CHAPTER TWENTY SIX #2
The tent flickers.
The beeping spikes.
Her face blurs, her body flickers, her voice fades into static and I’m left gasping, trembling, cock still pulsing into emptiness, hands clutching at a ghost that isn’t really there.
I’m still buried inside her when the world tilts.
Her cunt’s pulsing, clenching around me like she’s trying to hold me in, her nails dug so deep into my shoulders they’ll scar. My chest heaves. My head tips back. My name is spilling from her mouth over and over—raw, cracked, perfect—
And then the sound shifts.
The rhythm breaks.
Not moans.
Not sobs.
Beeps.
A monitor screaming.
Her weight flickers. Her body dissolves like smoke between my hands. And I’m left empty. Cold. Gasping into nothing.
“Dax.”
Her voice. But not the way she said it in my hallucination. Not wild. Not wrecked. This is sharper. Fierce. A blade through the static.
“Dax, stay with me.”
My throat locks. My body jerks against restraints I don’t remember being strapped into. Sweat stings my eyes, and when I blink, it’s not the chapel, not the battlefield, not her riding me—it’s light. Too bright. White canvas. Flood lamps.
And her.
Cassandra.
Her real face. Hair tied back, eyes swollen from crying, but steady. Her hands are on me—not fucking me, not hitting me, not clawing—but pressing hard against my chest, grounding me.
“You hear me?” she snaps, voice breaking. “You don’t get to quit, Kingston. You don’t get to leave me here.”
My cock aches, still leaking from a release that might not even be real, but the burn in my ribs is sharper, hotter, dragging me back.
I rasp her name—nothing but gravel.
She leans in close, so close I feel her tears hit my skin. “I’m right here. It’s me. Your Butterfly. Stay with me.”
Her lips brush my ear, not a kiss, just heat and desperation. And fuck if my body doesn’t shudder like she just rode me raw again.
Because maybe that’s what this is.
Not sex.
Not hallucination.
Something worse.
The rawest possession of all—her voice, her touch, her will—dragging me back from the dead.Her cunt squeezes me, milking me, her thighs locked around my waist, nails raking down my back—
“Dax!”
The voice cuts, jagged, real.
I slam my eyes open.
Not the chapel. Not her body. Light. White canvas. Flood lamps. My chest a furnace, my ribs tearing, hands pinned by leather straps.
But she’s there.
Cassandra.
Her face hovering above me, eyes wild, cheeks wet, lips trembling. Her hands pressed flat to my chest, her voice breaking against my skin.
“You’re not leaving me,” she sobs. “You’re not fucking leaving me.”
My hips buck anyway. My body doesn’t know what’s real. I’m inside her, I swear I’m inside her, she’s sobbing my name and her heat is everywhere—
“Breathe!” she screams, pushing harder against my sternum.
My cock jerks, my balls tightening, the line between pain and pleasure blurring until I don’t care which it is.
“Come back to me, Dax!”
Her voice is fire, thunder, holy.
And I break.
I cum with a hoarse, guttural cry, hips driving up into nothing, spilling into emptiness, my release hot and violent even as my chest convulses under her palms.
Her tears splash against my face. Her sobs are real, ragged, shaking me harder than the seizure in my lungs.
“Dax…”
Her voice is everything. “Stay. Please—stay.”
The monitors scream. My body shudders, trembling, caught between orgasm and arrest, hallucination and survival, heaven and hell.
And through it all—
Her.
Always her.
My Butterfly.
The straps bite into my wrists. The taste of iron is in my mouth, smoke in my nose. My lungs seize like they’re being stomped flat, but that’s not what undoes me.
It’s her eyes.
Her eyes, wide, shining, fixed on me like she’s seen every sin I’ve ever committed—and won’t let me crawl away from this one.
I know she felt it.
Knows I broke apart right there, body betraying me, spilling into nothing like I was still buried inside her.
Shame claws at my throat. I turn my head, choke on a rasp. “Fuck—”
Her hand catches my jaw, forcing me back to her. Not cruel. Not gentle. Just steady.
“Look at me,” she says, voice low, threaded with something that isn’t just fear.
I fight it. I don’t want her seeing me like this—weak, delirious, filthy in every sense. But she doesn’t let go. Her thumb presses into the hinge of my jaw, grounding me, pinning me harder than the restraints.
“Dax,” she breathes, close enough I feel the tremor of her lips. “It’s okay.”
I shake my head, or try to. “No. Christ, Cass, I—”
“It’s okay.” Sharper now. Like she’s snapping a bone back into place. “You’re alive. Do you hear me? You’re alive. That’s all that matters.”
Her hand slides down, presses flat against my chest, over the jagged rise and fall of my ribs. Her palm burns through the sweat and grime, a brand hotter than the fever eating me.
But then her voice shifts—softer, darker, dipping low enough that my cock twitches again despite the wreck of my body.
“You think I care what your body did just now?”
Her lashes lower, a tear clinging there. “Dax, I’ve wanted you every second since you left me. Every time you breathe my name, even like this, it’s mine.”
My throat locks. Heat claws up my spine.
“Cass—”
“No.” She leans closer, her hair brushing my cheek, her lips almost at my ear. “You don’t get to drown in shame, not here. Not with me. You hear me? You want to break? You break for me. You want to come? You come for me. You want to live?”
Her hand tightens over my chest, right above my heart. “Then you fucking live for me.”
Something snaps inside me, but not the same as before. Not delirium. Not shame. Something sharper. Cleaner. The need to keep breathing just to feel that voice again.
I drag a ragged breath in, my lips trembling around one word that tears out of me like confession.
“Butterfly.”
Her sob shakes against my neck. Her mouth presses there, wet, searing.
“I’ve got you,” she whispers. “Every broken piece. I’ve got you.”
The heat drains out of me all at once.
Like the blast itself ripped me open again and left me hollow.
My body shakes, violent, weak, every nerve buzzing in aftershocks I can’t control. My cock’s still twitching, wet heat clinging to me, but the shame is worse than the pain.
Christ.
I came.
Right here. On the table. In front of her.
I turn my face, try to bury it in the canvas, anywhere but her eyes. But her hand finds my jaw, firm, trembling, forcing me to look.
“Dax,” she whispers, voice raw, wrecked. “Don’t you dare. Don’t you hide from me now.”
The flap bursts open. Boots thunder. Voices flood the space.
“Kingston’s crashing—”
“BP’s in the floor—”
“Get a line in—”
Hands are everywhere. Cold metal. Rubber gloves. The sting of alcohol wipes tearing at my skin. My veins scream as someone shoves a needle home. Oxygen mask pressed to my face, choking me with plastic.
I fight. Weak, pathetic thrashing, but I fight. I don’t want them. I don’t want any of them.
Her. I want her.
She bends over me, blocking out the lights, her hair falling forward like a shield. Her voice is the only sound that cuts through the chaos.
“Look at me,” she orders, fierce and breaking at once. “Just me. Forget them. I’ve got you.”
Her hand doesn’t leave my face, even when someone shouts to clear the lines, even when they shove pads against my chest. Her grip is iron, her tears hot.
And fuck me, I cling to that.
Because the shame burns.
The humiliation of losing myself like that, of showing her the ugliest, weakest parts of me. But her eyes—red, wet, unblinking—don’t flinch.
“You’re still here,” she whispers, thumb brushing the corner of my mouth like it’s holy. “That’s all that matters. You’re still mine to fight for.”
The medics crowd closer. Numbers barked. Syringes flash. Pressure builds on my side where the shrapnel still festers. My vision tunnels again, but her face holds me steady.
“Stay with me, Butterfly,” I rasp, voice shredded under the mask.
Her lips tremble. She leans lower until her forehead presses to mine.
“Always,” she breathes. “Even if I have to drag you back from hell myself.”
And I believe her.
Even as the dark drags me under again, I believe her.
The dark wants me.
It drags me under, heavy and endless, no sound but the pulse in my ears. But every time I start to fall, her voice claws me back.
“Dax. Stay with me. Don’t you let go.”
Hands tear at me. Cold compress on my ribs. Sharp sting in my arm. A line shoved into the crook of my elbow, tape biting my skin. Voices slam together—
“BP forty over palp—”
“Push two of epi!”
“Get another line in!”
The mask clamps down harder on my face. Oxygen hisses. I gag, choke, but she doesn’t let go of me. Her forehead stays pressed to mine, her breath warm, shaking.
“You’re not dying,” she says, like it’s law. “You’re not. Not like this.”
My body jerks. Pads slapped to my chest. The zap comes a breath later, white fire tearing through me, lifting me off the table, dumping me back down in my own skin.
I grunt, broken, but her hands catch my face again.
“That’s it,” she whispers, wild with relief. “Come back to me, Dax. Come the fuck back.”
Numbers spit from the monitor, frantic, jagged, but climbing. A second zap. Another wave of fire. My spine bows, my breath rips out, but my heart—fuck, my heart claws back.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
Weak. Erratic. But steady enough to count.
“Hold it,” someone barks. “Keep it steady. Don’t you dip again.”
Sweat stings my eyes. My chest heaves like it’s full of knives. My hands twitch uselessly against the straps holding me down.
Her grip doesn’t ease. She doesn’t flinch. She leans closer, so close her tears drip hot onto my cheek.
“You stubborn bastard,” she breathes. “You don’t get to quit on me. Not after everything. Not after—” Her voice breaks. She swallows it. Hard. “Not after I found you again.”
The world tilts, blurs, but it doesn’t vanish this time.
The hissing slows.
The shouting drops.
The monitor’s rhythm steadies, thin but sure.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
Her lips are right at my ear when she says it—so soft I don’t know if anyone else hears.
“You’re still mine, Dax. And I’ll fight every fucking ghost in this desert if that’s what it takes to keep you breathing.”
I want to answer.
Want to tell her she already owns me, has from the start but the dark wins this round.
It swallows me again—only this time, I feel her voice tethered to my chest and I know when I claw my way back, she’ll still be there.