“Okay,” he gasps. “Okay.” I hear the rustle of his nod in the dark.
I give him a few seconds to control himself. Then I tuck the tip of him inside me and slide all the way down.
I sob when I do it—a sob that’s half-moan, half-cry, and all bliss as he fills me up. The angle of my hips is perfect—I’m spread open across him, with my clit exposed and rubbing against his hard lower belly. He keeps this area trimmed, which I like—there’s a soft scattering of dark curls across the hard muscle, teasing my sensitive bud as I grind on him.
He’s cursing, low and strained, over and over, with his hands clamped on my waist like he wants to move me, but he’s holding back.
Leaning forward, propped on his chest, I lift my hips and bob up, then back down. He slides through me, thick and hot and perfect. The blankets are slipping off, and the chilly air hits my shoulders, but I’m still warm enough, and this is more important right now. Fucking him feels essential to myself, to my future wholeness and happiness. I’ve never wanted someone as ferociously as I want him—whoever and whatever he is. The secrets he’s keeping should bother me more, but I’m setting them aside, postponing my theories. All I know is that when I need him, he’s there. When I mourned, he followed me, carried me. When I nearly died, he saved me.
One of Heathcliff’s hands travels up my bare back, hooks around my neck, pulls my face down to his. We fumble in the dark before we find each other’s mouths, and when we do, I want to scream withdelight. The kisses are rough, sloppy, punctuated by broken gasps, open-mouthed desperation, frantic bruising force. I fit my lips to the edges of his, begging for his tongue, and he sweeps it inside me, raking across my teeth, lashing the hollows of my mouth. I rock my hips while I kiss him, feeling the soft, wet suction of my body around his cock.
My feelings for the other guys I’ve slept with were flimsy, like a breeze in the sky, airy and inconsequential, changeful, gone in a breath. What I feel for Heathcliff is like the roots of mighty trees, like bones under flesh, like the bedrock far beneath the ocean floor. It’s not only erotic but necessary. I need him deeper inside. I need to feel him wanting me, coming for me. I need to unmake him so I can remake us both.
Most of the time I think of my banshee self as a separate part of me—an inner creature that I keep subdued and dormant—but she’s awake in this moment, an active part of this. Heathcliff is getting all of me: the wicked and the untamed.
I stop kissing him, and I focus on taking him deeper, faster. His hands are in my hair, cupping my face, my skull. I’m panting hoarsely against his gritted teeth, fucking myself on him with agonized need. Our groans punctuate each other, primal, violent—I don’t know whether we’re two animals rutting or two souls blending, but it’s primal and it’s titanic and god, ohgod—
I scream, and the banshee screams with me, and the house groans, timbers creaking over our heads, walls shaking, but I can’t stop because I’m coming. I’m coming harder than I ever have in my life—waves of scintillating force rocketing through my body. Heathcliff yells out, bucks beneath me—he’s soaring too, shuddering, swept up in a hurricane of pleasure so exquisite it’s like pain.
Heathcliff’s hips surge, his length pulsating inside me, his bodyshifting against my oversensitive clit. My scream rises to a shrill peak as I burst into bliss a second time, and a window near us cracks. Thankfully it doesn’t shatter.
“Oh god,” I gasp through my raw throat. I collapse on top of Heathcliff, shaking, and he drags the blankets over us again. His cock is still inside me, still flexing, and his chest buoys me up with every shuddering breath.
I close my eyes and yield to the warmth, to the glowing peace that spreads through my limbs, to the feeling of being held, cherished, and satisfied.
Heathcliff shifts beneath me.
“Did you have to break the window?” he says into my hair with a low chuckle I feel through all my bones.
“Sorry,” I whisper with a giggle.
“Damn.” A press of his lips into my hair. “If you’re warmed up now, we should take some of these blankets and go. I don’t trust the structure of this place anymore.”
“Yeah, I think you’re right.”
I’m quiet as we retrieve our swimsuits and shuffle out of the damaged cottage, clad in blankets. The explosive sex we just had worries me. I allowed myself too much freedom, and I can’t let loose like that again. I can’t be earthquaking houses whenever I fuck Heathcliff.
We pad down the beach in chilly silence, while the wind whips our hair and sneaks under our blankets to thrash our bare legs. By the time we reach the site of the campfire, it’s dark and dead. The church group has packed up and headed out.
Our flip-flops are where we left them, so we slip them on and head for Heathcliff’s truck, pulled up beside the empty house. My beach bag is lying on the hood. Edgar must have put it there. Maybe he felt bad about how things went down.
I don’t bother getting dressed in the extra clothes I brought. I just crawl into the passenger side of Heathcliff’s truck with my bag, tuck the blankets around me, buckle in, and wait.
He pulls on a dry T-shirt and gets in, too. Closes the door. Sits there with one palm braced on the wheel, fingers drumming lightly. “Is that going to happen every time? The earthquake thing?”
“I hope not. It hasn’t happened before.” I swallow, thinking of how I felt my banshee side right there, present with me, taking that moment to the extreme. If I repress her, I should be able to prevent any more glass-cracking orgasmic screams. “I can control it.”
“You shouldn’t have to.”
“I shouldn’t have to do a lot of things. But that’s life, right? You play the hand you’re dealt, even if it’s a shitty one.” I sneak a sidelong glance at his handsome profile, half-veiled by his shaggy black hair.
“I’ve never come that hard, or that long, with anyone,” he says.
“Same.”
He nods once, satisfied. Starts the truck, and we roll out of the driveway, bumping over potholes.
Once we’re back on a more traveled road, he says, “Motel? I’ll pay. I’m a little tired to drive all the way back.”
