Page 67 of Pareidolia

Nox fucks me from both directions like he’s searching for the centerpoint where his hand holds my heart.

“Love.” He snarls it again. “Human love is useless. It dies when they die, fades with boredom.” He accents each word with a thrust, and the deep growl of his voice echoes along my bones. Fingers squeeze my heart, my cock, my thighs, and he fucks me deeper. “I won’t show you what love feels like, little monster. I will show you what it is to be consumed, to be owned by the shadows. I’ll show you what it feels like to be mine.”

He fucks me hard and fast, without mercy. My body breaks and bleeds and reforms around the slickness spilling from his shadows, shaping itself to fit perfectly with him.

I want to cry out his name—to make demands. To tell him that he has no idea what he’s fucking talking about. That I want this version of love, but I can’t.

I don't have to.

“Love. Obsession. Possession. No love, Aspen… just this. An eternity of my hand wrapped around your heart, knowing I’m the only thing that will ever have you, ever touch you. Knowing that without me, you’ll die. Without me, you’re nothing. And without you…” His wings flare behind his back, that thrumming spilling to a frantic counterpoint as his fingers slick against my heart, the clawed tips of his nails digging in like just the thought of him being without me is enough to make him want to tear it from my chest.

He drags the tendril from my mouth long enough for me to gasp. “Nox… mmmf… never. Never without.”

“Never without,” he echoes. “The world back to shadows and ruin if it tries.” The claws at my thighs grip tighter and he moves even closer. It feels more like he’s trying to crawl inside my skin than fuck me, but I want it.

I want this.

I want him.

“Show me,” I say it again. I demand it… and Nox nods.

The tendrils wrapped around my body drag me from the tree and take me to the ground, and Nox follows them. He pistons into me, fucking me so hard I wonder if he means to bury me in the earth.

The fingers at my cock are replaced with another tendril—it floods over me, wraps around my dick and covers it. That strange, deep sensation spills back through me. The shadow sleeves my cock, drinking it down like I’m fucking into that part of Nox, and at the same time it slides inside me again.

Every part of me. Every hole.

Every piece that Nox can touch when he leans down and presses his forehead to mine and another string of wet, sweet saliva slips from his lips to flood my mouth.

I open up and take it this time, willingly drinking down his filth and hoping he can feel the way it makes the heart he holds beat even harder.

I’m so consumed by it, consumed by him, that I almost don’t notice when I come. Everything feels good—everything is pain and agony, the edge of death and bliss. My body spasms and the shadow around my cock drinks down the spill before it has a chance to touch the air.

His fingers around my heart squeeze again and I moan, wet and needy, barely able to speak when I swallow the liquid in my mouth.

“More.”

Everything.

Never without.

Nox’s fingers in my chest flex as he comes, and my body bows up. I think I can almost feel it when my heart stops beating… when his hand holding it is the only thing keeping me alive. With another hand he raises his claws and cuts his chest open—strings of black shadow spill out, flooding downward to the place his hand disappears inside me.

And then he leans down and presses his lips to mine in the first kiss we’ve ever shared—his tongue delves into my mouth, licking at the taste of me as he pours that liquid from his chest into mine. It sluices down his wrist and feeds straight into my heart… but it feels like it goes deeper.

Deeper than anyone can see.

Deeper than even Nox can touch

Deep enough to mean forever.

I give myself over to the kiss and revel in how warm his tongue is, the way it licks inside me and dips down my throat the same way that tendril did, chasing the hollow inside my chest to taste what he’s done.

I could die in this moment—I want to die in this moment, because I know from here until the edge of eternity, there’s never going to be another as perfect as this.

This is love, whether he realizes it or not.

Our kind of love.