this is it.

last chance to turn around.

night by night i let you eat me alive

i want you to eat me alive

i want you to eat me alive

Glass Animals - Your Love

XXIII

I can hear her heartbeat all the way from the coast.

I know it's impossible, but nothing feels impossible anymore.

I can hear everything.

The music playing in other cars. Seabirds calling to each other overhead. Water I can't see, rolling through creeks hidden by the woods on both sides of the road, and pine needles rustling in the breeze, falling to the forest floor. The steady roll of tires over damp asphalt. Pistons cycling and axles spinning under the Nova's hood, and my own pulse, picking up speed with every mile closer to home.

Inside the car, out of the crate the shelter insisted I put her in, the little black cat that clawed her way into my life over the last few months pleads for attention. Tiny, high-pitched, and the sole survivor of her litter, she paws at my leg as we wind down the two-lane highway. Her purr reverberates in the air when I pet her, and I glance down, watching the small ball of trouble no one else wanted take a tentatively hopeful look up at me before crouching to jump.

"Easy," I warn, keeping my left hand on the wheel while helping her up onto her spot with my right. "Those claws are brutal."

Taking up her usual place between my shoulder and collarbone, Leaves trills back at me and I half-wince, half-laugh as the small sound pierces my eardrum.

"Fucking brutal," I echo, pressing against my tragus to muffle the sting.

It isn't far from the shelter to my place, but it's the longest drive of my life. With my heart rate so spiked and energy to spare, I'm sure I'd make it faster on foot, running between the trees like she did. But I don't pull over and get out. I don't floor it. Even with what feels like an innate adrenaline rush ready and waiting in my veins, I refuse to waste it on the space between us.

I don't squander a single ounce.

Because it's all for her.

Anger that's been in flames for months reached its full height when I woke up outside a couple hours ago and found the thorn in my side curled up around my boots. I wanted to shake her awake, but need I've never known slashed through me like a scythe before I could move.

Hunger is the closest word I have for it, but it's so much deeper than that. I ate breakfast at the cafe, and bought two granola bars and a peach for the drive back, but food hasn't touched the torment twisting through my limbs, throbbing through every fiber of muscle.

I'm starving in my blood. My bones. My fire.

And all of it is for her.

Restless or nervous on my shoulder, Leaves keens as I exit onto a gravel road. She stands in place after I turn onto a dirt path, and I have to bring her down when she starts to knead and dig her nails in.

"We gotta get you something else for those needles." I kiss the top of her head before setting her down, and she wanders across the bench seat to stand on her hind legs and look out the window.

We're so close now I can feel the life that beckons me better than I can hear it. Beat after fast asleep beat of her insidious heart thrills old and new instincts and warms my mouth. My lips. My tongue.

All for her.

Every last part of me is all for her.

And I fucking hate it.

Pulling in and parking, I stare up at the place I built to get away from everything while heat I'm still getting used to spreads across my chest and down both arms. Into both hands and through each finger, it winds from every knuckle to every tip like a helix. Flames seep into my stomach as I cut the engine, and burn all the way down because she's right there. In my house. My room. My bed.

Resentment tightens my jaw.

All the way out here, beyond black hawthorns and whitebark pines, tucked far between quaking aspen and bitter cherry trees, there's no sound but the ticking of the Chevy as it cools down and the stream behind the cabin, rippling ever steadily. Even the wind is quiet now, muffled by the storm on its back, grey clouds hanging so low only a rumor of late morning light gets through.

For a moment, the entire forest seems silent.

The entire world.

All I hear is her.

The rustle of long hair as she turns without waking. The whisper of naked legs sliding between my sheets. The steady hush of air filling her chest and clinging to my pillows as she drifts, breathing softer than the first misted drops of rain falling on my windshield. Softer than nestling wings. Softer than anything. So soft it makes me hard.

Getting out of the car, I carry Leaves so she doesn't wander off. She jumps down the second we're inside though, and the virgin-pure scent that's haunted my house for months breaks my gait. There's no sympathy or reprieve from the fresh, powder-down promise of the girl upstairs. Whatever happened to my hearing this morning happened to my sense of smell and all my other senses too. I can see sharper and taste deeper, and the way I feel -

It's like uncountable millions of brand new nerves have opened all over my skin.

I can feel every thread of denim and cotton move with me as I close the door. The brush of air across my face as I stand still. The fractional rise in temperature as my eyes follow cloven hoof-prints from the kitchen to the living room. My own hair feels so sleek between my fingers as I push it back, I do it a second time. Mesmerized with the myriad of sensations, I try not to imagine how she'll feel in my hands, but the urge to borders oppressive.

Before, I blamed it on her age. That was a thousand reasons all on its own to never think of her. But in truth, every time she walked in all I could think about was using again, and the addict in me couldn't fathom anyone else's hands on her. Not with how she made me feel. I wanted to be the one. I was the one.

So I gave her the pain and titanium she asked for. Washed my hands and walked back out. I never let myself think about her outside that room. But now -

To not think of her now is real, true torture. To think of her and not touch her crushes my airways. To know she's right upstairs. Naked. Dreaming … The impulse in me to hunt her until my hands are all over her is too powerful now. And I don't want to miss out on any part of it because I lost control. I want to feel it all.

So I take my time, scrubbing black tracks from the kitchen floor and living room carpet with all the precision I clean my workspace. Over the sting of baking soda, ammonia, and detergent, I zero in on her tender scent and let it cauterize all my freshly visceral instincts into something even stronger. Something easier to carry because it's patient.

No less cogent than my anger.

No less endless than my hunger.

But something far darker. Something that's slowly becoming too dark to see through.

By the time I've removed her last print, there's nowhere on or inside me that's not aware of how near she is. Every single breath echoes in my eardrums, and I can taste each of her heartbeats on the back of my tongue. I'm so acutely attuned to her from roots to fingertips that when I finally stand up again, it feels like I'm outgrowing my body. Like my clothes no longer fit right. Like my own skin is too tight for the grudge underneath it.

Setting up everything the kitten needs to live here as she rubs against my ankles, I pet her crown and head to the shower. Countless dreams of the girl who was really a ghost all along play over and over each other as I wash away this morning and last night and the rest of my life before today. I've had so many dreams of her right here. Some in my arms. Some on her knees. Most of them of her alone, running my soap over herself or laid back in a bath, longing for me to come home.

I turn the water hotter and tip my head back.

Some of the dreams I remember aren't my dreams at all, but real memories. Her memories. Others aren't memories at all, but her dreams. Fantasies of my dark and light hands on her small curves under the stream. Pressing her up against warm tiles. Washing her clean after she spent hours knelt before me, outside on the deck -

My pulse pounds everywhere as I remember last night. My veins throb with the force of it, and even wet, every hair on my arms and the back of my neck stands on end. Already tense muscle tissue tightens harder, and I swear I feel my ribcage shake as the empty place where my soul should be, seethes.

I turn the handle again, but it's as far as it will go and the water still isn't hot enough.

Showering every physical trace of the last half a year from me, I feel cleaner than ever. Pure and pervasive, tall like a god and entirely tireless, I feel more wide awake than I've ever been. I feel like whatever I am now, like whatever it is she made me. Like there's nothing in life or death that's off limits, even though all I need in either is her.

I've seen everything through her eyes. Every step. Every kiss. I've seen how heart and backbreaking it felt to wait. To be ignored. Exiled. I've felt how wholly she ached. How she thought she might die. How sure she was she couldn't help it. I've felt all her jealousy. All her greed. All her breathless, blushing fucking coveting.

Every conscious decision she made to steal from me.

The choices that weren't hers to make.

I know what she did.

What she was.

Just like I know what she is now.

What she has no idea yet that she'll always be.

I reach for a towel, and my mouth opens involuntarily. A sound that's half a groan, half a scoff comes out as I dry off with terry cotton she made smell like her. It digs already aching hunger pangs deeper into my sides and makes where I'm already hard even harder. I feel Ishtar's star sway from my earlobe as I move, and I wrap the towel around my waist before reaching up to take off the useless amulet.

When I got it, I'd tried everything. I'd have done anything at that point to stop having night terrors. They're the reason I started using in the first place.

I had no idea the shape hell itself could take.

I toss the earring in the trash and turn off the light on my way out.

Nothing could have protected me from her.

And now nothing can protect her from me.

With each step toward the stairs, my vertebrae lock into place one by one. My back straightens like a razor and my head swims completely clear. Stalking me inebriated her, but stalking her is more sobering than anything for me. As I make my way, her first drunk fantasies here lay exposed like lurid Polaroids in the back of my mind. The image of my jet black hand covering hers on the bannister. Her pink mouth blurred open in a moan as I guide her down. Pale thighs parted wide as she rides me right here on the steps. Like she could handle me from that angle anymore. Like taking me that way wouldn't break her now.

A smirk grazes my lips as I climb.

I've despised dreaming of it for so long.

But she likes knowing I could break her.

She always has.

Turning the corner at the top of the staircase, I let my smirk spread into a smile as the soft cadence of her breathing caresses every inch of my skin. Sleep-steady heartbeats taste so good I part my mouth for more, but nothing compares to what the sight of her does to me.

The blade of hunger twists as it pulls, cutting so aggressively from my hips to my sternum I have to press my hand to my stomach as I look at her. Curled on her side. One arm under the pillows and her other stretched languidly out. Palm unconsciously up. Like wait. Like stop. Like don't.

Sharp edges tear through my shoulders and slice down both legs, but I don't take my eyes off her as I pass the bed and head to my dresser. Tangled waves of her hair lay in a Guinness-dark mess around her head, loose locks draped over her eyes, guiding my focus to her lips, still pouty from sucking me all night. I lick my own before I can help it, my pulse spiking as I remember how shamelessly she sat on my lap and took her first kiss from me. How I deeply kissed her back. How wide I kissed her open. How I couldn't kiss her open enough for either of us to get deep enough -

Clenching my teeth as I press where I ache most under black cotton and denim, I leave my jeans unbuttoned just like she did.

So she'll be able to feel how easy it will be.

How effortless now.

I don't bother getting the rest of the way dressed. Running the towel over my hair one last time, I toss it aside, still staring at the thief in my bed while heat and need rage through my veins.

She should be thankful all I do is draw the blankets slowly away, because the thought of shattering the windows behind her - of shocking her awake to the sound of smashing glass and a skyful of freezing rain - seems more than fair considering her violence against me.

Naked as I found her on my deck and still very asleep, my soultaker curves smaller on her side. With her back to where I'm standing, she brings her knees up to her middle, unknowingly giving me a shady little peep show. Hidden high between shadows and her thighs, the slick little cleft of her peaks out, shy and provocative at the same time.

A serrated wave of heat rises and rolls through me as I walk around to where she's facing, curled almost fetal now. I know I could tilt her head back and do this without waking her. I could slip her a narcotic breath and let her think it's all a dream. Just like she did to me.

But that would be misleading.

And I'm not the liar here.

Leaving her side, I start with feet that carried her to me instead. Kneeling on the edge of my bed, I reach for her left ankle first, drawing it down and pressing my lips to the top of her fragile foot. Then straight up it without a second thought. I kiss a slow ring around her ankle as her breathing deepens, and my lips part wider as I reach for her right ankle, licking the small ball of cartilage and bone before I can stop myself.

The heaviest head-rush I've ever had melts into a river of raw power and intimate heat. Both our nightmares and both our dreams bloom behind my eyes like blood in water while a hundred warm impulses flow through my body at once, reminding me instantly of my first white lines.

A lifetime ago I was younger than she looks, facedown in the back of a Jeep, daring death to fuck with me between a rolled up twenty and a Diamond Eyes CD case. Two rails was all it took. I was lit. Spinning. Euphoric and unstoppable. Coke spun the constant urge to fight and the constant urge to fuck into one overwhelming drive to do everything fast and hard and now.

But what I wanted first, what I wanted to do more than anything else was more coke.

Fast and hard and now.

That's what touching this demon is like. How having her underneath me feels. Like my own little snow white, to have and to take as fast and hard and long as I want.

My lips are on one of her calves before my control catches up, and I drag my open mouth slowly to her pink kneecap, both of them tender from digging against cherry wood for hours. I let her feel my teeth as I crawl closer. High like deep space on how soft she is. How warm. How swiftly flimsy heartbeats surge between her lungs when I bite her delicate patella. Not hard. Not enough to wake her yet.

Just enough to leave a mark that makes her whimper.

Heavy as a noose, the wet-petal scent of her pulls at me as she bends her leg back, and I bite her other knee the same way, pressing my tongue to whisper-thin skin as wanton blood rushes up, bursting into a bruise beneath my lips as she tries to bend away again. My pulse throbs in my jaw as I lap roughly at the small splash of violet, and I lift my eyes to watch this vice of a girl writhe through sleep. Her shoulders roll and her arms stretch, both hands grasping fistfuls of my fitted sheet as I drag jagged, openly possessive kisses up one thigh. Then the other.

Marking her.

Just like she did me.

Dark strands tangle and veil more of her face as she turns her head back and forth, her quickening heart causing her chest to rise and fall in little swells as I lead my mouth, filled with my own ardent beating, from one hip bone to the other. Making her skin blush with heat I can't stand and can't stop. Nipping the lowest part of her fluttering stomach while the pit of my own burns, I tow my nose and lips lower, bathing her in nothing but an achingly impassioned breath where I know no other has ever touched her.

Where what's mine is buried.

Where she's wanted me all along, right from the very start. Before she ever even saw me. When my scent alone pierced her in the parking lot that first night.

Regret sinks a hot knife between my shoulders. I should have done this then. I should have left Birds' table and gone outside the second I sensed something was off. I should have pushed Bella-"I want to feel it"-Swan to the side of the nearest car and made her give up what she was right there. Where everyone could see. Strangers, my friends, and hers. The moon that bore her and all the stars.

I should have taken her down right there in the parking lot, onto her back against the concrete before she ever had the chance to take anything from me.

Nestling against my pillows, the girl who used to be hell's softest monster hums as she breathes in my scent, unconsciously trying to turn back onto her side, but I slide my hands between her thighs. Pinning her down and pressing her apart. Arching her back and singeing the wings of all her butterflies as I give her what she's dreaming of, right now, for the first time.

The scent of new skin and the taste of chaste water engages every instinct I'm made of the moment my tongue touches her. I hear myself moan as my entire frame flexes and hardens, my heart barrelling against my ribs as I tug her down and push her legs up. Giving her no choice but to open. Open -

Licking her all the way open, I can feel her fighting against waking. Her desire for this to be real runs so deep she lifts for it, but she's scared it isn't. Even as she tilts right up to me, she's so afraid of waking up alone she strains for deeper sleep, chasing the dream of an ocean that starts in my mouth and ends all over the only part of her that's needier than her own.

I hate that I can feel how good it feels to her.

I hate how good her need feels to me. Like the best-worst kind of craving. Like I can't stop craving her need even as I feed it, because it's just as endless as my own.

I hate that I never want to stop kissing her.

Slowing down, I lick her deep and wide, and I hate how sorely sweet she sounds, filling my room with feeble, pleading panting. I hate how helplessly wet she is. How vulnerable she looks and how innocent she tastes, because I know better. I know everything she's ever done. Not just to me, but to everyone she's ever stolen from. I know their names and their loss and their madness. And I know where they all went because I know where she came from, and I hate it.

I hate that she bound me to her darkness.

I hate how natural it feels to me now. Like it was always in my blood. Deeper than DNA.

I hate how badly I want to drown her in it. How many times she's dreamed of me covering her in her own dark and woken up soaked, touching, coming -

Short on breath and arched high, small and slick and pink as a slit-back seashell shakes her head faintly back and forth again, tangling black coffee colored locks around her face. Trading my sheets for my hair, she reaches down and grips at my roots, and it makes my whole body purr as she pulls. It lifts her instead of me, bringing her right up to my tongue, and her conflicted reluctance feels so good I almost laugh.

I can hear and see and feel everything swirling inside her. How she wants me to stop because she doesn't want to come, and how she doesn't want to come because she doesn't want to wake up. Because she's scared this won't be real. That she'll open her eyes and find herself all alone in her quaint little room in that quaint little house -

Humming, I meet her with licks that bind her to me. Filling her bones and veins with unstoppable pleasure and dire pleading. Chasing all her panting and trembling with the full length of my tongue until she's so close and so confounded, her voice breaks as she cries out. Frightened little vows I didn't know she could make slip from her lips, making her sound like the most tender thing, every note making me the most desperate promise.

I'm going to come.

I'm going to come.

I'm going to come -

The words she can't say out loud echo like a psalm in her mind while her body rushes toward it, rolling with every rhythmic lick while fear tightens its grip. She struggles harder the closer she gets, pulling fiercely at my hair, her legs straining against my grip. So wet every heartbeat swims, she's right there, so close and so lost and made of stop -

Don't -

Don't stop -

I could eat her like this for days, it feels so good. Knowing she's fighting a fraction of the war she put me through for so long -

Giving in to her pulling at my roots, I lift my head and slide my thumbs up, parting her little ocean like waves just to watch her shake.

What's wrong, Bella?

I push my thoughts into hers without speaking, and all her movements falter. Her pulse skips and stumbles into pounding, and she twists hastily between asleep and awake, bewildered between them as I slide my voice inside her.

Just like she did to me.

You don't want my mouth on you while you sleep?

I feel my words swallow her bearings. Her breath. Her rib cage whole.

She's trying to convince herself this is just a dream.

But she can't.

And I love it.

I dig my taunting into her panic. Her need. The strange and sacred innermost part of her that dreams.

You don't like not knowing what's real?

It curves the corners of my mouth to watch her jaw fall slack and her eyes clench shut. The way her whole torso rises and falls as she begs to be asleep. For sleep to take her fully under as I sit up and back. My denim covered legs hold her bare ones apart while I skim my palms from her ankles to her knees, playing gently with new contusions and frayed-raw nerves.

What's a dream? I ask, burning like a fever in her chest, caressing my thumbs lightly over pink-turning-purple skin. And what's a nightmare?

She twists and strains around a gasp, trying to get away as I press hard against my bite marks before wrapping my hands around both her knees and pulling her closer. Up. So that she's halfway onto my own bent legs. I smooth my palms between her thighs, and my thumbs slip easily up her slit, soaked from all the licks she needed. Sliding my thumbs up and down the small sea, I watch how effortlessly it opens for me, parting like petals and getting wetter the deeper I go. The more I touch her, the wetter she gets. So wet it makes her feel dirty.

Profane.

Human.

The word glows like a flame beneath her sternum, and I slip my voice underneath it like sharp, stainless steel.

That's what you wanted, I whisper leaning forward and coming down around her. This close, timorous little breaths and the flood of her heartbeats surround me, louder than my own. Every beat stokes my appetite and my anger, provoking me, but she's not in control anymore. Instead of giving her body the press of mine it's demanding, I place my left hand against the mattress, holding myself over her like a cage as I slide my right fingertips up and down her swelled-soft waves. From the clit that feels like her exposed pulse to where she never, ever thought she'd want me most.

Up and down.

I stroke her so slowly she shakes.

So purposefully slow and steady, she can hardly take it.

When I climbed on top of you that night? Remember, I urge her from within, and she does. Her eyes stay closed and her head stays turned away, but I feel the memory wash over her. The unforgettable weight of me like a tidal wave pulling her under, moving like I was inside her, like we were already one.

Renewed resentment thunders through me, caustic and furious because what she remembers is nothing like what I remember.

I didn't have a choice. I was unconscious under her influence. Blacked out on her magic. She made me feel like I was dreaming and got off on my unawareness -

I was asleep, I tell her, keeping my tone as even as my fingers, sliding along her with merciless patience. You had me dreaming deep, but my eyes were open. I saw you. I saw how you felt when I looked down at you.

The memory and how it's changing inside her sends her reeling. Eyes clenched shut, she lifts higher against my frame, chasing my right hand while her own push at my shoulders and she arches her back. Her neck. Her crown rustles against the pillow as she shakes her head. Pulling her hair away from her face as I brace myself firmly above her. My eyes following the ruddy pink heat spreading from her cheeks to her throat, across the top of her chest.

It's killing me to edge her so slowly.

But it makes everywhere I'm starving and everywhere I'm mad so hard, I want to do it for hours.

For days.

Forever.

I'm starving and mad everywhere for her.

Soft and swift as ever, her depraved little heart clamors as my voice fills its chambers.

I watched you come, Bella.

Her center of gravity drops out.

Right here. On your back. Just like you want to right now.

Squaring my shoulders, I lean up just enough to watch as she starts to founder, clinging to her dream even as it turns on her, drenching her in hot pitch black while I keep tracing the same sodden line at the same slow pace between quivering legs. Letting her feel what she's coveted all this time.

What she still craves more than anything.

I let her feel what it's like to be mine.

And it coils a knot in my stomach, so tight it throttles my control.

Does it feel like a dream? I ask, inundating her body with an echo so heavy I feel it sink in all over her.

Being mine? I continue, the designation tickling hundreds of naive butterflies, making her stomach tumble and flip.

Or like a nightmare?

Dark little brows dig together as she squeezes her eyes tighter closed against creeping dread, covering her in goosebumps as my fingers slip faster. Making her whimper and lift. Making her temples sweat and her hips ache. Making the whole world tilt back and forth as she shakes her head again. Faster than before. Harder now. Dizzy. Needy. Helpless.

I can feel it all.

Tingling and tightening right under my fingertips. Swelling sweet and ominous in all her softness. Making her chest feel too full. The ocean too wet. She's trembling at the brink again, closer than before and even more lost and still made of stop-don't-stop.

Each panicked chant engraves itself in the deepest, darkest part of what I've become while I watch her bad dream play out behind her locked-down eyelids. Just a second or two more. Just long enough to watch the illusion of me hold her mouth open for the flow of opaque black, pouring from mine.

The sound it draws from my throat borders a growl as new instincts surge like a storm, and my fingers slip hard where she's softest. Pressing in. Bending her back. Bidding her up. Open. Open up -

Pinched lids fly open as she wakes gasping. Rocking. Simultaneously seeking to come and struggling to curl up as I fill her with my touch, sliding so deep her cries go breathless around two knuckles.

My eyes are the first thing she sees, dilated half as wide and twice as dark as hers, and once I have her in mine, she can't look away. She's bound to me. Caught. Trapped. Nowhere to run or hide as her lashes flutter and lilt. They rise high as I sink deeper, unable to fight the grin cutting across my lips as she searches for leverage on my shoulders.

Does it feel real now? I ask, watching glassy-bright hazel-blue eyes watch my mouth not move. Listening to her pulse pummel her veins with intimacy and fear as she realizes she's feeling my voice instead of hearing it. Feeling the soaked-softest part of her tighten around my middle fingers as I press my palm against her, diffusing heavy pressure and racing heart beats with the heel of my hand.

I hate how hot it makes every hard part of me. How feeling her ache for my touch even as I give it to her coats my skin with rich heat and fills my bones with devotion so strong it burns.

I hate how right it feels.

How I don't want to stop.

I hate how much I love touching her.

Sliding so deep she can't keep her eyes open, so completely inside that she can't do anything but feel warm and wet and full, I feel the slick sting of pleasure assail her like slow-motion undertow. Her rigid hands soften into a bashful grasp on my biceps as her head tips back. Her jaw falls slack, and her curse of a mouth opens wide for me. Crying out without a single sound now. Barely breathing at all as she slips back into trying to convince herself this can't happen.

That it can't be real.

Leaning roughly up, back onto my knees, I curve my dark hand around her hip, holding her in place as I ease my right hand away just enough to let her feel me slide back into her.

Her closed eyes tighten again as she reaches between us, grabbing my arm with both hands.

Don't you want it to be? I ask, piercing her inner ears with low goading. Raking my eyes down the bowed and blushing shape of her to look between us at her hands, gripping my wrist. At how wet the heel of my palm is. How the red rose growing down my thumb looks like it belongs pressed between slick pink petals. Right on the most delicate part of her.

Maddeningly captivating, she lifts toward my touch while her voice breaks around a note so lost-sounding, it goes straight through my chest.

And I hate it.

Don't you want me to the hilt?

Her soft little grip flexes as I grind her own words against her, and it enamors me all the way to the marrow.

To the bone?

The past and present crash over her like an avalanche of ancient stones, crumbling any semblance of illusion and forcing her to remember everything from the last six months all at once. Every fantasy. Every wish. Every time she prayed to any force that might be listening to please let her have this. To please, please, please let this be real -

I curve my touch, taking half of it away again when she rises up, her grip turning uncertain as I beckon her higher while her entire life starts to unravel. Last night and the first night and every day she spent yearning for it to be night flow over and into each other in her mind. All the mornings she begged me for one more drink. All the classes she sleep-walked her way through. All the afternoons she spent downstairs, wearing my clothes, indulging herself on my couch while she waited for me to come home. To lay down right here and fall asleep so she could sneak out and climb on top of me without my consent -

How many times, I ask, unable to stand another second of watching it through her eyes.

She blinks, and three thousand year old cheeks that look barely legal blush from so close to so caught as I hook my fingers intentionally deep.

How many did it take?

Hazel-blues widen, vivid and lucid as her breathing falters and shallows, and her face burns with shame she's never, ever known.

I spill my anger down her throat.

How many times before you got what you wanted?

She shakes her head again, her lips opening and closing around half-hearted apologies and full-body pleas she can't put into words. She's drowning in so many dreams coming true. Wet so deep she can't get above the waves and wound too tight around my touch. When I look between us again, her grip on my wrist is so tight it's impossible to tell if she's trying to stop me or keep me from ever stopping.

A long, harrowed note pours from her as I press deeper, circling my thumb.

"You don't even know, do you?" I ask out loud, the bass and disdain of my real voice searing her ears, turning her devoted moan into a tender keen as my fingertips graze a place that makes her rut, unable to help herself even when I scoff.

"You can't even remember -"

My derision mounts all her strung-out nerves. Everything tangles up and blurs together inside her when I speak. Her sense of reality goes hazy when she hears my voice.

Releasing her hip, I grip her face instead, and it bolts her eyes to mine. The sight of my jet-black grip on her lush-pink cheek sends darkness rolling through me while she rolls freely toward my touch now. My blood roars, new instincts starving in every muscle as I drag my ink-covered thumb over her pouty lower lip, pulling her insatiable mouth open by her bottom teeth.

"Try," I continue out loud, filling her ears with the sound she loves, burning so low it makes her temperature rise. "How many times did you wrap these lips around me?"

Her deceitful tongue slips out before she can help it, chasing my thumb as I pull it away. Grabbing her by the chin, but she still can't stop.

She can't help it.

Even now.

She finally has my eyes, my voice, my touch. So much of me is all over her. Just like she wanted. But she wanted this for so long she can't do anything but feel it now. She can't tell up from down with my hands on her. She can't separate no from please or now from a dream.

It's too much.

And it's still not fucking enough for her.

Darkness pools with hate inside my rib cage, and I twist her face to the side, toward pillows she stained with her scent while I rock her on my fingers, curving deep until I find the place that makes her wild.

Remember how good you made it feel? I ask this liar, pressing down harder on her jaw. Hating how wide her lips part. How fast her pulse flutters. How she arches and opens while her lashes close.

How she'll never remember every time she violated me.

How I'll never forget.

"Open your eyes," I bite over the obscene sounds she's making. My heart kicks so furiously the force of it rocks my own hips against the space between us as her lids lift high, and I rub her mouth entirely open, pressing down on her teeth in warning.

Misgivings brim in glossy black pupils as she watches me, watching her try like hell not to lick my thumb again. Drawing another circle around slick pink lips, I stroke her little wildness so slowly her hips tremble. Panting broken breaths, she digs her nails into my wrist and it makes my hips rock again as I lay my fingers on her open mouth, smirking as her knees fall wide and her back arches. Her pulse reels, but deeply dilated eyes distrust me.

A smile tugs at my smirk.

Go ahead, I dare, teasing her Cupid's bow with dark fingertips. Do what you do best. I push my chin out as I say it. Mouth baby.

The last two words echo everywhere inside her. Epithet and endearment all in one wrapped into one. A seething bassline that makes her legs spread and her chest ache. She loves it so much she can't help it. The silky tip of her lustful tongue seeks my fingers, and it fills me with intimate resentment.

"That's right." My real voice shatters the echo she's chasing as I slip my fingertips between lips that were made to stay apart.

A rush of euphoric breath coats my whole hand in lush warmth.

"That's what you are." Everything in me tenses and strains as I slide my fingers over her tongue, hating how unfairly soft she is, how inherently inviting. "All fucking mouth."

Keeping her eyes on mine and her pout obediently open, my mate no matter how much I hate her laps at my touch like it's all she ever wanted while I stare down and take her in. Dark brown crown tangled like a nest. Blushing all over like the virgin she's always been. Giving me her tongue like the fiend she used to be.

She doesn't need me anymore, not like she did, but she can't tell because she wants me just as much. It feels like the need she was born with, but it's not. All her unholy need is in me now, gnashing teeth where my soul should be, and hate isn't a deep enough word any more than hunger is.

I push the tips of my middle fingers to the back of her tongue, watching her lift her head to take me there.

"You want to give it to me right now, don't you?"

She nods like the filthy lovesick thing she is.

"You don't know even know if you're really here or daydreaming in fucking gym class, but you don't care -"

She moans, deceptively sinless eyes tearing up as I rub all over her tongue, and she grabs onto my sides as I stroke her deep.

"All you fucking care about is getting me back in this needy little mouth -"

Raggedly ecstatic notes pour from her as I feel my way all over where she loves me most. Lips and teeth and her soaked, satin-soft tongue. Not letting her close or kiss or suck no matter how hard she tries, I touch her mouth the way it deserves to be touched. Wetting her in rough streaks from chin to cheeks while she writhes under my weight, and I feel her.

Letting me.

Begging me.

Loving me.

The growl that fills my inner ears comes from so low in my chest I can't tell it from the thunder shaking my walls. Loathing and hunger push the darkness in me to overflowing. I feel drenched in it from within. Inseparable from it. Like I can't do anything but ache to cover her in pure black wrath until she's dripping with it too.

I bury my growling into her chest.

You want it? I grab her jaw again, watching damp lashes bat open as I take my fingers away from her sordid mouth.

"Yes -" She gasps, her soft, frayed voice making my pulse pound where I need her worst. "Yes, please -"

"Get up." I drag her face toward me as I move, stripping all air and equilibrium away as I take my other hand from where I can't touch her enough. I shift as she sits up, doe eyes bathing me with instinctive heat as I get off my bed to stand at the foot of it. Soul-separated. Barely able to breathe around how hard her eyes make me.

It's never been fair. How hard this girl makes me. It's always been as intense as it is cruel.

Pushing my hair back with my right hand, I press my left where I'm hottest.

I have to.

I don't want to cut this devil down quick. I want to take her apart slowly. So she feels everything she's losing.

Just like she did to me.

"Up," I tell her again. "Get on your knees, you want it so bad."

Measuring small breaths between lips that are swelled-slick and dark pink from my unrestricted touch, she hesitates. But butterflies she's only ever had for me flood her bloodstream. Goosebumps spill down her arms as the impulse she's carried for months overwhelms her, and she slides her hands in front of herself. Uncurling stiff fingers against black bamboo sheets, she lowers slowly down onto all fours, whimpering as bitten and bruised knees meet the bed. She looks disoriented for a second, and a smile digs into my cheek.

There she is, I coax mockingly. There's the ghost I know.

Fire that feels new and ancient at the same time inundates my veins as goosebumps spread to her back. Longing I left between her legs aches so warm and deep it feels rooted there while she stares up at me, her mouth helplessly open.

What are you waiting for, I taunt from within, watching permanent bedroom eyes drift between mine and my blacked-out hand, flexing my grip on need that's growing unbearable. Listening to her nervous heart flutter, I feel my own throb in burdensome answering against my palm.

I square my shoulders against a tidal wave of resentment, and cover her in it instead.

You want to watch? I ask, my head heavy with memories that make me so angry my bones hurt. I know how much you like to watch.

Shadows of raindrops slide down her cheeks, and it takes every effort not to snatch gravity out from under her, spread her newly fragile thighs so wide she cries real tears, and make her slake everything she gave me.

"Just bring me your fucking mouth, Bella." I say through strained patience, tilting my head back as tension winds up my spine like wires. "Bring it here just like you were made to."

A fresh rush of blood stings her cheeks as she pushes one hand tentatively out, wincing as she drags her left knee forward first. Then her right. As helplessly as if I tugged a leash.

"There you go." I practically laugh, it feels so good. "Crawl to me, baby."

The name she craves makes all of her so soft she sways.

"That's it. Crawl those pretty knees raw." I stand taller, brandishing the outline of my cock as I mock her, watching eyes that can't lie anymore swell with helplessly honest ardor. "Crawl your little black heart out."

She goes slow because it hurts tender skin, and her nerves knot tighter with each stride, but she doesn't stop. She comes to where I am with her need-filled mouth all the way open. Wet. Ready. But shaking her head.

I reach out with my right hand, wrapping locks of soft chaos around my knuckles and cradling the back of her crown because I know it makes her even softer for me.

"No?" I ask, pushing stray strands of dark hair out of her face with my darker hand so I can see her eyes. "No what, Bella?"

"Lilette," she insists, stopping at the edge of my bed, kneeling up to palm what she wants with both hands. "My real name - "

Searing satisfaction radiates from her touch, but I shake my head back at her. Already furrowed brows dig closer together in confusion, and I press my inked hand over hers for more pressure, more heat.

"You'd have given up your birthright in a heartbeat yesterday to touch me like this."

Her whole body lilts between my real voice and where I'm letting her make contact.

"Do you think They don't know that?"

Even as countless questions swirl in wide, gilded blue eyes, she slides her hands over me, rubbing where she makes it hurt every second I'm not inside her. Her mouth waters, and her guilty heart skips beat after beat as her defenses stop and start. Overlapping. Unable to understand.

No, she thinks. That's not - It doesn't - I didn't - You can't just -

I keep my hand on hers, feeling her feel how much harder she makes me than any man could be.

"You think They didn't watch you lay down on my table?" Her cheeks burn as I say it. "And beg for attention?"

She looks lost, unsteady everywhere except where she holds me.

But … I'm theirs. I'm made of Hell and the moon and -

"And even that wasn't enough for you." I say it gently, barely above a whisper, but the toll of this truth sinks straight to the quick of her. "Running around stealing souls for centuries? Sneaking into my house every night -"

Eyes I want on me until the end of time swell with fresh fear.

But -

"But what?" Impatience rises in me like a weighted blade. "You prayed for this, Bella. Did you think They weren't listening? Did you think there wasn't a price?"

Memories flash through her mind. Her signature on consent forms. My sting in her bloodstream. My soap on her skin. My eyes everywhere but on her, all while here and now I don't look anywhere else. Her own eyes darkening with dread and disbelief are enough to feast on but her hands - the way she never stops trying to stroke me through thin knit fabric. Up and down. Over and over like she wants to feel all of what I've got. Like she needs to. Even now.

It drags a groan from the pit of fire in my chest, and all her desperation clamors up.

No - No no no, I didn't mean to - I didn't - I can't -

Her hands don't stop, even as her brows furrow.

I'm a god.

She thinks it in such a small, hollow voice, I almost laugh, because she knows it isn't true. In the innermost part of herself, where she's stashed what's mine, she knows it isn't true anymore.

But … She presses her lips together, trying to hide the tremble in her jaw while her chest caves in. "But I'm His. I'm His gateway. Hades - "

The words fall out fast, but I cut her off faster. Grabbing her by the nape of her neck, I tip her head sharply far back so she feels as trapped as she is.

That's a name you don't get to say anymore, I warn her, dropping my voice inhumanly low. Edging it between her lungs. So deep she can hardly breathe around it. Take it out of your mouth forever now.

Frantic heartbeats crowd my room as the first pangs of homesickness glint in her eyes. She searches mine while her chin quivers, and I hate it. I hate how young it makes her look. I hate what she is. What she'll always be, and I hate what it does to me.

What she still does to me.

I don't know how I know all this, but I do. I know it is as surely as I know what her butterflies taste like and how easily she'll come once I'm inside her. I know every cloven black step that led her here. What she still wants more than anything. What she's all soft and soaked for. What she can't keep her hands off of even as the consequences start to become clear.

Horror creeps over her like a shadow, her balance wavering because she knows. I can feel it. Like a mouth baring its teeth around her heart.

My lips part, and the scent of her melts on my tongue.

You think He wants someone who betrayed him?

Tracing her bottom lip with my left thumb, I lay my right hand back over hers, still moving all over me.

Who would betray Him again even now, if I took this away from you?

The girl nothing is ever enough for shakes her head as I help her, gripping and stroking as best as she can as I rub her mouth back open so crudely her lashes flutter and fall shamefully closed, tears slipping down her face as she keeps touching me. Worshiping me. Leaning her cheek against my palm for balance.

I hate it. The semblance of affection. I want to shove her away, but the more she touches me, the more she wants to. Her pleasure-seeking tongue slides over my thumb as her dreamy lids lift, so slow they look heavy. Like she's drunk off just feeling my cock. Like just the shape of it is enough to intoxicate her beyond measure.

She can't help it.

This is what touching me does to her.

It always has.

And I love it so much I can't fucking stand it.

"Mouth baby," I call her again, soft as salt as she slides my undone jeans farther apart to stroke me better.

"Slut mouth," I taunt, pressing her lips open wide before sliding both my hands into her hair, keeping her head craned up as I push forward. Pressing against her touch. Drawing her face close enough to feel her breath warm me through black cotton.

"Wet fucking cock slut," I whisper, making her coat where I need her most in a wantonly low moan.

It's so hot, I moan too, reveling in the fervent way she's grasping at the entire length of me. Helplessly greedy for it. Like she needs to hold it all. Like she needs to stroke my whole cock so badly and she can't.

Not like this.

"You want to use your mouth, baby?" I drag my shade-dipped thumb back down to her touch-addicted lips. "You want me to hold your mouth open while I fuck it so you can feel me better?"

She nods, Little Prisoner-tipsy on her knees as she laps at my thumb, eyes slipping low as she dips her fingers under my clothes to undress me like the junkie she is.

Letting go of her hair and grabbing the backs of her thighs, I push her onto her back and tug her to the edge of my bed in one swift shift. Frantic hands push at my own as I press her legs apart to make my hips fit, and she gasps little sounds that I know don't mean yes, but did she listen to me? When I tried to push her off while she assaulted me in my sleep? When I tried to protect the one thing that should only ever be mine?

Tension clenches my jaw, bearing down on me from back teeth to shoulder blades as I pin her elbows to the bed at her sides. Panic and grey-white daylight crash over her as she struggles, rubbing her naked legs against my naked rib cage as I lean closer so she knows there's nowhere to go. So she feels as vulnerable as she looks. So she understands exactly what she is to me now.

"Relax," I snap, piercing skittish eyes with mine as the image of a pit viper strikes in her mind.

First-time prey strains against my grip, flirting with untrained instincts and fucking with my overwrought restraint.

"Did you really think I was going to give your mouth anything after what you did?" I hold her down harder, watching guilt and self-defense strive for control inside her. "After what you stole?"

Excuses and apologies overlap on their way to her lips, but neither comes out. All she can do is shake her head, lost between the urge to beg for forgiveness and tell me it isn't her fault.

She couldn't help it.

I swallow against the impulse to turn her over and make her say she's sorry while I dig her fucking back out.

"You made your choice." I swallow virulence that burns like venom. "And you've got something to give me now, don't you, Bella?"

Confusion washes over her as I release one of her wrists to lay my right hand on her chest, right over her craven and captivated pulse. She pushes and pulls at my arm out of pure reflex, and I let her.

It isn't her heart I want.

Holding pupil-filled eyes open under my stare, I draw my palm lower, dragging every butterfly down with it. Over the navel she made me mark. Past the bottom of her trembling middle. Low between her hipbones, I turn my hand so the heel of it skims where she's most delicate and so slick, I can't help circling her clit. Making her lift and fight against lifting without understanding why.

A laugh like warm gravel grates at the base of my throat as I indulge her newly human nature. It's more gratifying than I anticipated, feeling her try to keep herself from me. The way she pulled my hair earlier. Her scratch marks on my wrist. Letting her shove at my arms now as I feel my way between her soft, warm legs with both hands thrills every nerve in my body.

How close I am to taking what's mine makes me smile.

"You want to play shy?" I tease as she digs violet-pink knees into my sides, her defenses licking every hot, hard part of me. "Like you didn't ride me like I was yours last night?"

Her fight falters as shock flashes across her eyes, and I wrap my hands around her knees.

"Like you didn't come when I held you down on me?" She goes still as I say it, my calm voice filling her with truth she can't hide from. "Like you didn't love how my come felt inside you?"

Shameful heat scalds her cheeks as she turns her face away, her whole frame shaking as I slide my hands down to hold her silken inner thighs open wide. Lowering my eyes. Looking between us as my palms slip along her legs. Her too-wet-to-deny-anything fucking legs.

Need like I've never imagined cleaves through me. Need that's too big for my body. Too heavy. Too much.

I slide both hands up and down how slick she is.

"Does this feel shy to you, little traitor?"

Pressing down as her hips lift, I make where she's so pink it's crushing me not to be inside her open up. She arches and rocks, trying to push my hands away in a daze as I slip my thumbs closer together. Up and down. Parting and touching between swelled little lips just to show her how sodden she is.

"Or does it feel like you want this so fucking bad?"

Her heart rivals the storm outside, growing more torrential every second. Every panted breath sounds ripped out as soon as it starts, and her trembling runs deep, deep into her marrow as I lift my eyes to hers. She looks lost underneath me, scared just like I want her, trying to cover her face. Her breasts. Fisting the fitted sheet like she doesn't know what's happening or what to do.

Put your hands on me, I tell her without speaking. Without thinking.

Peeking hesitantly up under tear-wet lashes, she shakes as she brings her palms to my arms, and her loyalty sinks through my skin. It's so visceral I groan through a full-body hum, pressing aggressively down on her legs so there's no mistaking what's happening.

No, baby. I watch her eyes find mine as I push black cotton and denim out of the way before taking her hands in mine.

Put them where you really want to.

Her inhale shakes as I give her my cock. Her backbone curves like a drawn tight archer's bow, and all my blood, all my dark, all my anger and instinct and need all flow like a current toward her touch. I fall down around her like a cage again, burying my nose and lips against her neck and breathing in the innocent scent of her like a swear word. I drag my teeth and tongue possessively over last night's marks, my hands all over her, and my chest fills with heat and entitlement as she holds me where I'm hardest. Stroking me so close to where she's softest. So agonizingly close to the most precious part of herself.

The back-breaking torment of not being inside her grows more volatile inside me as she grips me tighter. I can't help pushing against where I belong. Sliding. Spilling -

I can't help it.

It's right there.

Waiting for me.

Aching for me to take it.

The first pulse of what my prey craves most unhinges her completely. Her entire body tenses and lifts against mine as she rubs come that's just come now into herself. Stroking me for more. Panting feverishly as I dig my inner voice against her outer ear. Asking her if that's enough or if she needs more. If she wants me to push it deeper. If feeling me come inside her would make her come.

I already know it will, but hearing her cry out so desperately for it is so validating I close my eyes for a second. Rocking heavily. Reveling in tenderness that begs me to slow down in the same breath it begs me closer. Even with panic twisting through her, this girl still wants me deeper than hell from heaven, and I know that getting me there is going to keep her coming until I take myself away again.

And every shiver, every cry, every tight little tingle and soft little wave her body gives is going to soothe mine.

I don't know how it happened or why. I don't understand that part any more than she does.

But while she was taking something from me, I was taking something too.

You ready? I ask, my voice already swimming inside her.

Bella looks confused as I lean up, the whole world tilting as I watch through her eyes, seeing what she sees all around me. Not quite fluid. Not quite smoke. Something darker than both of them, sliding down the window-walls of my cabin.

Yeah. I grin, still watching through her eyes as my gold fang glints, and black begins to drip from the ceiling beams, onto my shoulders. Into my hair. You're fucking ready.

Nightmare terror splinters through her as I push her hands off me, pinning them down so I can slide and come and fuck how I want. A thousand questions with the same answer fill her throat as I roll my hips, making darkness drip from my crown onto her cheeks, slipping with real tears because she finally feels it.

Her own earthly spark. How sacred it is. How desperately she cherishes it. How it's so wholly and only hers.

I line her the fuck up underneath me.

Feel that? I ask, watching through her eyes as she stares up at me. A dark halo of shadows and bronze. Liquid black sliding down my arms and chest. Know what that is?

She doesn't move or answer, but she knows.

She doesn't understand how or why.

But she feels it.

She knows.

Want to ask how you're going to give it to me? I mock, still watching through her eyes as darkness fills my own.

She shakes her head, but she knows what she's going to cover me in once I'm inside her. She knows it as surely as pitch black pours down around us. Coating the windows. Shutting out all light except for a few, thinning streaks of it across my face as I coat her the same way. Pouring hot darkness between her legs while I open the sea of her wide enough to take me soulmate-deep.

Her heart pounds like my heart the night she walked into the shop, and her body kisses mine with binding, beckoning heat as I slide with intent, pushing all the light out from between us.

"Should I be merciful, baby?" I ask her inside and out so she can't tell if she's awake or asleep as I enter, and pitch black pressure eclipses everything. Her bottom lip trembles in the dark and she grabs onto me when I lick it. "Were you?"