And when his hand slides between them, when his fingers find the softest part of me and begin to move—slow, circling, just barely stroking—I forget who I am. My head tips back against his shoulder, eyes still shut tight, lips parted, breath caught. I didn't know touch coulddothis. That my body could respond like this, couldbelongto me like this.
My hips shift, chasing him. Wanting more. Needing it like air.
"Just so," he coaxes. "Feel it. Don't hold back now."
Something opens for him, chases every swirl of pleasure like it’s the only thing that's ever mattered.
"Please…" I don’t know what I’m asking for.
The friction is maddening. My body responds to it without shame, without reason, and every time he strokes just right, I feel myself slipping further into something I don’t understand. Something wicked, beautiful. Unholy.
It’s wrong. It’s wrong.
I’m going to burn in hell for this.
Mama warned me—
"I shouldn’t—" I whisper, desperate, dazed. "It’s wrong."
He doesn’t stop. Doesn’t even hesitate.
"So why," he breathes, "does it feel so right?"
One of his fingers sinks inside me.
The world tilts. My lips part. My hands fly to his, gripping his wrist as if to stop him—only to hold him closer.
My eyes squeeze shut even tighter, willing the feeling to stay contained, but there’s no containing it. My hips betray me, rising to meet him, chasing that pressure, that rhythm, that unbearable sweetness curling tight in my belly.
I feel him, hard and unyielding behind me, pressed against the curve of my spine like a promise. A shocked breath catches in my throat, heat flooding my cheeks before I can stop it, almost flinching at the thought of what that means, what itcouldmean.
But I’m far, far beyond innocence now. Too far to pretend I don’t want to know what it would feel like to let him have all of me.
Then he pushes deeper. A second finger.
My body tightens around the intrusion, then yields. "Oh—God…"
His mouth curves against my neck, his breath a wicked caress. I can barely hold myself upright, head lolling back onto his shoulder as I'm held between the iron of his knees.
He laughs, low and sinful.
"Why pray," he growls, teeth grazing my pulse, "to something that bows before you, witch?"
I gasp at the words, the way he sayswitchlike it’s holy. LikeIam.
My hands scrabble over the moss, trying to ground myself in something real—but my thoughts are splintering like glass underfoot. I don’t know who I am anymore, only that I want more.
His hand releases my thigh only to grab my chin, tilting my face up toward the heavens, head back, throat bared.
"Lift your gaze, enchantress," his voice is a dark hymn in my ear. "All of the stars have gathered to watch you unravel beneath my touch."
And I do.
My eyes drag open, glassy with sensation, and the sky unfurls above me—an endless vault of burning white embers scattered across black velvet. Thousands of stars, pulsing as though they're breathing with me. Withus.
Then—his mouth at my throat. The kiss of his lips. The parting of them. The burning, reverent press of his fangs. They sink in slow—achinglyslow—into the soft slope of my neck, and the world slips loose beneath it. Thought fractures. Dissolves.
It burns. Itsings.
