The Dream Crafter by Danielle Monsch Read Free Book Online Page A

until it has to end.
    They stopped to look over the waves, and he fitted her into him so he could rest his chin on her head. “I’ll remember that.”
    Walking the beach at night was always her favorite. As much as she enjoyed the daytime energy, it was the calm dark of the night that always soothed her soul, brought her peace. At night, it was only her and the moon, the mist of the ocean and the warm, gentle breeze. It was freedom with no judgment, no well-meaning but sharp-tongued relatives to poke at her family yet again.
    If only she could have known Merc back then. Whatever he was in the real world, here he was quiet strength, and this Merc would have paid the stories around her and her family no mind. He would have held her hand and walked beside her, no matter the stares and whispers that followed them.
    His face in moonlight was a study of planes and shadows. Her mother would have said he had a strong face, with a strong chin. That was one thing her mama always disliked – men with weak chins.
    Strange, remembering Mama now. It had been such a long time since Amana thought of her. Unlucky in love , that’s what the old women talked of while playing Go, smoke thick in the air, fingertips yellowed and fingers gnarled. Good girl, but so unlucky. Maybe if she listened more, she wouldn’t be stuck with those babies.
    She pulled Nakoa away, the words absorbed and the damage done.
    Listening to those women, she vowed she’d never have babies without being married. She’d never give them a reason to talk about her, in those half-pitying/half-delighted scandal tones. Her babies would have a daddy who loved them, who would never leave them. Her babies would ride on their daddy’s shoulders, and he would take them to ice cream shops, all the while telling them don’t tell your mother . A daddy who would protect them from every bad thing this world could surprise their family with – and that was a lot of bad things.
    Merc had wide shoulders and gentle hands, and a bearing that proclaimed he could take down any enemy.
    She closed her eyes and pressed tighter.
    “Hey, what’s this?” He lifted her face with gentle fingertips underneath her chin. There was a crease between his eyebrows, his mouth turned down, and when he ghosted his thumb underneath her eye, only then did she feel the wetness.
    “Bad day today.”
    “Anything I can do?”
    Merc had wide shoulders and gentle hands, and she had only one chance to feel them, even if only in a dream. With that desire strong in her mind, her soul, she said, “You can take me home.”
    As her meaning sank into him, his gaze grew heated, molten, and he wrapped those large hands around her waist and picked her up, laying her against his chest, holding her weight steady and showing how strong he was. Her arms encircled his neck, but she made no other move. She trusted him to hold her safe.
    The scenery dissolved until they were now in a hotel, basic and boring but clean. That was all that registered before he lowered his head to place his lips on hers, asking without words to be let inside. She complied, eager to again experience this hard, hot side of him. The gentleness was still there underneath everything, but with her permission he grew aggressive, demanding, moving forward with a strong sweep of his tongue and using his mouth to open her wider.
    While they kissed, Amana pushed his shirt up, pulling at the offending fabric of the t-shirt. She broke away, turning her attention to getting him undressed. Desperation clawed inside her, demanding she experience everything possible in these few last hours. “I want this off,” she breathed, and if she had the strength, she would have ripped it from his body.
    He went back a step, but only one, as her hands grabbed at the bare skin of exposed waist and refused to let him go any further. In swift movement, the t-shirt was gone, and the long, lean, muscled lines of his torso were on display.
    First she took him in with her