Page 20 of The Librarian of Souls
“It’s your dream, Joanna. Anything you want can happen here,” he explains, tongue darting out to wet his bottom lip. My eyes watch it travel from ear to ear, his moustache still sitting right under his nose. “Your soul is ready to see the real me,mon abeille, and I cannot deny you that truth any more. Will you deny me?”
Black sand and golden bronzed skin radiate unnaturally in the moonlight. It glitters and glows and buzzes with something electric that I can’t resist. There is a dark promise in Augustine’s eyes. He knows my secrets, that dark fantasies that trample over everything I was taught about love, and he wants to give them all to me.
Fear surges in my lungs and I want to tell him no, even my blood pumps arousal right between my legs. The image in my mind is so beautifully tinted and clear that it has been caught in a piece of amber and preserved for millennia. I stare at the monster before me and he stares back. Augustine looks at me with desire and hunger and tenderness, just like he has all night. He has seen me falling apart from burnout in my old sweatpants when I don’t have the energy to shower. For months, he was in my dreams learning every part of me. He knows what I deny myself, even in my dreams, because I think it will keep me hoping too much.
And yet he still wants me.
The beach shifts, the sands beneath me becoming a plush carpet and the sea salt in the air is replaced with the earthy smell of old books and stained wood.
“If you want me to be yours forever, Augustine.” I start to rise, my feet bare, as the new silk shift feels smooth against my body. “Catch me.”
I am not fast. I have never been a runner or one for exercise. But I am trying my hardest to escape the person I want most in the world. Sweat dots along my forehead as my feet pound through the endless, towering stacks of books. My breath pushes through my mouth, heavy and ragged as my heart tries to crack its way free of its cage. I don’t look behind me, I can’t without slowing down.
Augustine is silent, or I am simply too loud to hear him. He taunts me, the occasional book clattering to the ground making me jerk and my pussy slicken. My breath comes out in wheezes, and I slow down. I turn the corner, hoping for a hiding spot, but I am surrounded by sand. The blackness overtakes my vision and I scramble to turn around. I almost fall, but sands wrap around my middle and steady me.
“Let’s play a game of hide and seek, Joanna.” Augustine’s voice echoes around the walls of this library and sends a shiver of warmth down my spine. “You are so keen to hide from yourself, but I want to find all of you.”
A shiver rakes down my body as the sands tighten, and a hard chest presses into my back.
“If I cross the line, please tell me.” He kisses my jaw. “This is for your dream.”
“I’ll say ‘iris.’”
“A blossom that means trust, how fitting for us.”
The moment his sands release me, I dash away in the opposite direction. Blood thumps in my ears as I creep through the stacks. If I run, he’ll hear me or my heavy breathing. This game only works for me if I can be silent, move across the carpet carefully and remain calm. My heart jumps with every creak of the floorboards or rustling of paper. The fear that grips me is exhilarating and consuming. My body burns with need.
“I can taste it, you know.” Augustine’s voice is whisper soft in my ear and goosebumps erupt across my flesh. I dash from behind one bookcase to crouch behind another. “Your fear is tangy and smokey like tea, but your desire,mon abeille…”
The rumbling groan that echoes through the halls is impossible to place. He could be anywhere. My clit throbs at the depth in his voice.
“Your desire is the nectar of the gods, the sweet honey ambrosia. I have lived for as long as humans have existed, and nothing has done to me what you have. How I crave you,mon abeille. Every emotion, every thought in your head, I want to know it. How I am desperate to throw away everything that has held me together for a millennia just for the chance to devour your soul and keep it with me forever.”
My breath falters. He can’t mean that. This is just the game. This is my dream being unleashed and unhinged.
“Do not spoil yourself with doubt,” he hisses, and a shiver rakes my spine. “When I find you, you will see.”
At the risk of exposing my position I let the words flow from my mouth. “Prove it to me, Augustine.”
“Rapturously.” He materialises right in front of me in a wave of sand.
A shriek catches in my throat and I freeze at the sight of him. He leans over, hunches almost until we are face to face. His mouth is spread wide open and his teeth seem sharper than before. The spines at his back are razor sharp, just visible over his shoulders. Augustine’s glasses seem to magnify his black eyes, his hazel irises a glowing golden hue that hypnotises me. My fingers reach up to touch him, to make sure he is really here, but my fingers stop just short of his jawline.
“You are forgetting the game,” he murmurs. “You are to run from the nightmare, and I-”
“You are a dream come true,” I whisper.
My fingers connect with his skin, and I am engulfed in a swirl of sand. He presses me into the bookcase with his body. Augustine’s too-big mouth crashes into my lips and I feel the sharp teeth. My eyes flutter close when he pins my wrists above my head.
“Do you still dream of me even when I am not here?” He kisses my jaw, just below my ear.
“No,” I deny it, stumbling back into the game and tugging at the sands around my wrist.
“You are a beautiful liar, Joanna.” His teeth scrape against the column of my throat. I moan and thrash. I want him to own me, to fight me, to force me to be his because I can’t admit how much I want it,needit like the breath in my lungs and blood racing through my body. I need him to prove he wants me so much he will force me.
Augustine makes me feel alive again. He is a high I will chase for as long as I can. He is indulgent and stoic at the same time. I want to know everything. I want to be his everything. An addiction we have for one another that will never end.
“One more time,mon abeille.” He drags his body away from mine like it pains him. “Run.”
