Page 104 of The Spider & the Storm

“I, um …” I dared my fingertips to touch the two-inch line of silvery white. “I was … I-I was stabbed.”

“Shit, seriously?” Her eyes widened with horror and concern. “How bad was it?”

“Not as bad as it could've been,” I admitted, my voice suddenly gravelly.

“What about the person who stabbed you?”

I pressed my lips into a tight line and raised my eyes to the ceiling. I swallowed at the pain and guilt and every other vile, disgusting feeling I didn't want to feel right now and cleared my throat before replying, “Not as good.”

She closed her mouth and nodded once, as if the questions hanging in the air weren't worth asking right now, and I was grateful for that. She outstretched her arms, welcoming me into the bed, and I joined her. Half covering her body with mine, pressing my face to her neck, and finding my calm once again in her garden of lavender and spice.

Then, she took my hand and placed it between her legs. Evidence of her desire had pooled there, her paper-like skin wet and slippery against my fingertips as I groaned into her shoulder.

“You've done that to me since the first time I saw you,” she admitted, her tone husky and wanton.

I choked out a laugh, lifting my head to smile into her eyes. “Why do I feel like I should apologize for that?”

“God, don't,” she replied before releasing a gasp as two fingers slid inside easily. “You have no idea how hot you are, and for some fucking reason, that only makes you hotter …”

Her words faded, and her teeth clamped down on her bottom lip as she closed her eyes. But I continued to watch, gliding my fingers in, gliding them out, my timing slow and lazy and deliberate. Keeping her wanting, but never pushing her over the edge. Rolling my thumb over the barbell through herhood and wondering if she had any more piercings I didn’t know about.

Her hand reached out for the elastic waistband of my briefs and tugged downward, failing to pull them off, and she whined out a desperate, “Fucking hell, Charlie.”

“You could just ask,” I teased.

“But that would mean making you stop, and I dunno if anyone has ever told you this before, but you're pretty good with your hands. A very pleasant surprise, I might add.”

She opened her eyes then to waggle her brows at me, and I laughed while thinking,This is nice.

It was nice to joke and laugh while simultaneously maintaining the rhythm of my fingers and thumb, keeping her on the edge of desire. It was nice totalk, to build on a sexual connection with both bodies and voices and communication.

It was all so fuckingnice, and I knew without a doubt that this was what I had always been missing before, without ever knowing I was missing anything at all. It was this that I had needed all along, and was it too soon to be thinking that? Yeah, maybe, but Iknew. I knew everything I needed to know.

I knew, when I did reluctantly stop, pulling my hand from between her legs to tug my briefs and jeans off and onto the floor. I knew, when she pushed me onto my back, straddled my hips, and wasted no time in replacing my fingers with my desperate, throbbing erection. I knew, when she gasped on a sob and laughed away her embarrassment, commenting on how I'd put a curse on her … and I knew she knew it too.

Is this what Luke knew about Melanie?

Did he know right away like this, or was he too young?

Is this why it took so long for her to leave?

I shuddered when Stormy's lips clashed with mine, her hair coming undone and spilling around us in a waterfall of shimmering black. She held my wrists in her grasp, pinning them down to either side of my head. Taking back her power, regaining her control. Reminding me that she still held the reins, even after she melted like softened clay in my hands, and I didn't mind, not for a second. Not when she commanded the speed of our movements, not when her hands left my wrists to pierce my shoulders with her fingernails, and not when she moved one hand between our bodies to drive her own orgasm while the other palm held to my throat.

I had become hers the moment I'd stopped that asshole from taking her against her will. It had taken me this long to accept it, but now, I was a willing participant in any way she wanted me, for as long as she wanted me, and I didn't mind. Not one fucking bit.

“I'm close,” she announced, panting and breathless. “I want you to come with me.”

My nod was erratic, even as I asked, “A-are you sure about that?”

“I wouldn't have said it if I wasn’t,” she replied before adding, “I'm on the pill. It's fine.”

I nodded again. “Okay.”

Then, as if on command, we came undone, spilling over together in coordinated chaos. Our moans and screams rang through the walls and the cemetery beyond, unheard by anyone but us and the dead. And when she collapsed against my contracting chest, her nails scraping lazily against my ink-webbed skin and leaving their mark, the sky opened to baptizewhat I knew was something different, something special, somethingmore. Rain pelted the roof, lightning stretched the sky, and thunder joined the sound of our booming hearts.

And I didn't mind.

Because, maybe for the first time in my life, I was safe.

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