Company of Angels 02 - The Demoness of Waking Dreams

like this, didn’t you?” she taunted, fingering a silk ribbon on her garter belt. “Isn’t this what you went searching for? This is what you wanted to find.”
    “I’m not after your body,” he said. “I’m only here for one reason. To collect you on behalf of the Company.”
    “So you keep insisting. But that won’t fly. Not here, in your dreams. You’re tempted, aren’t you? And there’s only one way you’re going to scratch that itch. You know what Oscar Wilde said, don’t you? The best way to beat temptation is to succumb to it.” She laughed. Then she cooed, “Besides, it’s just a dream. That’s all it is.”
    Was it? His mind reached for the truth, unable to grasp it. He reached for the watch in his pocket and touched it again, just to make sure of what he already knew.
    I am dreaming.
    “La Lucciola,” he said. “They said that was your nickname.”
    She laughed. “I should slap you for calling me that. Do you know what it means? It’s the word for ‘firefly.’ Italians use it to refer to a common whore. Because streetwalkers light up the night, just like those small, bright insects.”
    “They told me…” He swallowed. “Carlotta told me—”
    “So you met her. You believed what that old prostitute told you?” She laughed. “You angels are a gullible sort. And so horny, all of you. When was the last time you had sex? Real sex, I mean.” She ran her finger down the curve of her breast, drawing his eye there.
    He swallowed and saw her watch the movement.
    She pulled him toward the bed. “Come with me.”
    “Your body is sacred,” he said, shaking his head. “You need to treat it as such. I’m not one of your customers.”
    “My body hasn’t been sacred for two hundred and twenty years. It may be a physical body, but it isn’t human.”
    “It’s still part of the divine,” he said. He knew there was nothing wrong with sex. On the contrary. But sex without spiritual connection, even a fleeting one…
    Even in his dreams, he knew better than to go there.
    “It’s just a dream. That’s all it is,” she cooed. “If you want a connection, I can give you that. Let me teach you some words in Italian. To speak my language, you must make your mouth very sweet. Watch me,” she said, as if he could tear his eyes away from the movement of her lips, the suggestive and subtle flick of her tongue as she skimmed the tip of it across her upper lip, taunting. “ Ti amo . That means I love you. Is that what you want to hear?”
    “Don’t invoke the concept of love. You don’t even know me,” he growled.
    But in his pants, his cock stirred, rising to harden.
    “Perhaps not. But I know that, ” she said, addressing his erection. “And it is just like every other of its kind on the planet, angel or otherwise.”
    His mind was scrambled in a thousand different directions, trying to decipher what was allowed and what was not. What he could and could not do.
    “What is it you really want? Don’t be afraid of your desires. It’s just a dream. ”
    Draping herself along a velvet chaise longue in deep burgundy, she reclined, allowing her legs to part. Fingered the edge of the bra, allowing her nipple to peek out its lace edge. She reached for his hand, drawing it to her breast, his fingers and hers coaxing the heavy globe out of the fabric. The nipple hardened beneath his touch. He flicked it with his thumb, teasing.
    “That’s right. Give in to your desires. You’ve been pent up for so long. I know you have.”
    No one could have told her that, but it was a good guess.
    The right guess , he thought.
    Unable to resist her, he sank to the floor before her, his knees cushioned by the thick carpet. Between her spread legs he bent, running his hands up her pale thighs. Inhaled the scent of her, musky and dark, calling to him. He kissed the inside of her thigh, brushed his lips against the soft skin there, and heard her moan in response. She touched his head, running her fingertips over the coarse stubble on his face while he explored the smooth skin of her inner thigh.
    He felt her fingers skim over his broad, muscled back.
    “Il mio angelo,” she whispered. He felt her fingers brush over the tattoo of the angel, tracing over the dark gray lines, the pattern of the wings on his back as he touched her sex through the silk of her panties. Her fingers sprawled over the sinews of his back as she undulated, his arms hooked around her legs, holding her thighs open.
    Gently