Page 14 of Borrowed
My body still ached.Between my legs, tight and tender, like something had bloomed there and wilted all in the same night.I remembered the way her hips bucked against my fingers, the way she cried out when I pushed harder, the way her hands gripped my wrists?—
And then nothing.
Just stillness.
“She said something,” I murmured.“She was crying, and she said my name, and I thought it meant something.”
“It did.”
The voice wrapped around me like smoke.
Warm, thick, unholy.
“It means she gave herself to you, Zusje.And you took her.You made her yours.”
Toby.
I didn’t see him.
Not yet.
Just his presence.
Just the scent of him in the air—earthy, like ashes, like rain before a storm.
The butterfly fluttered down from the light, wings slow and lazy, and landed on my bare knee.
Then he was beside me.
Not appearing.
Toby didn’t need theatrics.He simply was.His body slipped into the air like a secret sliding under my skin.He crouched beside me, one knee bent, fingers trailing along my shoulder.I didn’t jump.I never did.His touch felt like butterfly wings.
I leaned into him.He felt like cold breath and heat all at once.His hand brushed my thigh, and my pulse kicked.
“She’s broken,” I whispered.
“You broke her beautifully,” he said, voice low, thick with reverence, like glass beneath silk.“She died with your name on her lips, and her come leaking down your fingertips.Now she belongs to you, Tabby.Forever.”
I choked on a sound that wanted to be a sob.But it didn’t come out.
Toby moved behind me, a shadow curling like a lover.His hands were just pressure, cold and heavy.He stopped when he felt the wetness, slow and reverent.His fingers grazed the mess between my thighs, teasing the slit of my skin.
I whimpered.
“She didn’t mean to die,” I said, even as I arched into him.“I just…I didn’t want her to scream anymore.”
“And she won’t,” he murmured into my neck.“You gave her the only kind of peace she could understand.You freed her.You were good, Sister.Dead people can’t feel pain.Only love.”
His fingers, cold and slick, pressed into my core.My hips twitched.My breath hitched.
I was crying and gasping all at once.
“She liked cats,” I breathed.
“You don’t like cats, Tabby.But still.You loved her the only way you knew how.With your hands.With your mouth.With your mercy.”
My head lolled back against his chest.He touched me like I belonged to him.Like I was made for him.
