CHAPTER 57 #2
“The toxin is the reason. But I suspect this dose won’t last more than a couple days. The seizures will get worse. So, I should get back to the lab.”
I scrambled out of the backseat, allowing him to stand up alongside the car, and when he did, he tottered to the side a step. “Maybe I should drive?”
“Maybe not. I just need a minute.”
“I’m going to thank Francesca again and let her know you’re okay. You’re sure you’re okay to drive?”
“I’m fine.”
“Okay, be right back.” I jogged back into the shop, where Francesca greeted me with a smile, and as I handed off the empty glass, she held up a bag for me. “A bit more black rock tea.”
“Oh, no. I can’t. You’ve given me so much already.”
“Please. In case his fever returns.” As she handed it off to me, she clutched my hand in hers. “He’s a Bramwell.”
“Yes.” I hesitated to admit it, though, already suspicious of her opinions.
“They’ve lived on this island a number of years. Just be careful, dear.”
I offered a smile, in spite of the urge to tell her that what she’d heard about Devryck was nothing but gossip. “I will.”
“Take care.”
When I exited the store, Bramwell was already in the driver’s seat, the car revving as he teased me to hurry up. I slid into the passenger side, and he took off back toward the university.
“I have to leave on business for a couple of days,” he said, glancing over at me.
“Oh. Okay.” Man, today turned out to be a roller coaster, what with Gilchrist’s visit and what’d happened at the beach. Now the disappointment of him leaving.
“Have you registered for next semester?”
I’d gotten the email from Langmore, but hadn’t taken the time to do that yet. “No, not yet. I will.”
“Good. I’m going to pre-approve you for the second semester neuroparasitology. And my gross anatomy lab.”
“I thought that was reserved for med students,” I countered.
“It is. But I’m the professor. I can add whoever the hell I want, if I think they’re smart enough to keep up. So, make sure to add that one.”
A smile teased my lips. “What if I don’t want to take it?”
“You’ll take it whether you want it, or not.” He gripped my thigh and quickly recoiled, jerking the car with his movement. Frowning, he held up his hand, twisting it around as if it were something foreign in front of him.
“What’s wrong?”
“My sense of feeling’s returned.”
I glanced at his hand and back. “That’s fantastic.”
“That’s impossible.” He pulled the car over, off the main road, and down some obscure little side street. As the car skidded to a stop, he depressed the lighter. When it popped, he held the heated end of it near his skin, and his frown deepened. “It’s reversed.”
“The toxin is working, then?”
“I don’t think so.” He flexed his hand and curled it into a fist. “I was still numb after the injection.”
Puzzled, I shook my head. “Then, how?”
“What did she give me back at the apothecary?”
“I didn’t see everything, just kali phos, I think. And elderflower. And the tea, of course.” I tugged the small satchel she’d gifted from my bag and handed it to him.
He snatched it out of my hands and held it up to the light, where the sparkling surface glinted through the bag. “Lilia … this might be what’s been missing. This might be what can sustain the toxin.”
“I mean … it would make sense, right? The birds that don’t get infected. The … the … the … natives who used the black stones as teeth.” I gestured toward my own, noticing the tremble from excitement running through me.
“I have to test it. To make sure it doesn’t degrade the toxin, at all. But you might’ve just figured out a brilliant complement.”
“Well, technically, I didn’t–” Before I could finish, he dragged my face to his, crushing my lips with a kiss.
“Get over here,” he said, pushing the seat back to a lying position.
“Get the fuck over here.” The rough and needy tone of his voice mirrored the need pulsing through me.
After the stress of earlier, I’d had a rush of pure adrenaline pumping through me.
The prospect of burning it off enticed me enough to move without thinking too much about how the hell we were going to do so in his car.
I climbed over the console and straddled his knees in the cramped seat, the steering wheel pressed against my back, as he hustled to unbuckle his pants.
With hasty hands, he sprang himself free and hiked up my dress. “The condom,” he said, staring up at me. The dangerous turbulence in his eyes sent my heart in a frenzy. He looked at me as though he were fantasizing his baby in me, then quickly blinked out of it.
Groaning, he lifted his hips just enough to nudge me upward. He stuffed his hands down into his shrugged pants pocket, and after tearing it out of the package, he smoothed the condom over his jutting shaft.
I only just pulled my panties aside, before he took hold of my hips and brought me down over his groin. Already wet, I sank onto him with ease, biting my lower lip as his cock filled and stretched me.
“Fuuuuck!” He tipped his head back, eyes lost to ecstasy.
Hand to my nape, he dragged me in for a kiss and pressed our foreheads together.
My hand shot out against the window, fingers scratching at the glass, desperate to clutch something. To tear and scratch and claw. My hands longed to destroy, the way he destroyed me from the inside, turning me ravenous and greedy for him.
“You’re the fever in my veins,” he said through clenched teeth, as he drove into me with furious determination.
“An incurable madness I can’t shake. Fucking you is the only thing that keeps me sane, Lilia.
” He fused our lips together, stealing my breath, and when he broke away, his hand moved to my throat, squeezing just enough to part my lips and trap the next breath.
A dizzying euphoria swept over me, and my body jostled as he tore the bust of my dress down, exposing my breasts so they bounced and jiggled with every decimating thrust. “This pussy is all I think about. All I crave. You’ve infected every part of me, and I can’t stop. I can’t stop this obsession.”
The lack of air, his words, and the feel of his cock filling me had my head in chaos, my body in a state of paralysis. He squeezed tighter and a mewling sound spilled from my lips.
“No. No quiet sounds from you. I want to hear you fucking scream. You’re in the throes of fire now, Little Moth. Show me how much it burns.” He loosened his hold just enough that I let out a hoarse and throaty moan.
I gripped the seat behind him and rode him hard, relishing the pained look of ecstasy on his face when he tipped his head back, jaw tight, veins popping from his neck.
“Ahhh, fuck!” His fingers dug into my hips, as I upped the pace, the wet sounds a testament to how hot the man made me.
“I want to feel you come all over my cock.” he rasped.
The car jerked and bounced with his aggressive thrusts.
My moans escalated as a hot, coiling pleasure surged through me.
I clenched my eyes, but opened them at a grip of my nape.
“Eyes on me. I want to watch you come.”
A bolt of lightning struck my muscles, pulling them to a wire of tension, and his name reverberated inside my skull as I screamed it over and over.
He crushed his lips against mine and bit my lower lip as he pulled away. “You are a merciless vision of perfection.”
His hips shifted below, urging me up, and he lifted the hem of my dress as he pulled out of me and slid off the condom, tossing it into a trash receptacle beside him.
While I settled back on his thighs, he continued to thrash his cock, and seconds later, hot jets painted my thighs, as he directed his release across my flesh.
With his lip caught between his teeth, brows pulled tight, neck shimmering with the sweat of his rough and overworked body, he grunted, watching himself come all over me. As if he was marking me. Making me as his.
The sight of it made my womb clench.
He pulled me on top of him, holding me there, and I rested my head against his marble chest, hearing his heart beat a wild cadence. Such a beautiful sound after what had happened earlier. “We probably shouldn’t have done this here. Out in the open.”
I smiled, my cheek still pressed to his warm skin.
Although I hadn’t seen another car, or house, in sight when he’d pulled off, he was probably right.
We needed to be more careful, though admittedly, that had been part of the thrill for me.
My hair lay plastered to my damp skin, the windows fogged with our intense fucking.
“Devryck,” I said breathlessly, every muscle spent and liquefied. “I’m scared.”
“Of what?”
“This is beginning to feel like more than just sex for me.”
“So, why does this scare you?”
“Because I can’t see past the void, and it feels like this is when things fall apart.” The sting in my eyes was an irritating nuisance. I didn’t want to cry in front of him. Not after this. My emotions felt like livewires bouncing on hot sparks. “If you ditch me now, if you cast me aside–”
“Hey.” Fingers tangled into a tight grip at my crown, and he pulled my head back, staring down at me. “You don’t have to be scared. I will never hurt you, Lilia. In fact, I’ll rain hell on anyone who ever hurts you again.”
I loved him. Every cell, every fiber of my being couldn’t hide that truth. Even if I wasn’t bold enough to say it or brave enough to risk the universe stealing it away from me, the words were as real as my fears.
The words I kept secret like all my other trinkets–safely tucked away.