“You don’t want to hear the truth. The truth will upset you.”
“So she was good then. How about her ass? You seemed to like that a lot.”
“Enough, Cathy.”
“Too bad you didn’t get a chance to taste her pussy.”
“Catherine.” His voice is a deep warning through gritted teeth.
“What? If you’re going to grope and tongue someone, you should be able to talk about it. I just want to know how you’d describe the kiss.”
He’s silent, while I listen to his heartbeat thumping through his chest. “Not you.”
“Hm?”
“The kiss. The way I’d describe it is—not you.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“Not you,” he growls. “Her taste, her smell, the shape of her ass, her flimsy little fingers, her breathy voice, that wispy hair…not you.Everything, every day, since I dropped those crates off at your aunt’s fucking store—everything isnot you. That’s all I can think about until I see you again, and then…you fill up the world. Everything is you.”
It’s terrifying to hear those words. Terrifying because there’s an echo of that violent truth in my heart and in my mind. I’m convinced I’m wrong, though, because it happened too fast. It’s been too easy to fall for him.
But is it really falling, or is it running? Running headlong, arms wide open, eyes wild with joy, wind screaming through my hair? Is it crashing into him, shattering my bones and body against his until we’re both broken, until the pieces of us reassemble as one person?
Since I met him, he has simply beenthere. Like he already belongs in my life. We understand each other too well, almost as if I’m him and he is me, and our souls always knew we’d fit together someday.
Or maybe I’m delirious. Drenched in the afterglow of survival, with alcohol still in my blood and the echoes of my screams in my head. Maybe I’m in shock. I doubt it, though, because I’m warm all over now, gloriously flushed under the blankets, bathed in the heat rolling off his bare skin. The long, silky length of his cock lies against my thigh, burning hard. But he doesn’t move. Doesn’t try to rub against me or get inside me.
He hasn’t said a word sinceeverything is you.
What does a person even say in response to that?
“Don’t do it again,” he says suddenly. “Run off like that and almost get yourself killed. Because I’ll follow, you know. And we might both end up dead. I can forgive you for causing my death, but I won’t forgive you for causing yours.”
I smack his chest with my hand. “How was I supposed to know there’d be an actual god out there in the sea? And one with a vendetta against banshees?”
He shifts restlessly. Doesn’t answer.
“Once we get back to your truck and have Wi-Fi access again, we need to do some research. I looked up a whole bunch of the gods a few years ago, but I don’t remember everything I read. Manannán must be the god of the sea, but I don’t know why he hates banshees so much. And what was all that about Cernunnos and the Morrigan?”
Heathcliff exhales sharply through his teeth, the breath accompanied by a sharp bob of his cock against my leg, and I realize that I’ve been tracing his nipple with my fingernail without thinking about it.
“You keep doing that, and I’m going to come all over us both,” he says tightly.
I flick his nipple, then rub my fingertip around it in a slow circle.
A sharp moan cracks from his lips. “Cathy…”
Delight sizzles through me when he uses my first name again.
I adjust my position under the blankets, spreading my thighs so they’re splayed across his hips. My torso is aligned with his now, my forearms braced against his chest. The blanket slides down, and he pulls it back up over my shoulders. The blunt head of his dick brushes the lips of my pussy, and I gasp a little. I shift my ass backward, feeling the nudge of his length against me. Then I reach down and circle his shaft with my fingers, dragging the head through my wetness, spreading the slick.
“God, Cathy,” he grits out. Under the blankets, his hands find my waist, my sides, sliding up to my breasts. He squeezes them with a groan of satisfaction.
I keep teasing myself with him, rubbing his tip against my folds,against my clit, until he hisses another quick breath and his body tenses like he’s about to come.
“Don’t,” I order him. “Don’t you dare. Think about something else—think about dying. Think about the worst moments of your life. I don’t care as long as you give me more time with this.”
