Chapter Fifty-Four
Fifty-Four
Axe
I could watch Josie come forever—her body arching, eyes fluttering, like she’s caught in some perfect storm.
I’d never tire of it. I want to study how her body pulses, how her cheeks blush the most delicate pink, how her legs press tight against my ears.
I know I will replay this moment—her taste, her smell, her panting; Christ, that panting—over and over till my last breath.
She lies back, her arms spread wide, her lips curled at the edges, luxuriating in the glow of her orgasm. I lie down next to her, my fingers drawing hearts on her stomach.
“Stop staring at me,” she says, even though her eyes are closed.
“I’m not staring,” I say, though of course I am. My dick is pressed hard against my jeans—watching her explode was the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen in my entire life—but I’m trying to keep my cool.
“Axe MacKenzie, stop getting all moony, because I need you to fuck me right now.” Sweet Jesus.
Every drop of blood in my body rushes south, and if I don’t get inside her soon, I swear I might die.
I start to yank off my shirt, but apparently I’m too slow for her, because Josie sits up and takes over.
Within seconds, I’m down to my skivvies, and then like magic, I’m on my back as naked as the day I was born.
“Are you kidding me with these muscles?” Josie says, looking at my chest with pure, dead lust. I smirk at her. I spend my fair share of time at the gym—mostly to work out my rage—but those hours have paid off. She licks her lips and trails her hand up and down my abs. “Ridiculous.”
She swings her knee over my torso and rubs her wet pussy against me, just once, like a long, languid lick, and I shiver. She takes my cock in her hand, which is now wet from her and my precum, and pumps the shaft.
“You weren’t kidding about needing Magnum XLs,” she says, eyes as wide as saucers. I can’t help but smirk again. “I won’t be able to walk for a week.”
“Worth it,” I say.
“Fuck yeah,” she says. “I’m on the pill and clean.”
“Me, too,” I promise. “Got tested last month.”
She starts to rub against me again. If she sinks down onto me with nothing between us, I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to hold on.
I catch her at the hips, flip her onto her back, and hover over her.
I take her hands in one of mine and hold them above her head.
Just like the simulation and also nothing like the simulation.
Because this is real, and Josie is under me, and I can smell and still taste the salty tang of her, and soon, so soon, I’m going to bury myself inside her pussy.
I catch her eyes, and she looks right back, and all I can think is love, love, love. I still for a moment, savoring, my entire body on fire with anticipation. And then slowly, so slowly, because I do not want to hurt her, I push into her. She feels like heaven. Like home. Like the meaning of life.
“Holy shit,” Josie says. “You feel like you were made for me.”
“How can it be like this? It’s never been like this,” I’m moaning into her neck as I slowly, slowly pull out. It’s the most exquisite torture. I’m desperate for her—to feel that wet pussy strangling my dick. Jesus Fucking Christ, this woman.
“Axe. I need you. Harder. Please.”
“Turn over, bonny lass.” She rolls over onto her hands and knees and throws a grin over her shoulder.
I wrap her loose hair around my fist so I can pull her head back for a kiss.
It’s sloppy and desperate, and I get lost in it before my cock reminds me it cannot wait another second.
I grab her around the middle with my other hand so I can look at her perfect ass while I fuck her.
Then, because she asked for it, I slam into that perfect pussy.
“Holy fuck,” Josie says. “So fucking good.”
I thrust harder and faster, and as my fingers find her clit, she moans so loud it bounces off the walls of the orangery, filling the air and wrapping around us like music.
Pleasure short-circuits my brain, and we’re both panting.
I continue pumping, the sound of skin slapping against skin, so much slippery wetness.
I’m beyond words now, only sensation, lost in her magnificent, dripping cunt, and then, just as she tightens around me and comes in shuddering, gasping relief, I explode.
—
In the morning, Josie’s awake and full of energy, a wild thing I can’t quite catch no matter how fast I try to move. I follow her, smiling despite myself, my hands in my pockets as I watch her spin around, teasing me with those bright green eyes of hers.
“Come on, Axe.” She laughs, beckoning me. “Show me something interesting.”
What she doesn’t realize: Josie Greene is the most interesting bloody thing in this whole damn castle.
I spent the most unhappy years of my life here, wandering the halls, hiding from monsters, but she’s been here five minutes, and it no longer feels like a prison.
I’m no good at words, though. Not when it comes to tender things like this.
I just shake my head and huff a laugh, trailing behind her.
“All right, lass,” I say to her. “If you want something interesting, follow me.”
I take her down a side passage, toward the portrait gallery.
The door creaks as I push it open, and Josie slips inside, her curiosity vibrating off her.
She stops in the center of the room, taking it all in.
It’s just as I remember it—Hamish didn’t change a thing.
The portraits stretch from floor to ceiling, grand and intimidating, generations of MacKenzie eyes following our every move.
She doesn’t seem to mind, though. She marches right up to the biggest one.
The one that’s always been hardest for me to look at.
Too much truth in those brushstrokes. I stand on the left, frozen in time as a lad of about sixteen, tall and broad-shouldered, but still more scrappy than filled out.
There’s a tightness to my posture—like I’m not built for sitting and would bolt if I could.
Hamish stands beside me. He’s trying to look the part of the older brother, but he holds himself with a false, awkward confidence.
His skin is pale, almost sickly, like he hasn’t seen the sun in weeks.
His frame is frail, and his clothes hang off him in a way that makes him seem smaller than he is.
His hair, as dark as mine, is slicked back too tight.
But it’s his eyes that give him away; their blue is dull and shadowed, with dark circles beneath them that the artist couldn’t paint away.
Before I went off to boarding school, before his mum died, Hamish moved with lightness and ease.
The portrait captures him in the after, the new Hamish I returned home to from my year away.
“Poor thing,” says Josie. As she turns away, the morning light catches her hair, and it glows as bright as a summer strawberry. “Did you ever really get along?” she asks softly.
“When we were young, yeah. And then later, it was like he had given up on being good or kind. He wanted to be like Da,” I answer. “He was desperate to be loved.”
Josie steps closer to the painting, her fingers ghosting lightly over the frame.
“It’s so sad,” she says. “At first, becoming like your father probably felt so much easier, but then, I bet, once he crossed that line, it must have been hell. Must’ve stung him even more, watching you manage to keep your decency in this place. ”
I exhale, crossing my arms. “He always seemed to hate me for not participating. Like my rejecting Da and all the terrible things he did was a betrayal of Hamish, too. I don’t know.
Maybe he hated me because I couldn’t do it and he could.
And then he started living so hard and recklessly, there was no reaching him. ”
Josie’s eyes widen. “I guess then it makes even more sense that you thought he died.”
“Aye,” I say, my voice rougher now. “Drunk driving was the least of it. I could hardly believe he made it to twenty. Him smashing up his car felt fitting. Hamish was always trying to outrun whatever was eating at him.”
Josie steps back from the portrait and shakes her head.
“I reckon he eventually pulled himself together and knew there was no way I’d let him turn completely into Da—I’d have immediately reported him or taken him down somehow.
So he made his fortune quietly, shuffling it through shell companies, reinventing himself as fucking Niles von Grafenhagen.
Bought the castle through small-time brokers and corporations I’d never think to trace. ”
“I knew that name had to be made up,” Josie says.
“I don’t know why, after all these years, he wanted to come after me.”
“Maybe because he knew it was only a matter of time before you came after him.” Josie takes my hand and links our fingers.
“He was sick,” I decide, finding a bit of compassion for my brother now that he’s dead.
Josie’s quiet for a long moment, her gaze still on the painting, though I can tell she’s not really seeing it anymore.
She’s somewhere else, far off in that wild mind of hers.
I step closer, wanting to touch her, to pull her back, but she speaks before I can say a word.
“The Moon…the Star…the Ten of Pentacles,” she whispers so softly I almost miss it. “She was sick, too.”
“What was that?”
“We need to get home,” Josie says, a new urgency in her voice. “I have something I need to take care of.” She swallows. “It’s time.”