Page 19 of Wednesday

"You want to taste me," I said softly. Not a question.

Morrow's form went perfectly still. "Yes," he admitted finally, the word barely audible.

The confirmation should have terrified me. Should have sent me running from the cemetery, from this creature who wanted to consume part of me. Instead, I felt a thrill of dark excitement curl through my belly.

"Then taste," I said, extending my bleeding arm toward him.

Morrow's eyes widened. "You don't understand what you're offering."

"Then explain it to me."

He released my wrist and stepped back, putting distance between himself and temptation. "The dead have no claim on what I take from them. The living..." He seemed to struggle with the words. "A willing offering creates bonds. Connections that cannot be undone."

I thought of the mark on my palm, the thin black line that had not faded. "Like the blood sharing?"

"Deeper," Morrow replied. "Irrevocable."

I considered his warning, weighing it against the pull I felt toward him. The fascination that had transformed from terror to fixation to something dangerously close to desire. Whatever bonds formed between us, I had already crossed too many lines to turn back now.

"Take it," I repeated softly.

Morrow's restraint shattered. He crouched over my arm, his lipless mouth hovering just above my bleeding flesh.

"There is no return from this path," he warned, his grinding voice rough with hunger.

"I know," I whispered.

His mouth opened and a long tongue, the same black as his blood, slithered from between his teeth. The first touch made me gasp. Morrow made a sound I had never heard from him before. Something between a growl and a moan. His grip on my arm tightened as his tongue lapped at the blood. Each stroke sent another pulse of pain and twisted pleasure.

I panted as I watched him, the pain slowly fading as the wound did. I swayed on my feet, my free hand clutching his shoulder for support. Beneath the thin fabric of his tattered pants, a large lump formed between his thighs. He groaned.

The strokes of his tongue on my skin became more deliberate, more rhythmic. My heart began to pound as my nipples hardened. The parallel to another kind of intimacy was not lost on me. Suddenly, I wanted that more than anything. My pussy throbbed.

When he finally raised his head, his eyes were hungrier than I had ever seen them. My blood stained his mouth, but I had the insane urge to kiss him. His gaze moved down my body. We moved at the same time, a frenzy of hands stripping my pants and shoving my panties aside.

My back slammed into the dirt covering Eleanor Blackwood’s grave. I barely had time to gasp for breath before Morrow’s face was between my thighs. His tongue lapped at my pussy with the same hunger he had tasted my blood. I clawed at the dirt under me, jerking my hips into the shocking pleasure.

“More!” I gasped.

Morrow snarled and his hands gripped my ass. He lifted my pussy to his mouth to plunge his tongue into me. It writhed inside me, cool and slick, stroking my inner walls like it was searching for something. When he found something deep inside me and gently probed, I choked out a cry. My cervix, I realized.

It was the strangest sensation, but it made my toes curl. With a pleased growl, Morrow pulled back to hungrily lick my throbbing clit. My thighs tensed and I whined, struggling away from the intensity.

“No,” he snarled.

I choked on a scream as my orgasm slammed into me. My nails clawed his shoulders, but he only purred louder. He licked and sucked at me until I was sobbing too hard to speak. Finally, he raised his head. His black gaze met my teary one and he smiled with all of his teeth.

“Delicious, my dear,” he rasped.

I felt light-headed, both from blood loss and the brain-melting orgasm. My mouth moved, but no words came out.

Morrow climbed over me, his heavy cock resting against my slick folds. He braced himself on his elbows to cup my face, staring at me hard. "Why did you give me this?”

I scanned his expression. Confused, fond, still hungry. “I-I wanted to,” I said. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I wanted you."

Something flashed in his eyes. His thumbs traced my cheekbones with surprising tenderness, leaving a cold trail across my flushed skin.

"You have no idea what you've done," he said softly. "What you've started."

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