I stop in the middle of the room, refusing to break the silence first. I face Shadow down.
I know Shadow feels what I felt.
He didn’t come.
Because I was complicit?
Or because he’s letting me go?
That thought makes the center of my chest ache so badly I want to double over, but I don’t. I face my monsters. I always have.
And he’s here now.
Eventually, Shadow floats over until he is in front of me.
"You’re not safe," he says finally.
"Then why didn’t you come for me?" I ask before I can stop myself.
The pause swells with tension and my own resentment. I resent he didn’t come for me. I resent that I wanted him to at all.
"Evie... " He fills my name with equal parts caution and regret. Regret that he didn’t come tonight or that he returned in the first place?
My hands slide up until they find the hard, warm, scaly flesh of his shoulders. Tendrils of smoke swirl out from him, but he doesn’t move even as I draw closer. My insides quake and my lips tremble as I push up onto my tiptoes until I reach his faceless visage.
I press my face into his, desperate for contact. For proof he’s real. That I’m not alone in this house. In this life.
It feels exactly how it looks. It softly moves under mine as if always shifting, but there is skin to connect with. I press against a mouth I’ve rarely seen, connecting with a pair of firm lips. Sparks shoot down into my stomach like falling stars at the feel of the perfect fit. My hands slide up to the back of his neck even as he remains still under me.
I tremble like I’m about to shatter. It’s not lust—it’s starvation.
Kissing him softly, then more firmly, I ache for him to kiss me back. To wrap his arms, his darkness around me. Desperate, I search for any response from him—any indication that he feels even a fragment of what I’m feeling.
I’m holding onto a dream that isn’t truly mine.
I’m taking advantage of my one true friend, and while Miguel and I haven’t spoken about exclusivity of any kind, I suddenly feel like scum. The dirtiest, sticky green sludge that lines polluted lakes and ponds.
I start to step away, but two arms grasp me, holding me fast.
Then, against all my expectations, Shadow claims my mouth, shattering the walls he had built up between us.
A Hard Warning
Small tendrils of smoke caress along my face and neck as Shadow devours me. He’s kissing me, and it’s like being shot into space a million miles an hour.
But any second, I could crash back down to earth.
So I cling to him harder, open my mouth to him. I’d let him in anywhere he wanted.
He ravages my mouth with naked desire and brutal need.
"Evie," he groans, even as he drags me even closer.
I groan in pleasure, dying in ecstasy.
Part of my brain warns me he could be doing this out of some sense of obligation, or I peer pressured him. But when two hands lift me so my legs can wrap around his waist, I findhardevidence it’s not one sided.
Not even thirty minutes ago, Miguel was grinding between my legs, and now I’m perched atop a monster’s impossibly gargantuan member.
