Oracle

Excerpt

London, England, One week ago

The end of the dream destroyed the possibility of more sleep for Alexander Sheridan; the stark simple image of a woman in white falling to her death in oil and fire yanked him upright in bed, the sheets pooled at his waist and his breathing harsh and rapid. The same dream, full of disjointed, racing, frantic images, came almost every night; but recently the woman in white perishing in fire stamped death as the final sequence with a singular air of finality.

"Alex?" The voice was soft, insistent, the touch of a warm hand on his arm gentle and settling. "Lie down."

Alex knew Edward was all too used to these nightmares; his lover soothed him as he always did, with touches and soft words, pulling Alex's hard body down close to his own. Edward didn't hold tight. Alex's skin became so sensitive to touch that intense physical contact was always too much at first. His barriers were forever low when he hovered in the half-sleep ripped in two by images Alex couldn't even begin to explain.

"T-Too much again," Alex stuttered, placing his hands over his eyes. He didn't want light to intrude. The very minute his eyes opened the visions would start to fade; tonight he screwed his eyes shut, trying to grasp the wisps of images currently fading into nothing. He tried to breathe through the panic; it ensnared him every night.

"It's okay, Alex, it will be okay . . ."

"It's going, Ed . . ." He groaned as pain formed a tight band around his head. Alex tried to hold on to what he had imagined inside the darkness of his own head, but the images faded until sharp memories became nothing more than mere suggestion. He stored what he could remember -- a cavern, torches, chanting, pain, blood, fire, and the cries of a small child -- alongside the woman in white silk.

"Don't try to remember, don't force it," Edward offered softly, and Alex wanted to snap back that he needed to remember. He knew why Edward was saying this. Edward said just today he was convinced Alex's dreams would come to him in daylight hours if only he didn't try so damn hard to remember them.

"I want to remember," Alex insisted, his voice pained. "There was more . . . and . . . the woman," he added, rubbing at his eyes.

"More?" Edward sounded curious. Alex took in a deep breath, the intake of air catching on a half-sob.

"Death . . . my . . ." Alex couldn't finish the sentence, maybe it was his death he had seen? There was a woman . . .

Alex's desperate breathing was clearly warning enough for Edward to make sure he was very gentle; staying absolutely still and allowing Alex to choose how close he wanted to be. Edward simply talked and Alex listened to his voice, low and confident and uncomplicated words of reassurance, just nonsense really, and whispered promises.

"It's not long until dawn, Alex, everything will look different then." Nothing he actually said was that important. Neither of them would remember the words he used in the morning, when daylight released Alex from the night terrors, but in the early light Edward's words were enough.

Edward's long fingers, by simple instinct and from nightly repetition, were touching Alex's skin, unconsciously following each carved pattern he found there, tracing each of the slightly raised scars he could feel, but not see, in the half dark. He reassured with his touch and the rhythmic strokes of his fingers over the scars on Alex's skin.

"I love you, Alex."

Skimming the black tattoos shaped over and around the scars -- stylised images and cursive text raised in scar tissue and tattooed in careful black -- Edward's gentle, steady sketching with his fingertips of those marks, obvious now in the new dawn filtering through the blinds, calmed both the sleeping and waking dreams plaguing Alex.

Edward and Alex had been a couple for nearly two years, circumstances pushed them together, the lover and the thief. They met when Alex pulled Edward out of a particularly sticky situation in Istanbul, and then decided having a partner in crime, so to speak, wouldn't be so bad. The notion became even more appealing once Alex took Edward to bed, and discovered the person he had saved was a fourth cousin to royalty, and a part of the complicated British aristocracy.

As their relationship entered its second year Edward's touch even managed to stop Alex from running out of the room when he woke in heart-racing fear. His gentle contact allowed Alex the peace to remain in bed, and sometimes -- rarely, but sometimes -- the touch was enough to lull Alex into a fitful doze; on even rarer occasions into a deeper sleep with no dreams.

"It will be okay . . . just breathe."

Alex stretched his body straight, feeling tension curl into each muscle and hating the cramps that invaded every inch of him when he dreamed so vividly. He measured his breathing, slowing it down, focusing on the pain, trying to release the cramping, until finally, inch by blessed inch, his muscles relaxed. There was a welcoming and delicious tingle of need in him as he pushed against his lover's tender touch; Alex's way of reassuring Edward he was going to be all right.

Normally he would lie still now, but tonight, as the shock of what his mind created in his sleep seeped into his consciousness, it was all he could do to stay still and silent. Part of him wanted to describe what he'd dreamed, Alex knew he only needed to open his mouth and start to speak. But he also knew that as soon as he broke the silence with description the details of every image he could remember would fall into the darkness in a tumble of confused words.

"Sometimes . . ." Alex's voice was low and his sentence trailed off into the chaos of thoughts inside his head.

"Sometimes?" Edward prompted gently.

"I . . . the woman . . . she looks at me . . . I think."

Alex sighed as Edward drew strong hands through his hair, and listened to him whispering soothing words in a language Alex never really heard outside of his dreams. The whispering was so much a part of Alex recovering from the dream that it had become a part of the dreams' vivid scenery. At last his heart slowed its violent pace, steadying as his lover's stable breathing helped to calm his own. Edward's hands traced the bird patterning his side; the wings that spread to the left arm and the tail wrapped intricately across his bicep and down to his wrist. The heat of his lover's touch burned his skin.

"Better?" Edward enquired, but Alex couldn't answer, still lost in the nightmare. He quietly pressed closer, allowing Edward's arms to encircle him and feeling the touch of soft lips at the nape of his neck. Alex's dreams made him want to reach out, to feel as much as he could in this early dawn light, once the nightmare faded. The only person trusted, the person he knew better than anyone, was here with him and it was him Alex wanted to reach out to. Alex shifted his focus, desperate to centre himself and gain some control over the emotions twisting inside him. His empathic gifts opened his mind to the sensuality and desire building inside Edward, raw and exposed as they flooded his subconscious. Exhausted, he pushed up the one last barrier he needed, carefully turning in Edward's loosening grip and moving his own legs to entwine with his lover's, feeling Edward already hard against him.

"It was so clear," Alex murmured. "I want to see it again."

"Tomorrow . . ." Edward replied, his voice low and calm, comforting.

Alex raised his hands to tangle them in Edwards's short hair, seeing the glint of emotion in his dark eyes as his lover stared back with a look of calm compassion twisted with lust. Alex closed his eyes, the last of the violent images from his dreams starting to disappear into the compartment in his head that he pushed them into.

"I don't want them again," Alex was aware he contradicted what he just said about seeing the dreams again. He couldn't get his thoughts in order, terrified at the dreams and wanting to know more at the same time.

"You're okay now, I've got you." Edward half-whispered, settling a gentle kiss on his lips as he parted them in a breath. This was the easy part for Alex, kissing Edward was always heaven. Edward kissed with no limits, his tongue was so damn clever; searching, tasting, so slowly, but with intent, pulling away gently and sucking tenderly on Alex's lower lip. Alex chased the kiss, pouting as Edward chuckled softly and pulled back to look at his lover, both of them so needy and connected in a way that, as hard as they tried, they could never truly understand.

"Can I have you?" Alex asked.

"Any time you need me," was all Edward could reply.

Alex knew Edward wanted him to totally let go, just once letting Edward feel Alex properly without the barriers around his gift, with just naked need and touch between them. One day perhaps. When Alex felt Edward would be safe, that he wouldn't be overwhelmed or become scared of his lover and what was inside Alex's head.

"I'm fine, Ed, please . . . stop worrying so hard," Alex said pleadingly into the dawn-soft light of the room, sighing inwardly even as he said it. He knew Edward would always worry about the dreams and what they meant; it was useless to even ask it of his best friend. He rolled slightly to settle into the cradle of Edward's legs, as hard as his lover, opening his mind a little to Edward and letting the need fill him, pushing the last vestiges of his nightmares to one side.

"I love you," Edward repeated.

He said it so often, and it sent a shaft of warmth to the very centre of Alex every time. He gazed down at the man naked and ready beneath him, admiring the muscles that defined the shape of the man who was at his side. Edward was two inches short of six foot, beautiful in his determination to be everything Alex needed. His dark brown hair was soft and short, his face always scrupulously shaved clear of stubble, and his eyes constantly watchful. Under all this, under the British in him that kept him reserved was a man with the fire of passion who spoke to Alex in touches and sighs.

"You are so beautiful, Ed," it was so easy to make love with his Edward; Alex knew exactly what parts of himself he had to hold back, so familiar with the touch and the sense memory of what Edward was to him. If he didn't let his barriers down entirely Edward wouldn't query it, would never question it knowing Alex was at his most vulnerable when heightened emotions were involved.

They kissed and touched and laughed softly, even as the kisses grew heated and touches became harder, unrelenting, insistent. Edward gave up trying to fight for position, he always did, and simply keened as Alex twisted both of Edward's hands in one of his, holding them above Edward's head, exposing his throat.

"Alex . . ." Edward made a token gesture of resistance but gave up as soon as Alex placed open-mouthed kisses and bites down his lover's arched neck, then lower, hovering at the fluttering pulse in his throat before moving lower still to pull at his left nipple with the touch of his teeth.

"Mine," Alex whispered, soft in words and selfish in intent. Sucking up a small mark of blood to one side he felt Edward shiver under him with a muffled groan; smiling, he moved to place the same care and attention across his lover's chest and upon his other nipple. He knew Edward so well, knew holding him like this -- unable to move -- and teasing him, was sometimes enough to make Edward come. Alex continued to pin the slighter man using his hands, his height, and his weight, and teased him with lips and teeth.

"Alex," the single word was an entreaty for more than that tonight, though. The reassurance of Alex marking him, holding him, vibrated in the desperate plea and Alex wasn't going to hold back. Alex sensed the raw want in Edward, the need bordering on desperation, the taste of lust he was feeling, and he released Edward's hands, moving down his lover's body with each kiss a part of a larger narrative, Thank you . . . I want to love you . . . here is where I know I can make you cry out my name . . .

Edward always slept in boxers and they very easily pushed down until Alex had his mouth there, pulling at the cotton with his hands and mouth and finally touching so gently, tracing the underside of Edward's erection with a broad stripe of his tongue. Edward was so hard. The taste of the moisture collecting at the tip of him was smooth on Alex's tongue, and he swirled the wet around the flared head. Closing his lips on the head of Edward's uncut dick Alex swallowed as much of Edward as he could, even as his eager lover was pushing up and then writhing down under him, using his hand to touch and pull on what he couldn't take in his mouth.

He concentrated on increasing the pressure with his mouth, moving his searching fingers behind as he scrambled for the lube by the bed. Edward murmured indistinct words as he twisted and struggled to pull Alex back up for more kissing.

"Inside me," Edward finally demanded, his tone brooking no argument.

Alex slid back up his lover's body, his movements slow and deliberate and his fingers slick. He pushed past the tight ring of muscle with a single finger, hearing Edward keen at the burn as he felt his lover's initial discomfort himself. Alex reached to capture the whine with his mouth, soothing it with sweeps of his searching tongue. He moved gently until he pushed in the second, and then a third, finger; carefully scissoring them to open Edward for more as he deepened the kisses. Intent on joining them in both places Alex pressed Edward's legs flat against his chest. Edward pulled back from the kiss and hissed between clenched teeth as Alex's crooked fingers brushed the small gland wired to his lover's dick. Hearing the delicious sounds of need Edward couldn't hold inside was intoxicating.

"Now, Alex . . ."

Alex positioned himself, hesitating momentarily as his hands and the very tip of his dick brushed the relaxed ring of muscle, and stared directly into Edward's eyes. The dark brown of Edward's iris seemed merely a thin line around the black of the pupil, with almost no colour visible at all in the dim light. Resting on his elbow Alex added more slick with his free hand, desperate to bury himself inside Edward and suddenly anxious for the connection. Alex pushed forward, his fingers there guiding the push. The erotic touch of dark heat and the strength he needed to push past the initial barrier making him moan low in his throat, the movement as familiar to them both as breathing. Allowing a little of Edward's pleasure-pain past the barricade he'd raised around his senses was enough to slow down his rising orgasm, and he waited, until Edward's body adjusted to the burn.

"God . . ." Edward's voice was nothing more than an exhalation of breath.

Within a few heartbeats Alex was so deep inside Edward there was no space between them, no words were exchanged as contentment and want chased up and down Alex's spine. He pulled his fingers away, slick and hot, to grip tight to Edward's thighs, setting a fast rhythm and exchanging heated, uncoordinated kisses as Edward urged for more.

If Alex held himself back, if Edward could even notice that Alex's shields were in place, he didn't comment. He couldn't, he wasn't actually capable of saying a thing. Edward arched his spine, his orgasm so close Alex could feel it and his own was magnified by the bliss inside Edward.

"I love you," Edward repeated again and again, burying his face in Alex's neck as he lost it, hot and wet between them. Pressing down hard Alex could feel the desperation -- the rising pleasure -- inside Edward as he was coming deep inside him, but he could also sense a sadness, a wish inside Edward that Alex would say something back to him, anything.

Instead Alex groaned low in his chest as he came deep inside Edward, allowing enough of his Self through to connect to Edward, and fell heavily on his lover.

Edward laughed low in his throat, stretching like a cat, every muscle lax. Alex gave himself a few moments of the energy coursing inside his lover, then eased out as his cock softened, releasing his hold on Edward's thighs and untangling them to fall to one side, sated, breathing heavily.

He moved his fingers, swirling intricate patterns in the come he could see on Edward's pale skin in the brightening room before wiping them both down with his discarded T-shirt. The only single drawback of not using a condom was the mess in Edward, but he would dismiss it with a laugh; he always did. It was part of the reason why Alex held so much affection for his lover, this casual ease with which he made everything easier for Alex.

"Mine," he whispered into heated skin, and then he closed his eyes. His hand was searching for Edward's, just to hold it, to anchor himself in the here and now. With the exhaustion of disturbed sleep, and orgasm, dulling his senses Alex sought peace and rest.

Sleep wasn't quick to come, but he centred himself in the stillness of the steadily brightening room and focused on Edward's touch, his strength, his quiet reassurance. Inevitably Alex fell to dreaming again.