Her words rip through my chest like bullets. I fall forward, one hand landing on the bed beside her, the other fastening around her neck.
If she insists on killing me, maybe I’ll take her to hell too.
“Does it cause you pain? When you bite your tongue and swallow the urge to call out my name each time you’re fucking someone else?” My breath skates across the tattoo on her neck. “Dreaming of an experience you never got to have?”
She gasps, and her legs wrap themselves back around my waist, flushing our hips together as if she’s desperate for the friction. Her fingers curl around the base of my neck.
“I could ask you the same,” she whispers. “I don’t imagine it’ll be too difficult to get you to fuck me now, would it?”
As I pull back, she smiles softly, like she believes she just won a match in this fucked-up game between us. I don’t see it thatway. We’re both tortured souls who’ve become so numb we’re chasing any feeling we can find.
Despite that understanding, I refuse to let her come out of this interaction on top.
I take my grip off her throat and let her legs fall until I’m kneeling between them on the bed. “Spread your lips and show me your pussy, Elena.” Her back arches at the sound of my voice, hips lifting in my direction, but I deny her what she’s searching for. “I want your vulnerability, the same way you took mine. Invite me in. Ask me for it.”
At first, she smirks, moving her leg toward my chest again, thinking she can toy with me until I grant her what she wants. I grasp her ankle and throw it back onto the bed.
The action causes her lips to part—long, dark lashes fluttering as she finally relents, sliding a trembling hand down her bare chest. Moving between the valley of her breasts and across her stomach—over the tattoos I put there years ago—she hovers at the apex of her thighs. Slowly extending her pointer and middle finger, she opens herself for me, and the sight of her wet, glistening pussy is damn near enough to make me come.
A deep groan tears from my throat. “Beg.”
Rage and desperation war within her eyes. She wants to fight me. She doesn’t want me to know just how badly she needs me, but I see it all the same.
“No,” she attempts to say, but it only sounds like a moan.
I slide my hand up her leg, fingers dancing along her thigh. The heat of her flesh and the goosebumps on her skin tell me how much she craves my touch.
“Stop fighting me, Little Vice.” Her eyes flare at the name. My palm glides along the dip of her waist, but I don’t go near the place she needs me most. Moving to her breast, I brush my thumb across her nipple piercing. “You’re no better than I am.” I hover over her, bending down so that she can feel my breathagainst her skin when I murmur, “You know how badly you want to be ruined by me.”
“August,” she cries, body jerking as I flick my tongue over her nipple, the metal of the barbell cool against my lips.
“Beg, Elena,” I demand once more.
“Please.” The word comes out a breathless whisper, but it’s all the surrender I need. The submission that reminds us both she’s fucking mine.
“Please what?” I ask.
“Please…” Her breath hitches, eyes glistening in the moonlight filtering through the window. “Fuck me.”
I laugh against her flesh, relishing in the feeling of having her exactly where I want her. Needy and at my mercy.
I rise off the bed, kicking off my underwear and stepping out of my joggers. The air hangs heavy between Elena and me, standing before each other without clothing.
Not naked, not bare, because both of our walls are higher than ever. We’re guarded and untrusting, merely chasing sensation with physical touch because we’ve both reached the point of combustion in the other’s presence. If we don’t find some way to pierce this tension, we’ll crumble entirely.
I kneel on the bed. “Keep showing me your pretty cunt, Little Vice.”
Her eyes fall closed, head falling back as she rolls a peaked nipple between her fingers, back arching when she spreads her fingers wider, exposing herself to me, and I’m fucking aching.
“Tell me what you want,” I command, voice gruff and strained.
“I want you to fuck me, Augustus,” she whispers.
“Why do you cry my name when you come? Why do you see me when you touch yourself?” She moves two fingers over her clit, rolling them in slow circles. I press my hand against them,halting her movement and adding just enough pressure over her most sensitive place to make her tremble. “Answer me.”
Her eyes snap open, blazing through me with equal parts lust and longing. “The last time I remember feeling anything at all was when I was wrapped up in your touch,” she admits, her tone timid and soft. “I can’t help it if it’s you I picture when I’m chasing euphoria.”
Her answer sends insanity barreling through my veins, my vision damn-near blurred with rage. Because it’s her fucking fault she’s so numb—that we’re both so numb. Her fucking fault we’ve been reduced to nothing but dust and desperation and daydreams.
