The Monster Under Her Bed

He’d been watching her sleep again.

He always did. Not every night, but most. Slipping in through the crack between the headboard and the wall, or rising up from the floor when the night got thick enough. The bed never creaked. He never made a sound. But she always felt him.

She used to be afraid. Back when she was little. Back when she still called him The Dark.

Now she called him nothing. Now she pretended he wasn’t real.

Until tonight.

She rolled onto her back, one arm above her head, sheet clinging between her legs.

And whispered, “Still here?”

A pause in the air. Then the quiet flex of movement beneath the bed.

“I was wondering when you’d stop pretending,” the voice answered. Rough velvet.

She smiled into the dark.

“I’m not scared of you anymore.”

“No,” he said. “You’re curious now. That’s more dangerous.”

He rose beside the bed like smoke turning into muscle. Not fully formed. Not quite flesh. His shape flickered in and out. A shadow of horns, or maybe antlers. A face too symmetrical to be human, too wrong to be safe.

She held the sheet against her chest.

“You’re not allowed to touch me,” she said. “Not unless I say.”

His eyes caught the moonlight and burned silver.

“I never have. Not once.”

He reached toward her, slow. Stopped an inch from her ankle.

“Say it.”

“Touch me,” she whispered.

His large hand closed around her thigh.

She gasped.

His grip was firm. Possessive.

The sheet disappeared in a blink. Or maybe it melted. She didn’t remember letting it go.

He was between her knees before she could second-guess. Breath like heat. Fingers tracing the inside of her thigh.

“I used to wake up soaked,” she said. “Every time I dreamed of you.”

“I know…I’ve been watching.”

One finger slipped inside her. Slow. Deep. Curled in a way that made her cry out and grab the mattress. She was already wet.

“Tell me to stop,” he growled, mouth brushing her hip.

“Don’t you dare.”

Another finger. Then his mouth, low and rough, finding her clit and biting just enough to make her squirm. Her thighs shook. His tongue dragged in hard, slick strokes that knew her better than she did.

Her breath hitched. “You were always watching me, weren’t you?”

“I was waiting.”

“Why?”

“Because you’d eventually remember you were mine.”

She came hard, back arching, thighs twitching.

He didn’t stop.

Didn’t ease up.

Kept her pinned on the edge until she was half-sobbing, fingers tangled in his hair, skin flushed and aching.

Then he pulled away.

Disappeared beneath the bed again.

Gone.

She lay there shaking, chest rising and falling, body still pulsing from the aftershock.