Chapter 4
Chapter
Four
THE MOON IS LOW, AND I CAN’T SAY NO, GET THEE BEHIND ME
For this moment, nothing hurt. Clara felt those tingles all over her body—it was almost like the incident with the anthill but without the stinging and welts.
Every inch of her was buzzing like the telephone line when the operator took a powder.
Vaguely, she became aware of being shifted, settled back against her pillows with that cool, stormy autumn breeze ghosting over her skin.
“Tell me to stop,” came a low, rumbling whisper right beside her ear as she felt fingers tracing up and down her naked side, feathering across her breasts.
“Why?” she asked, shivering at every touch.
“Because I am... a terrible creature,” the low voice said, its rich timbre hitting her right where all her nerves were on fire. “I'm acting selfishly. I ought not be allowed to touch you. I will sully you as you have never imagined.”
Clara shuddered. That last bit felt less like an argument to send him away and more like a delicious promise she was desperate to hear more about.
“Then sh-shut up and sully me,” she said.
Shiver’s long claws dug into the sides of her mattress, threatening to rip her bed linens to tatters.
He was raging between his thighs, a need that snarled and bit and thrashed.
The demon’s mind raced. He was painfully hard—had he been painfully hard since he first saw her?
Had he even known pain before he first saw her?
“Oh, princess,” he said in a shaking growl. “I will.”
He spread her thighs apart again and knelt between them, a huge hulking beast of shadow and heat, looming over her like the storm clouds outside. She seemed so tiny now that he was above her, just barely pressing the tip of himself to her entrance.
She jolted at the sensation. This was new. This was more than just her fevered mind concocting some fantasy—something huge was right up against her, slipping in the honey from her last climax, beginning to press inside her.
“Oh—oh ffffuck, sssslow down—I-I can’t...”
“Mm baby doll, you can, I’ll help you,” said Shiver, knowing he was a terrible thing, knowing he ought to go away and let her be, but he was in far too deep now—or, he intended to be. “Deep breath. Relax.”
Clara couldn’t relax. She couldn’t see this thing that was pressing inside her, but it felt enormous, hard as stone, hot as a skillet—her heart had shot up into her throat where it hammered away.
Shiver reached up to stroke her face, letting his extra tendrils unfurl to hold her legs apart. She was a tight fit, but he could be patient. He pulled back just slightly, coating himself in more of her slick nectar before edging his way back in, feeling her squeeze with each gasp of air.
“Shhh, breathe, honey,” he groaned. “You can take this, aren’t you a brave girl? This should be nothing to you.”
Clara reached for air in such small, pathetic gasps. The golden fireflies were back at the edges of her vision. His little dig at her pride was working—her defiant side flared up, overpowering her fear and uncertainty.
“Of c-course it’s nothing,” she gasped. “D-didn’t even... realize you were... ssstill here.”
Shiver had to pause to hold back a truly evil laugh. Oh, he would marry this little hot pepper if it wouldn’t mean his demise. He gripped her hips with shadowy appendages that kept her still and open.
“Have it your way,” he said. “Deep breath, now.”
Clara was too stubborn to take his advice.
She opened her mouth to unleash a scathing remark—but then he pressed in deeper and her breath left her lungs.
Something far too big for her was now inside her, and she could feel it with every heartbeat, how her body squeezed around it so tightly the buzz in her ears became a shout.
Were those soft lips she felt against the side of her face?
“Come on, baby, unclench,” said Shiver. His entire world was being shaken to its core, but the fever demon fought to sound normal. He rubbed his palm along her stomach as he kissed his way down her neck to her chest. “Tell me you’re all right.”
Clara finally released a long breath, trying to force her body to relax.
“F-fine and dandy... sour candy...”
Another soft laugh from the demon before he rolled his hips back and pressed in again, distracting her with little kisses and nips to her soft breasts.
He could actually feel sensations that were entirely new to him—how hot she was, not just from her fever but from her life, so warm and so real that he could feel it spreading to him, a pounding in his chest, a stinging in his eyes, and his cock buried inside her felt squeezed by pure sunlight.
When he thrust into her again, he saw stars.
“Seventh hell, girl,” he growled against the breast he was kissing. “I’ve n-never had... a fuck this sweet.”
Clara was gasping with each thrust, clutching at huge shadowy shoulders.
“I’ve—never had—a f-fuck...”
Shiver went still, his glowing eyes snapping open. He wasn’t supposed to feel a heartbeat, but there it was, heavy and painful in his chest, like a fist. Her own heartbeat he could feel squeezing his shaft, rabbit fast. This was new and scary.
“You don’t mean... never?”
Clara shook her head, too wrapped in the new sensations raging all over her body to pay his sudden shock much attention. She just wanted him to keep moving.
“Never.”
Shiver looked down at her—this picture of innocence and sin wrapped into one, her flushed face and parted lips and heaving chest, her hair sticking to her forehead in damp strands—and that painful thumping in his chest where it ought not be grew worse. He should never have touched her.
“Oh honey, I… I didn’t know—” he said. It was clear that his position inside her was growing painful.
“Shut up,” she hissed, wriggling her hips. “Didn’t I tell you to shut up?”
Shiver did shut up. One more roll of her hips beneath him, and he was lost, answering with a thrust that shook the bed as the thunder shook the walls.
Now that he could feel her accepting him, feel her slippery inside and ravenous for more as he was, Shiver had no choice but to give the lady what she asked for.
My soul is damned anyway, he thought. But no, that wasn’t quite right. His soul was hers.
The rain beat its staccato rhythm against the windows as Shiver found a rhythm of his own, in and out, with hard thrusts that shook the little wooden bed and yet were only half as forceful as he longed to be.
His long tongue curled around a hard nipple, and he reached between their bodies to find her clit, rubbing in slick circles with his thumb.
Clara cried out, pounding a fist against his chest. Whether to stop it or slow it down, not even she knew, but she didn’t dare ask him to or he might listen.
The storm inside her had reached a pitch so intense that she had no recourse but to punch and slap at this dark beast, if only to cool the terrible heat that built within her.
“Oh please it’s -- it’s too much --”
Shiver groaned. His cock was making her beg. Oh no, he would not be slowing down now, not when he could feel the way she grabbed him between her thighs, as if her body was refusing to let him escape.
“You can come again for me, girl; I know you’ve got one more to give.”
At those words, Clara’s defenses shattered. She clenched from her toes to her hips to her throat, and she screamed up to her ceiling as the climax rocked her blind.
Shiver couldn’t help but follow immediately, the way she squeezed him. That peak he felt, the heat and the glow and the breathing, he felt tiny next to it, a beast greater even than himself knocking him squarely on his ass.
When at last he went still, he felt himself blinking away tears.
But... that shouldn’t have been possible, either.
“My beauty,” he rumbled, stroking back her hair and admiring her face. “You did so well. You earned a good rest.”
Clara was still half convinced she was already asleep, but the warm, cottony pull of the real thing began to drag her down.
“Same time tomorrow?” she asked in a sleepy mumble.
Shiver felt that ache again. He wanted her so terribly he could bite her. He might crush her if he held her as tightly in his arms as he longed to. If he had his way, he would have her again this minute, and again after that. And she wanted him back.
“Yes,” he said.
I never leave you, even in the day. I am your shadow, hopeless for you, and I cannot leave until you die of your illness... or I die of your recovery.
She hardly felt the soft kiss on her hair or Shiver sliding out of her. By the time he had dried her off and wrapped her in her blankets, she was fully out, the low growls of distant thunder playing her off to sleep.