More cuts.
More cum.
“Say it, Nellie, tell me who you belong to,” he growls.
Pressure builds inside of me, my temples pounding, “You, Billy, I belong to you,” I rush out breathlessly.
“That’s right, Little Lamb. You belong to me.” His words warm my chest, “Mine.” The obsessive possessiveness in his tone that should frighten me only makes my heart thrash harder, faster,for him.
My eyes pinch shut, but then Billy’s fingers are squeezing my face, crushing my teeth into my cheeks, and my eyes snap open at the pain lighting up along the bone of my jaw.
“Look at me, Nellie,” he demands, squeezing my cheeks harder. “Look at me as I make you come.” It’s his command, his filthy words, and the firm flick of his slick, bloody thumb over my pulsing clit that has me exploding.
My walls tighten, clamping down on his fingers as heat washes through me, the orgasm rippling up my spine and rocking through my head, never once breaking eye contact as my pussy gushes for him.
“I fucking own this too,” he grunts as I come, his tight grip loosening on my face. “Every sound of pleasure, every orgasm,drop of cum, every single tear, smile, laugh. I own it all, all of you, your blood, bones, heart, and soul. You’re mine, Penelope. I love you, and I’ve needed you, and now that you’re here, now that we’re Paired. You can never leave me.”
A pain hits me sharply in the chest, a stabbing through my heart as it thrashes around inside the bone cage of my sternum. Emotional terror seizes me, making my fists tighten ever harder in the soft fabric of Billy’s shirt. He’s never told me that before.
“I was dying,” I whisper, my eyes bulging in their sockets as I stare at him, his slowly thrusting fingers still sheathed inside of me going still. “Before you came for me, Billy,” I swallow past the razors lodging inside my throat, stabbed into the back of my oesophagus like a laddering of blades leading directly to my heart. “I was dying.”
Billy’s blue eyes are hard, they’re always hard, this vicious boy I once knew, something that, despite our time apart, still hasn’t changed, but I don’t know what he’s thinking.
I’m not sure I ever will again.
“You’ll die without me, I’ll die without you,” I tell him, my eyes hard on his, the fear of our re-separation more frightening than the prospect of what awaits me in Raven Ridge Hallow.
Because even though it scares me, the unknown, being apart from Billy once again is something I find maddeningly terrifying.
“I will never let that happen.” Resolute, the way he says it, snarling the words as though my own have personally offended him. “I will never let anything happen to you that results in your death.” His hand finally drops from my cheek, his warm palm smothering the entirety of the front of my throat, fingers tight around my neck, but not choking. “And if it does,” he swallows now too, hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he does, “then I will follow you.” His mouth meets mine in a rough kiss, just theviolent fusing of his lips to my own before he pulls away. “Death will never part us, Nellie, not now. Not ever.”
My eyes close as he draws me into him, our foreheads touching, our breaths shared. Relief flutters through me like moths seeking moonlight, and it feels as though, despite the tightness of anxiety in my chest, we understand each other, if only on a baser, subconscious level.
Chest burning, I hold onto him harder, his hand slipping out from between my bloody thighs to cup the back of my head, holding me to him, our foreheads grinding, when I realise the car’s stopped.
“Welcome home, Little Lamb,” Billy murmurs against my lips, his tongue catching my cupid’s bow before he slowly draws back. I blink at him, nerves like bolts of lightning fizzing through me, “Trust me?” he asks.
Our eyes connect once more, his fingers massaging my scalp where they’re knotted in my hair, trying to soothe. But my heart is banging against my ribcage, and my eyes are bulging, unblinking and unseeing, as I stare into his pretty blue ones.
Knowing, realistically, in this moment, there’s only one acceptable answer I could possibly give.
“Always, Billy,” I whisper.
Slowly, he smiles.
And it is devastating.
Chapter 2
PENELOPE
Raven Ridge Manor is not a house at all.
Light rain sprinkles down upon us, the English air a cool chill. The sky already dark despite it being so early in the evening, barely five o’clock on October thirty-first, but it’s pitch as though it’s close to midnight.
Billy takes my hand, aiding me out of the car, and I crane my head back, as he comes to stop beside me, lacing our fingers together, standing quietly at my side as I attempt to take it all in.
Raindrops dust my face as I blink at the heavily clouded sky, peering up at the monstrous home.
