Page 35 of Bonepetal
I pitch forward, palms stinging. Loam breathes rot and old wood right in my face.
The split in his headstone grinds my shoulder when I slam back to catch myself. It’s his grave I’ve tripped on, furrowed by finger-rakes, and coffin board peeking through like a broken tooth. The mouth he crawled out of that won’t close.
Before I can push myself up, his hand clamps my elbow and hauls me to my feet, gentle enough to infuriate. I wrench away, finding my balance.
“Let go.”
He does. My back hits stone. He steps into the space I leave, shadow swallowing mine, heat muscling the cold aside.
“Say stop,” he murmurs. No mockery. No mercy. The line he’s always given me, even when he meant to break me over it. “Say no, Salem. Tell me you don’t want me.”
I want to spit it out. I want to shove him off, spitfuck you, swear I don’t want him—that I don’t ache for him after everything he’s done.
I want to mean it.
But the closer he crowds me against the stone, the more my body betrays me—thighs tightening, breath shortening, pussy clenching around nothing like it knows the shape of him. Rage recites its list; hunger drowns it out.
I tell myself I don’t crave ruin—then crave exactly the ruin only he can give.
“I hate you,” I grind out. “You ruin everything you touch.”
He leans until his breath is a heat at my mouth. “I ruin what’s already mine, and we both fucking know you like it. But by all means, tell me to stop. Lie to me again.”
His thumb skims my jaw, then taps my bottom lip. I gasp before I can help it, mouth opening on reflex. He presses his thumb in and I take it, tongue flicking, lips sealing around him.
“Thought so,” he says, voice gone dark.
He drops to his knees in the torn, damp soil of his own grave. Dirt smears his jeans; gravel ticks under him. His hands slide up the backs of my thighs, greedy and sure, bunching my skirt at my hips because it’s in his way—which it is.
He hooks his thumbs under my waistband and shoves fabric aside without ceremony.
A quick kiss to the inside of my knee, another higher, more teeth than manners.
Cold stone bites my spine; his breath heats the hinge of my thigh. He shoulders me wider, looks up once to clock my face, then drags his tongue up in one slow, stubborn stripe that takes the strength right out of my legs.
“Fuck—” I gasp, palm slapping the headstone. “God, Finn?—”
He hums into me like he likes how I taste and seals his mouth over my clit, sucking hard enough to throw sparks behind my eyes. I hold his head, thumbs braced at his temples, fingers hooked behind his ears, guiding, keeping him exactly where I need him.
My hips chase his mouth on instinct.
“That’s it,” he murmurs against me, the words hot and filthy against slick skin. “Ride it. Use me. Take what you want.”
“Shut up,” I moan, already rolling my hips anyway. “Don’t—oh, fuck—don’t stop.”
He laughs into me, wrecked and pleased. “Sit on it,” he says, mouth moving as he licks. “Grind on my tongue. C’mon, bonepetal.”
Two fingers slide inside, slow, thick, and curl until they find the spot he taught my body to save for him.
My knees shake. I hold his head tighter and rock down, chasing pressure, riding his face and fingers like I’m mad at him and starving for him in the same breath.
He anchors me with a forearm across my hip and keeps talking between suck and stroke—“There,” and “Harder,” and “Take it”—until the curses tumble out of me raw and helpless.
I break loud enough the crows shut up and the grave under us lets out a long, uneasy groan. He doesn’t rush me out of it, just rides it down, gentles the edges, licks me through the aftershocks until my grip loosens and my heartbeat climbs back into my chest.
Then he looks up, mouth slick, eyes black with hunger, and drags his thumb over my swollen lip again. I take him in without thinking, sucking on autopilot, already opening my knees wider because I know what comes next and I want it.
His mouth crashes into mine, stealing the insult I’d primed and pulling a sound out of me I’ll lie about later. He scoops me under the thighs and lifts, setting me on the split lip of his stone so I’m facing him. My skirt’s bunched; his hands bracket my hips and pulls me flush, the world narrowing to the hard line of his body and the bite of granite under me.
