“I can’t have you.”
The words are like a verbal punch to the gut. I can feel my intestines swallow his fist whole. My throat turns to fuzz as I attempt to find the right answer.
“Even if I say I’d be happy to just have you like this?” I sound weak, but what is it to be human if you can’t show your vulnerabilities?
One leg is stretched out, the other bent in with his arm hanging off it. “Especially then.”
“Brant—” I whisper, shuffling up.
He cuts his name off. “Don’t, Saint.”
“Don’t—what?” My cheeks heat and my chest flutters from nerves.
“Touch me like you know it’s my undoing every time you do it.”
“You can undo, Brantley.” I shuffle farther, and I swear a hiss escapes his mouth. I don’t care. I continue until my hands are secured on both his knees. “I know how to put you back together again.”
“But you don’t!” He whacks my hands off him.
“Stop pushing away from me.” The tears that threaten taste dangerously close to finality. I move closer, my hands now on both his cheeks, and before he can remove them, I spread my legs over his lap until I’m straddling him. I tilt his face up to mine. The moon glowing in the sky offers all of his sharp features on a silver platter. “Tell me you don’t want me and I’ll get off you right now and never touch you again—”
He grabs me by the back of my neck and shoves my face down to his, his mouth a whisper away. He grazes the swell of his lips against mine. “Don’t say the words.” He can’t stand for me to say the words, but expects me to do it? Frustrating male.
“Then kiss me, because I’m not kissing you first.”
He tilts forward slightly, just enough for our lips to brush against each other, and then he kisses me. Soft, warm, familiar. I open my mouth for him, his tongue licking mine. I wrap my arms around his neck and grind myself over his crotch. He groans so low that it rocks my core from the inside and has me almost spilling over my control. This is easy for us. Our bodies are familiar, our souls connected, but his mind? His mind is what I need to conquer. He slides his hands beneath my shirt and up my bare back, unclasping my strapless bra. I toss my shirt over my head before reaching for the edge of his hoodie. Nothing is in a panic, everything almost painfully slow, but somehow perfectly paced. He tosses his hoodie to the side, his hand on my breast. The corner of his mouth tugs in a half-smile as his thumb glides over my swollen nipple.
“Still need to get these pierced.”
“We do,” I half-moan, my hips still thrusting against him.
“Come here.” He leans forward and sucks a nipple into his mouth, tugging it between his teeth hard enough to make me wince in pain. His other hand travels from my belly, up my sternum, until it’s resting against the front of my throat with his long fingers spreading over the side of my jaw. “What if you find out that what I can give you isn’t enough anymore?” His hair is wild, his eyes hooded. He runs his tongue over his bottom lip. “What then? Because if you think I’m going to let you walk away from me, Saint, then you’re about to get a front row view of why people fear me. This, right now…” He pauses, flicking my nipple with his index finger. “Is your getaway. But if you choose to stay here with me, then it’s done. It’s sealed. You can’t change your mind when you find out I’m a heartless piece of shit.”
I think over his words and try to reason with myself as to why this wouldn’t be a good idea, but even as scenarios fail to come to my mind, I know my answer. I know because I could never see my life without him in it. Brantley didn’t use bricks to build the wall he has to keep people out; he used the flesh of all his victims, in hopes it will scare people enough to never come near him.
I lean down and shake his grip off my throat. “Even if I didn’t want it. Even if I fought against it. The fact could never be changed…” I place a gentle kiss on his lips. “I’m yours.” I attempt to lean back, but he catches my bottom lip between his teeth, those glorious canines sinking into the sides. Reaching for his jeans, I move them down while never breaking our kiss. He flicks the button off my jeans, and I push them down while his hand rests on his length. My mouth waters.
He looks up at me from beneath his thick lashes, a devious smirk on his face. “What? You wanna suck my dick in a cemetery?”
Before he can stop me, I lean down and flick my tongue over the piercing on his tip.
He reaches the backs of my thighs, flipping me onto my back as his heavy body rests between my legs. His breathing is steady as my legs tighten around his waist. He slowly sinks inside of me, and when my eyes roll to the back of my head, he leans down and licks me from my lips to my temple. It feels animalistic and wild, but more than anything; it feels like ownership. He squeezes my throat while riding my body, sucking and kissing the curve of my jaw while tracing his sharp canines over the bone. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he was carving his name into my cheek. His tongue laps up what blood slips through, until his mouth is back on mine. He drives inside of me, our bodies slapping together with every thrust until he flips me over and directs me on top of him, yanking me back down to his lips. Every second that passes feels like hellfire rippling through my blood. I roll my body against his to the same rhythm until I feel my muscles tighten and my vision blur. He hooks his arm around my lower back, holding me in place as he drives his hips up to mine. Sweat slides between our bodies, my hair sticking to my cheeks when his lips graze the shell of my ear and he groans through a tight, “Fuck.”
My stomach coils together like live electrical wire slapping over a road, desperate to find anything to destroy. He slows his pace but guides my body over his with rough precision. Every single thrust I feel his piercings graze against all of my sensitive areas. “I’m—” A rush of energy pours out of me as my muscles twitch and my thighs tremble. My orgasm erupts inside of me and I swear I pass out.
He sinks his teeth into my neck as his cock jerks, filling me to the brim. I collapse onto his chest as we both catch our breath, his giant body like my own personal bed. He reaches for something to the side before draping his hoodie on top of my body like a blanket.
I run the tip of my finger over his skull tattoo. Seconds pass before I ask, “What did Veronica want to talk to you about before we left?”
His arms are on the outer side of the hoodie, protective and strong. “You broke a generation curse that was placed on that coven.”
I pause my tracing. “What did it entail?” I ask, the music from the main house somehow sounding louder than it did moments ago. Yelawolf’s “You and Me.” The tune is hypnotic and trance-like, and the lyrics embed themselves into the marrow of my bone. When he doesn’t answer, I lean up and brush my long hair to the side, resting my face on my hand. “Tell me.”
His eyes stay on mine for a moment too long before he says his next words. “The history of The Coven is fucked up. It was basically said a long time ago, that they were to never breed or have sex with someone who doesn’t practice or is born into witchcraft—” He rolls his eyes. “Veronica fucked up when she got with my dad, so she ‘sparked’ a curse on The Daughters of Noctum. Or some shit like that. For the record, I don’t believe any of this shit. I think it’s all in their head, but Veronica? Veronica is obsessed with this life. She lives and breathes the belief system. Lives by the code, as she would say.” He sighs, and I almost choke on my breath. “So this curse basically makes their coven barren until it’s broken. No one knows how the curse was going to break, but Veronica seems to think you played a part in it.”