Page 94 of Petrify

“The part of you conditioned to begoodis resisting. But you know that I have to do it.”

I lean forward, hoping my proximity affects him, clouds his mind the way he does to me. “What if we just run away?”

He laughs under his breath, lifts the mask just enough to nip at my lip, sucking it between his teeth and biting down to draw a gasp from me. Taking the moment as an invitation to slip his tongue inside, sliding against mine. Consuming me, breathing me in.

I think he’s forgotten what I’ve said, until he’s wrenching himself away. Putting distance between us, his lips bruised. “You know I can’t leave.”

“You aren’t stuck here.” I don’t let him back away too much, my fingers twisting in his sweater. Snowflakes melt on my skin, tiny shards of ice amongst the fibers of his clothing. “We could just take a car. Drive far, far away.”

“No.” He shakes his head, his vise-grip on my wrists tightening. “I can’t.”

“You know where the keys are, don’t you?”

“This house, it’smine?—”

“All you have to do is steal them, and we can be miles away in an hour. Before they even realize.”

“I will not leave until it’s mine.”

His chest rises with every breath. He’s so starkly alive, his breath fogging between us, his eyes glistening with unshed passion. I wonder how I ever thought he was a ghost.

“And you will help me. You want to help me.”

“Don’t act as though you know what I want?—”

His arm bands around my waist, pulling my chest flush with his. “You deny yourself, even now. When you knoweverything.” He breathes sharply through his teeth in frustration, almost a growl. “So stubborn. I thought we had trained that out of you.”

Heat ignites in my skin. “Baz, I’m serious.”

“So am I.” He turns me quickly in his arms, so my ass is pressed against his hard cock. “It seems I have to fix this now.”

“Baz—”

He pins my wrists to the tomb’s wall above my head, his other hand shoving my leggings down over my hips. The air is frigid against my exposed skin, but soon he’s pressed against me again, his cock free, sliding between my thighs, the contact of his body exquisitely warm.

Shamelessly, without thought, my back arches. Offering myself up to him.

I hear him spit into his free hand, and then his cock is slipping inside, all in one slow thrust. A low groan rumbles in his chest as he bottoms out.

And then he stays like that, stretching me out, his body pressing me to the cold tomb wall, and I’m pinned in place and on the verge ofwhining. I bite my lip in the same spot he nipped it, squeezing my eyes shut, but unable to stop my hips from angling back toward him. Needing friction, muscles spasming.

“We’re not leaving,” he says. “Not until you… help me. Not until you admit that you and I are the same.”

“The same?” My cheek pressed to the wall, I blink, surprised to feel tears pinching at the backs of my eyes. With every breath, my hips cant towards his, my thighs burning with the effort not to grind against him, knowing if I move, he won’t give me what my pussy so desperately wants.

“What is it?” he taunts. “Need something?”

“Yes, Baz,please?—”

“You’re begging, and yet you know exactly what you need to do. This is all up to you, Mallary.”

I grit my teeth together as my legs begin to shake. “I can’t.”

“You can.” His free hand travels from my hip up my waist, across my stomach, under my sweater and between my breasts, caging me against him, feeling my heart stuttering beneath his palm. “You can.”

“I—” My breath catches in my throat. The air is so thin, so cold, I suddenly feel like I’m suffocating. I feel like I’ll combust into stardust. “How would I help you?”

“Just play the music” he murmurs against my skin. “You’ve already caught everyone’s attention, for better or worse. All you need to do is perform. Let them hear what we’ve done together.”