Page 27 of Haunt

“Shhhh,I’ve got you,” Billy coos and my brain melts.

I don’t know up from down. My head spins, thoughts tumbling around my skull. This is all wrong, yet, I cling to him anyway. The only thing even a little bit familiar to me in this strange place. My cries are almost silent where I can’t catch my breath. Chest heaving, eyes streaming, the taste of salt running down the back of my throat.

“I’ve got you, Nellie. Come now, calm down,” he whispers across the top of my head, hair tousling with his breath, cheek resting on top of my skull, hand cradling the crown of it. “I’ve got you. Be brave for me, my pretty Little Lamb.”

We stand that way until my legs go numb. My hands curled in his shirt, balled beneath my chin, face buried into his chest. His arms banding tightly around me, he smooths his fingers through my hair, shushing me lowly. My eyes are closed, my heart rate slowing, my breathing calming. He keeps swaying us, almost like a slow dance, but we don’t turn, and I fear everything,everyone,I can’t see at my back. And despite what just happened, I don’t think Billy would let them hurt me.

Slowly, Billy pulls back, holding onto my biceps, he cranes his head back to look down into my eyes. His frown is etched deep into his features, warm brown skin sallow and grey looking beneath the flickering candlelight. He cups my neck, palms warm on either side of my throat, his thumbs smoothing their way up my jaw, trailing through my tears, swiping beneath my stinging eyes.

“We still have to get through this, Little Lamb,” he whispers, softer than before, my head shaking instantly, automatically. He purses his lips, looking down at me with serious eyes, “Yes, beautiful, we must.”

“No,” I hiccup, the word wailing its way free of my lips, “I don’t want them to touch me,” I whisper brokenly, my eyes pleading with him.

His eyes seem to flash, widening suddenly.

“No one else will touch you,” he says then, holding my cheeks in his big hands. “No one but me, okay?”

Someone makes a sound of protest at my back, it shoots a shiver of fear up my spine, even though I can tell they’re far enough away not to be able to touch me right now. But Billy’s head snaps up, gaze over the top of my head, shooting whoever it is a look that says he means what he says.

Then he brings his eyes back to mine.

“I can make it easier,” he says quietly. “But you really have to trust me,” I draw in a shuddery breath, unsure what to even do now.

So I do what I seem to do best when it comes to Billy Blackwell.

I submit.

“Okay,” I whisper, lashes fluttering over my dropped gaze. I lift my eyes back unto his, “Okay.”

The small square of paper-like substance sits on the tip of my tongue, white with a black ram’s head printed on it.Obscurity. A manmade, non-organic, chemical substance that really, just makes you more willing, happier, less questioning.

And that’s all I fucking need right now.

I don’t have much pull here, being unpaired, unrisen, and already known for being a notorious troublemaker as it is. My brothers absent, Gore, The First, also not here. I’m nervous. I really need her to do this, right now.

Come on, Little Lamb, I would never let anything happen to you.

I almost scoff at myself. I already did. Letting that fuck touch her. That’s one strike now from both The Obsidian and my Little Lamb.

God, I’m fucking up.

It’s okay. I’ll rip his arms from his sockets once she’s baptised. It can be my initiation gift to her.

Penelope stares up at me, eyes flicking to the rapidly dissolving paper on my wounded tongue, back up to my eyes, her own, dark and glistening with tears. I want to lap them up where they shimmer on her cheeks, but I can’t do anything unless she takes the drug from my fucking tongue and it’ll dissolve before she even gets near it at this rate.

She stares at me and it’s as though she senses all of my unspoken pleading, because quickly, before she can really think it through, she presses up onto her tiptoes and sucks my tongue into her mouth. One of my hands palms the front of her throat, feeling her swallow, the drug making her mouth dry, the aftertaste something metallic that sticks in the back of your throat.

I kiss her, my tongue gliding over hers, deep into the back of her mouth, I taste it too, the chemical, the almost bleachy taste. I pluck at her lips, my teeth nipping the bottom, and then I drag my mouth across her. Up the hollow of her cheek, my tongue sliding over her salty skin, beneath her eyes, lips sucking the tears from her perfect porcelain flesh.

I drop my hands to her shoulders, lips back to hers, and thread my fingers beneath the straps of her sunflower yellow dress. This time, only a couple of minutes after taking the Obscurity, she doesn’t try to fight me. I can’t help the small smile of triumph in our kiss as I feel her relax into me, allowing me to push the straps of her dress off of her shoulders, the fabric dropping to the floor, pooling at her feet.

Her fingers start plucking at my shirt, my hands reaching down, I pop the buttons free, our lips severing the connection as I pull away to shove it off. She whimpers a protest, mouth instantly re-finding mine, teeth pulling at my top lip, and I breathe a little easier.

Her hands glide down my abs, finger and thumb flicking my jean’s button free, but before she can get them off of me, I’m gripping either side of her black shirt, ripping it in two. The buttons scatter across the brick floor as they tear free. She groans into my mouth, teeth nipping and pulling on my lips. I shove the shirt down her arms, skate my hands up her bare back, flicking the hooks of her bra free.

She shivers as my calloused hands slide around her ribs, thumbs gliding up her sternum, palms cupping her small breasts in my hands, her bra falling down her arms. I squeeze gently, forefingers and thumbs tugging her nipples. I graze my teeth down her chin, the front of her throat, her hands looping around the back of my neck. She arches her spine, pushing herself into me, my mouth finding the dark, pointed peaks of her chest. She gasps, chest heaving against my mouth, my teeth grating over her goosebump covered flesh.

Hands skating down her sides, I suck her nipple into my mouth, bite down on the hardened point, feel the vibration of her deep moan in my own throat. Thumbs hooking into the sides of her underwear, fingers splaying over the roundness of her backside as I suck at her chest, I push the cotton down over her hips.

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