Page 43 of Breaking Blaze

Warm. Sated. Fucking happier than he’d ever been in his life. His body, though replete after finally—finally—emptying himself inside his woman, still thrummed with the need for the soft, lush, gorgeous woman lying next to him, her plump breasts pressed into his side, her arm thrown over his belly.

She fit beside him perfectly, just as he knew she would. And she was finally right where she belonged—beside him, in his bed, in his arms, basking in a post-orgasmic glow that put all other sensations to shame.

In sleep, Anna curled up against him, her flushed naked body the perfect softness draped over hardness, like velvet wrapping steel. She sighed and his cock jumped. It was a heady thought to know he’d done that, he’d loved her so good and so hard that she was left a pile of satisfied femininity.

God, why did I wait so long to make her mine?He could have been experiencing this bliss for years before now. But he’d let his own fears rob them both of what could have been theirs.

But…he wasn’t going to think about that right now, not when he wanted to relive each moment from the last several hours over and over again until it was etched into his memories. Into his dreams and fantasies.

Hmming to himself contentedly, Blaze finally closed his eyes, pulling his woman closer to bury his face in the top of her head, her soft hair brushing along his cheeks as he breathed.

“I’m going to make you so happy, baby….” He murmured the promise into her strawberries and cream scented hair. Nearly a decade of tension finally easing from his chest. He took a deep breath for the first time since he’d first realized he loved the woman next to him.

Finally…he could breathe. Finally, he could be happy.

Sleep welcomed him and he slipped into it with a smile on his face.

Jerking awake, Blaze grunted.

Something was wrong.

Sitting up, he blinked his eyes open, peering down to where his love had been sleeping.

A pool of blood wetted the bed where Anna once laid.

A cry of horror escaped, his body tensing even as shards of despair and terror sliced through his soul.

Heart racing in his chest, his blood turning to acid in his veins, a scream caught in his throat. No. No! This couldn’t be happening. She wasn’t gone! She had just been there, beside him, naked and warm and sleeping peacefully.

A sinister, hateful laugh echoed through the midnight cloak around the bed where he’d claimed his Anna.

It was a familiar laugh. One he never thought to hear again.

A laugh that chilled him to the very molecule.

“What did you do?” Blaze screamed into the darkness, his voice muffled in the now silence as though the silence itself had weight.

That laughter answered back, closer this time, a venomous whisper against his ear.

He jolted, preparing to leap from the bed, but the sheets in which he’d loved his Anna pulled taut, trapping his legs, the bloody stain beside him growing outward as though her body, invisible, was still pouring her life from her veins.

“What the fuck have you done?” he cried, the effort to speak at all draining precious strength from his muscles.

“I told you, boy,” that voice sneered, lashing at Blaze like a fire edged whip. “I will take everything you love. I will rob you of every happiness. You don’t deserve it. You are nothing but a cunt seed, unworthy of any goodness….”

These words struck much too hard. A hammer made of shrapnel slamming into his belly.

“No,” he whimpered, his strength sapped. “Anna is mine! I have given up too much already. You cannot have her!” The silence that followed rippled with black malice.

The sheets restraining his legs loosened and he shot out of the bed, naked, trembling, his head pounding, his heart galloping.

He took one last look at the pool of crimson on the sheets and turned, primed to run, to find his Anna, to save her, to wrap her in his arms and protect her.

“Run, run, little boy! I’ll find you wherever you go…and I will kill every good thing. Because good makes you weak, boy. And what makes you weak….” Dark laughter sounded, punctuating his words like an explosion.

No. No! He’d waited for too long to finally claim his Anna. He couldn’t lose her now.

But she is good—too good for you. She makes you weak. And he always takes when you’re weak. When you’re happy. When you love.

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