The voices that convinced her she was worth less than the dirt beneath them.
They will answer to me. Not because vengeance has ever brought anyone peace. Fuck that. I don’t care about peace. But because men like that don’t stop. They simply find another woman to break. I know this, because that man is exactly like the low life scum of the earth man who fathered me, but did nothing to deserve the title, and I’ll be fucking damned if I allow another woman I care about to experience such violence.
Now I think I understand her fixation with death. It was never about dying. It was about believing there had to be something kinder waiting for her than the life she’d been forced to endure.
All my thoughts disintegrate as she takes a slow step toward me, still sitting on the edge of my bed before her. She doesn’t rush. She doesn’t have to because I’m not going anywhere.
My eyes follow her, every instinct abandoning me with startling ease as she comes to stand before me once more. Close enough that I can feel the warmth radiating from her skin that once felt cold to touch. Close enough that I catch the soft, uneven rhythm of her breathing.
The room disappears around us as she reaches for me, one hand resting on my chest, her fingers caressing the ink that covers my skin before gently guiding me until I’m lying on my back. I let her. I’ll let her kill me right here, right fucking now if she wanted to.
My pulse slams beneath her palm, and I know she feels it. It beats against her hand with enough force it’s borderline violent. It has everything to do with the naked woman climbing on top of me, wrapping her legs around my waist and resting them on either side of my body.
“I’m covered in another man’s blood.”
“I know.”
“Doesn’t it bother you?”
Her hands glide over my chest and over my shoulders before she reaches for my hands, gathering them in hers before guiding them up to her chest. She letsout a silent gasp when she presses them around her full breasts, and I think I’m going to have a heart attack. My cock stirs behind the fabric of my jeans, straining to be let free. I arch my hips almost instinctively, needing to feel friction. This is new to me. These feelings. But my body seems to know exactly what it wants. Her. Always her.
“I want you as you are,” she whispers. “Every piece of darkness. You don’t ever have to hide who you really are from me, Raven.”
She whispers my name like a promise to a god that exists only to her. One that only she believes in. And it awakens something primal in me that I sit up, crashing my mouth to hers until her startled breath catches against my lips, every fractured thought inside my head vanishing beneath the impossible reality that she’s above me, her naked frame pressed against my body, choosing me.
“Tell me you want me? Tell me… It’s not just me,” she whispers against my lips, her breathy voice so heartbreakingly vulnerable it steals something from inside my chest, sending a wave of heat all over me as my forehead falls against hers. My eyes close and my breathing becomes labored as I fight the urge surging through my veins to make this woman mine in every way imaginable.
“I’ve always wanted you, Little Ghost. I’ve wantedyou since the day I first saw you in my graveyard all those years ago.”
That’s all it takes before her lips find mine again, stealing whatever I had left of myself as she kisses me breathlessly. This isn’t like the kiss we shared before. It’s much more desperate. Frantic. As if two lost souls have finally found each other after years of being separated, haunted by death and torment that refused to let us go. Forcing them to live on half alive until we finally found one other.
An all-consuming ache rolls over me as she refuses to let the distance return, the gentle movement of her hips dismantling me as I meet her with the same desperation. My arms wrap around her body, holding her to me. Both in fear she’ll run, but also because I don’t think I’ve ever known what it feels like to belong somewhere until now.
I take her in, committing every inch of her to memory because I don’t think I could take waking up from this dream. I don’t think I could bear learning that she is nothing more than a figment of my imagination like I had once believed. That I had made up something so perfect, so beautifully strange, because the truth is, a man like me is not worthy of such salvation.
I am nothing but poison. Everything I have ever loved has withered beneath my touch until nothingremained but rot. She deserves a world that has never known either.
But here I am, looking down at her as she lies beneath me, desperate for whatever she’s willing to give. Every shattered part of me reaches for her despite knowing I’ll eventually have to let her go. That’s the cruelty of this life. The moment I admitted she mattered, I signed my own death sentence. She was always going to be the reason I finally had something worth dying for. And the peace that washes over me is unlike anything I’ve ever felt before. My mind is quiet for the first time in my life and I owe every second of it to her.
Leaning back, I undo the button of my jeans, unable to look away from the way she watches me. Her gaze lingers on me with an expression I’ve never seen before, searching my face as though she’s trying to memorize every broken piece of my body that belongs only to her, storing each memory away for the days we’re forced apart again.
I don’t plan on being away from her for long. I’d follow her toward death without hesitation. It would be the easiest decision I've ever made.
I pull the denim down over my hips, delighting in the wonder that crosses her shadowed features when my hard dick bobs free, slapping against my stomach, aching for her in a way I didn’t think was possible. I fist myself, squeezing my length at the base beforedragging the pre-cum already beading there around my sensitive tip. I let out a heavy breath, ignoring the monster inside me that wants to take her right here, right now, using everything I have in me to control myself.
“You’re beautiful.” I murmur, gazing down at her once I’m standing at the edge of the bed as naked as she is, before joining her once more. She blushes, noticeable in the shadows as I lean in, brushing my lips against the delicate shell of her ear. I glide my hand down over her stomach, then up to meet her jaw, gripping it gently. I tilt her head to the side slightly, relishing in the way her body rises to meet mine. I free her from my grip, moving my hand to pin her arm above her head, holding her still. The move doesn’t startle her, if anything it startles me, because I’ve never done anything like this before. I wasn’t sure I knew how to. Her lips trail soft, wet kissing across my neck, mirroring what I had done to her a moment ago, her warm breath sending hot, electric heat across my flesh.
“Your skin…” she whispers, her breath doing things to me that should be considered dangerous as I lean back to look down at her. Her lips curl into a mischievous smile. “It tastes delectable.”
Unable to fight the smile pulling at my own, I lean in, gently pulling her lobe in between my teeth, the taste of her making my already hard dick even harder.I didn't think it was at all possible but apparently it was.
“Go on, take a bite,” I tease, and fuck me, she does.
Her teeth sink into the skin of my collarbone, her tongue dancing over the spot almost instantly, tasting me the same way I’m tasting her.
Her free hand reaches in between our bodies, and I almost pass away when she gently grips my cock, gliding her hand from base to tip and I’m already seeing fucking stars.
“I want to feel you inside me,” she says and I lose all sense of self control as her words brush against my skin, unleashing whatever beast I hadn’t known existed beneath the surface.
