Page 18 of The Shadow Sanctum

My neck feels hot beneath his hand as it flushes, and it must burn him because he finally pulls away and plants his lips just below my jaw. I close my eyes when I feel the wet heat of his tongue run to my ear, and blow out when he nibbles on the lobe.

“You good?” he whispers.

I nod, and my lips part to tell him I’m fine, to keep going, but something hits me in the chest so sudden it knocks the wind from me.

I’m not okay.

“Luna?” Sawyer’s pace slows, and his pitch raises an octave. Finally, his emotion shows, but instead of disgust, it’s concern.

I nod again, but it isn’t good enough for him. His hips pause, and his mouth pulls from my ear so he can look at me, but I jerk him into me by his hair.

“Don’t stop,” I say in a panic. My fingers dig into his shoulders, holding on as if he's the only thing keeping me from falling much farther than the floor.

“Fuck me,” I command, undulating my body against him. “Fuck me, Sawyer.”

He hesitates for a couple more seconds before he pulls my hair back and kisses just below my ear. His hips start moving again, first slow and gentle, then progressively faster. Rougher.

My fingers thread around his neck, and I squeeze him closer while he thrusts inside of me, each jerk of his hips sending bursts of pain and pleasure through my nerves.

My rear slams against the pole. Again. And again. And again.

It hurts exactly the way it should after the events of tonight—the riding crop, and … everything else.

But still, I moan. My core winds tight. My nipples ache with need so strong, I cover my breasts and squeeze, my palms pressing into the swollen, tender buds.

I bite my lip and clench my eyes shut. When I let go, the supple flesh spills forward with a sheen of saliva from my tongue.

“Oh, God.”

My fingernails dig into Sawyer’s freckled shoulders as the pressure builds, a crescendo of sensation that stabs a numbness I forgot didn’t always belong to me.

A scream rips through me, raw and ragged, but it’s not a scream of pleasure. It’s a scream of defiance. Of pain. Of terror. Of a thousand shattered pieces of myself that I can’t put back together.

My whole body pulses against Sawyer as every cell shreds like it wants to make a new version of me. It isn’t until I plummet from the peak of orgasm that I realize my body isn’t pulsing. It’s shaking.

I blink as my grip on Sawyer’s shoulders releases.

My eyes burn, and the back of my throat pangs. My stomach fills with weights that add a hundred pounds onto my body.

I suck in a sharp breath as hot tears begin to spill from my eyes faster than I can blink them away, and I find myself staring at Sawyer’s chest utterly catatonic.

Still inside of me, he pulls me against his chest and stills like he can see exactly what’s happening inside of my head. He can’t. He couldn’t possibly.

I let out the first cry, sharp and cut off short, like my vocal cords are trying to hold back. Like they know as soon as they start working, they’ll be shredded within the hour.

They’re right.

A sob tears from my throat, raw and broken. Another follows, and another, until I’m gasping for breath between the wrenching sobs. Sawyer holds me up while petting my hair, soft coos spilling from his mouth.

“It’s all right. You’re all right. I’m here.”

He doesn’t sound confused or guilty, and I’m glad because it would be impossible to try and explain this to him when I don’t understand it myself.

“No shame. It’s okay.”

Shame. That’s what this is.

Shame.