He wanted me to say it.
“I want you inside me. Please.” Any bit of pride I had was long lost. I’d beg for him now.
His eyes grew darker, and suddenly I saw the predator before me. It brought me back to the first time our eyes met, his laced with a hunger I could only imagine the depths of. Now, I myself had become a predator, able to explore those depths with a painful closeness.
I was so lost in his abyss, I didn’t even realize he had removed his underwear until I felt him at my entrance. I gasped. He ran the tip up and down, swirling it around me, taunting me, and I ground myself against him, not allowing him to tease me any longer. As he pushed in, I reveled in the delicious burn as he stretched me to the point of pain.
He saw it in my eyes and slowed his movements. He braced himself on his forearms beside my head, pressing his weight into me, our flesh melding as one. His warmth bled into mine. I lifted my legs, grazing my inner thighs along his hips, wrapping them around him. My nails dug into his back as he slid all the way in, and my other hand snaked up the nape of his neck, tangling within his hair. Ourbreaths mingled as his face hovered just above mine, our gaze locked so tightly only the strongest force could sever it.
He stilled for a moment as I adjusted to his length that filled me completely. I arched my back into him, wiggling my hips, desperate for friction. His control slipped through his fingers. A guttural groan spilled from his throat. And I realized then, perhaps his perpetual blank expression was a mask to conceal the monster beneath. The temperature of the room dropped several degrees at the look of sheer malice on his face. If I didn’t want him so badly, I’d be afraid. But I held him closer. I’d let the beast take me time and time again.
His pace picked up to a punishing degree as he thrust into me. I cried out between ragged breaths. My nails dug into the firm planes of his back. He growled as I raked them through his skin.
He snaked his arms around my back, wrenching me upright onto his lap. I straddled him as he drove into me. I wrapped my arms around his neck to stay upright, and his hands clamped firmly at the sides of my face, forcing me to look into his eyes, eyes welling with smothered riot. His thin thread of control grew weaker as it suspended him over the edge of depravity.
Every nerve came alive at the sight. I matched his movements, grinding into him. Our flesh gliding together with the sweat that bloomed between us. I reveled in the closeness, craving even more. He picked up the pace with a heart-stopping growl. My breaths could barely keep up. My head became lighter. My throat burned, an ache so deep it extended beyond me.
I trailed my fingers along his neck. My eyes fell to his throat before meeting his in a silent plea.
“If you do that, we will become bonded soulmates.” His voice was low and gravelly as he barely held on.
I nodded. Maybe I shouldn’t have made such a life-altering decision within the throes of a lust-filled stupor. But the decisionhad already been made, as if it were inscribed within the script of existence itself.
He looked to me as if I had imparted a revelation upon him, as if I held all the secrets to the universe. His thrusts slowed as he held on to my face, drinking in every part of me. He pulled me in for a rough kiss, driving into me harder. I had to break it off as an uncontrollable moan overtook me.
“Bite me, my love,” he growled, gripping the back of my head, his fist closing around my hair, pulling it slightly.
I leaned into him. He groaned as my lips glided across his throat, pressing a soft kiss over his pulse. I felt the moment my canines elongated. My tongue slid across them. And as I bit into him, I nearly fell apart.
His blood was sweet too, but what it evoked within my senses was akin to an unbearable longing. A shiver born of a first touch. The fear of being caught under an electric, lilac sky, attempting to get home before the lightning struck. The reddened hues of a dying sun, and the beauty of its violent end. The final collapse of complete exhaustion, falling into the warmth of an eternal embrace.
I felt everything. Every bead of sweat as it trailed down my skin. The heat between our bodies wherever we melded together. His warm blood on my tongue. The press of his fingers that dug into the flesh of my ass and hip. And him deep inside me, hitting my most sensitive area.
I broke away from his neck to gasp at the sharp prick of his canines. My vision blacked out for a moment as he bit into my shoulder. I lapped at the rich crimson dripping down his neck, and we drank from each other. I shattered so violently as his fingers came to my clit that I knew I would never be the same after I pieced myself back together.
He spilled inside me with a deep groan, holding his last thrust deep as his pleasure washed through him. Our eyes met once more,and we stilled for a moment. His lush lips stained scarlet. And I felt it then.
The silver thread of the universe, of existence in its entirety, weaving through our very souls, stitching us together in a bond that extended past death. And I let out a breath I had been holding for years. The expectations of others fell to the floor around me, sinking into the earth to be swallowed up within the burning center. Taken far from me. A weight released, eliciting a lightness I didn’t know what to do with. A joy I didn’t know how to handle. A happiness unfamiliar to me lined with dread.
Sebastian cupped the sides of my face. He revered me like the beauty of a thousand suns. He held me like a long-lost artifact that could break apart in the wind. His eyes swam with a conflict of confusion and conviction. Tears stung my eyes, and he swiped away every one that fell with his thumb.
After a moment of unmeasurable time, we finally fell to the bed, facing each other as we laid on our sides. He caressed the soft dip of my hip. I ran my fingers along the planes of his face, through his hair. Not once breaking eye contact. Lost in a trance.
I had to keep so much of myself hidden. I had even kept myself in the dark. My love for Sebastian bloomed despite how much I clawed at the soil, fearing its growth and the consequences of the feelings I couldn’t control. Loving him meant I was just as much of a monster as my world believed him to be. I dug my own grave to be with him. And I had never felt more free.
“I love you, Sebastian.”
His fingers dug into my hip as he pulled me flush against his body, his other hand wrapping around the nape of my neck, cradling my head.
“A hold so innate overtook me when I first saw you. I came to your world to close the portal, but there was no letting you go. Youbecame all that mattered to me, all that I needed. I love you, my moonlight.”
A tear slipped from my eye, and he kissed it away.
“You are the color I had lost. You have given me life and taught me how to wield it. You are the light that brought me back to myself.” Every word cut loose a thread holding on to each part of myself I feared, everything I wanted to reject, all that made me undesirable in the eyes of those who told me I was not acceptable.
“And what a lovely life it is, one I get the honor to be a part of.”
I hid my smile in the fluffy duvet, not knowing what to do with this joy that was so foreign to me. A thought hit me, causing me to peek an eye out. “Did you really need to ask for my hand to get us to the portal?”
