Page 60 of Escaping Wonderland

Shadow sped his pace, grunting between his thrusts and his ragged breaths. Each time he pounded into her it was with more force than the last. Soon, his hands dropped to her hips, anchoring her in place and leaving her no choice but to takeallof him. He dipped his head and ran his lips roughly over her cheek, jaw, and neck. His breath was hot, and the light graze of his fangs against her sensitive, flushed skin was thrilling.

Alice wrapped her arms around his neck and did all she could—she held on. She was his, wholly and completelyhis.

Her back scraped against the bark, and she could feel the bite of his claws as they curled into her skin, but she didn’t care. All she could focus on was his body and the way it moved, on the way he movedinsideher. She was mindless with growing pleasure, which spiked higher and higher with every brutal thrust of his cock; the tiny twinges of pain on her flesh only enhanced that pleasure.

Shadow snarled against her neck, thrusting into her once more, and Alice shattered. She cried out as waves of ecstasy swept through her. It was unbearable, it was rapturous, it wasglorious. She clung to him as her body shuddered and tightened around him. Her sex gripped his cock, seeking to pull him in deeper and hold him captive, but Shadow pounded in and out of her in a frenzy. She buried her face against his neck. The pleasure was staggering, almost too much to endure.

“Everything, Shadow. Everything,” she moaned. The sensations roiling through her were so powerful that she couldn’t hold back the words burning in the back of her mind; they came out in a muffled rasp against his throat. “I love you.”

Shadow’s motions faltered. He tensed, and spasms wracked his body. The sound he released rumbled up from deep in his chest, emerging as something half-growl, half-roar—but it was, unmistakably, her name. He pounded into her with one final, forceful thrust, and then sagged forward, pinning her against the tree with his body as he buried the claws of both hands in the bark.

Alice held onto him, her limbs trembling and weak, and tried to catch her breath. Her sex continued to contract around his cock as aftershocks of pleasure swept through her. She loosened her grip on his hair, released a contented sigh, and stroked her hand down his back, wishing it was his bare body against her palm and not his jacket.

Sweat coated her skin, her damp clothing clung to her uncomfortably, chafing her, and the bark dug into her back, but for all that, Alice was perfectly happy where she was.

They stayed like that for a time—not that time held much meaning to Alice in those moments—their bodies connected as they slowly eased from the heights of their passion. When his breathing was finally steady, Shadow leaned back and looked down at her. He searched her gaze before he spoke.

“What was it you said to me, Alice?”

It took Alice a moment to understand what he was asking, and once realization struck, her eyes rounded.

I love you.

She hadn’t meant to say those words out loud. They’d been lurking in the back of her mind, whispering to her, but she hadn’t yet acknowledged them, didn’t even know if they were true.

Theyfelttrue when I said them.

Even spoken in the heat of the moment, they hadn’t felt any less true.

“Am I crazy, Shadow?” she asked.

His brow furrowed as he tugged a hand away from the tree and brushed the backs of his fingers down her cheek, his current tenderness wholly at odds with his wildness from only minutes before. “Why would you be crazy, my sweet?”

“Because of this place. And you’ve called me crazy more than once before. So…I must be losing my mind.”

“Firstly,” he said, his lips tilting into a strange combination of skeptical frown and amused smirk, “I ought not to be looked at as a good judge of anything like that. You may be surprised to know that I’ve had a brush or two with madness in the past, myself. And this place…” He raised his eyes, looking straight up, and then looped them around in a circle—without moving his head at all—until he met her gaze again. “Well, it’s not real, so there’s no need to let it affect you.”

“But this is real,” she said, tightening her arms and legs around him, pulling him closer. “Weare real.”

He groaned, and his eyelids fluttered for a moment. “Yes, we are. And the things you do to me, Alice…” Shadow grinned and purred appreciatively.

Alice’s sex contracted around his cock as his purr rattled through her.

He shuddered, his shaft twitching, and leaned his forehead against hers. “Now, what was it you said to me?”

Alice closed her eyes. “Imustbe mad. We only met a few days ago, but I already feel like I know you better than anyone, like I…needyou. But I don’treallyknow anything about you.”

“I wouldn’t worry yourself too much on that last point,” he said, with oddly morbid humor in his voice. “I don’t know much of anything about me, either.”

Alice smiled, and tilted her face up just enough to rub her nose against his cheek. She opened her eyes and met his. “And despite all that…I love you.”

His grin vanished, and his face became suddenly solemn—more so than she’d seen since she met him. He searched her face, nostrils flaring with his slow, steady breaths, and swallowed audibly. A troubled crease appeared between his brows, and the muscles of his jaw ticked.

Doubt and embarrassment washed through Alice, chasing away the pleasure she’d felt only moments prior. She drew her head back and looked away. It’d been foolish of her to let the words slip, to have admitted to saying them. She and Shadow had only just met. They were still strangers. Circumstance had brought them together in this virtual world, and though they were attracted to each other, though they desired one another, that didn’t necessarily equal love.

Maybe…maybe what she feltwasn’tlove. Maybe…

No. Itwaslove. And the knowledge that he didn’t feel the same for her, the chance that he would laugh in her face or reject her, was too painful to bear.

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