Page 74 of Immortal Longings
Her heart is close to tearing through her rib cage, beating a path outward and spilling blood everywhere it goes. She hates that he keeps asking such questions. Calla has never had the luxury to consider what shewants. It has always been about what needs to be done. Want is dangerous. Want is…
She lets go of the chain. It falls around him, the weight of one end dragging heavier than the other, coiling around the ground like a serpent. Anton moves immediately—not to seize the chance to get the upper hand once again, only to clasp both his hands around her face. His lips find hers again with a vicious energy, and Calla responds with the same franticness, abandoning caution and reason. She pulls at his shirt collar and feels the stickiness of blood beneath her palm. The stench spills the more they move, metallic and violent. It is on their clothes, their skin, the floor, but Anton pays no heed to the wound. The red only spreads when Calla tears his shirt off entirely, the gash evident even in the low light.
“Anton,” she warns.
“Leave it,” he commands immediately, pulling her coat off and pushing her to the floor. Her back collides with the tiles, cold when she slips her own bloody shirt off her shoulders, but there is only the barest pause before his lips are on her throat, her hands in his hair, his hands gripping her waist. It’s as if he is trying to pin her into place, afraid that she might change her mind and run off at any second. But then one of his hands is sinking lower, trailing a path along her hip, fingers brushing the waistband of her pants. His mouth hovers close to hers again, and Calla captures his bottom lip, pulling with her teeth and resisting the urge tobitewhen her skin prickles with goose bumps. She’s never once felt out of control since becoming Calla Tuoleimi, but this comes close. It comes closer than anything else as her stomach flexes under his touch, his fingers skimming at her navel, and then lower, moving beneath her waistband, sliding between her legs. On instinct, Calla pulls at his hair, her eyes flying open, her head tipping back.
“Fuck,” she whispers, because she has nothing else to say, all thought fleeing.
Anton, unbothered, nudges his mouth along her jaw to the space behind her ear. His fingers press down harder, finding a rhythm against her, and it’s everything at once, barreling at her senses. A clap of thunder comes outside, almost startling her from the trance she is sinking into. She cannot bear it, cannot handle all the sensation at once while she tries to push into him. By some primal urge, she puts her hands on Anton’s chest, and then presses down on the very wound she’s made, her heart thrumming at breakneck speed.
“Does it hurt?” she asks, barely able to catch her breath or keep from writhing.
Anton winces. His hand slows, but he does not stop. His gaze is heavy, mouth brushing against hers again, only to whisper above the rain, “Everything you do hurts, Princess.”
The floors seem to tremble, the very structure of the building shaking under the thunder that approaches closer and closer. Calla draws an inhale, trying to control her racketing pulse.
“So hurt me back,” she offers.
Anton withdraws, rising on his arms and bracing to either side of her. His wound has stopped bleeding. He blinks at her, a smear of red on his cheek, another along his neck. When he rocks back onto his knees, Calla lifts off the floor too, propping herself up by her forearms to watch him.
Anton shakes his head. It’s a subtle movement, barely visible if lightning had not briefly illuminated the room. Without looking, he reaches for her ankle, unzips her boot, and tugs it off. The other follows. Calla’s gaze tracks him intently when he reaches for her waistband next, and without hesitation, she lifts her hips.
The barest smile twitches on Anton’s lips. “Thank you for being so cooperative.”
“Don’t get used to it,” Calla warns.
“I would never.”
There’s the sound of leather striking the floor. Calla takes a short inhale, releases it in a short exhale. When Anton sets himself between her raised knees, she lets him. When he leans forward and presses a kiss to her thigh, to her hip, to the curve of her breasts, working his way up until they are eye to eye again, she lets him, awaiting his endgame. Perhaps there is none. Perhaps there is only this.
“I didn’t send them,” he says. He speaks so quietly, drowned out by the rumble of the storm outside, that she can hear him only because he is this near. When Calla brushes a lock of hair out of his eyes, his gaze is swallowed entirely by the shadows of the room, and Calla cannot read anything except what he shows her, cannot know that he means not to hurt her when his hand comes around her throat. She’s almost sick from delirium, sick by the ache from her stomach to her toes, willing to throw preservation out the window if it means relief. But Anton does not tighten his grip on her throat. What should be a deathly squeeze becomes merely a caress, and he leans in to kiss her, more softly than any of the times previous.
“I know,” Calla replies, matching his volume. She closes her eyes, her hands tracing down his back, nails running along the muscle. There’s some feral feeling humming in her chest, and she has to resist the urge not to attack him when her hands sink low, feeling how hard he is. She’s going to lose her mind.
His hand runs another caress at her jaw. She can hear the teasing in his voice. “Is something the matter?”
“You are wicked,” she breathes. “Take your pants off andfuck me.”
He complies. There’s a pause as he drops his clothes and draws nearer, like he’s waiting it out, gauging her response. This is someone else’s body, but in San-Er, that detail is as normal as jumping. When it comes to this sort of use, bodies are only accessories, discardable and utilized based on need.
Calla yanks him close with a hiss. She must seem impatient, because Anton laughs before pushing inside her in one fast thrust, his hand sweeping up her waist and his mouth on hers, pressing a groan onto her tongue. A gasp, fromher—probably, possibly. There’s sensation building along her thighs, a humming spreading through her every limb. She shifts her hips with each motion, her legs lifting to hook around him. Anton doesn’t rush, and still a frantic pressure emanates from her very core, scrambling her mind with each movement. She knows she’s leaving marks on him, her nails digging deep, and by the intensity of his fingers on her hips, he will have left a canvas of damage too. Let it bruise. Let him mark her skin permanently as a memory of what divine agony is.
“Calla,” Anton murmurs when their mouths separate for a moment, “I won’t hurt you. I refuse.”
A mighty large promise in this city. After everything else has come off, they both still wear their wristbands.
Calla kisses him again so he will stop talking. Anton seems to know what she’s doing, because he clasps her throat to hold her down and stops thrusting, and Calla almost kills him then and there.
“Anton.”
“Was that a whimper?” he asks, grinning. “That’s the first time a princess has ever whimpered for me.”
But despite his taunt, his hand snakes down as he pushes into her once more, then again and again. He moves against her hips, and she matches each push until Calla is arching back on the cold floor, her body freezing with pleasure. Dimly, she is aware of the storm outside, of the windows shuddering from the onslaught of rain, wooden frames trembling. But those raging elements are nothing in comparison to what is building and building to a crescendo inside her, hitting a peak just as Anton tenses too, the lines of his arms flexing as he holds his weight over her.
For a moment, there is no outside world. The rest of the city ceases to matter. All of San-Er could blink out of existence, and Calla would not care.
Anton is whispering her name. Relaxing against her, then rolling to his side,an arm still locked on her hip. With a sigh, Calla presses a kiss to his jaw, almost chaste given what they had just done, and he smiles, his eyes fluttering closed.
