanket over his body.

He smiled in recognition.

Today was one of those nights that made life in prison bearable.

The ones where he dreamed of Marianne.

She’d come to him, and then she’d take him flying, somewhere, anywhere warm and comfortable.

He looked up.

She smiled back at him; her face glowed in the faint light coming from a window.

Above her, the ceiling of the cell had already given way to the black sky sprinkled with stars.

He reached for the hand that was stroking his cheek.

“Luke,” she said, her voice so soft, so inviting.

He held his breath, couldn’t speak, didn’t need to speak in these dreams.

She didn’t pull away.

The cell morphed into a balcony.

He pushed himself up until their faces were at the same level.

As always in these dreams, he was afraid she’d vanish - that one movement, one wrong turn would frighten her, make her disappear.

He reached out to touch her.

She wore a silky wrapper over her nightgown; the fabric was smooth under his hands, and her skin, her skin felt heavenly under his calloused fingers: warm and soft and real.

She hadn’t moved, but now she was inching closer, until her face was hovering only inches from his.

He buried his hands in her hair, pulled her even closer, and when his lips met hers, he was lost.

The feeling was much more intense than usual in his dreams.

Heat replaced the cold he had felt only moments ago, driving the overwhelming need to be nearer and even nearer to her.

She took control, and he let her, answering her desperate kisses with desperation of his own.

They were on a balcony on the top floor of a mansion flat, but they wouldn’t be caught.

No one ever caught them in his dreams.

Soon, she sat on his lap, her arms draped around his body; had he pulled her there?

He was aware of everything and yet of nothing at all.

She was touching him.

His face, his neck, his shoulders, his back.

And it was alright, because her scent was in his nose, her delicate hands, her softness all around him, so much softer than he remembered.

She would never hurt him, and so he could lose himself to the feeling.

And he was touching her, feeling her, teasing her, provoking gasps and moans that made him lose any sense of restraint he still might have had.

He was impossibly hard.

Of course he was.

“Take me to bed, Luke,” she whispered between kisses, and he obliged without as much as a question, carrying her through the living room of her flat and into the bedroom.

His bedroom.

Since when did he have a bedroom in her flat?

It didn’t matter.

It also didn’t matter how his mind knew what her flat look like, to give him such a vivid image of it, one that perfectly suited her personality, with rows and rows of books on shelves around the whole living room, all of them aligned and assorted.

What mattered was that she was in his arms, holding onto his neck, and that her sweet lips were still connected with his, and that all he wanted was to be inside her and that she wanted the same.

And she did want the same, because as soon as her back touched the mattress she pulled him down next to her and fumbled with the fall of his trousers.

If this hadn’t been a dream he would have been more careful, slower, more considerate.

No, he wouldn’t do this at all.

She was off-limits, the one woman he could never have, even though she was the only one he desired.

But as things stood, she was there, and when he touched her core he found her hot and wet and ready for him, and he didn’t hesitate when she urged him on, pulled him in, wrapped herself around him.

He got lost in her, as he always did in those dreams.

And she held on to him as if her life depended on it, meeting each of his movements with one of her own, ever more frantic.

He was on the brink of going over the edge far too soon, and he tried to hold out a little longer, to concentrate on her pleasure over his, because he knew that as soon as he spent, he’d wake up and find himself in the cold loneliness of his cell, longing to go back to her, but unable to sleep.

Dreading the day as much as he dreaded the night, listening for footsteps in the dark.

But then she cried out and her body pulsated around him and he couldn’t hold back any longer, and feeling exploded around him.

The ecstasy was nothing like what his dreams had afforded him.

And he did not wake up.

Instead, there she was, lying under him, one of her hands still wrapped around his waist, the other one having ridden up his back to caress the scars, pushing away the shirt and undershirt he was still wearing.

There she was, her luscious body smelling of lavender and now of sweat and arousal, and herself, a scent his dreams could never replicate.

There he was, all spent and wary, resting on her, in her, his head heavy on her chest.

His mind finally free of racing thoughts, filled with nothing but her.

For once content.

At peace even.

And he didn’t wake up.

It dawned on him then.

If he didn’t wake up, he was not dreaming.

Which meant he had not been dreaming.

Which meant...

Fuck.

In less than twelve hours of freedom, he had messed up the one friendship he had left, the relationship with the one person that made him feel safe when everyone else put him on edge, and everything else felt like a threat.