Chapter 48 Monster Magnet
Monster Magnet
"You are tired. Stressed," Shadow says. He returned to my apartment with normal-sized horns and white eyes.
It’s true. Since that night with Hurley, the picture of the little girl, and the teddy bear, I haven’t slept much.
I simply nod.
As if sensing I’m more fragile than usual, he curls around me in my bed, simply holding me. No matter how many times he’s taken me, I still find that my skin, my bones, are always starving for his touch.
I don’t tell him about my uninvited visitor.
I’m not the only one who needs a break.
Shadow came to me with open wounds of bright red muscles oozing blood. His shadows seem to wilt off of his monstrous body rather than flow with their usual strength. His words and movement come slower.
He’s tired from being hunted, worn down by the constant pursuit and fighting for survival.
We both need a moment to just be. Even now, his wounds heal while we lay.
"Sometimes I think it's me," I say softly, running my fingers over a velvet tendril of darkness emanating from him.
His grunt is a question. I swallow hard over the lump that’s grown in my throat.
"Sometimes... " It's hard for me to verbalize this. I fear putting the words out into the air will automatically make it true, but I’ve thought it for a long time.
"Sometimes, I think I attract the monsters, humans or otherwise.
That there is a darkness in me, a gravitational pull, that brings all the shit into my orbit.
That simply because I'm me, I can never escape it. "
Shadow doesn't speak.
"For the longest time, I assumed everyone's lives were the same level of shittiness, that everyone is surrounded by people who would gut you to help themselves.
But after knowing Miguel and his family—" I shake my head.
"It's not true. There is light in the world.
There are good people." Maybe I could have been part of that if I had tried harder to go to the light, to accept Miguel's love, to leave Shadow behind.
The thought has me nestling further into my monster's embrace. My body and brain relax with a release of endorphins that I never once felt with Miguel. With Shadow, I am whole, accepted, and safe.
"You are—" Shadow starts, then hesitates.
I'm not sure if he doesn't know what to say or if he is trying to choose his words carefully.
"More powerful than you know," he finally finishes. "Things of darkness are attracted to power."
I snort. "Powerful, me?"
His chest rumbles against my body. Maybe with irritation. Then he nuzzles my neck. "Look at all you have survived, overcome. If that's not power, I don't know what is."
I roll over until I'm straddling Shadow's hips. "I suppose there is power in capturing the attention of a monster as big and powerful as yourself," I tease.
"Now you are the one overestimating my power," he says lightly, almost ruefully. As if he isn't the most badass, insanely capable, and scary monster on either side of the bed.
"No, I'm not," I say softly, with all the sincerity I can muster. I don't add that he’s changed my world. I don't remind him of all the times he's saved me. I don't bring up that my body is enslaved to what he can do to it, but that my heart was captured by him long before that.
Instead, I push my long hair behind my ear and lean down, finding his mouth with mine. Our tongues tangle in a way that sends hot shivers running along my spine until I'm wet and aching for him.
His muscles and skin have knit back together and shadowy tendrils surround us, snapping with need and anticipation.
Where so many of our couplings come from a place of desperation, urgency, and violence, this is different.
Shadow’s tendrils pull my tank top off, exposing my breasts.
With quick finagling, my panties hit the bedroom floor as well.
Pressing my hands against his chest, I lift my hips, feeling my way to the broad tip of his already hard cock.
Slowly, I lower myself onto the thick, textured shaft.
Sweat pops out along my hairline and between my breasts. The room around us blurs, pleasure coursing through my veins as he penetrates me. Sharp stabs of pain mix with pleasure as he stretches me almost past my limit. My breath comes in pants as I fuck only the tip of his length.
Shadow’s hands find my hips but he still lets me lead. "Evie," he growls, half in wonder, half in torture.
I can only groan in response as my muscles clench around him and my desire doubles the wetness between us.
When I throw my head back, one of his tendrils caresses my jawline before slowly sliding down my exposed throat and then over my collarbone.
I've barely taken him halfway in when I feel the signs of my orgasm tightening and pushing me higher.
Shadow’s body curls up so his mouth can meet one of my nipples.
His skilled, hot tongue flicks at my nub until it draws tight with static electricity that runs a current straight to my center in a shockwave of orgasm.
I claw and grasp at him as I moan and shudder uncontrollably.
My vision turns dark at the corners. After Shadow lets me ride my way back from the high, he flips me over onto my stomach on the edge of the bed with my feet touching the ground.
He’s not done with me yet, not by a long shot.