Page 75 of Presence

And yet, hearing her say it so shamelessly awakens something deep inside me—a dark craving for freedom from reason and restraint. As Echo runs a single claw down her spine, I feel a heat spreading through me. Blood starts dripping down her ass crack and onto his cock. He smears his hand in it, playing with the wound, coaxing even more to flow. Then, he spreads it over his cock, coating it evenly.

I can’t stop watching. I can’t look away.

With one fluid motion, he thrusts into her.

“Yes, yes, yes,” she chants, her voice breathy. “More, Echo, more!”

It could be me. He could be fucking me like this, with my blood for lube, with my cries echoing in this creepy haunted house. Together, we could become the darkness. I would never fear it again.

But I’m just tied up here, watching him do it all with her.

The shadows around me tighten, their touch almost suffocating. I feel their cold tendrils brushing against my skin, teasing my thighs, brushing against my clit. They don’t do much. Definitely not enough for me to feel any real pleasure at all. It’s all a play. A game to make me need more.

I watch as Echo goes at it with the other Claire, getting more intense with each thrust, making her cry out louder. The sounds of wetness, slickness, slapping, and panting breaths resonate all around me, all of them distorted, all of them coming from everywhere at once.

His movements grow more savage, his eyes locked onto mine again, a cruel smirk playing on his lips. He knows the effect this is having on me. He revels in my torment, in the twisted blend of fear and arousal that courses through me.

“Does it hurt, Little Soul?” he taunts, his voice a low, guttural growl. “Does it hurt to watch the one you love with someone else? To see the pleasure I get from something you’ll never be?”

The other Claire’s moans grow louder, her body arching against him, her nails raking over the splintered wood on the floor. She makes that awful scratching sound that reverberates in my gut. The floor creaks. The wind seeps through the cracks, swaying the old walls.

The sight is both horrific and mesmerizing. I just… Fuck! Why do I want to be in her place so badly, my blood on his hands, my body writhing under his touch?

“Please,” I whisper, my voice breaking. “Please, Echo.”

He laughs, a dark, mocking sound that echoes through me.

“Begging already, Little Soul? How delightful.” He thrusts harder into her, her cries of pleasure turning into screams, her body convulsing with the force of his movements. “But you’re just making me want to tease you even more. How about I share some stuff you don’t know yet?”

My mouth pops open, my eyebrows draw together. He asked something similar last time. About me finding out the truth. I didn’t want to hear it then, but now…

“Okay,” I mutter, sounding airy from watching them together.

I don’t know which torture is worse—him pushing my body to the brink of explosion, pain and pleasure alike, or watching him do that to my doppelganger. I can’t take it anymore. He might as well do anything he likes with me. He can tell me things. He can do things to me. I don’t care. I just want to be more important than the other Claire. I want to be his.

“Whenever we met in the dreamscape,” he says between breaths, “in reality, I was sitting on your chest in your sleep. I fed on your delicious energy, looking into your open, drying eyes. I was your sleep paralysis.”

His words hit me like a punch to the gut. He was… in the real world? That shadow I kept seeing, that feeling that he was there physically with me, it was him.

“When you had your little sleepover with Camilla, I kept you totally still the whole night,” he goes on. “I was sitting on your chest then, too. But she’s not as messed up as you are. She couldn’t even see me. At least, not until she found out I existed and decided to believe in me. Isn’t that ironic?”

Realizing he’s been in my room, so close while I was vulnerable and unaware, gives me chills—part fear, part twisted excitement. I should be freaked out, but the thought of him being that close, touching me, feeding on me, just fuels this dark longing inside me. Even with Camilla next to me...

Maybe it’s because I’m so damn turned on when he tells me, but it doesn’t throw me off as much as it should.

“Your energy, your essence—it has been feeding my power all along,” he purrs, his voice a seductive growl. “It was so easy to slip into your mind, to make you want me. You were practically handing yourself over, Little Soul. It’s like you were begging me to take control. I barely had to do a thing.”

A predatory smile spreads across his face, revealing a gleam of malevolent delight.

“Your immune system, your instincts—they tried to warn you, to fend me off. They screamed at you that danger was near, that you shouldn’t let your guard down,” he laughs, a sound so dark and chilling it seems to seep into my bones. “And yet, you let me in even deeper to silence them.”

With a final, savage thrust, he withdraws from bad Claire, leaving her panting and spent on the floor. His attention turns to me, each step he takes causing the shadows around him to thicken, becoming the only thing I can see. As he comes closer, his fingers plunge into me with a swift, almost brutal motion, sending a shockwave of pleasure and pain through my body. I cry out, my hips instinctively bucking against his hand, seeking more of the twisted ecstasy he offers.

“I wanted to kill you so many times,” he hisses, his voice a venomous whisper in my ear, “to crush your chest, paralyze your body fully, and toy with your mind until I ate you. But it would be such a waste. The fun would end too soon. Playing with you is so sweet… sweeter than with the rest.”

Each word, each merciless thrust of his fingers drives me deeper into a spiraling abyss of terror and arousal. I break through the haze just long enough to gasp out a question, my voice trembling.

“S-sweeter than the rest? Why?”

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