I woke up gasping with my thighs clenched, nightgown soaked with sweat and arousal, body pulsing with need that made me want to scream at the unfairness of it all. The transition from a dream state to being wide awake was violent, one moment wrapped in phantom arms, the next alone in a bed that creaked with every movement. My heart hammered against my ribs that suddenly felt too small, my breath coming in pants that fogged in the cold air.
The pregnancy websites Meredith had recommended warned about this, increased libido, vivid dreams, heightened sensitivity as blood flow increased to accommodate growing life. Clinical words for the hurricane in my body. They didn’t mention how cruel it would be to crave the man who had destroyed my life. How my omega nature would override every logical thought with pure, animalistic want.
“I hate you,” I told the empty room, but my body called me a liar with every quickened heartbeat. The words tasted hollow, fighting against the wetness between my thighs, the ache in my breasts, the way my skin felt too tight and too sensitive all at once.
I kicked off tangled sheets, too hot despite the winter’s grip on Millbrook and my broken heating that usually left me shivering. The radiator hadn’t worked properly since I moved in, managing only occasional death rattles that provided more noise than warmth. But tonight my internal furnace burned bright enoughto make the cold apartment feel stifling. Sweat gathered at my hairline, between my breasts, in the hollow of my throat where his mark used to rest.
The twins seemed restless too, those fluttering movements that started two days ago like butterfly wings against my insides. Quickening, Meredith had called it. The first real proof of life beyond heartbeats on a screen. They rolled and shifted, perhaps disturbed by my racing pulse, by the stress hormones flooding my system. Did they sense their father in my dreams? Did some primal part of them recognize the ghost of their sire, even filtered through my sleeping mind? The thought should have disgusted me. Instead, it sent another pulse of want through my system, my body’s demands overriding every logical thought.
My body doesn’t care about betrayal. It only remembers completion.
The digital clock blinked 3:17 AM in angry red numbers, each second marked by its relentless flash. Time moved differently in exile, slower during the day when I had to pretend normalcy, faster at night when my defenses crumbled. Through paper-thin walls, I heard Mrs. Bane’s television droning, the older woman’s insomnia a constant soundtrack. Some game show rerun, canned laughter echoing through drywall that might as well have been tissue paper.
Below, footsteps paced, probably Sam from 2B, working another night shift at the distribution center. His heavy tread followed the same pattern every night: bedroom to kitchen, kitchen to bathroom, bathroom to bedroom. An endless loop of preparation for work that paid too little for hours that destroyed the soul.
They worried about rent and overtime and whether their cars would start in the morning. I worried about whether my need for a ghost would drive me insane before the twins finished claiming my body for their own purposes.
My body had turned traitor, conspiring with the twins to torture me with need. Every shift of fabric against my sensitive skin sparked sensation. The nightgown, soft from too many washes, felt like sandpaper against nerve endings gone haywire. My breasts, swollen and tender with pregnancy changes, ached for touch. They’d grown a full cup size already, heavy and foreign on my chest.
My hand moved without permission, sliding beneath the nightgown I’d bought at the thrift store. Three dollars on half-price day, practical cotton in faded blue that had probably belonged to someone’s grandmother. Nothing like the lace he’d torn from my body that night. But even cheap fabric felt like too much against skin gone hypersensitive with pregnancy and want.
“This means nothing,” I lied to myself, even as my fingers found wet heat, my body already prepared by dreams I couldn’t control. The first touch sent lightning up my spine, too intense, too necessary. I was soaked, had probably been dripping since the dream began. My body’s response to him remained unchanged despite everything, instant, complete, devastating.
I touched myself mechanically at first, trying to separate physical need from emotional want. Just hormones. Just the demanding flesh seeking release so I could sleep. Just the animal brain that didn’t understand betrayal or abandonment, only the absence of its mate. My fingers moved in circles, the same motion that had brought release a hundred times beforehe existed in my world. But nothing was the same anymore. My body had been rewired in a single night, programmed to respond to one man’s touch, and even my own hand was a poor substitute.
But as pressure built, his face filled my mind unbidden. Those black eyes when he claimed me, wild with the need to possess. The way they’d gone gold at the edges when his wolf rose to meet mine. The possessive growl when he marked my throat, primal satisfaction in creating a bond he had later destroyed. How his massive hands had gripped my hips, leaving bruises I’d treasured for days after. My fingers moved faster, chasing release and absolution that wouldn’t come.
“Beautiful. My omega. Mine.” Damon’s voice mixed with my own moans until I couldn’t separate what was real from what my hormone-soaked brain created. The words he’d spoken while buried inside me, while our souls fused in ways that even fate couldn’t undo.
Even in exile, he owned my body’s responses.
I added pressure, changed angles, found the rhythm that would bring this shameful need to an end. Two fingers now, trying to fill the emptiness he’d left behind. But my fingers were too small, too gentle, nothing like the devastating fullness of him. My free hand gripped the sheets, needing an anchor as sensation built. The fitted sheet pulled loose from the corner, testament to my desperation.
My hips lifted, chasing my own touch. The mattress springs protested, adding their squeak to the symphony of my shame. In the darkness, I could pretend it was his hand, his fingers that knew exactly how to unravel me. I could imagine his weightpressing me down, his breath hot against my ear as he whispered filth and promises in equal measure. The fantasy was another betrayal, but my body had moved beyond shame into pure need.
My thumb found my clit, circling with increasing pressure while my fingers curled inside, searching for the spot he’d found so easily. Everything was swollen, oversensitive, responsive in ways that should have been pleasurable but only emphasized his absence. I was so wet my thighs had grown slick, the sound of my movements obscene in the quiet apartment. Mrs. Bane’s television provided cover, but shame burned hot in my chest even as pleasure built in my core.
“Damon,” I whispered his name like a curse and a prayer, the single word carrying everything I couldn’t say.
I hate you. I need you. You destroyed me. I still dream of you. I carry your children and crave your touch and despise myself for both.
The orgasm crashed through me with devastating intensity, back arching off the mattress as I bit my pillow to muffle sounds. The pillow tasted of cheap detergent and my own tears from nights when missing him hurt too much to contain. For a moment, the bond site stopped aching, filled with phantom completion. The release rolled through me in waves, each pulse a reminder of what my body remembered even if my mind wanted to forget.
My inner walls clenched around my fingers, trying to hold onto even this pale imitation of him. My body shuddered and twitched, wringing every drop of pleasure from the moment before reality inevitably returned.
It always returned.
The stained mattress beneath me bore witness to too many nights like this. Peeling walls around me had heard his name whispered in the dark more times than I could count. The life growing inside me tied me forever to a man who chose politics over truth. I curled on my side, hand resting on my slightly rounded stomach, feeling the twins settle.
Post-orgasm clarity brought the usual cocktail of shame and despair. My thighs were sticky, my nightgown rucked up around my waist, my hair a tangled mess against the pillow. I was a ruin, destroyed by my own hand chasing ghost sensations of a man who’d probably already replaced me.
“He’s not coming for you,” I whispered to my reflection in the dark window. The glass threw back a warped version of myself, all shadows and harsh angles. “We’re on our own,” I told the twins, my palm warm against the small bump that grew more pronounced each day. Fifteen weeks had turned into sixteen, would soon be seventeen, then eighteen. Time marched forward while I remained frozen, caught between what was and what could never be again.
I forced myself up, thighs trembling from the intensity of release. The walk to the bathroom was five steps that felt like fifty, each movement reminding me of what I’d just done. Again. The linoleum was ice against bare feet, shocking me further into awareness. I needed to clean up, to wash away the evidence of my weakness.
In the bathroom, harsh fluorescent light revealed the truth hormones and dreams tried to hide. The bulb flickered, casting everything in stuttering illumination that made my reflection look like stop-motion animation. Hollow cheeks from morning sickness that Meredith’s remedies could only partially ease. Thebones of my face had sharpened, giving me an ethereal quality that spoke of a body feeding two parasites. Dark circles from interrupted sleep, from dreams that left me gasping and alone. Purple shadows that makeup couldn’t hide, that told the story of a woman haunted by her own choices.
The scar where his mark used to be, silver now but still visible, a permanent reminder of temporary promises. I traced it with one finger, remembering how it had felt when he carved it away, choosing his crown over our bond. The memory should have brought pain. Instead, I felt only emptiness, a hollow where rage should live. I’d worn his mark for less than forty-eight hours, but its absence would last forever.
