“Penelope,” I breathe her name out between us like a whispered prayer. “I’m sorry,” I tell her, meaning it, “I didn’t mean to hurt you.” I’m squeezing my eyes tightly closed for a second before opening them back up, making sure my gaze connects with hers. “I don’t want you to keep hurting yourself.” She swallows. “I want you to come back to me, I miss you, I need you, don’t keep yourself locked away.” I smooth a hand over the top of her head as she dips her face, breaking eye contact, her hair silky smooth beneath the roughness of my big palm. “Don’t punish yourself for my mistakes.”
Penelope’s eyes come to mine, my hand back on the wall beside her head. My entire body feels shivery, a tremble rocking through my core that has absolutely nothing to do with the cold.
“I should have dealt with Imogen differently.” She scowls at the mention of her name, but I don’t stop, needing to get this out, be truthful for once. “I should have handled all of this differently, better.” I shove a hand through my hair, flattening it down before it springs back up into its standing position. “I should’ve stayed away from you.” The words scrape out of me like something dragged from a grave.
“I should’ve let the world keep you, let fate do whatever it wanted with you. Left you untouched by all of this, by me.” Ishake my head, a bitter laugh catching in my throat. “But I’m selfish, Penelope. I saw you once, and that was it. Every warning I ever gave myself shattered the second you looked back at me. I wish I could say I regret coming for you, dragging you into the wreckage of my life, but I don’t. I can’t. Because loving you is the only thing I’ve ever done that feels like truth, even if it devours us both.”
Her breath stutters, silence that feels like a blade balancing on its edge. For a moment she just looks at me, eyes wide and shining with the terrible, fragile knowledge of someone who has been both saved and ruined by the same pair of hands.
“Billy,” she speaks my name coldly, unfeeling, and it feels like she slaps me back, the way it stings. “You think I wanted you to stay away?” she whispers, voice cracking on the truth she’s trying so hard to bury. “I prayed you’d come back to me. Even when I hated myself for it. Even when I swore I’d survive without you.” Her fingers tremble as she reaches up, stopping just short of touching my cheek. “You call yourself selfish, but what do you think I am? I knew you were dangerous the moment I met you. I knew loving you would tear my life apart.” Her voice softens, breaks. “And I chose you anyway.”
She shakes her head, a tear slipping free.
“If you regret coming for me, fine. If you regret loving me, then let it destroy us. Take a blade and cut my throat. End it here. Now.”
She spreads her arms wide, arching her head back, her neck free and visible, nothing but a long expanse of supple pale skin. The gold chain I gave her carrying its heart-shaped pendant, bloodied fingerprints of us both inside, draws my attention, my mind going back to the day I gave it to her, the night I left her.
How hard she cried.
How I died inside.
“But don’t you dare pretend I was some innocent thing you corrupted. I walked towards you. I stayed. You left me. You came back. I still fucking followed you.” She swallows hard, her arms thudding heavily back down to her sides, her tongue flicks out, licking over her mouth, her ruby lips shining. “And I’d do it again, Billy.”
“Say my name again,” I interrupt, cutting her off, the way she just said it reigniting that fire inside me. Her eyes pinch in confusion, her lips curling in. “Say my name again,” I order her, her dark orbs flicking between mine. “Say my name.” I’m panting, little clouds of breath forming between us, the heat of us together scorching hot in this icy tomb. My hands slide down the wall, my palms cupping her cheeks, squeezing. “Say my fucking name!” I scream it in her face, the demand, my teeth gnashing together.
And then she’s trilling my name like the sweetest devout worship, “Billy, Billy, Billy.”
And my teeth are scoring marks in her bottom lip, my tongue thrusting inside her mouth, licking over her teeth, twirling with her tongue. Her hands claw at my chest, nails digging in through my shirt, the cool tips of her fingers threading through the gaps between buttons, and then her hands are beneath the fabric, cold on my hot flesh, she’s tearing it open, the small round buttons pinging off like little plastic missiles.
Her hands are everywhere, fingers working my button and zipper, shoving at my jeans, working the restricting fabric down to my knees. My fist is in her hair, the other down her leggings, cupping her cunt, my fingers working her through the cotton of her knickers, slipping beneath the fabric and thrusting up inside her.
“Billy,” she moans, “Billy, Billy, Billy,” a chant, repeating my name over and over, feeding these breathy little whispers intomy mouth like she’s feeding me the last piece of herself she hasn’t already surrendered.
Fingers wrap around the hard length of my cock, her hand working it up and down, curling her wrist as she works me with a tight unforgiving grip.
“You think I regret loving you?” My voice comes out rough, like I’ve been swallowing gravel as I break our kiss, my fingers still deep inside her. “Nellie, I regret every second before you. I regret every moment I didn’t know your name. Every day I spent pretending I didn’t need something I had never even touched.” My hand slips from her hair to her cheek, knuckles brushing soft skin like a vow I have no right to make. “But you’re wrong about one thing.” I lean in, forehead touching hers with the softest violence, a collision that feels nothing like forgiveness. “You walked towards me, yes. But I…” closing my eyes briefly, I swallow, looking back at her, I lick my lips. “I ran to you. I chose you every damned time I should’ve kept running the other way. To keep you safe. To keep you anywhere but here, Nells, any-fucking-where but by my side.”
Her breath shudders, mine matching it as both of our hands go still.
“And yet, I don’t regret coming for you,” I murmur, voice lowered to something just shy of a confession. “I regret that I can’t stop. I regret that even now, after everything, after the blood, after the betrayal, I can’t let you go. I’d raze the world just to hear you say my name, even if it were for one last time.”
I close my eyes, because looking at her hurts too much. Not looking at her hurts even more. But in this moment, I need to focus on anything but the look in her eye when I say my next words.
“I can get you out.” I swallow at her sharp intake of breath. “I will get you far away from here, from The Obsidian.” I lick my lips, squeezing my eyes shut tighter. “Away from me. To keepyou safe, to let you live your life in any way you want.” My heart cracks, what’s left of it screaming, I drop to my knees, my hands gripping her outer thighs, fingers digging in, forehead pressing into her lower belly. “Just tell me to let you go and I’ll do it.”
She inhales like the words steal the air straight from her lungs. For a heartbeat she says nothing, just watches me at her feet, big brown eyes glassy with heartbreak that looks almost pretty. Then she lifts trembling fingers to my jaw, not to soothe but to steady herself, as if touching me is the only way to keep from collapsing. Knuckles beneath my chin, she lifts, forcing my bright gaze back to her dark one.
“Don’t let me go,” she whispers. The words shake, but the truth inside them doesn’t. “Not now. Not after this. Not after everything we’ve dragged each other through.”
Her thumb brushes the corner of my mouth, gentle in the way a knife can be gentle just before it plunges in.
“You think betrayal means I stopped loving you?” She shakes her head, a tear slipping but her voice growing ferocious beneath the softness. “No. It means I love you so much I lost my mind trying to protect us. It means I broke the wrong way, chose the wrong thing, but I never chose a world without you.” She drops to her knees, her forehead digging into mine, her breath warm, shaking, but determined. “You still have me,” she says, barely more than a whisper. “You always did. Even when I was tearing us apart.” Her voice drops lower, raw, intimate, certain. “And if you let me go, I’ll just come back. Come closer. If you push me away, I’ll push back harder. I’m yours, even when I shouldn’t be. Especially then.”
She closes her eyes, letting the truth settle between us like something inevitable.
“You won’t lose me,” she repeats, fierce and quiet. “Not in this life. Not in the next.” Her eyes flick between my own, “I love you more than any soul has ever loved another.”
Our mouths move, lips crashing together as she pushes into a crouch on her feet, curling her legs around my hips as I too push to stand, my hands lifting her thighs. We walk back, and I’m laying her out atop the large central vault, her back connecting with the freezing marble, her long dark wave of hair splaying out around her head like a shadowed halo. My hands tear through the crotch of her leggings, fingers moving the soaked fabric of her underwear to one side, and then my cock is finally inside of her.
