Chapter 24 Kip
KIP
The water slammed down on my back, scalding, but it was nothing compared to the fists pounding inside my skull.
Her words echoed like a gunshot through bone. You didn’t kill me.
For years, I saw her face in every nightmare—her body limp, her throat crushed under my hands. I carried her death like a brand burned into my skin, letting it shape me into the thing the Horizon Society wanted: a cleaner, a weapon, a man who only killed the monsters worse than himself.
But now, she was here. Alive. Breathing.
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 her breasts, 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.
I let go of control, fucking her hard and fast, my hips snapping against hers, making her gasp with each thrust. Her head fell back against the wall, mouth open, hair sticking to her cheeks in damp arcs.
I leaned in, biting into the curve of her neck, tasting the droplets of water.
She shuddered, her nails clawing at my ass, pulling me deeper.
My cock throbbed, impossibly hard, and I could feel her clit, swollen and slick, grinding against me.
Her moans grew louder, frantic, echoing off the tiles, louder than the groan of the old pipes.
I pressed her harder against the wall, my hand snaking between her legs, fingers circling her swollen clit.
She writhed, desperate, her hips bucking against me, fucking my cock like her life depended on it.
“Oh, fuck, fuck, please don’t stop—” Her voice was hoarse, pleading, a sound I wanted to hear more of. Her pussy was soaked, clenching tightly around me, pulsing through my entire body.
“Oh god,” she whispered, her words barely audible over the pounding water. And then, more desperately, “Don’t you dare stop.”
She rode out every thrust, her head thrown back, gasping, until the tremors took her, and her pussy squeezed me hard.
I pulled out, then turned her around to face the shower wall.
Dropping to my knees, I parted her legs and pressed my mouth to her pussy, tasting her, licking her, making her gasp and writhe as my tongue slid into her.
I lapped at her, feeling her shake, hearing her beg, before standing and lining up behind her.
I pushed in, deeper than before, all the way until my hips pressed against hers.
She turned her head, her cheek flat to the wall, and moaned.
She came with a violent spasm, pussy clenching my cock, nails puncturing the skin on the side of my leg. I fucked her through it, chasing my own release.
I followed, unable not to, emptying inside her in a few, short, sharp thrusts. She milked me for every last drop, wringing me dry.
She turned her head and bit my bottom lip, hard enough to draw blood, then soothed away the sting with a slide of her tongue—and that, more than anything, undid me.
Somewhere deep inside I started shaking, a low-grade tremor building behind my ribcage, radiating out until it hit the tips of my fingers.
Holland touched parts of me no one had ever dared to reach.
She held the broken pieces of my heart like they were worth saving.
And for the first time in my life, I wondered if I might be worth saving after all.