38. Eden
THIRTY-EIGHT
EDEN
“So,” Teddy says after a few tense moments, the storm clouds outside parting briefly and allowing in scant, watery sunlight. The heaviness from before dissipates yet lingers around the edges of my heart, the evil spirits slinking back into their darkened corners to fight another day. “What should we name him?”
I can’t help but smile. I know we’re in no way prepared for a kitten, or responsible enough with all we have going on in our personal lives, but the selfish little girl in me wants to keep him, damn the consequences. So as I cup his rump and pull him close to my face, nuzzling my nose against his, I grin. “Binx, obviously.”
Teddy laughs, dropping his hand over mine, the two of us holding a precious little life between us. “I figured you’d pick that or Jack. I like Binx, though.”
I glance at him, his eyes warm swimming pools of lust that I want to sink into and drown.
“Binx can be a guide to the spirits here. I’m sure he plays with them out in the cemetery. You liked the mausoleum?”
He smirks.
“Of course I did. Have some… Cask of Amontillado plans for the future, I think.”
I roll my eyes but press a kiss to Binx’s warm, fuzzy head. “I knew you would. You can’t actually be related to Poe, though. He never had kids.”
He snorts and gently plucks Binx from his resting spot on my chest, leaning over me to set him on the ground. The kitten meows and bats at a dried up bug carcass on the aged wood floors, content to explore. Teddy grips my chin, bringing my attention back to him as he hovers above me, his lithe, muscled bodied tensed as if to strike as he lays himself half on top of me. My cheeks burn, and that’s all it takes, this simple movement of him above me for my core to clench in agony at not having him inside me for almost a week.
“My mom did our ancestry. Traced it back to Poe’s family. We are related, just not directly.”
“Of all the people to be related to, I think he’s the most fitting,” I tease. He flashes me a toothy grin, his canines biting, desire swirling in his searing gaze. Wherever his eyes grace my flesh, it leaves a burning trail of yearning behind.
But his smile simmers, and his eyes begin to darken again, and I know where his mind has gone before he even speaks. My stomach curls up and withers, my mouth dry as dirt during a drought. I don’t like discussing my past, hence why I’ve never told anyone.
Anyone alive , that is.
He brushes his thumb over my chin tenderly, eyes tracing every facet of my face. “Eden…have I ever done anything to…to trigger those emotions from your past?”
I melt beneath him, because I have a feeling no other person would be as thoughtful or caring after such a heavy topic was dropped on their lap. Smiling softly, I shake my head and reach up, my fingers curling around the hand that still holds my chin. He’s so warm and strong and sturdy, my anchor in a raging storm that keeps me tethered to this world.
“No,” I whisper. “No. When I’m with you…it all goes away. That’s why I used to come here so much by myself. This place gives me the same sort of…peace. Release. I don’t think about it here, and I don’t think about it when I’m with you.”
His eyes beam with pride, and he tempers his smile.
“You make me feel the same.”
“Good,” I quip back, squeezing his fingers. He chuckles, brushing them up the side of my face before sinking them into my hair.
“I know…know how it feels, to be powerless in a situation like that,” he whispers, his face clouding over. My heart sinks, and my lips part, but he beats me to it. “Remember that prank a few years ago, Brant and his friends put fish in my locker?”
How could I forget? I’d never witnessed rage so violent before, watching Teddy pummel the kid to a bloody pulp in the hallway before first period. It had honestly frightened me, the way his eyes had gone dark, but I understand it better, now. He was holding back, because he could've easily killed the kid. I nod solemnly. He continues on, and I can hear how the words stick in his throat.
“Miss Goss used that to…blackmail me, I guess. She…well, she took my virginity. In her office. Told me she’d have me sent to juvie if I didn’t do it. And she’s found ways for it to keep happening, for years.”
Tears brim my eyelids, and I feel sick enough to vomit. My skin is cold at his words and all they mean. Yes, Teddy may understand me in this realm, but I’ll never understand what it’s like to see your abuser day after day, to feel so stuck in a situation that you have to do anything you can to survive.
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper. He gives me a wan smile and brushes his thumb over my cheek.
“It’s not okay, and what happened to you is not okay. But…if all the bad I’ve had to endure so far in life has led me to you, then I’d do it all again. Happily.”
I smile, a few more tears spilling over and trickling down the sides of my face. His keen eyes watch them, and he catches one with the pad of his thumb, brushing it away.
“Me, too,” I say back with conviction. “What…what do the voices think of…of her?”
I’m scared to ask the question, but far too intrigued by the possible answer to keep it locked behind my teeth.
He tilts his head back and laughs, the sound dark yet rich. When his eyes find mine again, they’re blazing with barely contained fury and malice and a touch of madness that fights to take over. It doesn’t frighten me, because I know I’m a little insane, too. We’re meant to be, craziness and all.
“They have a date set for her. She’s going to regret everything and have…plenty of time to ponder her actions, before she dies.”
I swallow hard at how easily he admits he’s about to murder someone, but I also know there’s nothing I could ever do to stop him, not that I would try. My only worry is him getting caught, ending up in jail or on death row for all the lives he’s slaughtered.
But if I were given the chance to kill Malachi Moreau, my abuser?
I would without a second of hesitation. The fact that Miss Goss has hurt someone I love sinks into my soul and festers like a rotting wound. I understand Teddy’s fury at hearing my story, because he is mine and I am his, and no one will ever touch either of us again.
“Good,” I say after a moment, jutting my chin up with conviction. “Hopefully you get to her before I do.”
Now he really laughs, and it bounces off all of the walls and echoes down the endless hallways, the asylum sucking this moment in and committing it to its collective memory. His eyes are dancing when they drop back to mine, his grin so wide that his dimples and laugh lines have appeared.
“My murderous little ghost,” he murmurs, leaning down to brush his lips against mine. “I’d say I love you, but we both know that’s far too trivial for what we have.”
My heart stops, and I blink up at him, astonished. His smile has faded into a content but reassured grin, his eyes holding mine as heat tears through me and centers between my thighs.
“What…what do we have, then?” I say quietly.
He looks away for a moment, reaching to wind his fingers through my hand and pin it to the mattress above my head. He does the same with the other, his movements slow and methodical, and he shifts until his body is atop mine, his cock hard as he presses it between my legs and against my aching clit.
“We have madness,” he says just as softly, dropping his forehead until it touches mine, his heat flaring through me as my heart begins to race in giddy anticipation. “And that’s far, far more powerful than love, I think.”
“Why’s…why’s that?” I say, my breath lost as he brushes his lips against mine again. My back arches, pushing me up toward him, and at the same moment, he rolls his hips languidly, pressing his dick even harder against my throbbing pussy, the teasing unbearable, the clothes between us a hindrance.
Grinning mordaciously, he pushes our hands deeper into the mattress, and that mad glint I’ve often seen wavering in his eyes grows until it’s all I can see, this insane obsession he has with me. There’s no severing it, this morbid connection we share.
“Because, little ghost. Love fades with time, and madness…” he whispers against me, rolling his hips again. I gasp and part my legs, wrapping them around his hips and pulling him close, silently begging for more. He chuckles and reaches down, deftly unzipping my jeans as well as his, pushing aside my underwear and finding me soaked and ready for him. “Madness has no cure.”
He sinks his two middle fingers into me, and I release a heady moan, grinding myself against his palm as he crooks his fingers deep inside me. Our breaths mingle, our foreheads still touching, this moment so intimate that I find it hard to look away. I am drowning in his eyes, just as I wished to, and he slowly pumps his fingers while circling my clit with his thumb.
“Good girl,” he says softly against my lips. “Get nice and wet for me.”
“Oh,” I whimper, electrified as sparks flare through me from my core, striking out through the rest of my body like splintered lightning. In a flash that leaves my mind whirling, he’s up on his knees and tearing my jeans away, throwing them carelessly to the floor before wrenching my panties off as well. Winding his arms around my thighs, he yanks my cunt to his face and devours me, his tongue flicking over my clit as I cry out and sink my hands into his hair.
He tongue fucks me like it’s our last night on earth, sucking my clit before teasing my entrance, his rhythm deft, and before I can stop myself, I’m coming on his face with a garbled scream that paints the walls. He gives me no respite as I tremble, my pussy still clenching as he pulls his fingers from me and replaces them with his cock.
“Taste yourself, baby,” he says breathlessly, slowly easing into me as I moan, his middle fingers at my lips. I obey, no other thought in my brain as he swirls his sticky fingers over my tongue, and I suck them in just as deeply as his cock is in my cunt. His eyes watch every minute motion I make, and he seems to forget about himself, his cock throbbing inside me, the tendrils of my orgasm still gripping him.
But I always want more of Teddy, and I raise my hips, seeking the delicious friction I know he’s capable of inducing. He chuckles, withdrawing his fingers from my mouth and intertwining our fingers again, pressing them deeply into the mattress as he slowly withdraws and sets a leisurely pace.
“Oh, my god,” I hiss, for as much as I enjoy the fast and brutal approach, this is somehow a little better, the torture of a promised climax, the way I feel each slow, measured stroke as he drives himself into me with precision and control.
“That’s it, good girl,” he praises, taking one set of our hands and bringing it to where we’re joined. “Feel us. Feel how wet you are for me.”
He wraps my hand around his slick cock and I grip him, astonished that something so… girthy is able to fit inside me. I hold him as he thrusts into me, and hold him still as he pulls all the way out, the silky head of his cock nestled wetly in my palm before his velvety dick slides back through my fist and into my weeping cunt.
My back arches, and I wrap my legs around his hips again, keeping him planted to me, releasing him to wrap my arms around his shoulders. I never want to let him go, to leave this moment of utter bliss, and by the way he holds me back, I think he feels the same. We fuck for what feels like hours, moving slowly, holding one another so tightly that our limbs go numb and tingly, both of us slowing each time an orgasm draws close, not wanting this to end. For as breathtaking as the climax is, the sheer intimacy in the build up is where I want to live for eternity with him.
We come at the same time, his groans of ecstasy pushing me over the edge as I cry out against him, burying my face in the crook of his neck and inhaling his scent. And trembling, we hold one another against the impending darkness, coming down from the high together but forever stuck in the bliss we’ve created from our shared madness.
Cuddling as dusk falls over the asylum, I peek out from under his arm, searching for Binx, slightly worried that we haven’t heard him in a while. Nuzzling my neck and pressing a deep kiss there, Teddy’s deep voice says, “He’s fine, baby. Probably playing with your ghosts.”
“That’s what I’m worried about,” I mutter, knowing that some of the spirits here are tricksters. He chuckles.
“Cats are supposed to be super perceptive of that stuff, right? Binx knows good from evil.”
I laugh and shake my head. “He’s a baby. He still needs his parents to guide him.”
Teddy’s eyes shine as they find mine. “Are you saying we’re his parents?”
“Don’t get any ideas. We’re way too young,” I say firmly. “A kitten is more than enough for now.”
“So that’s a yes?”
“Teddy!” I giggle, slapping his broad shoulder as he beams down at me. But he waits for my answer, and something tells me he needs one, something to reach for in the future to keep us going through whatever else we must face before the end. “Yes. Maybe . Eventually.”
“All I ask is for a maybe. The world needs a mini Eden.”
“Oh, god. Does the world need a mini murderous Teddy, though?”
He grins and nips at my nose. “Of course. Someone has to be a vigilante when I’m gone.”
On cue, the bouncy ball—glowing a pale yellow—rolls to a stop at the edge of the mattress. Teddy springs up onto his arms, hovering above me protectively, eyes focused on the doorway. I smile softly. We’re clothed once more, so I don’t feel awkward when Lily’s timid face comes into view, wavering apprehensively, her round eyes stuck wide on Teddy.
“She wants to play with you,” I whisper to him.
“Who?” he asks just as softly.
“Lily. The little girl. She…she seems really attached to you, for some reason,” I say, turning my gaze to the side of his face, pondering the connection I feel between the two. He’s grinning, still staring at the doorway. When he looks back to me, he’s giddy with boyish excitement. I nod my head to the ball. “Roll it back to her.”
He pecks my lips with a quick, sweet kiss and hops up, seating himself on the floor with his back to me, plucking the ball from the ground and rolling it to the void beyond. Lily’s eyes shine with girlish excitement, and it warms my heart, witnessing this; the master of death playing with a ghost stuck in childhood forever.
My smile slowly fades, though, as I study her eyes. Even with the staticy vision I have of her, the color is still visually striking. Coldness creeps over me, banishing the warmth I felt just moments ago. Teddy cheers as the ball rolls back to him, turning to grin proudly at me. My smile in return is tempered by sinuous fear, but he doesn’t notice, too distracted at the moment.
Fear, because Lily has his eyes.
And I have no idea what that means for me.