Page 41 of Petrify

It’s all threatening to spill out. I summon as much venom as I can muster. “That was painfully boring.”

“Boring.”

“Are you deaf?” I push him one last time, and he relents, slipping out of me in one slow motion. Cool air hits my slick center.

I’m empty, too empty, too alone again.

I pull the blanket up to my shoulders.

He sits back on his heels. In the dark, I can hardly see him, his body, the details blurred and shadowed. His skin is pale enough to reveal the vague shape of his face, but I can’t see details. His hands are in fists at his sides, like he’s straining against the need to touch me. To grab me.

To do it again.

And I don’t think I’d stop him if he did.

“Those little sounds coming out of your mouth would suggest otherwise.”

“Maybe if it had lasted longer than a minute.”

“We can go again if you want,” he says, leaning closer again. “I have no issue fucking you until the sun comes up.”

“Get out.” I hiss the words through my teeth.

The tears blur my vision even more, and my lungs feel tight, and suddenly I’m struggling to breathe again, my chest always too fucking tight.

My body is alive and electric for the first time in years and I’m so fuckingscared.

I haven’t felt this way since?—

“You need to breathe.” Bastien, after righting himself and putting the mask back on, looms closer until the white plaster face is all I can see in the midnight dark. “Mallary.”

He’s so close, I can smell the clean scent of his clothing, the decidedly male scent of whatever shampoo he’s used—he’s alive and well, not a ghost, he’salive.

And I just fucked him.

And I’m seconds away from pushing him onto his back and riding him again and again and again until I’ve had my fill.

Already the buzz is humming in my veins, something clicking into place in my mind, and I know my own patterns, I know what I’m going to do, I know I’ll sink my claws in so deep he’ll never be able to free himself of me.

The little devil on my shoulder is laughing with glee, chantingyes, yes, yes.

I promised him my nights, and I can tell myself all I want that I didn’t know what that meant, but of course a small part of me did. I was too naive to hope otherwise.

“I’m fine.” I push him again, but there’s no strength behind it. “Get out.”

A pause. “Alright.”

I don’t wait to see him leave. I fix my night gown, pull the covers up over my head, squeeze my eyes shut and wish it all away.

Then, softly, from across the room, his gentle voice: “Goodnight, Mallary.”

Chapter 20

The Ghost

I retreat backto the shadows with a stupid grin on my face, slinking out into the hall without a sound.

Despite Mallary’s change in mood, the gratification of fucking her, of beingright, of being wanted just as badly is a high like no other. She can act as displeased as she wants, but the way her cunt wrapped around me?—