Chapter 9 #2
Air punches out of my lungs and heat blooms sharp to sweet; my pussy clenches around the thick, relentless drive of him as he seats deep.
His grip brands my thighs, then slides to my ass, palms greedy and sure, pulling my cheeks apart so he can get all the way in.
His pelvis grinding, cock dragging through slick heat and catching on every nerve that remembers him.
“You’ve got me possessed, bonepetal. This pussy’s locked on me and I’m not getting out.”
He sets a pace that’s all claim—hard, pumping thrusts that bounce me up the trunk and back down on him, wet and rough.
The tree shudders. The lake holds its breath. He keeps me open on his length with one hand and cradles my spine with the other, mouth at my ear, voice a rough prayer I wear on my skin.
“Take me,” he pants. “All of me. That’s it. Look at me while you fall.”
My nails scrape his nape; my legs tighten around his hips. He angles up and finds that hollow inside me that makes everything go white at the edges.
He’s still got both hands on my ass—spreading me, hauling me down, and the blunt ridge of his pelvis grinds my clit every time he drives in.
The world narrows to that ruthless stroke and the filthy friction where our bodies meet.
Bark bites my shoulders; my hat slips off completely, dangling by its cord; he kisses my throat like he’s blessing the pulse.
“Beautiful,” he praises, voice tearing. “Every sound you make is fucking mine.”
I break on a gasp that stutters his name, the orgasm ripping through me hot and bright.
He doesn’t slow.
He chases me relentlessly.
His thrusts turn rougher, needier, until he’s shaking with it.
His grip tightens—fists full of my ass, possessive without pressure—spreading me wider and dragging me down as he drives up harder, like he wants to carve himself into the place I keep for him.
He falls after me—silent first, then a strangled curse, then my name like he’s staking it in the dark.
Heat floods me.
He holds there, buried deep, chest heaving against mine, kiss pressed to my temple like a vow.
Quiet.
Not peace, just the ringing of brightness after thunder.
While he’s catching breath against my cheek, my fingers slide to his belt. The dagger rides warm against his waist. The leather gives under my touch, the hilt fitting my palm like a memory.
He nuzzles me, still inside, still holding me open on him. “Salem,” he whispers, full of wrecked wonder. “So fucking perfect.”
Steel and bone whispers free. I loop my arms over his shoulders like I’m pulling him deeper. The point finds the notch between ribs through his shirt; I feel his heartbeat kick against it.
And then I push.
His body jerks, then goes loose.
He leans in, resting his forehead on mine, his breath warm—the closest thing to gentle he has left.
“Bonepetal,” he whispers softly, almost sorry, and for a heartbeat I see Finn—the boy I loved, not the thing he became.
Light spiders under his skin. It cracks him open. Heat bleeds through the lines, bright and wrong.
He flinches; I do, too.
Then it burns—skin splitting, and smoke curling off his shoulders.
His hands slide from my ass. His knees hit the dirt first.
I go down with him. My heart’s in my throat, beating too hard to hold. “Wait—” falls out useless. “Finn.” My voice breaks. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
He finds my face like muscle memory—palms warm, thumbs at my jaw.
His forehead rests on mine. Close enough to feel the tremble in his breath. His eyes are clear for a second and it guts me.
Finn. Just Finn.
“I love you,” I tell him, raw and shaking, because it’s all I have left that’s true.
Tears spill fast and hot. They run into the cracks of his fingers and down my neck. I can’t stop them. I don’t try. “I’m sorry.”
“Bonepetal,” he says again, smaller, like a secret.
The heat climbs. The fissures widen. He starts to turn to ash in my hands, edges breaking into smoke. He’s trying to hold on—I feel it in the way his thumbs press, in the way his mouth almost shapes my name, but there’s a dry sound, like a match giving up, and he goes.
Hands on my cheeks one breath, air the next.
Gray dust lifts and smears across my lips, my lashes.
I choke on a sob and taste him—metal, smoke, and salt.
“Finn—” I’m hiccupping now, ugly and loud. My chest hurts like something snapped. “I’m so sorry.”
There’s nothing to catch. I’m grabbing at air.
My knees bite into leaves and grit.
The dagger lies beside us, still warm. My hat bangs my collarbone on its cord. I’m crying too hard to breathe right—breaths stuttering, and shoulders shaking. Tears making muddy streaks where the ash sticks to my skin.
I press my palm to the space he was like I can force the world to rewind.
Bark and heat but no him.
The night rushes in—crickets, leaves ticking, the lake breathing.
The shadows knit shut where he tore out of the world.
Everything feels too bright.
I hold my face in both hands and try to breathe around the hole in my chest.
I’m alone.
I stay until the crying goes from ugly to mean little breaths I can ignore. I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand and tuck the bone knife into my thigh high sock.
Then I fold forward and let two last sobs rip up from wherever they were hiding, loud enough to make a crow shift and glare, but soft enough to be swallowed by the trees.
When I stand, my legs tremble.
I fix the hat and wipe my face.
I look back once.
The grass that lay under him is already springing up like nothing happened.
I turn toward the house. Back to the cheap lights, fake cobwebs, and bass thudding like a bad heartbeat. Because the world doesn’t pause just because I broke.
Miles will start blowing up my phone in five, and I need noise thick enough to smother the quiet clawing at my ribs.
Ash streaks my palm like war paint.
My chest hurts. My eyes sting.
It had to be done. He wasn’t the boy I loved anymore; the devil had his hands in him and wouldn’t let go.
What I did tonight is going to live under my skin.
I can’t tell anyone. Not even Miles.
This is mine to carry—my secret, my sin, my fucking weight.
So maybe Finn was right.
He’ll always be with me.
In my lungs when I breathe smoke, in the seams of this ruined dress, and in the cut humming under my palm.
Tied to everything, because I made the knot.
I walk back into the lights tasting copper and shadow.
His name a splinter under my tongue, and I practice the only magic I have left.
Smile, lie, survive .