Page 8 of Haunt

And it is oh so very different to ours.

I think of Milus. His cold eyes. Too reminiscent of my own. And I shut it down just as quickly. Thinking of what is to come, the things he will do, the thingsIwill have to do, is only going to serve to ruin this moment. And I have waited so very long to be deserving of it.

“You ripped mine out,” she spits, it is a hiss from a viper in the dark, striking poison into my chest.

I am quiet, her breathing is rough, too fast, my mind conjures the image of her pulse fluttering in the dark. I want to sink my teeth into it. Too much too fast.

“I am here to put it back,” my words are twisted on a whisper, a silencing hush that has her holding her breath.

Finally, I allow myself to twist fully in her direction, stare at her flattened form against the wall. A darker silhouette in the pitch-black room.

“You knew I would return,” I hush, chin dipped, eyes flicked up. “You have prayed to me every night, Little Lamb. On your knees, your hands clasped, fingers laced.” She does not protest. “I have heard your calls. Your pleas. I have felt your tears wet my cheeks as if they were my own. But you,” I pause, inhaling a slow, deep breath. “YouknewI would come to collect. You havebegged,” I smile, exhaling slowly, all of her attention so very perfectly on me. “And now you shall worship. It is the way. You wear the locket that a piece of me is inside of. A piece ofus.”

Bloodied fingerprints pressed into the gold.

I step closer now, my body vibrating with the urge to possess her.

Consume her.

“You thought my words scrawled inside the pages of your book meant nothing.”

One of my hands comes to the wall above her head, fingers splaying. Tips curling into the cold stone in an attempt to stop them from clawing at her skin. Ripping the flesh from her bones, snapping pieces of her skeleton in my desire to climb inside of her. Love her, fill her, own her.

“They areeverything.”

I dip down, our breath shared, her neck craning back, crown of her skull flush with the wall, face angled up towards mine. And I can see her, finally. Better.

“You will learn,” the words are whispered into her mouth, along with the next. “You are worthy, Penelope.”

She gasps softly, air expelled from my lungs sucked into her own. Satisfaction rolls through me, a desperate need to be inside of her. Slowly, one of her hands comes up in the slim space between us. I can see the dark movement of her hand but not the detail of it as her fingertips glide up and across my cheek. Teasingly gentle, I want to take her hand in mine, slam it into my face, have her fingerprints etched into my flesh.

But I don’t.

I refrain from moving, from breathing, as her fingers sweep across my skin. Curling over my temple across my forehead, down the length of my nose, ghosting over my eyelids. My lashes fluttering under her exploration.

When her fingers leave my skin, a heavy thud of her arm as she drops it by her side, it is too much like the absence I have felt for the last twelve years.

Letting my parted lips graze down the side of her face as I curl into her. Her breath hitches, this tiny, low whimper rushing out of her. The sound of it tunnels directly into my ear, tumbling straight down my spine into my rapidly hardening cock. Heat swells in my lower belly, a twitch in my balls so sharp it hurts. And it’s just too much to try and keep my hands off of her.

I let my body crush into hers then. My pelvic bone flush with her stomach, her chest heaving against my abs. I curl myself over her, our height difference something ridiculous, but it makes me feel as though I could keep her safer.

Closer.

Smother her inside of me.

I would snap my heart free of its rib bone prison just to bury her inside of it.

Dropping my forearm to the wall, I bend lower, spine curved. Her neck still arched, face angled up towards mine. Finally, I bring my free hand closer, drag the back of my knuckles up the wall beside her. I feel her tremble, nightdress fluttering around her bare legs, her feet bare between mine, and a predatory grin splits my face.

“Did you miss me, Nellie?” the words flutter over her, the back of my hand finally connecting with her outer bicep.

I watch my shadowed hand draw its way up to her shoulder, my fingers curling over the bone, thin cotton between us. I can feel the prickle of her goosebumps through the fabric beneath my hand, the heat of my palm warming her rippled skin.

“I missed you,” I tell her, directing my eyes back to her face.

Stroking my fingers up the side of her neck, my thumb grazing the column of her throat, dipping into the hollow at its base.

“Would you like to go on an adventure?” I smile against her temple, before dragging my lips back down her cheek.

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