The House

Chapter 37 - Day 4: A Love Like No Other

I have loved this man from the moment I laid eyes on him for the first time. Our love will survive any storm life throws at us. Not even death could destroy it. It consumes me; it transcends time, mortality, and dimension. It fills my heart to overflowing, seeping from my very pores.

Gazing into his dark eyes, shining bright with his inner light, I see my love reflected there, echoing from his heart to mine. I can feel that love in the touch of his lips on mine and the smoothness of his skin against my skin. My fingers rake through the silky strands of his thick black hair, flowing wild and free down to his shoulders.

He is mine, and I am his, and that is all that I know. It is all I'll ever know and all that I want to know. I won't allow anything to tear us apart ever again!

"Belle," he whispers hoarsely against my neck in that once beautiful voice, broken by the injuries he sustained while he fought for his freedom from those who sought to convict him of treason wrongfully. His warm breath teases goosebumps across my skin, and I close my eyes, relishing the feel of his hands tracing my contours, exploring every hill and valley, setting fire to my blood, flooding my veins with liquid heat.

"Belle," he says again, and now his voice is filled with healthy youth, the roughness smoothed out of it, the sound vibrating in my heart, healed by our love. "Belle!"

I open my eyes into the black pools of his eyes, noticing for the first time ever the thin green bands around the dilated pupils. The love and passion I saw and felt a moment ago are still there, but his eyes are different now. He is beautiful, but he is not the same; strange, yet familiar. I draw away from him to see him more clearly, and my confusion is mirrored on his face, slowly slipping away to change into concern.

"Who are you?" I breathe, running my eyes over his dark hair, no longer flowing loosely around his face and shoulders. It is cropped short from the tops of his ears downward. I should be afraid, but I am not. My eyes trace the outline of his straight nose and gentle lips, finding the vein pulsing in his neck and the strength of his well-defined collarbones. The path of my eyes ends at my hands pressed against the warm skin of his bare chest.

These are not my hands.

I can feel his heart beating very fast, and as the smoky tendrils of the dream slip away, and his face once again comes into sharp focus, recognition starts to creep in, clearing away the fog. The familiar gradually becomes strange, and what is strange gradually becomes familiar.

"David?"

"Yeah," he sighs, sounding relieved while his eyes, boring into mine, are looking more and more anxious. The dream slowly dissipates, and now I'm just lying in bed with my limbs tangled with those of a man I barely know.

"David?!"

We both let go at the same time, scurrying to opposite sides of the bed, and I gasp when I realise that David is not the only one missing his shirt. Where is mine? I can see his shirt lying on the floor on my side of the bed, and leaning over, I grab the long-sleeved grey t-shirt and pull it on to cover myself.

"I was dreaming..." I say at the exact same moment when he says: "I'm sorry..."

"What?" we chorus, and then we just fall into an awkward, strained silence. I stare at my fingers clutching the duvet covering the lower half of my body and look up when David finally speaks.

"I don't think anything irreversible happened," he mutters and shows me that he is still wearing his sweatpants. I haven't even thought that far. I'm still struggling to clear my heart and my mind of emotions that couldn't possibly be mine but are nevertheless closing up my throat and causing my pulse to race.