Page 57 of Cruel Malady: A Necrosis of the Mind

His arm locks around my lower back and I’m lifted up. My legs wrap around him to fuse us together in the water. Our bodies are ice and fire, friction from one extreme striking the other and merging until the burn loses distinction. Pain is pain—pleasurable and consuming and agonizing.

Oxygen is combustible, and my lungs will either burst or implode if I take a breath or keep allowing Alex to steal it. He feels my struggle because it’s also his, and he breaks the kiss long enough to pull in a lungful of air.

His forehead rests against mine, his grip a vise around my body as if he’ll lose me to the current. “It worked,” he says, breathless. “I cured you.”

He repeats this, over and over, relishing in his conquest over science. Then: “Wait. No. This isn’t right.”

A sprig of panic branches through me, and I try to stutter a response.

“This shouldn’t feel right, but nothing has ever felt so right before,” Alex says.

I swallow down the hard ache in my throat, my lips swollen and throbbing from the kiss. “Is it supposed to feel wrong?”

He pulls back to stare at me. “Oscar Wilde said,I can resist anything…except temptation.You are temptation, unadulterated and wrong in all the most alluring ways, and I’m too weak to resist you.”

I’m supposed to feel hurt or insulted. Maybe if I was born of flesh instead of stone I could feel the injury, but all I hear is the crack in his voice, the waning of his will. My opening to slip inside and infect.

My fingers work the buttons of his shirt open and I shed the soaked material off his shoulders. “Wilde suffered for his conflict.” I lay my hands on his bare chest. He shivers at the intimate touch. “Don’t make me suffer, Alex. Not when we know how to cure our ailment.”

I glide my hand down his taut stomach, my fingers discovering the firm V of his abdomen, and undo the snap of his slacks. That one action decimates the tentative control holding him back.

With a low groan, Alex tears at the wet clothing separating us. He recklessly removes my shirt to bare my breasts to the elements. My nipples find heated friction against his chest as we move through the water, losing the remaining pieces of our clothing.

His mouth is on mine as we pass under the waterfall, the kiss tasting of river and mist. The intoxicating mix of icy water and our heated lips arouses something ravenous inside me, a starvation I sense in my flesh as I tangle myself around him.

As my back hits the rough surface of rock, Alex grasps my thighs and hoists me up against him, driving a needy ache deep inside. I moan against his mouth, the sound muffled by the kiss and the fall of water around us. He feels the need in it, though, because his tongue delves deeper as his fingers dig into my skin.

He’s hard and pushing at my entrance. I undulate against him, sliding over his length and eliciting the sweetest growl. Alex is all strained muscle and heavy breaths as he grinds against me, working past the water to reach my wetness and, when he gets the satisfaction he’s seeking, exhales a fervent curse.

A tender pain pinches inside my core. My thighs clench around him, coaxing him closer. “I need you inside me,” I say, my voice thick with that demand. “Alex, now—”

It’s the plea of his name that levels him. With aggressive urgency, he reaches above to grip the rock overhang, gaining leverage as he lifts me onto the smooth precipice of stone to position me right where he wants me.

A moment where our eyes lock and everything between us—past and present, lecherous desire and venom—is said in that exchange before he slams inside me with a devastating thrust.

I sink my nails into his back as his face hovers above mine, those intense blue eyes regarding every shift in my expression. For once, I have no control over what he sees.

He’s inside me, and I’m shaking.

I’m numb and yet I feel everything. He releases his hold on the rock and places his hand alongside my head as he pulls out only to drive in deeper, filling me completely. I want him to smother me with his body so he can’t read me—but his gaze won’t stray. He’s greedy and wants to observe every reaction.

My knees dig into his sides as I lift my hips to meet his forceful thrusts. The sound of our flesh crashing against each other ricochets off the rock and water, amplifying every lustful craving.

I’m just as greedy, loving the way his eyes crease, the way his features tense, straddling the edge of elation and torment. Then he’s kissing me with a fire meant to sear, meant to make me feel all the anguish and carnal sin devouring him.

And I want to feel it. For the first time, I’m envious of his ability to experience such intense passion. A bitter seed burrows in the hollow shell where those dormant emotions lie and take root.

He’s touching me all over, everywhere at once, as if he’s fearful I’ll disappear. Fury brims in his gaze, a wanton rage that begs to be sated. “Fuck, Blakely. You’re so goddamn beautiful it kills me.”

I close my eyes. I don’t want to see him or hear his breathy words of admiration. Give me loathing, degradation. I want him to fuck me hard and ruthless, so I focus on the physical indulgence, letting the hedonist within dominate.

The first burst of yearning crests, sending a pleasurable shockwave through my body. The rock beneath us is cold and unyielding, but our bodies are furnaces, creating a torrid den out of the harsh elements. We’re unfeeling of anything other than the unbearable hunger that makes us slaves to our senses.

His weight bears down on top of me as he kisses a tantalizing trail to my neck. He tastes my skin, moving down to suck my breast, where he flicks his tongue over my nipple. Charged waves crash over me. My hands are on him and then the rock, searching for something solid to grip as the sensations tear through me like an electric current.

And with that thought comes a flash of the last session. Strapped to the gurney. Paddles clamped to my temples. Severe pain stabs at my head, blinding white light webs across my eyelids. Panic is a lead weight in my chest, fear that it will concave under the pressure.

“I can’t breathe,” I say around a gasp, but my body claims differently, my lungs struggling to drag in each inhalation. The higher I climb, the heavier the weight pushes down, and I cling to Alex, unable to stop the onslaught. “Oh, god. More. I need you deep inside me, Alex.”

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