The feeling was indescribable. She was velvet fire, a tight, wet grip that felt like coming home and drowning at the same time. It was the tactile version of every sketch I had ever made.
I held still for a second, buried to the hilt, just breathing against the back of her neck.
"Look," I gasped, pointing at the mirror. "Look at that."
In the reflection, we were a single entity. My dark form wrapped around her pale one. The strain in my neck. The way her body was impaled on mine. It wasn't polite. It wasn't clean. It was raw, animalistic, and incredibly beautiful.
"You're a masterpiece, not a mess," I whispered into the shell of her ear. "You are the most beautiful thing I have ever drawn, and I have drawn everything."
She looked.
She really looked.
She saw the flush on her chest not as a rash of shame, but as the color of arousal, the sweat on her skin not as grime, but as a glaze. And she saw my face, my tormented, ecstatic face, buried in her neck, and as she watched me for a moment I could tell that she finally realized that I wasn't laughing.
I began to move.
I wasn't gentle. I couldn't be. The burnt sugar scent of my own arousal was choking me. I snapped my hips, driving into her with a rhythm that made her head rock back and forth.
Smack. Smack. Smack.
The sound of flesh meeting flesh echoed in the room.
"Say it," I groaned, reaching around to cup her breast, kneading the soft flesh, watching my dark fingers manipulate her nipple in the mirror. "Tell me what you are."
"I... I don't know," she panted, her eyes rolling back, her hands scrabbling for purchase on her own thighs.
I drove deeper, hitting that sweet spot, that bundle of nerves Daniel had prepped, Anders had protected, and I was now claiming.
"You are not a victim," I hissed, biting her shoulder, marking her though not the way my Alpha wanted me to. "Say it."
"I am not a victim," she gasped, the words shaken out of her by the force of my thrusts.
"Who are you?" I demanded. I reached down between her legs, finding her clit with my fingers, adding friction to the penetration. "Who is the girl in the mirror, Tessa?"
She watched herself being taken, the way her mouth fell open in pleasure, and her hips instinctively pushed back against me, meeting my greed with her own.
"I don't know!" she wailed.
"You're the protagonist," I told her, watching her eyes. "You're the main character in your story."
"I am... I am the main character," she whispered.
"Louder," I growled, speeding up. "Believe it. Make me believe it."
"I am the main character!" she shouted, the realization hitting her at the same time as the pleasure began to coil tight in her belly, tightening her muscles around me.
"Yes," I praised, watching the transformation. "Look at your stomach, Tessa. Look at the way it quivers. You hate that part, don't you? You hate that it cramped. You hate that it’s soft."
I splayed my hand over her belly, pressing down, emphasizing the curve.
"I love it," I swore. "I want to draw this exact curve for the rest of my life. It’s where life is. It’s where the heat is."
"Simon," she keened, her knees buckling. I held her up. I took her weight entirely, pinning her against my body so she couldn't fall, only fly. "I’m going to... I’m going to burn."
"Burn, then," I urged. "Burn the whole fucking house down. I’ll draw you from the ashes."
I hammered into her. Fast. Hard. Brutal. I abandoned the artist and became an animal. I watched the mirror as she shattered.
