Page 86 of Echo Unbound

Don't care. I need to make Sarah come, and nothing else matters. She has her face mashed to my chest, and my flesh muffles her screams, though she hasn't hit that peak yet. I thrust deeper and harder, straining the clamps with the force of my movements, desperate to break free. The pressure inside meintensifies, and my dick feels like it might explode if I can't give her what she needs.

I shift the angle of my thrusts minutely, but it's enough. Now I'm rubbing against her clit with every movement, no longer trying to get as deep inside her as possible, only caring that she needs to climax right now. Faster, faster, I scrape her nub.

Sarah squeezes her eyes shut and screams.

I thrust deep and hold that position, while her body clenches me, her cries become hoarse, and her eyes roll back in her head.

The clamps pop open.

We tumble to the floor, still entangled, and the wheel swings back up into the machine. I lock my hands around Sarah's wrists to hold them above her head.

"Don't stop," she pleads. "Please, don't stop."

No way in hell I'll give up now. Lying sprawled on top of her, I keep pumping into her wildly, grunting and shouting, gazing into her eyes the entire time. Fire scorches down my spine and straight into my cock, like nothing I've ever experienced before. My back bows up, and I explode inside her.

Sarah screams and comes again. Her body milks me while I keep coming, buried so deep inside her that it seems impossible. By the time it's over, we're both boneless and stunned, incapable of moving or speaking. Taking a breath seems like a Herculean task. My head rests over Sarah's heart, every beat thumping in time with mine. After a few minutes—or maybe a few hours, who knows—I slide off her and pull Sarah into my arms.

"Do you hear that?" she asks.

"Hear what?"

"The silence."

I freeze, listening for any sound. But I hear only my own heartbeat and the soft sound of her breaths. The wards have disintegrated, I can tell that much. The machine has shut down.I should hear noises from outside, shouldn't I? And the creatures who guarded the machine ought to be making noises too.

"Did we do it?" I ask. "Did we stop the alchemy of worlds?"

"Seems like it."

I sit up and look around, surprised to find all the Echo creatures lying dead on the floor.

Aldith stands near the doorway, biting her lip.

"Did you do that?" I ask. "You're holding a machine gun, so I figured…"

Aldith nods. "I didn't mean to shoot them all, but they kept coming at me."

"You did what you had to do. They were lunatics." I glance at Sarah, who lies huddled on the floor, as if she's cold. "Better get dressed. Our work isn't done yet."

While she finds her clothes and pulls them on, I stand up and search for my stuff. My clothes kind of just disappeared, so I don't know if I can find it again. Every time I glance at Aldith, she swerves her gaze away from me, then covertly peeks. Maybe she's never seen a naked man before. She did live in the stronghold, all alone.

Sarah squints and flattens her lips.

My clothes appear in her arms. "Better cover up that sexy body. Don't think Aldith knows how to deal with nudity."

I pull on my clothes, then lead the ladies out of the throne room. We bump into a few creatures, but they seem dazed and uninterested in causing trouble. Outside, we find Jarek waiting to give us and Aldith a ride to the gateway. Our job isn't done yet. The most daunting task still lies ahead of us.

Reversing the damage to both worlds.

When we reach the gateway, we discover it's wide open—wider than usual, in fact. The opening stretches across the horizon, though it still hangs high above the ground. Jarek couldeasily walk through it, but instead of doing that, he hesitates and looks at us.

"Go on through," Sarah says. "You're coming with us. Once all the good Echo beings have escaped, all the bad ones will be locked inside that world. You need to leave now."

A distant rumbling draws all our attention to the city behind us. The castle is crumbling and sliding off the steep sides of the mountain.

Good riddance, I say.

Jarek steps through the gateway.

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