Page 30 of The Fire Went Wild

“Just stay like that,” I whisper to her, flipping the dress up so I can see the view I had so studiously avoided when I was sliding on her underwear earlier.

It’s fucking gorgeous.

Her panties cling to her pussy, the silken fabric just barely outlining the pattern of her folds. For a moment, all I can do is stare down at it, my heart pounding in my throat. It’s the blood that makes it different from my usual encounters. The heat radiating off her skin.

“Don’t let her wake up,” I whisper to my Guardian. I can sense from it a vague, uneasy caution but no reprimands to stop. The Unnamed is nearby, too, watching from the black shadows in the corners. From it, I only sense approval. “Stay asleep,” I whisper as I hook my fingers in the waistband of her panties forthe second time tonight and drag them down over her wide, soft hips.

When I catch my first glimpse of dark pubic hair, I go still for a moment, listening to her heartbeat and her breath. They’re both slow. She’s still asleep.

I drag the panties lower. I feel like I’m unwrapping a present on Solstice morning. My father always wrapped the gifts in butcher paper and made me thank the gods when I got what wanted. Those early offerings were simple, just a prick of my own blood dropped on a candle flame to smoke and sputter.

I’m about to get what I’ve wanted since Charlotte breezed through the door of Bandit’s diner.

“Thank you,” I breathe as I pull her panties low enough to finally see her soft cleft. My tongue darts out.

Just a taste,whispers my Guardian.

Devour her, whispers the Unnamed.

Gods, do I want to devour her. I bow my head low and press a kiss against the dark triangle of her pubic hair, where I’m met with a wash of her scent like from the panties. I have to stifle my groan. Have to adjust my quickly-hardening cock so that it isn’t squeezed up against my thigh.

I kiss her again, moving lower. Her legs shift on either side of my head, but I focus on the sounds of her body as it sleeps. Everything is a quiet, faint susurration.

Emboldened, I slide my tongue out to swipe it between her lips.

And I taste her.

For the first time, I taste her.

She tastesalive. She tastes like skin and blood, like the fiery march of a heartbeat. There’s none of the underlying sweetness of rot I’m used to, only a richness like the wet marsh soil out in the front yard.

I can’t hold myself back any longer. I kiss her cunt the way I wanted to kiss her mouth, plunging my tongue inside her to lap at the wetness there. Her heartbeat quickens, a rhythmic pulse I can practically taste on my tongue as I suck and lap at her pussy. She’s still asleep—still, I think, dreaming—but her body reacts to my attention. The wetness deepens. Her living heat flares.

Cautiously, I push her thighs a little wider apart, moving carefully so I don’t wake her. This gives me more access, and I explore her pussy with my tongue until I find the hard nub of her clit, which is hotter than the rest of her, pulsing with furious blood.

She whimpers.

My whole body goes still. I peer over the gentle mound of her stomach and the pile of her dress’s yellow fabric. Her eyes are closed, and there’s a quietness in her body that tells me she’s still asleep even though her heart is beating faster. But her lips are parted. Her cheeks are flushed.

I kiss her again, striking my tongue against her clit like a match. Now that I’ve tasted her, sweet and musty all at once, I want to know what happens to her body when she comes. I’ve never made a woman come before. The few living ones I’ve been with never let me touch them long enough. And dead women don’t orgasm.

But with Charlotte—with Charlotte, I think I can make it happen before she wakes up.

I focus my mouth on her clit like I’m trying to suck down her heat. But I also slide one finger along her slit, parting her soft, damp folds until I can slip inside her, where her pussy is so wet, so hot, I can hardly believe it.

She whimpers again, then moans. Mutters something that I can’t quite decipher. Her legs widen for me, moving with the slow laziness of someone still asleep, or mostly asleep. Her muscles tremble, too, and I attack her with more fervor, buryingmy nose in her soaking pubic hair as I keep sucking and licking furiously at her clit. Her heart sounds like a jackhammer. Her breath is a hurricane, and I want to be swept away.

And then something amazing happens. Her entire body goes rigid, all her muscles tightening and contracting. Her heart races and her pussy walls flutter around my finger. She keens and bucks her hips up against my mouth. Once. Twice. Like she’s trying to fuck me.

Did she just come?

I keep kissing her through it, eager to make it happen again. I push her legs further apart—a little too roughly, as it turns out.

Maybe it’s because the orgasm masks it. Maybe it’s because I’m too drunk on her pussy and her arousal.

But I don’t notice that her system has woken up. Thatshe’swoken up.

I don’t notice until I hear a shouted, “What thefuck?” and feel a cold length of chain wrap around my neck.

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