Chapter 29 Sterling
Sterling
The hot spring’s long gone now. We left it hours ago.
But her warmth hasn’t. It clings to me like a second skin.
But my desire isn’t just for her body. I want the way her mind works when she wonders, and the storm behind her eyes when she remembers.
I want her scars and her burns. Her shivers, her silence.
I want all of it. Because she’s not just the girl I lost. She’s the woman I’d kneel for, I’d kill for.
I’d lay everything I am—every ruined, bloodstained part of me—at her feet if she’d take it.
Even if she never says she wants it. Even if she ends up walking away.
Though, that thought makes my throat sour with boiling hot bile.
But if that’s what I deserve after everything I’ve done, then I’ll take it with my head down.
But right now, the boat we’re in creaks gently beneath us as it drifts along the quiet waves.
Elle’s stretched out across the bench, skin kissed by the sun, my shirt hanging off her shoulder.
I watch the wind play with her hair while she drowses, one hand resting on my thigh.
It’s only a light touch, but it distracts me like crazy. It’s a miracle I’ve caught any fish.
I catch her blinking awake with that glint in her eye.
Now, I’m completely distracted. Because even with just her knowing glance, my body remembers everything.
The spring. The shack. The cabin. The curve of her back when I pressed her into the cot, whispering her name like a promise of how badly I’d do anything she asked me to.
I can’t stop thinking about it. About her. How she felt in the water when she was riding me for rounds. How she arched into my hands. How her voice broke when she cried out my name into the open air.
Chuckling, I focus on the fish swimming nearby and throw my spear in. Elle hums happily, watching me spear through another.
When we’ve caught enough fish for the day, we cook it over a firepit by the shore. We stare while they roast as the sun sets. Then silently, Elle climbs onto my lap.
I’ve learned a lot about Elle now that we’ve been alone without a care in the world. She’s an insatiable thing. Good, because I can’t get enough of her either.
I’ve had my hands on her in every corner of the shack. The small stove area. The tattered porch. The edge of the bed with her thighs draped over my shoulders. She never asks me to stop. Only to stop slowing down. Only to hold her longer afterward. And I do. I’d do anything she asks me to.
Now, watching her sitting on me under sundown, I carry her and lay her down on the blanket over the sand. She stirs, murmuring my name. My heart stutters the same way it did the first time she said it at the safe house.
I gather her against me. Her body’s soft and warm and leaning toward mine. We moan together when I push into her. Her warmth welcomes me, wrapping around me perfectly.
“Elle…” I whisper her name when she pulls me in for a kiss.
Her hips roll, controlling our motion. She breathlessly whimpers as she takes what she needs from me. And god, I’ll give and give, until she tells me what else I need to do to make her feel good.
But we can’t indulge when the fish is grilling over the firepit. I’ve had to make sure she replenishes all of the energy she spends from all this pleasure I never want to end. Pleasure I never want to stop giving her.
My fingers find her sensitive bud. I stroke it to the rhythm of her hips. “Come for me, Elle,” I whisper against her lips.
She follows obediently soon enough, squeezing me so hard that I go over the edge with her. Spilling my seed inside her feels like coming home. Her soft kisses on my jaw feels like heat from a hearth.
When I look into her eyes, I groan, twitching inside her.
She gasps, her nails scraping down through my hair.
Then she smiles up at me, giggling gently, sounding so glad that it’s music to my ears.
The most perfect song. The warmth I come home to.
That’s Elle, who has every piece of me. My entire heart and soul.
Things I thought I’d never have again. Somehow, she brought me back to life. So I owe her that, at the very least.
***
I’ve lost count, but I know it’s been days. Days of fire and skin and quiet touches. Her lips were on mine while the mist rose from the spring. Her nails in my shoulder blades while the boat rocked under us. Her hands pulled me closer even when we were nearly burning dinner by the shore.
But at this very moment, the cot creaks under us as I ease her down into it, the sheets tangled, the mattress warm from hours of our bodies pressing into it.
She’s boneless now, soft with sleep, skin flushed, lips kiss-bruised.
Her arm flops against my chest until I manage to slip free without waking her.
She murmurs something, maybe my name, maybe a moan. I kiss her temple anyway. I’ve wrecked more corners of this shack with her. The flimsy table, the rattling window, the old beams where I pressed her hands up high while taking her from behind.
I tuck her in, pulling the blanket up over her bare, scarred legs. She sleepily sighs with a subtle smile, turning her face into the pillow.
I linger longer than I need to. Just to watch her.
But as the sun disappears, I slip out into the night air, sliding my coat on.
The woods are cold and quiet. Even the waves are still. My footsteps crunch over dried leaves from the hills of thick trees above us.
I walk around the back of the shack and pull Stan’s phone from my coat pocket.
The metal creaks as I flip it open. A few new messages have popped up as expected.
Found Damon. Gonna bring him back to the haunted house.
See you soon at the gala.
Try to look presentable, loser.
I exhale through my nose. Of course he’s managed to drag Damon back. And he’s walking into that monster’s den like it’s a goddamn homecoming. That house. The Halloween charity gala. Clo.
The fire lights low in my chest. I’m trying to contain it. But I know it’s only a matter of time before I have to face her. I need to finish what she started when she turned me into this. When she made me into the dokkaebi and didn’t expect the monster to come back for her in the dark.
I flip to the next messages that fly up quickly, like Stan knows I’d be checking the phone this late in the day.
Damon says hi. Not really though. More like a growl?
Oh, it’s at me.
I may or may not have slept with his new wife way back when.
I didn’t know she was Kayla Knight, I swear! She used a different name.
You’d take my side, right? You were always my favorite middle brother.
I snort under my breath, shaking my head. Fucking Stan.
Even now, he’s doing what he always does, ripping into the tension just enough to let me breathe again. He doesn’t know it, but that’s the only reason I don’t chuck this phone into the ocean.
I hate seeing the image on this screen. His happy face right beside Elle’s. I know I could change it, but I love seeing her face too much to do that. So I close it gently. Put it back in my pocket. And stare at the moon, pale and glowing, completely unbothered.
This place has been a sanctuary. A fever dream of warmth and whispered promises that don’t ask for anything back. But it won’t last. Nothing good ever does, considering the real monster’s still out there, still pulling strings.
I breathe deep, knowing that I’ll have to prepare for the worst.
Walking back into the shack, I see Elle. My Elle. Resting as if the world isn’t falling apart around her. It never should’ve. I’ll do everything it takes to make sure it never will again.
Yeah, I’ll prepare for shit to hit the fan. But I’ll also enjoy every stolen moment I can get with Elle. I don’t care if that makes me selfish. Sliding beside her under the sheets, I press my smirk against her warm, supple skin and breathe her in. I’ve never been this fucking happy in my life.