Chapter 12
Wizard
I want, but she wants too.
The cabin, the woods, the mountains in the distance.
We’re safe here. She looks at me with flames licking her eyes as vibrant as the fire I just doused.
We have separate rooms in the cabin, but she doesn’t want hers.
She wants me. The need vibrates through me, rattling me down to my bones.
My cock stirs to life, and for once, I don’t talk it down.
Not when she’s looking at me that way, her eyes sparking.
She sets her hands on my shoulders and kisses me.
Truly. Kisses me. I have no breath. Our clothes disappear between frantic hands.
She’s glorious naked. A masterpiece. A work of art.
She sets her hands on my shoulders and pushes me across the room, then guides me down to the bed.
She’s on top of me, her breasts so lovely, her nipples hard little buds.
I suck one, my tongue roving over her until she throws her head back and hisses at the pleasure.
She climbs over my hips, straddling me. She takes my hard cock in her hand. I’m leaking from the tip, slick already.
“I want you inside of me,” she groans.
I sink my fingers in her hair, and she shifts on my lap.
She notches my cockhead at her entrance.
My balls are going to explode. There’s so much heat.
So much wet. She’s so tight as she takes me into her body.
Her breath hitches and her hips move, shifting on my lap.
She digs her knees into the bed so that she can ride me properly.
Her legs press against mine, strangling me the way her tight walls clench around my cock.
She dips her head and presses her lips against the column of my neck. She sucks there, hard enough to bruise. She continues down, scraping her teeth and kissing a trail over my collarbones, down to my nipples. She sucks one as she starts to move. It’s all so intense. I want to drive into her.
I grasp her hips as she rides me, rocking and swaying as I move.
She ripples all around me, her legs grasping my legs, every bit of her body strangling me in the best way.
My hips thrust up and up and up. She’s there, surrounding me.
Her breaths against my neck, hot and frantic.
My heart is going to explode out of my chest. I moan and she shifts to lick the sound from my lips.
She captures my breath. I pour it all into her lungs.
I grasp her hips and rock into her. Harder.
Driving my cock deeper and deeper and she takes it all.
She’s so wet. I’m so wet inside of her. My balls are soaked with it. Our thighs.
And then… my cheeks?
She’s ripped away. Sucked out of the room.
We’re no longer at the cabin. We’re in a dark room.
I’m… alone. A sterile metal table stands in the center.
There’s something on it. A shape. A form.
Bright lights. Tile floor. The scent of bleach and rot.
I never knew what it meant to be broken, but I am.
There’s nothing for me now, because I know what’s under that sheet. I know where I am.
It’s cold and sterile and all wrong. Death. It’s in my nose. It’s in my head. My heart. I force myself to look at the mental table. At the white sheet covering the slim body. Suddenly, there’s a noise in the hallway. A woman wailing. Her mother.
Why? Why didn’t she come to me for the money?
Those men found her. They broke her. They stole her from me.
There is no us now. No future. Only a past where I couldn’t love her enough.
Where I could have, but I didn’t. I couldn’t tell her.
I couldn’t warn her. She never came to me because she thought there was nothing for her here.
There’s me, reaching to find her cold fingers, the wax of her skin all wrong beneath my own.
I want to kiss her lips just once. Once, before she goes into the ground.
The love of my life, alone. Just one, before we’re parted forever.
Me, having no good reason to pull back that sheet, but doing it anyway.
Peeling it back and back and back, looking at the bruises and the destruction.
I did this. I did it by not loving her properly.
By not telling her that I would stand by her, that I was here.
She didn’t know she could come to me, and so she didn’t.
She tried to take care of it all on her own.
She tried to cover up my brother’s sins, and now… she’s gone.
I’m torn from the dream, terror clenching me in a tight fist. It wraps around my lungs, squeezes my middle, hollows me out with razor sharp serrated edges. I’m soaked in sweat, shivering violently. I grasp the sodden sheet and toss it aside, trying to drag in a ragged inhale.
I turn my face to stare at the glow from the outdoor lights mounted around the cabin. I should be able to hear some of the birdsong, or the whine of insects, the endless chatter that never stills from the woods, but my harsh breaths drown out the peace of the night.
I know it’s ridiculous. It was just a dream. None of it happened. My brain isn’t in the mood for rational conversation.
I prop my sweaty back against the headboard and try to center myself. Try to find my calm, dig down deep and do some damn yoga breathing, but as soon as my eyes slam shut, I’m right back there.
The images fill the backs of my eyes even though I’m awake.
I ball my hands up and force them into my eye sockets as though I can drill the images away.
My heart races faster than I even knew was possible.
I drop my hands and a minute passes. Then another.
My breaths punch out of my lungs in a ragged parody of a symphony.
Sweat pours down my temples and my eyes burn.
All this time, I was something to Esme and I was something to myself, and it’s all wasted.
Just one fucking day, and it all could have been too late.
Those disgusting images play out in my head again.
I’ve never had a dream change like that before.
It doesn’t matter that they’re not real.
It was all so vivid. A sound escapes me that no human should ever make, something half animal.
Acid crawls up my throat. My stomach twists and I have just enough time to throw myself off the bed and stumble to the ensuite bathroom.
I throw myself down onto the slate tile floor as everything I had for that late dinner comes up. I cough and gag, eyes streaming water, snot running down my face, as my stomach clenches in painful spasms, and still the gruesome parade of images won’t fuck off.
“Wizard?” The light clicks on. “Oh my god, are you sick?”
Fuck. How pathetic and disgusting is this?
I make a sound that’s half moan, half keen, and entirely a plea to just leave me to this, but Esme isn’t going to do that.
She kneels down right beside me. I try to heave a breath past the nausea.
It doesn’t help. I get my head over the bowl for another round of retching.
I keep going until there’s nothing but strings of saliva and twisting pain.
The only thing that makes it even remotely better is Esme beside me.
I want her to go. I want her to stay. I want her to be real and that dream to have been just a dream, not poison spreading through me.
She rubs gentle circles on my back and shoulders.
So careful. I want more. I want to collapse back into her touch.
I want to cry and beg and whimper for it.
I want to tell her that I’ve longed for her to touch me in any fucking way, and that I don’t care how pathetic it sounds, or how ridiculous I am.
She knows that already, dumbass.
She flushes for me and steadies me when I lean back.
Her eyes are massive, wide and dark and deep pools of emotion I can’t pick apart.
I stare back at her like I’ve always wanted to.
Like she’s half my soul. Half of the same spirit.
I want to give her the tools to dismantle me and put me back together.
I want to be owned by her. I want to be hers.
I brush a shaking hand over my mouth. Wordlessly, Esme stands. She finds a washcloth in the cupboard by the sink, wets it, and drops back down. She dabs at my forehead, then my cheeks.
“Let me get you some water, okay?”
I keep my eyes wide open. Real. This is real. You’re here. Esme is fine. She came to you for help. She trusted you. You fixed this for her. It’s all fine. That wasn’t real. None of it.
Her feet swim into view. There’s something wrong with my eyes. My breath. My whole body. I feel like a ghost, like I could blow away. I’m shaking, rattling apart down to my bones. She sinks down beside me and gives me the water.
I chug it all until it’s finished, then shove off the floor and turn to find my toothbrush. I scrub my teeth for an extra-long time, trying not to look at myself in the mirror. I’m afraid of how crazed I’ll look.
Esme stands. I see her reflection shimmering behind me. She rests her hand on my hip. Her touch scorches through my soaked t-shirt. I’m suddenly very aware that I’m standing here in damp clothing and that it’s all sweat slicked to my body. T-shirt. Boxers. Hardly a shield of any sort.
She keeps her hand on my hip like I need an anchor while I’m attacking my teeth as though they’ve personally offended me in every way possible.
She’s an inferno next to me, all heat and fresh air, campfire smoke, and jasmine.
So beautiful. So close. She eventually crowds in, until her hip touches mine and her hand moves to the small of my back.
Her touch is the only thing keeping me upright.
I hate the way her fingers tremble.