31
Flare
Darkness swallowed me whole, midnight lacquering the walls in black. Adrenaline propelled me down the corridors, each one draped in blossom curtains and prickly shoots. Leaves curled their fingers as if to snatch me, florals twinkled with light, and the wet air beaded down my back.
Across crumbling halls, lush verandas, and sunken chambers puddled in water, I darted through the ruins, hopping around loose bits of masonry. He had practice hunting me. The prince had learned the pressure of my exhales—their own type of sound—and grown accustomed to my shape blending in with the murk. Therefore, this monarch knew what I looked like in the dark.
Most of all, he’d learned my scent.
My pulse thudded like a drum. My lips tipped into an exhilarated grin.
In the dining hall, I slowed to a jog. A raptor took flight from one of the beams, the slap of its plumage echoing, and crickets chirped from the surrounding forest, which threaded its branches past these walls.
Our rainforest castle.
Like him, I had memorized the layout. Yet my head clouded, dazed from the havoc we’d caused each other, the sensation of his cock abrading my cunt. My senses ran amok, so that I fought to orient myself.
A pebble skittered from one direction. I whipped toward the noise, then spun the other way as a click—a blade flicking from a weapon’s hilt—pierced the night from another spot. The disturbance urged me down an empty hallway, then up a stairway. As door hinges creaked, I fled down a labyrinth of passages glowing with flora.
Then I halted in realization. The noises had been intentional, meant to direct me, to steer me down an intended path. Like a creature stalking its next meal, my pursuer was trying to trap its quarry, to force me somewhere I couldn’t escape.
My mouth twitched with combativeness, my thoughts cleared, and my vision sharpened. He might be a calculating prince, but I’d had more training when it came to the darkness. I could easily hunt him back.
Let the prey become the predator. Let the captive become the captor.
Let those tables turn.
Flattening myself against a wall, I skulked down the next channel. Hyperawareness chipped at my flesh, the masculine essence of needle forests and blustering winds filling my nostrils. He was close, very close, so close.
I slipped around broken pillars and shrubs that had burst through the ground. The premeditated noises from earlier ceased. Victorious, I relished the proof that he’d lost track of me. From there, I trailed his scent and the outline of his body cutting in and out of sight.
Buoyed, I made a game of circling him. Except I drew it out for too long. This became clear when I swerved around a bend—and stumbled in place.
A vast enclosure loomed before me. Bottles containing plants and liquids flashed from the recesses, including the gauzy leaves I’d excavated for him. The honed tools he’d scavenged from the armory crypt rested on a stone table, and the hearth stood empty.
I tarried at the medical chamber’s threshold. Though, I wouldn’t have come here on purpose, nor ushered him like some enabler. At some point, I had unknowingly forfeited my advantage, and he’d reclaimed his.
With a frustrated grunt, I padded backward while staring at the chamber. One step, then two steps, yet I knew.
It was too late.
My feet skated across the uneven floor. Facing the interior, I retreated another yard, then bumped into a solid form.
I tensed, a gasp catching in my throat. A slab of muscles aligned with my back, his chest contorting from each breath. Heat prickled down my spine, the temperature seeping through the nightgown. My limbs locked, a feeble defense even though he didn’t touch me, keeping his evil hands to himself.
Regardless, he hardly needed to do more. Already, the walls of my pussy tightened.
Jeryn’s head bent over my shoulder, his jaw slanted toward my profile, and his rasping voice struck the ledge of my ear. “Poor little beast. It appears you’ve gone astray.”
My words shook. “You cheated.”
“No,” he hissed. “I strategized.”
Dammit, he was right. He’d waited me out, knowing I would grow impulsive. To catch me, all he’d needed to do was be patient.
He murmured against my earlobe, “I have obsessed over every facet of your body until each scent, sound, and movement branded itself into my head. I have spent every waking hour committing you to memory. That’s how I hunt what I want.” A silken noise oozed from him. “Though, to be fair, I would call this a draw. You gave chase longer than I had predicted. For your cunning and insolence, I have a mind to make you suffer.”
My eyelids fluttered, and my skull grew heavy. Unable to help myself, I lolled my head, bracing it atop the hard plank of his shoulder as his teeth nicked my lobe. For the thousandth time, I shouldn’t want this. This chamber should trigger nine years of torment, rousing every demon to the surface. Instead, my soul rebelled to an intimate and frightening degree.
The truth softened his words. He hadn’t driven me here to awaken trauma. The healer in him had brought me here to overturn the effect, to mend what had come before.
“Tell me,” he whispered into my neck. “Have you ever been examined?”
The question electrified my skin. I nodded, but my gulp signaled it hadn’t been enjoyable. More than once, I’d endured painful inspections, one of them shortly before Jeryn had me chained to the ceiling.
The prince noted the tension in my joints, a deadly noise slicing from his tongue. “Who was it? Give me names.”
I shook my head. His method of punishment would make me no better than the people who’d hurt every imprisoned soul on this continent. I fought back, but I didn’t torture or murder. Neither would I let him do so on my behalf. I was better than that, better than every tyrant in The Dark Seasons.
Besides, Jeryn couldn’t get to my tormentors from here. And I didn’t want to think about those days.
I wanted here and now and this .
Jeryn translated my silence. “So be it.” Releasing another breath, his chiseled torso pitched against mine. “Then permit me to correct my mistakes. Allow me to treat you.” The next word poured down my skin, gritty and imploring. “Please.”
Permit him. Allow him.
Please.
My exhalations turned choppy. I had barely finished nodding, my mouth falling open as his mouth dove in and gripped the crook of my neck. With a hot tug, Jeryn sucked on the tender flesh, pulling whimpers from my lungs.
I coiled into him, my ass curling against the high ledge of his cock. Taking my reaction as permission, a gravelly noise skidded from Jeryn’s mouth, then he seized my hips and walked us forward.
Together, we crossed the chamber. On the way, Jeryn reached out and snatched something from a wall hook, then stalled us at the room’s midpoint, beneath the overhead pulley.
He released my neck. “Will you trust me?”
Again, I nodded. “Yes.”
This man had opened himself like a wound, exposing his demons to my judgment. Finally, I would trust him. By now, I knew.
He would not harm me. Not anymore.
From behind, Jeryn unspooled two cords of rope, looped them over the pulley, and let the items drop. The prince guided my arms upward, then tied the slack around my wrists, binding me in the same position from Summer’s castle.
I chuffed air like a pump as he secured the bindings, neither too tight nor too loose. My body stretched comfortably instead of being forced taut, as it had been in the quad. Also, my feet remained flat on the ground rather than extended on my tiptoes.
“Command it, and I shall stop,” he intoned. “Are we in agreement?”
“Silly prince,” I whispered. “I can release myself.”
A cool and corrupt breath stroked my cheekbone. “I know.”
He’d never said anything about needing to untie me. This prince knew I could untether myself if I wanted to. Doing so would be my choice.
Yet I didn’t resist.
My consent wrought an indulgent noise from Jeryn, who reached in front of me and dragged the backs of his knuckles down the center of my body, between my erect breasts, down my stomach, and under the nightgown. A whimper rolled from my lips when his fingers combed through the sprigs of hair shrouding my pussy, then cupped the damp swells.
“Fuck,” he hummed. “So slick.”
My head slumped against his rampant heartbeat. A firm set of fingers etched my folds, those doctor’s hands tracing with concentration. Fluid seeped from me and leaked onto Jeryn’s digits, his index finger skimming the crease, passing back and forth with precision. My flesh crackled, and my lips parted, the teasing motions wringing a cry from my throat.
Jeryn groaned, hearing every fractured sound. The thought had me pressing into him, swiveling my ass harder into his broad cock, the rounded head jutting through his pants. The prince shuddered, sank his incisors into the side of my throat, and bent a finger between my soaked walls.
My muscles quivered around that digit, then sealed around him to the knuckle. I whined and bucked against his hand, desperate for higher and deeper , my hips rolling toward his upright finger once, twice. Our pants resonated in the chamber, then another digit pitched between my folds, prying me apart.
With deliberate motions, Jeryn began a steady pump. This doctor worked into me, siphoning in and out, stroking compact areas I’d never felt before, the tips of his fingers reaching places I hadn’t known existed.
He crooned into my throat, his lips sketching my collar tattoo. Then a third finger slipped inside me, his hand hitting a barrier that flung embers through my veins. All the while, his wrist ground sinuously against my clit, inflating the stud. For mercy’s sake, I hadn’t predicted he could do this, hadn’t imagined he could wring these feelings from me.
This much pleasure. These many sounds.
I hadn’t turned to glimpse him. Yet I heard everything my moans did to this man, coarse noises grating from him and hitting the edge of my throat.
Famished, Jeryn’s mouth opened and closed on my skin, kissing the delicate curve of my neck as if it were my mouth. For the second time, his tongue flexed and lapped over the ink markings, swabbing as if to wipe them away.
Or to ingest them. To take my place.
Divine Seasons. What was happening to us?
My head spun from the tug of his mouth, the liquid thrust of his fingers, and the arousal pooling from my cunt. Then without warning, Jeryn peeled his lips away. Muttering a curse, he slid his fingers out of me, the loss so acute that I grunted in protest.
Get back here, dammit.
The prince stalked around my body and faced me. Shadows slashed through his features, those irises piercing through the murk. His expression bordered on merciless, the harsh lines of his face riveted by the sight before him. I hadn’t known coldness could be this enticing, this profound, this smoldering.
That look was mine. Tonight, it belonged to me.
Despite the bindings, I wasn’t the captive in this scenario. From the entranced way he looked at me, I never had been.
Power shot through me. In this moment, I could request anything from him, and he would offer it freely. I might be tethered and on display, but I had this man ensnared.
My very own villain prince.
Perspiration glazed his torso, the muscles of his abdomen contracting as he prowled my way. The moment my breasts grazed his bare chest, our breathing staggered.
With effort, Jeryn unpinned his gaze from mine and traced the pads of his fingers over my body, trailing the same path his knife had in the castle, except softer and safer. What he’d called an examination became an exploration, and what had been atonement became admiration.
Him, an observer. Me, a wanderer.
Like this, he touched me in a way I had always wanted to be touched—with unbridled worship.
His fingers drew across my collarbones, then over one puckered nipple through my nightgown. From there, down my ribcage to my hips, and the outer edge of my thigh. My blood raced, his path leaving a brushfire in its wake.
“Your temperature is elevated,” Jeryn observed. “Otherwise, everything is in working order.” Pausing for effect, his baritone narrowed to a sliver of noise. “Thus far.”
Those ruthless fingers stalked beneath the hem of my nightgown, riding up my inner thighs and pausing inches shy of my aching pussy. Aggravated, I groaned and nudged my waist toward that teasing hand.
Jeryn’s nostrils flared, but he spoke calmly. “The last time I had you like this, do you know what I really wanted to do?”
Yes. I knew because a horrible part of me had wanted the same thing. I licked my lips, the motion triggering Jeryn’s attention. His eyes raked to my mouth, his pupils eclipsing those irises.
I saw his intentions. As much as my villain prince fancied answers, he also fancied actions.
My pulse slammed into his. I let the request fall from my lips. “Demonstrate.”
Those orbs glinted. His free arm jerked, and something flashed in my periphery, though I couldn’t look away from him. Not until the scalpel knife materialized. I sucked in a breath, then released it as his gaze returned to mine, reminding me that nothing he did would hurt.
Not in a bad way. Nervous energy replaced fear as his fingers choked the hilt. With a deft click of his thumb, a slender blade flipped upright. “How many nightgowns do you possess?”
“Plenty,” I assured him, because the ruins had preserved the wardrobes of multiple females.
The prince approved of that answer. “Good.” Then the fabric ripped in a single tear as he ran the blade down the middle. My nightgown split and flared around me, my tits and stomach and limbs pushing into view.
Humid air caressed my nipples and the patch between my thighs, the sensation wondrously erotic. The material hung in two panels from my shoulders. Jeryn left the straps alone, his features tightening as he beheld every curve of my body.
“Much better,” he said. “Now spread them.”
Arousal puddled in my cunt. I delayed for a moment, enjoying how it affected him, the ledge of his jaw ticking. Another minute, and he would use that marvelous word again.
Please.
Yet he wouldn’t be the only one. Taking pity on us both, I widened my stance, exceeding his wishes and exposing my sleek folds. In this balmy room, the nub of my clit swelled.
“Fucking hell,” Jeryn swore. “Perfection.”
Yes. That.
Let him realize everything he’d been wrong about.
Excitement fizzed in my stomach, another boost of power surging through me like thunder. He’d seen me naked enough times, and I’d felt those eyes on me countless other times too, but never like this. And I liked the difference, and I wanted more of it, and I needed that now.
The knife flicked back into its hilt. Jeryn shoved the weapon into the sheath at his waist.
And then he sank to the floor. And I swallowed a hot gale of air.
On bended knee, Jeryn hooked my right thigh over his shoulder. This close to my spread pussy, his eyelids grew heavy, his gaze absorbing every pink and pliant inch.
After a moment, his head craned. Jerking a few errant locks of blue from his forehead, Jeryn bonded his gaze to mine, his features stripped to the bone.
That candid stare breached a corner of my heart, a terrifying emotion sneaking through. This sort of cruelty should be threatening, yet it wasn’t. Although I knew my worth and didn’t need his appraisal, that didn’t stop my soul from bursting.
This future king had begged. And now I’d gotten him to kneel.
Lowered before me, Winter’s ruler waited like a subject. And although I should have felt validated, greater need washed through me.
I wanted him to get up and put us on equal footing. I wanted my hands in his hair, my fingers caressing the blades of his cheekbones, and my touch thawing the ice of his eyes. I wanted us melting together.
The request teetered on my lips, then dissolved as the heat of his breath brushed my clit. A gasp trembled from me, the vibration traveling to my knees, so that Jeryn felt my response.
A deep hum scrolled from his mouth. Securing my thigh to his shoulder, his fingers tightened, fastening me in place. When I made no protest, the prince took that as encouragement. His rapt attention quested from my face to my spread cunt.
And then he dipped his head.
His profile vanished into the gulf of my legs, that blue mane grazing my skin. From this angle, I beheld only the crown of his hair. Yet oh, how I felt his nearness, how he panted against my intimate flesh.
With agonizing slowness, the vile man drew out the moment to the point of excruciating. Then at last, a groan ripped from his lungs. And the wet flat of his tongue flexed against me, dragging along my crease in a single, prolonged lick.
Every word I’d ever known, every feeling I’d ever felt, and every thought I’d ever had dissipated like mist. My fingers seized the overhead ropes. My mouth dropped open on a cry. I stared, watching Jeryn’s bowed head, my body trembling as his tongue swept across the slit of my pussy, laving the folds and gliding up to the distended flesh poking from the hair.
The pointed tip of his tongue sketched the tip of my clit before rowing backward and repeating the motion. Another whine curled from me, spurring on the prince who lightly stroked the length of my cunt, mopping up the slickness. An appreciative moan sliced from Jeryn’s chest as he tasted, swabbing me back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, until I became delirious.
Embers vaulted up my spine. Despite not being a virgin, I’d never known such anguish, hadn’t envisioned the heights my body could reach.
The prince traced the oval center, exploring my shape, circling and spreading my arousal. My muscles quivered, but I held still. He liked this because it enabled him to explore thoroughly, and forcing myself not to move also magnified the intensity.
At the same time, resisting the urge to gyrate my hips became another form of distress, equally blissful and terrible. I watched the prince’s head sway, each motion punctuated by a flick of his tongue. Moans skittered from me, hinting to Jeryn the impact he was having. This man was an expert in physical tension, skilled in the innermost workings of the body. He followed the signs, hunted for them.
Indulging my desire, he scrolled his tongue around the rim of my entrance. Glimpsing me one more time, he praised, “Keep your pussy open for me.”
Then his tongue slipped between my soaked folds. And the world capsized. Snapping into an arch, I threw my head toward the ceiling.
“Ah!” I keened into the rafters, into the rainforest, into the sky.
Jeryn growled, the texture of his voice hitting my flesh. My walls parted and suctioned around him, my pussy throbbing, dripping down his throat. In a steady rhythm, he probed his tongue in and out, swallowing every drop that seeped from me.
The frayed nightgown hung from my shoulders, and my hair hung in the air, and I hung suspended. Ecstasy fired through my veins. Something tight and hot coiled in the juncture of my thighs, worsening as Jeryn beat his tongue firmly into my core.
Unable to help myself, I swatted my waist toward his mouth. Like a ferocious tide, the tempo sped up as he reached farther, deeper, higher. I rocked my hips, whisking my pussy against his face.
Jeryn snatched my ass for leverage and matched my movements. Together, we flung my cunt and his mouth together. Shocks of pleasure blasted up my limbs. Shadows clutched the ceiling, and the cords nipped at my wrists.
But Jeryn wasn’t finished. He made that clear as he reeled his tongue from between the flanks of my pussy. I whined, displeased by the loss. With menacing amusement, he kissed my crease once, then licked his way to my clit.
Sighing against the peg of skin, Jeryn latched on, strapping his lips around the bud. At the first warm lash, I splintered apart, my body hurling farther back. Every sensation I’d ever known rushed to that spot, joining a thousand other foreign sensations. The point of his tongue swirled around my clit, his pace unbearable, unrelenting.
My thighs fell wider, and my weeping got harsher. By now, shouts tumbled from the pit of my stomach. I sobbed freely under the grasp of his mouth, his tongue flicking over the crest, patting that spot until my thoughts drowned. Only this existed, only the clench of his lips, only the flex of that tongue.
Jeryn alternated between licking the peak and sketching its shape. Lost in a glorious haze, I swung my body toward him, pleading for more, demanding it.
On another ragged growl, the prince linked his arm under my other leg and hoisted it from the ground. Looping it over his opposite shoulder, he splayed me as far as I could go. Palming my ass to keep me elevated without the cords biting into my skin, Jeryn pinned me to him and renewed his attack.
Snatching my clit, he gave a hard suck. Equally covetous, the pressure of his mouth threw me into a rage. I hollered, loving that Jeryn heard the noise.
On and on, he rowed that tongue against my inflated flesh, causing it to rise and swell more. For minutes or years on end, I cried and cried, my body desperate for a release that remained out of reach.
I chased it, chased every swat of his tongue. Shameless, I pressed my thighs into his shoulders and used the momentum to gallop against his face, my tits bouncing, my knees steepling. My joints burned with exertion, and I burned like a torch, and my heart burned like a star.
Maybe the rainforest had glamoured us, or maybe it had willed us to this moment, had chosen us to mate like wild creatures. Or maybe we liked each other better now. And maybe it was something more than that.
Releasing my clit, Jeryn lurched his tongue between my walls again. Using my ass to lunge me forward, he pitched deeper, harder, longer. I charged at him, spreading myself and riding his mouth.
“Yes,” I entreated. “Jeryn!”
As his name emptied from my lungs, the prince lost control. A mercenary groan wracked his frame, and he hauled me into him, lurching his tongue fully into my pussy, fucking me with his mouth, wetting me to the brink.
I drenched his lips, my walls fluttering, the wave cresting. His own growls filled my ears, and his hands spanned my backside, and my limbs straddled his shoulders, and my cunt smothered his palate. Even then, it wasn’t enough, might never be enough.
I swiveled my waist, fantasizing that his tongue was his cock, only longer and harder. The head would strike a narrow spot that made me soar. The base would widen my opening. My body would flood him to the seat.
Jeryn’s mouth pistoned as though he knew my thoughts. Motivated, he struck into me faster and wetter and firmer. All the while, he held me close, bolstered me midair.
Squeezing the cords, I bobbed on his tongue, syncing myself to his movements. Like this, we became one force of pleasure. Like a tsunami, the release built, escalating higher and quicker.
And more violent. With my head lolling backward, I pounded my hips with his tongue, frantic to reach that precipice, the pinnacle I’d never achieved before this.
“Now,” I implored. “Make me come.”
A dark and cruel hiss. Jeryn withdrew his tongue and cinched around my clit, hauling on the bud and simultaneously licking the tip. He held back nothing, his mouth fucking me so deftly, so tirelessly, as though I were indestructible.
I’d once condemned him for assuming me to be as breakable as a seashell. Not anymore. Now he heard the ocean’s roar inside me, felt it building on my lips, ready to crash through this room.
I spiraled out of time, out of place, out of mind. Bolts of lightning jolted through me, wet heat engulfed me, and his hands anchored me.
My head fell forward, needing to see him, needing that contact before it was too late, before I was too far gone. I had to believe this was real, that we’d breached enemy lines and discovered something better and stronger.
Jeryn must have registered the motion, because his gaze leaped toward mine. Kneeling and sucking me into a stupor, those flashing pupils grabbed my own and stayed there. With his mouth pinned around to my pussy, he sucked my clit and dabbed the peak over and over. Every part of him clung to me—hands and eyes and lips.
He let himself be seen, a coldhearted prince drained of hate and worshiping a born soul.
My mouth fell ajar. I stilled, then shattered into pieces. My pussy spasmed, the muscles contorting against his lips, a rush of liquid streaming from my opening to soak Jeryn’s tongue. Hot, black pleasure sluiced through my limbs. The great rupture tore through my body, rushing from my cleft to the edges of my being.
At first, nothing came out. Then all at once, everything came out.
I combusted, flames erupting, the climax vaulting from the depths of my throat. I came with a tremulous roar, the noise somehow penetrating Jeryn’s ears. He heard and felt and saw the rapture break through me. Pupils expansive and glassy, he seized me tighter, and he pumped his tongue while I rode out the tumult.
I came for what seemed like hours, came so intensely my throat went raw. For a moment, I thought I might faint. Yet an eternity later, the pleasure ebbed, and I sagged against him.
Humming his approval, Jeryn released my pussy and licked his lips. “Such a sweet little beast,” he indulged.
Unhooking my legs and draping them over his waist, he rose while hefting me against the wall of his chest, where I slumped like putty. Gentler than I’d expected, he banded one arm under my backside and untied me with the other hand.
My arms flopped, aching but not chafed. Winded, I shivered from the aftershocks and predicted his next move. He would return us to our chambers and leave me to my bed.
As Jeryn stepped toward the threshold, I grabbed his bicep. “Stay,” I whispered. “Stay here with me.”
He frowned in stupefaction, as if the request was foreign, his reaction pinching another unknown place inside me. This man might have a bond with his family, but he didn’t know intimacy. At least, not this kind.
I didn’t either. The plea tasted strange on my tongue. What he’d done to me, no other man ever had. I felt this truth in more ways than one. I’d had caring parents, and I took Rune for a brief lover, but I’d been confined for years until landing on this island. Living in a prison, I’d never experienced a connection like this. No one had awakened such feelings in me before.
I gave Jeryn a look, telling him I felt as lost as he did. He took a moment to absorb that, then carried me to an open-air window ledge overlooking the forest. Swinging one leg across the rim, Jeryn sat astride the sill and propped me closer, where we strove to recover our breathing. My thighs straddled his hips, and my clit skidded over his broad cock, which stood high through his pants. I nestled into the prince’s frame, my pulse teeming with his.
I wanted to ruin this man, to taste him the way he’d tasted me, to dominate his moans, to claim them. I wanted to fuck his body until the sun rose and we saw each other in the light. I wanted us to share ourselves with each other.
Also, I yearned for my hands on him. Just as I craved his mouth on mine.
Slanting my gaze to his, I found a pair of Winter eyes devouring me. My heart fluttered as I reached up to sketch his jaw, cup his face, and warm his skin. I braced his profile, ready to usher his lips to my own, to rock my tongue with his, to consume his voice.
Kiss me.
Jeryn saw the move coming like a surprise attack. For some reason, my intentions fractured the spell, some form of dismay lancing through his features. Pulling away, he caught my fingers.
My brows crinkled in disappointment. “Why?”
The roughness in his tone opened a wound. “Because I cannot fucking take it.”
This man didn’t say things casually. What came out of his mouth was always intentional.
He couldn’t handle my touch? He couldn’t take kissing me?
I swallowed my confusion, not wanting to spoil this moment. Letting the questions go for now, I basked in the atmosphere, the echoes of the rainforest, the thud of Jeryn’s heart, and his arms encasing me. Finally, contentment rippled through my stomach, and my lips tilted into an exhausted grin. My eyelids drooped, the darkness pouring in.
***
Hours later, we awakened together. Slumped against the recessed wall framing the window, his chin rested atop my head. My cheek nuzzled into his torso, his strong arms locked around my waist, and my legs were spread over his lap.
Jeryn made a rumbling sound, his sleepy groan setting my blood to boiling. My eyes fanned open. Dawn streaked the forest and medical chamber in gold, a rare sight in the morning. Unseen creatures buzzed, and blossoms drenched the air in fragrance.
The prince held me so tightly, it would take a crowbar to pry my body from his. Enjoying the phenomenon, I sighed and curled into his frame.
And then he froze. And so did I.
Wrapped up together, we remembered. As I glanced up at him, the prince looked down at me, and finally we saw one another in the light. We remembered what he did to me, how it had felt and sounded.
Disgust had plagued me after we’d unleashed during the lightning rain. But repulsion wasn’t the problem anymore. This time guilt squeezed my ribs instead.
Sprawled naked atop his torso, I licked my lips. “It was—”
“—a mistake,” he finished.