Page 16 of Haunted Heart
The words were easy to memorize, so I don’t need The Book.
“Take me to Hell as the living dead… by my sacrifice on this bed. I will follow wherever I am led. No sin of the damned will turn my head.” I kiss her, and she slides down my body, leaving a chill in her wake.
She repeats the spell softly against my skin and then kisses mylips.
The icy feel of her makes me gasp, and my hips move without conscious command.
Julia moves with them.
The candlelight makes her look monstrous, but I can’t take my eyes off of her.
I squirm as her tongue invades me, biting my lip and trying not to moan too loudly, even though there’s no one to hear.
Her fingers work inside of me, and I let out a ridiculous laugh as another thought strikes me. I want her to open me up and crawl inside.
She smiles up at me even though I know she doesn’t know why I’m laughing, and I draw in a sharp and broken gasp when her lips latch onto my clit.
The teasing from before becomes nearly unbearable, and I say her name in a whispered pant, not sure if I want to ask for more or less or everything and nothing all at once.
I just want her and I don’t want to remember that this isn’t solely for us.
The pressure and pleasure builds, and I fight it, even though I don’t want to, but the orgasm rips through me. I cry out as the sound of cloth tearing fills my ears. Heat washes across one side of me, and Julia’s fingers hold my legs steady even as they shake.
The rolling waves crash through me until my release ebbs. Julia crawls up me, her ghostly skirt trailing over my skin like silk.
“We aredefinitelymaking it back to the living world.” She kisses me hungrily, and I hold her tight to me. “I want to hear that sound a hundred more times before I’ll even begin to feel satisfied.”
We’ll get up in a moment.
We’ll save my friends' souls as soon as I can catch my breath… andthenwe’ll get everything we’ve both wanted.
SEVEN
I would stay here foreverif I could, but I have a mess to clean up.
Where there once was a dust-covered painting—a pastoral scene with an illegible signature—the canvas has burned away, leaving a charred frame that I would think held a mirror if I didn’t know better.
“Is that?”
“Yes.” Julia looks at it and her eyes flicker with firelight I can’t see.
She floats away, taking my hand, helping me sit upright. The heat from the open portal washes against my skin, so I don’t even look at my jacket as I get my pants and shoes back on.
“Are you ready?” Julia asks, brushing my hair from my face.
“No, but… we’ve got to go either way, and the longer we put it off, the more likely it will all be for nothing.”
Julia goes to the frame first, peeking her head through and then climbing inside, not floating through the wall like she would normally. She looks around before she turns back to me, holding out her hand.
“The frame will be too hot to touch,” she warns. “It might burn you.”
“Okay…” I look around the room and snatch the sheet off the settee, folding it three times to give myself enough padding to help get me through the portal and across to her.
When my boots hit the floor beyond, an unsettling feeling washes over my skin, like hundreds of ants racing across my flesh.
We’re in the same house… but nothing’s broken.
The floorboards are pristine. The lamp glass isn’t shattered. But everything is leached of its color.
