Page 56 of Where the Dark Things Bloom

She gasped.

Snake slithered toward her face, hissing softly as it wound its way up her body. And while it moved, I spread her legs and leaned in.

I buried my face in her heat. My tongue gently circled her clit, tasting her, feeling her tremble beneath me. I looked up, and saw the snake easing into her parted lips, slipping between them as she welcomed it, barely breathing.

Still, I kept going. I slid two fingers inside her, then curled them, hooking her to me. I pulled her open from the inside, and her thighs began to shake.

“Yes, please,” she whispered, barely audible. “Please… more.”

I obeyed. My tongue danced over her clit, her wetness dripping down my hand, her body shivering as she climbed closer to the edge. I could feel how close she was.

I pulled my fingers free, sat back on my knees, and dragged her body toward me.

Then I shoved my cock back inside her with a single, hard thrust.

She gasped—airless, raw—her chest rising as the snake slid from her mouth and coiled down to her breasts, circling one before gliding to her neck.

I kept thrusting, deeper, harder, until I couldn’t go any further. She was so tight, so unbelievably tight. And just as she broke apart beneath me, I pushed even deeper.

My eyes rolled back. I was right there with her. She started gasping, her body locking around me as I pulsed inside her—filling her, emptying myself into her, letting her squeeze every last drop from me.

And as the last pulse left me, I collapsed forward, bracing myself above her, panting against the heat of her neck. The snake coiled lazily around her collarbone now, its tongue flicking at her skin like it, too, had claimed her.

She was soaked in sweat and breathless, her eyes unfocused, still trembling beneath me like her body hadn’t realized it was over. Or maybe it wasn’t.

I stayed inside her. Neither of us was ready to let go.

Her fingers brushed against my side, trailing gently, grounding me. The house groaned somewhere behind the walls. Shadows crept longer like they’d been watching.

“I can still feel you,” she whispered. Her voice was rough, hollowed out from all the moaning, from all the gasping.

“You will,” I murmured back, brushing her hair from her face. “You’ll feel me for days.”

She smiled. A dark, quiet kind of smile. The kind that only came when you’d been ruined in exactly the way you asked to be.

The snake slid down her shoulder and back onto the sheets, disappearing beneath them like it had never existed. Maybe it hadn’t. Maybe none of it had. Maybe we were still dreaming.

But my cock was still inside her.

I pulled out slowly, feeling the wet warmth of her still clinging to me. Her thighs twitched, reflexively trying to keep me there.

I sat back on the edge of the bed, looking at her.

Her legs were still spread, her body a mess of sweat, cum, possession.

She closed her eyes again, and for a moment she looked peaceful—devastated, yes, but at peace in it. As if all the chaos, all the taboo, all the things we couldn’t say out loud had finally stopped screaming.

Then I walked to the window and cracked it open. The night air flooded in, sharp and cold. Outside, the woods waited dark, alive. I could hear the hissing again. Faint, crawling closer.

She would sleep like this. Open. Claimed. And I would watch the night to make sure it didn’t take her away.

Not yet.

I came back to her bed, and I laid down, closing my eyes on her chest. I finally found peace. She was my peace, and all my demons were calm when she was around. She tamed me, and my broken heart.

SIXTEEN

LENORE

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