Chapter 17 More
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There are still several days until I’ll see Miguel again, so I’m in bed by ten p.m., but sleep evades me. Maybe it’s because the apartment is near boiling—so much so that I finally threatened my landlord I’d set the place on fire and claim it had been the faulty thermostat.
Or maybe I can’t close my eyes because of the tension roiling through my lower belly that spirals down into an insistent, throbbing heat between my legs. I’ve stripped down to a tank top and panties, though I consider taking those off too.
My own skin feels more sensual than usual. As if I’ve woken up from a dream into my real life. A life where Shadow desires me, wants me.
I didn’t make it all up. It’s real.
He may be fighting it, but I feel hope in a way I’ve never felt before.
It throws my relationship with Miguel into sharper perspective. He’s lovely, but I was right when I last saw him. I can’t do this.
Not while I know Shadow feels even a sliver of what I do.
Weeks usually go by before I see Shadow again, so I expect nothing less this time. Especially with his abrupt departure. What had he heard or sensed?
Was he in danger?
Was it because of me?
Definitely because of me.
Because of me, he broke out of some hellish prison and was now on the run.
Because of me, he’d been imprisoned in the first place.
Rolling back and forth until the sheets twist around my body—it almost feels like when Shadow restrained me. How could something so dangerous make me feel so safe?
Do you mean the monster or being restrained, Evie?
I don’t answer myself. Instead, I writhe even more, imagining Shadow is there with me.
My hand slips over my thigh, teasing my own skin.
"You are so fucked up, Evie," I whisper to myself, even as I close my eyes and fade into my fantasy. Remembering the way Shadow kissed me like he wanted to ravage the depths of my soul, the way he slammed his hardness up into my jeans-clad sex until I was out of my mind with need...
My fingertip teases up and down, spreading the wetness across my panties. I shudder with desire. I want those white misty eyes to turn the color of hell itself.
Pushing my panties to the side, I dip my finger to the first knuckle and gasp at the wetness and sensitivity there.
The pressure against my skin, the feeling of his presence is so real, it’s like he’s in the room. Plunging two fingers into me, I cry out as I arch up, my back bowing.
When I open my eyes, I find it isn’t my imagination. Shadow is there at the foot of the bed, his tendrils of smoke puffed out more than usual. His eyes—that color of red I had imagined, craved.
Embarrassment threatens to take over, but instead, I lean in. This is who I am, this is what I want, this is what I feel. If he can’t handle it, he’ll have to leave… again.
But I don’t think he will.
"Shadow," I breathe, even as I slide my fingers out and in. "I need you." My voice shakes.
"Evie, you have to stop," Shadow warns in a low voice. "This is forbidden. We cannot."
I don’t stop. Instead, I fix him with a hooded stare as I slowly lick my lips. I’m like a woman possessed, stroking the fire and wetness inside me until I feel tingles dancing up my spine.
"Evie." That same warning tone possesses an unsteady pitch this time.
I moan his name and throw my head back.
"Evie, stop," he commands, his shadow tentacles snapping around my arms. He yanks my hand away, pinning my wrists above my head. I lift my knees and spread myself before him. My panties cover my sex again, but I know the sheer material is sodden with my desire—my desire for the monster.
"Harder," I say, licking my lips again. I suddenly feel as if I’ll die of thirst.
"What?" he asks, confusion evident in his voice.
I jerk my hands, testing his grip. Shadow reflexively tightens his hold on me, pulling my arms at an uncomfortable angle.
"Yes," I hiss between my teeth, feeling more desire seep from me as I buck my hips.
For a shadow monster who eats hearts, I can tell he is shocked—scandalized, maybe. I see it in the wide set of his eyes, the way he hesitates to respond. Or maybe I know him better than myself.
Darkness fills the corners of the room, somehow highlighting his body, as his eyes turn red again. "Is this what you want? For a monster to hold you down and do terrible, depraved things to you?"
"Yes," I hiss again, my hips bucking more frantically. Oh God yes, please, let him give me what I need.
His body crawls over mine with surprising and unsettling speed. The exact off-kilter pace a horror movie would depict a monster. But his abrupt movement only excites me.
Shadow is in my face. My legs reach up to entangle around his waist again, but his tendrils snap out, locking around my ankles, pinning me to the bed.
I want them around my thighs too. I moan in pleasure. His touch is everything, and I want it everywhere.
His mouth draws even to my ear as he says, "I would have thought you’d had enough of that."
It takes a moment for his words to penetrate my brain. When they do, an icy drip starts in my gut.
With the same suddenness, he releases me, and is across the room once again.
I swallow over the thickness in my throat, suddenly ashamed of what I feel—the mindless, white-hot need for him.
"How could you say that to me?" I want to demand an answer, to scream it at him, but it comes out a strangled whisper of betrayal.
This isn’t my past. He’s not David. I’m not who I was.
Shadow doesn’t speak for a long moment, turning his gaze away. Either he can’t look at me because he’s ashamed of me, or ashamed of what he just said.
I get to my feet, though my knees are shaky from either the sexual desire or the rage pounding through me.
"This is not what I came here for," he says dismissively.
A humorless laugh barks out of me. "Then what did you come here for?" I stalk over to him, getting in front of him. I can’t hide from the twisted, fucked up girl I am. So why should he get to look away?
My cheeks burn with shame even as I stare him down.
Finally, lifting his gaze to mine, I notice he takes his time dragging his hooded eyes up my body. He wants me, I know he does. I bet if I reached past the shadows clouded around him, I could find that hardness again and coax him to me.
"I came here to protect." The words are ground out like rocks, as if it pains him to say it.
The childish, irrational side swallows me whole, and I turn on my heel, headed toward the front door of the apartment.
"Where are you going?" he asks.
"If you can’t give me what I need, I’ll find someone who can." Still wearing only panties and a tank top, I unchain the door and yank it open, intending to walk straight out without even pulling on a pair of shoes. A burst of frigid wind slams into me, sweeping through the apartment.
My hips jerk back as the door slams shut in front of me. I’m launched through the apartment until I’m pinned down on my bed again.
"Why must you act like this?" Shadow sneers, hovering over me. "A childish brat who throws tantrums."
This time, his tendrils lock around my throat and my upper thighs too.
Just how I wanted. But I’m too infused with anger and resentment to enjoy it.
Instead, I struggle against him. "Because you left me. Because I grew up. Because I am weak and have needs. Because I don’t know how else to be.
" Wetness coats the sides of my eyes as tears of frustration and shame leak out.
"If you had truly grown up, you would have better power over your baser needs." He articulates each word as if he is in pain from doing so.
I openly glower at him. "Guess I’m more the monster of the two of us."
He stares at me, searching my eyes for something, before morphing into a deeper, darker hue of red. "If you cannot control yourself, I will have to do it for you."
With that, the panties slide down my legs and my need reaches a fever pitch.
"Shadow," I cry out.
I’m so goddamn angry I can’t tell if I’m asking him to stop or hurry the fuck up.
He lowers between my legs and that forked tongue licks up my inner thigh and I shudder violently, making unintelligible sounds. The more I try to move, the tighter his smoky tentacles wrap around me.
My airway is restricted, only allowing for shallow pants. My head turns fuzzy. Then that forked tongue snakes up my wet entrance. I half cry, half scream as more tears leak out the sides of my eyes.
"My little monster," he hums before licking me again and again. As the tongue reaches the apex, it wraps around my clit, pushing it around experimentally.
I’m dying. I must be.
As his monster tongue continues to toy with my clit, a barrage of sensations electrifies my body. Each flick, each swirl, sends shockwaves of pleasure coursing through me. It’s an exquisite torment, a dance between agony and ecstasy that leaves me breathless.
I grip the sheets beneath me, my knuckles turning white as my body trembles uncontrollably. The room is filled with the sound of my ragged breaths and the soft wetness of his tongue against my skin.
"More," I choke out.
"More?" he mocks me, an angry undertone there. "You must be careful, Evie. I am a monster and I could easily rip you to pieces. You don’t know what you are asking for."
There isn’t enough air in my lungs to get out the full sentence I’m thinking. I know, but I don’t care. All I get out is, "Please."
Shadow snarls, and for a moment I think he’s going to leave again. Retreat from my intensity.
Instead, he shoves his tongue inside me. I feel its length thicken even as it swirls around, pushing and licking with inhuman dexterity.
I gasp. I’m so lightheaded I’m not sure if my body is floating above the bed. My hips rock as a low moan escapes me. Satisfaction and a desire for more are at odds with each other.
"More?" he taunts, lifting to meet my eyes. "You think you want more?"
A tendril of shadow slips over his shoulder, snaking toward where I’m exposed, and my hips and thighs tremble. The velvet warmth rubs up and down my entrance.
Tendrils pull me tighter, stretching my limbs out until I’m fully at his mercy.
"Tell me to stop, Evie," he commands.
I only manage to shake my head in centimeters.
The tentacle pushes into me, and my jaw drops as I gush around the pressure.
He curses in a long, low, throaty voice, as if he is affected. As if the tendril is an appendage that feels pleasure.
Then Shadow is in my face, sucking, kissing at my neck even through his own hold on me, as if the smoke makes way for him without moving its winding restraint.
"You push me past my limits, make me lose control," he snarls. "Now you’ll know how it feels."
My thoughts exactly.
The tentacle inside me thickens even as it moves, filling me more and more.
He fucks me hard and deep with I don’t even know what—a kind of hand?
Each drag of it on my body sends me hurtling closer toward the edge. But I don’t want that. I want this to last. My inner muscles clench down as I try to keep him from driving me higher.
"How dare you fucking fight me," he hisses before lowering himself. "I’ll teach you a fucking lesson in losing control."
The speed of his velvet tentacle picks up pace, filling and slamming against a spot so deep that I’m unable to catch my breath. Then that forked tongue wraps around my clit, suckling, pulling, and punishing it in time with the shadow, fucking me mercilessly.
The tendril fucking me splits into two. The second one slips to my puckered back entrance, drenched in my desire, before abruptly spearing me. Penetrated doubly, they rub through my thin wall that separates them as they work in tandem to fill me.
I’m seeing stars. I’m going to explode and with it so will the entire universe.
Meanwhile Shadow's clawed hands grip my thighs, holding them down, the sharp talons piercing into my skin, drawing thin, stinging lines of blood. He can mark me any way he chooses, and I’d beg for more.
When I hurl over the edge of orgasm, I can’t scream. I can’t move. My inner muscles quake and squeeze the life force from every atom in my body as pleasure rolls through me with painful insistence.
I expect him to slow down, to retreat, but he doesn’t. His darkness continues to careen into me, filling me, pushing me far past the breaking point.
It’s too much.
Another orgasm grips me with ferocious, bone-shattering spasms. Shadow doesn’t stop.
Inhuman sounds escape me as he punishes my overstimulated body.
Pounding commences against the apartment wall, accompanied by angry shouts, but I don’t care.
I’m lost, and my neighbors’ anger is a barely noted backdrop to the rioting chaos in my body.
The pleasure morphs into pain before changing back again, and I’m on the verge.
Time loses meaning as I’m filled in ways I never have been.
So overwhelmed, all the broken, jagged parts of me fall away, leaving only me and Shadow.
The third time I break on those velvet tentacles, they finally draw back. As his tendrils slip from me, I slump, boneless and ruined.
I’m dripping in sweat, my white tank transparent from the perspiration. The bed under me is soaked, and Shadow is over me, panting.
"You see what happens when you invite monsters inside," he murmurs. Tension rides his voice as I know he hasn’t found release like I have.
"I love you," I say in a breathy, ragged tone. I don’t know why I say it. It’s a risk. I’m laying myself out there for him.
His already pitch-black expression somehow darkens. "You do not."
Some part of me rallies an iota of energy and it forms anger.
"I fucking do," I spit. I know it’s childish, but I don’t give a shit. I’m tired of pretending I’m not as much a monster as he is.
He studies me for a long time. Too long.
Cold dread starts to fill my stomach. I reach out to pull him close to me, but my hands go through him.
"I can’t do this, Evie. You are too important." I hear the echo of words I said to Miguel the other day, and my insides petrify with fear.
I shake my head. I don’t understand. I know he wants me. Why is he doing this?
He slides the back of his knuckles across my cheek with heartbreaking tenderness. "I’m leaving. I won’t be coming back this time."