Page 41 of Harvest of Sighs (Thornchapel 3)
“Auden was wrong to lie, but surely—”
I keep stroking her with firm, steady fucks of my hand, but now I meet her gaze, lifting my eyebrows. “Surely what, Poe? You can’t be okay with—”
“I am,” she interrupts. “I am okay with it. I’m pissed Auden lied to you, but you sharing a father doesn’t bother me.”
“Because you’re not the one committing a sin.”
“You don’t believe in sin,” she says.
And I don’t answer. I no longer know if I believe in sin or not. I don’t know what I believe in.
It used to be Thornchapel.
It was supposed to be Auden.
I don’t know what I believe because I barely even know how I feel.
No. No, that’s not true. I do know.
I feel like someone’s come in with embroidery scissors and started snipping around my heart.
But the feeling eases when Poe puts her hand over my chest. I drop my head to the top of hers, and we breathe together for a moment—her palm against my bleeding heart and my fingers touching her in her sweetest place. Wordlessly, she reaches for the fly of my jeans, and I let her. I let her pop open the button on the waistband, I let her unzip me. I let her tug my pants around my hips and free my shaft.
My breath hitches as she gives me a light, barely there caress.
“Do you have a condom?” Poe whispers.
I do. I pull my fingers free and fumble in my back pocket to give it to her, and she makes a total mess of trying to open it, and I try to help, but my fingers are slick and the inside of the condom packet is slick, and we’re both suddenly giggling with how stupid it is, until finally she’s rolling the latex over me and I’m not giggling anymore, I’m not giggling at all. The pressure of her hands, the slippery insides of the sheath—I’m exhaling in short, rough breaths, barely able to hang on.
“Can’t wa
it,” I grunt. “Need to now.”
Poe doesn’t stop me; there’s no talk of the gala or Auden or anything else. She slides her hands around my hips and squeezes, digging her fingers into the top of my ass, and it’s just the kick of objectification and ownership I need to be truly lost. I shove inside her and groan, unable to bear how tight and warm she is, unable to bear being without it even for as long as it takes to pull out and stroke back in again.
She doesn’t seem to be able to bear it either, because whenever I separate my hips from her thighs, she grips me harder, urging me closer, so the mating is close and urgent. I band an arm around her waist and fill my free hand with her curvy, plush bottom, and then I hold her tight to me as we move.
“More,” she says into my ear. “Use me.”
Except it’s the two of us using each other, it’s the both of us ordering, taking, seeking. A circle of selfishness creating a circle of submission. She commands me to fuck her dirty, she spurs me on with greedy hands and so I’m the one being used, cheapened, enjoyed solely for the thick cock to be ridden. And it’s freedom. Because inside Poe’s body, with her teeth on my neck and her eyes fluttering, the pain of the last two days eases somewhat.
The embroidery scissors around my heart stop snipping. There isn’t the raw, angry despair coiling in my stomach. There isn’t the cold, whispering voice that now I’ll be alone, that I’ve always been alone, that I’ll die alone.
There isn’t the dull, bruising pulse of Auden’s name in the back of my mind, thudding in time with my heart.
With her, I remember how I felt just a couple days ago, crashing through the trees and wildly in love. With her, it’s always summer.
I use the hand on her backside to grind her against me in just the right way, keeping pressure on her clit, and then I lower my mouth to her ear and confess all sorts of filthy things to her. That I think of her when I fuck my toys at home, that I had to lock myself in the library bathroom and jerk off last week, just thinking about her pretty tits, about how soft they are and how tight her berry-pink nipples get. I tell her that I never want to stop fucking her, that she makes me feel so good I can’t stand it, that I want to come on her backside, on her belly, on her cunt. I want to make her as dirty as she makes me, I want her to know what it’s like to crave fucking like craving food or air or sleep.
With my desperate words in her ear, she comes—a fast, mean orgasm that has her clawing my back and squirming wildly in my arms. Her legs tighten around me, her cunt gives me those irresistible little flutters, sweet squeezes as if she’s trying to suck my orgasm right out of my body.
I follow her immediately, sinking into that soft heat over and over and over again as I spill jagged, urgent pleasure into the latex. The orgasm is almost crushing in how good it feels; each heavy pulse sends waves of selfish bliss everywhere—tightening my thighs and tingling in my toes, racing up my spine to the nape of my neck and then buzzing down to my fingertips. Everything is dizzy, hazy, brilliant, and sweet. And for a moment, nothing hurts. For a moment, I can almost imagine a life where a day without Auden doesn’t scratch scars onto the skin of my pathetic heart.
Chapter Ten
St. Sebastian
Once I’ve succumbed to the need I have for Proserpina, the rest of my self-control melts away. I let her convince me to stay the night—although I can’t bear to sleep in the bed that should have been for all three of us—and so we end up sleeping in one of the guest suites instead. She’s unpredictable to sleep with, sometimes afflicted with the fretful dozes of an insomniac and then other times hibernating like a little bear, but tonight she’s yawning and slow-blinking before we ever get into bed. Sir James is back inside and already chuffing softly in his sleep, taking a whole corner of the bed to himself.
