Page 59 of Behind the Shadows
Standing barefoot at the edge of the bathroom, trembling. Not because of what I’d done to her, but because of what the world had done.
My chest cracked open, a raw, splintering sound in my head. Relief twisted sharp through my gut, tangled with guilt so thick it tasted like iron on my tongue.
I didn’t kill her. God help me, I didn’t destroy her. And now? Fuck, now I would tear the sun from the sky to keep anyone else from touching her.
I felt her before I saw her, the soft shift of energy, the faintest tremor in the air.
I turned. Slowly. Deliberately. Water streamed down my scars, those old maps of pain, and I met her wide gaze.
“Going somewhere, little ghost?” I rasped, voice gruff.
Her breath hitched. Her fingers clenched at the hem of her shirt. And for one brutal second, I wanted her to run.
Run—so I could catch her. Run—so I could take her apart, piece by piece. Run—so I didn’t have to confront the fucking truth rattling inside me that she ruined me in the best way just by standing there.
But she didn’t run.
She peeled her shirt over her head slowly, shaky, defiant. She flipped open the button on her jeans and revealed her bare skin, marked by bruises from hands that weren’t mine. Fuck, how I wished they were, though.
She reached for the shower door, and I opened it, catching her wrist.
“Why?” I asked, yanking her close enough to feel the heat of her skin. “Why aren’t you running?”
Holland’s gaze dropped to the bathroom floor, then returned to me. Her lips parted, and she licked her lips. “I … I just can’t.”
My chest tightened with her words, the cage around my heart breaking enough to allow a flicker of light into the darkness. She was mine. But God help me. I was hers too.
I hauled her into the shower and pressed her back against the tile, pinning her with my body. Her hands braced on my chest, soft and small and shaking.
I buried my face in her hair, inhaling her scent like I was a starving man. “You’ve been haunting me for so fucking long,” I rasped against her ear. “Little ghost, you don’t get to leave now.”
Her fingers slid up, tangled in my hair, pulling me closer instead of pushing me away.
And right then—right fucking then—I knew. She was the only thing that made me feel alive. And I was the only thing that could ruin her completely.
My mouth crashed down on hers, demanding, taking, possessing. I gripped her thighs, hauling her up, and she responded by wrapping her legs around my waist. No one else would ever have her, touch her, or scar her again.
Her breath caught, a wrecked sound against my lips, and I swallowed it whole.
“Say it,” I growled, mouth at her throat, teeth grazing skin that tasted like heat and sin and something dangerously close to hope. “Say you’re mine, little ghost.”
Her nails dug into my shoulders, desperate, as her head fell back.
“I’m yours,” she said, her voice breaking like it cost her everything. “I’m yours, Kip.”
Fuck. Fuck.
Every brutal, bloodstained piece of me lit up at once. I lined my cock up with her wet entrance, pushing in slightly, just enough to tease her and make her beg for more. Her pussy clenched as she ran her nails down the scars on my back. Without warning, I thrust into her tight cunt.
“Kip,” she whimpered as I rocked against her. I lifted her and then she slid down my cock over and over, and I fucked her until she was gasping.When her cunt clenched around me, it wasn’t just possession. It was survival. It was home. Every dark, feral thing inside me was unveiled, raw and exposed, in the embrace of the one girl I believed had been lost to the grave.
“Ride my cock, little ghost. Remember who you belong to. Your monster has claimed you. Show me you want to stay.”
She grabbed handfuls of my short hair as I slid her nipple into my mouth and bit hard enough to make her cry out, then I soothed the pain with my tongue. I sucked a line between herbreasts, open-mouthed and possessive, leaving marks she’d see tomorrow and remember me with.
“Kip,” she gasped in a choked whimper.
I moved with her, and her nails dug into my skin with each roll of my hips. I gripped her ass, lifting her, and she slid down my cock, over and over, her tight cunt enveloping every inch of me. Her thighs, slick with sweat, locked around my hips, her heels digging into my lower back. Her lips found my ear, her breath ragged and hungry, like she wanted to consume me.
