Stone’s tongue curled around mine when the two of us collided with the stone wall.
In seconds, my legs wrapped around his hips, and my spine banged against stone masonry as Stone was grinding into me, drunk on misery. Equal parts forlorn and desperate, he was single-minded to overpower me while I was trapped inside his arms.
I wanted to ignore the scarred shaft stroking my soaked sex and the swollen head smashing between my thighs, pretending instead that it was normal and smooth and velvety. Pretty. Not scarred and ugly.
He hammered into me like a mad creature, trying to thrust inside with sweat beading his brow. It was unpleasant, a pounding without relief, without a fill. He was too big, the size of a tiny fist prodding my tight hole.
“It may not work.” The bitter truth struggled to come out. They weren’t words but thorns, making me ache. I wanted Stone just as much as he wanted me in fear of never having this chance again.
Desperate and breathing hard, he lifted me higher and slid his hands under my ass. His fingers grazed the rim of my opening, and his movements slowed and turned gentle as he circled my entrance, massaging it, stretching it.
I clung to his neck, my mouth falling open in a sigh.
Stone inched two fingers inside, then dragged them out. My gaze was drawn to his eyes as he peered up at me and rested his wet lips on the soft skin of my breast. He held my gaze, teasing my opening when a whimper rolled out of me.
I believe I would have been satisfied with just his mouth brushing lazily across my erect nipples. I would have come undone from his fingers stroking me from inside as he looked up and into my eyes. I would have come from this alone.
A third finger entered, and I dug my teeth into my lip to suffocate my moans, rolling my hips, grinding on his fingers, my nipple scraping his teeth.
He watched me, mesmerized.
I watched him, consumed.
I would have fucking come.
But then he withdrew his fingers and grabbed his shaft, forcing his thick head inside me. And he lowered me until our foreheads connected, our eyes catching. He looked at me then, grabbed my ass with both hands. Just one squeeze, holding it, with fingers digging into my flesh.
A breath later, he edged his cock inside me, the deformed thing breaking through my hole, filling me with pressure, and plunging to the hilt.
My breath held as every ripple of skin sliced through me.
All his jolting ridges. Every painful imperfection.
His scarred cock in all its entirety was in me, pulsing, convulsing.
A lacerating burn shot up my spine, and a cry left my lips.
Stone’s lids drooped, brows slanting upward in ecstasy, his entire body tense as an instant orgasm blasted through him. The scene was like a werewolf transforming under a full moon. Muscles tight as if shocked, jaw clenched, head thrown back.
He grabbed the back of my head and looked into my eyes again. He kept them on me as he slowly dragged his cock out, and I could feel warm semen sliding down my inner thighs. Then he pushed back in, every horrific inch, until our hips met, his pelvis colliding with my throbbing clit.
I clawed at his back, feeling him everywhere.
Stone’s inside of me. Bound to me. Fucking me.
His imperfection was deep, rooted, and a part of me. Just like he wanted.
Stone didn’t want me to escape him in the same way he couldn’t escape himself.
Lightning struck, the wind howled, and snow pelted against the glass.
Weeping, weeping.
And I wept too, tears rushing down my face.
Weeping because it hurt. Between my thighs and in my chest.
I’d never had sex with someone and felt so cracked open that emotion slipped out. And yet, I was crying in front of a man for the very first time. Stone’s hand came over my cheek and he wiped my tears with his thumb.
Our noses brushed. “We’re perfect,” he whispered.
I nodded and then he kissed me. This was the closest I’d been to another, and at this moment, Stone could break any valuable thing left in me.
My back hit the wall once more, every thrust making the lighthouse go quiet, daring the storm to speak, punishing time for passing.
We held our breaths. We forgot to breathe.
Until his cock slipped out.
For a second, he was gone.
For a second, I was empty, panting, mourning the loss of him.
For a second, he was panicked, gasping, a blue vein thumping in his neck.
He grabbed the base of his bloodied shaft and jammed the swollen head into my slit, trying to find the opening again. Cold sweat dripped down the sides of his face and off the tip of his nose, resting on his cupid’s bow. He darted out a tongue to collect it as he dragged his cock through my warm pink center.
A delicious moan sailed between his lips from the feel of it.
So innocent, honest, and guilt-free.
My chest heaved with anticipation.
A warm buzz dashed across my insides.
I wanted this. Terribly. I wanted to be destroyed by him.
The desperation, difficulty, and deprivation made my heart ache.
His long fingers wrapped around my hips, and he drove inside me. My head fell back against the wall, my toes curled, then sprang loose. He inched out, his lips dragging up my throat when he thrust inside me again.
My heart buckled, and I squeezed my hands into fists at my sides to fight the strange emotion. I squeezed until my palms bled.
“Don’t,” Stone murmured against my neck, sliding his hands down the length of my arms and splaying my fingers open. Then he placed both on his shoulders. “Use me,” he insisted, and when my nails bit into his flesh, his jaw clenched, and he pounded inside me that time.
It turned into a desperate beating, the base of my spine banging into the wall. A beautiful, nasty bruise would come in the morning should I survive him, but I forgot to care. At this moment, he was my entire world.
The ugly that possessed us floated away, and all that was left were two deprived souls who ached for closeness, who, within each other, found comfort. I felt every inch of his sawtooth scar, and, in a way, I gripped, caressed, and hugged him back.
Stone let go of my hips, fell forward, and slapped his hand on the wall next to my head. Then he lowered onto his elbows, lean muscles knitted around his bones. With his lips a hair’s breadth away, he crushed our hips together, nailing his cock inside me, grinding into me in a way that dared this night to end.
The feeling of us caused a moan to tumble out of him.
Goosebumps coated his skin, and his eyes rolled back in his head.
“You undo me,” he confessed, capturing my gaze with hooded eyes.
Our mouths were open, our lips were sliding, and his breath was chilling, like drinking from the bottom of the ocean.
I pushed back his sweaty hair and cupped his jaw in my hand.
“I am your first,” I said to him knowingly.
He nudged my lips with his. “You are my only,” he corrected.
I grabbed the back of his head, taking a fistful of his thick hair until he pushed his tongue into my mouth. A long, body-seizing drag. He became a madman, fucking and kissing me with the same ache thrashing beneath our skin, our hearts slamming so hard we heard it in our ears.
When I kissed him deeper, his hand flew to the back of my head, keeping us here. His other hand held tightly to my side, grasping on to me with a fearsome power as if I were to soon sail away. Never leave me again, I imagined him thinking as his fingers threatened to puncture through my flesh, snap the bones of my ribcage, and leave black petals of himself beside my heart—just in case I did.
Stone’s hand slid down my backside and under my ass, where we were connected. He curled his fingers into my skin, stretching me wider and burying his cock to the base until there was nothing between us. Not even air.
So, I pressed myself against him as he guided me in a sensual grind.
All of me against all of him.
The sensation made Stone weak.
My next breath was caught in my throat.
His fingers wrapped around my jaw as he swept his tongue into my mouth, crushing me against the wall.
Flames blazed in the fireplace at his back, and winter surged through broken glass, rushing past our skin. He held me, just like this, with his cock buried deep, grinding my pussy against him. As he moved inside me slowly. In awe of me. Just like this.
Just like this.
There was an ache inside me that had never been filled, pleasure from a man. An orgasm from a man. I wanted it so badly but was terrified of what would come after, so I tried to pull away without physically pulling away.
But Stone caught my lip between his, holding our kiss through another fierce grind. He swallowed my cry as I squeezed my eyes shut, a climax scraping my nerve-endings. A warning that felt like a heart attack.
Despite all efforts, my thighs trembled.
Another cruel grind and I was ripped apart by an orgasm so severe I thought I would die from it. One that made my mouth fall open, my body jerk, and my cells pulse, stripping air from my lungs. I could have sworn that, at that moment, my soul had left me.
I saw stars. All of them.
I saw planets and moons and constellations.
I saw another life, another world outside of my own.
Stone eased himself in and out of me, stroking my orgasm until he seized up monstrously strong for a heartbeat. Then a burst of semen exploded. It was supernatural degrees hotter than the rest of him. Like when the sand spent too many hours under a scorching sun. A warm, peaceful paradise.
I looked up until my eyes caught with his.
He was already looking at my face.
Both of us stared at each other, unblinking. Not breathing.
Kane had fucked me many times but never looked at my face.
Stone was fucking looking into my eyes, and my heart was screaming.
My body collapsed.
He was holding me, but my body collapsed, if that was possible.
I didn’t know how long we stayed like this.
Trapped in each other, holding each other.
Eventually, I slid down his torso until my feet met the ground.
Stone took many unstable steps back until he sat in a chair, his chest finally letting go and heaving.
I looked down between his legs. I shouldn’t have, but I did.
The thing was wrapped in crimson gore.
It made me feel so many different things.
And we both stared at each other, my thighs clenched, while I tried to decode how I felt. Physically, mentally, and emotionally.
I was confused and empty and freezing without him.
I was angry. Lost. Disheveled. I was all things and nothing.
Stone’s voice cut through the silence first. “Are you all right?”
“No,” I whispered. A sad sigh escaped me, and my fists clenched, my nails piercing my palm again. “After you, I don’t think I’ll ever be okay again.”
He could have mistaken these words for anything other than what I’d actually meant. And for that, good.
“Please come here,” Stone whispered, his lips swollen apple-red as he stared at me. Blood streaked across his torso and thighs. His face was stained too, but the cut under his eye from when I struck him was no longer bleeding.
I walked on wobbly feet to him, stopping between his spread thighs.
“I hurt you,” he said, gazing up at me, brushing his knuckles across the back of my hand. I looked down, and that was when I felt fresh, warm blood sliding down the inside of my legs. When I looked back at Stone, his gaze raked my inner thigh, following the blood trail.
He grabbed the back of my thighs and pulled me to stand between his knees. There was no time to think. No time to react. His lips fell open, his head tilted back, his tongue darted out, sliding leisurely through my slit.
The instant shock caused me to jump back from his mouth.
My mind went numb. My eyes were wide, my hands trembling.
I studied his blank expression.
“No,” Stone insisted. My heart slammed, insecurity spiraling out of control as he dragged me to stand closer, between his knees, trapping me in this spot.
Even though I’d never had anyone go down on me before, I didn’t think this was what Stone’s intentions were. I’d seen this side of him back when he’d withdrawn my splinter from my finger in such a raw, blunt way. Stone was part wild, animal-like, and all he wanted was to lick the bleeding.
I tried to breathe and remain calm, but then he grabbed behind my knee, lifted my leg, and planted my foot high on the arm of the chair. I fell forward, catching his shoulders for balance, and a cool draft coasted across my spread pussy that was close to his face.
The act was innocent for him but erotic and heady for me.
Every hair raised across my body. “Stone, it’s okay. You don’t have to,” I whispered, but then he was smoothing one palm up the inside of my thigh, dragging his hot tongue across the inside of the other, licking the blood away.
I squeezed my eyes shut to find bravery. Then I opened them again, feeling him grab underneath me, fingers squeezing my ass and his thumbs hooking around both sides of my pussy from behind. Then he sank his thumbs into my slit and spread my lips apart. The cold air hissed across my core while Stone stared, watching as his thumbs slid down the slick edges to my opening. He then stretched me open, drawing circles, watching me glisten as he gently massaged the hole my blood was coming from.
“Oh my god,” I breathed, unable to believe this was happening.
His lips parted, his hooded eyes dilated as his gaze raped my bare pussy.
Then his eyes sailed up to my face.
He guided me closer, dropped his head back, and pressed his warm lips against my opening before grinding his tongue inside.
With a sigh soaked in bliss, I sank into his mouth, twirling my fingers through his white hair to keep me upright. Stone’s thumbs held me, keeping me spread, dragging a tongue inside me and kissing the rim, soothing the sting.
“Oh my god,” I cried again just when he moaned, a deep vibration buzzing through me. A warm whisper.
I dug my teeth into my lip and locked eyes with him.
He licked me deeply. From bottom to top. A slow drag across sore pink flesh until his tongue raked my clit. I threw my head back, digging my nails into his shoulders, an orgasm crying inside me.
Mercy, mercy, my heart screamed, going pale from all of the hot and heavy blood pooling to my core. And when Stone’s tongue slid back down and curled into my opening, I almost died.
“Stone,” I moaned, raking my nails up the nape of his neck and through his damp hair. His head fell back into my palm, and his mouth and nose dragged up and down through my slit. I whimpered from the softness that had become him. Wet, delicate strokes. Threads of gentle secrecy.
My legs shook, but he held me together in his hands as he watched me from below. The sensation was so intense that I tried to wiggle out of his grasp. But each time I moved, he gripped me harder and licked me deeper with his bared teeth scraping my clit.
The orgasm came faster, more fiercely than I expected. It washed over me. The kiss of a lightning bolt, electricity wrapping around my bones, my mouth falling open.
With his lips wrapped around my pussy, Stone’s hooded gaze submerged itself in my broken expression. The wild stole his features, and he took my pussy into his mouth, a moan leaving him as he swirled his tongue around my clit.
His moans became a shiver in my bloodstream. Half misery, half ecstasy.
The taste must have excited him because one of his hands left the inside of my thigh and flew to his erected cock. He swiped his thumb across the tip, collecting a bead of pre-cum on the pad, then inched back to watch as he dragged his thumb from my slick entrance to my clit and back down again.
I looked down, seeing that he had cleaned all the blood from my sex.
Then I threw my head back and closed my eyes, grinding against his thumb until it left me, and my pussy was rolling back into his mouth. When I opened my eyes again, he was fisting his cock, dragging his palm up and down the monstrous erection.
Stone aroused by just the taste of me was the sexiest thing I’d ever seen.
A moan vibrated through him, his cock twitching between his thighs. His hungry licks turned into long, feverish drags when he squeezed his erect shaft.
I bit my lip, admiring him stroking himself passionately until his cock jerked in his fist, semen spilling over his fingers.
Stone’s hand left his cock, and he dragged his fingers through my sex, coating me with his semen. Then two soaked fingers sank inside me, and my orgasm clenched around them as he took my clit into his mouth.
“You are so sexy,” I whispered in a shallow breath, fisting the back of his head, my whole-body trembling. “You’re so sexy, and you have no idea.”
He looked up at me, grazing the bud with his tongue, the feeling insane. No longer able to hold myself up, my legs buckled, and I was melting into his arms.
“Circe,” he scraped out, dropping his head back into the chair and dragging my bottom closer. His cock was hot and heavy and twitching between my legs. I lay my head on his heaving chest, hearing his heart slam.
“Circe,” he repeated, a sigh as if he were speechless, and I absolutely hated that name on his lips. Silence spread between us, and then— “I don’t want to be alone.”
I froze. I’d forgotten about Weeping Hollow.
I’d forgotten about Kane, Cyrus, and the Shadows.
I’d forgotten about Mom and Sacred Sea and my plan.
I was too lost in it all.
I got back to my feet, his hands falling from my hips.
I turned and snatched my torn dress from the floor.
I felt Stone’s gaze follow me. “Wait.”
I ignored him, and out of the corner of my eye, he got to his feet, too.
“You can’t go out there. It’s too dangerous.”
I swiped my raincoat off the floor and glanced out the window and into the storm, unable to tell the sea apart from the sky.
I couldn’t think. I couldn’t form a single thought. How was I supposed to steer a boat, much less survive without a working brain?
“Stop and listen to me,” he demanded, desperation in his tone.
Stone was angry. He didn’t know why he was angry, didn’t have the look on his face, but he was. I could hear it wrapped around his words.
“I can’t.” I slung my strap around my shoulder. “I wish I could, but I have to go.”
I turned back one last time, seeing Stone standing with his jaw flexing. I spun toward the door, grabbed the handle, and pulled it open. But Stone came up behind, slapping a hand against it until the door slammed shut.
I could feel the heat of him pressing against my back.
“Circe, stay,” he said, softly this time. “I don’t understand what is so imperative that you must risk your life to leave, but I want you to stay despite it. I know you want to as well.” It seemed he couldn’t stand looking at the back of my head, so he grabbed my arm and spun me until we were facing each other. His pupils flared when they met mine. “I know what it’s like to feel as if you’re stuck in a glass bottle. I’ve experienced this feeling for what seems like over a century. I also know the only reason you saved me from the ocean is because I’m the most exciting thing that has ever happened to you, as you are to me. So stay, Circe. At least until the storm passes. Lest the next time I hold you is when I’m wrenching your body from the bottom of the sea.”
I yanked myself out of his grasp.
But I was also speechless, with a stunned look stealing my expression.
“Stay,” he repeated, taking another faulty step closer, looming over me and nudging his chin toward Weeping Hollow’s cliff across the ocean. “You’ll return anyway because the only reason you are here with me is because you cannot stand to be there.”
“You don’t know,” I said through clenched teeth, my heart pounding fiercely. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
His eyes bounced between mine. “I know you’re taking advantage of me.”
“I’m not taking advantage of you,” I said, hating how the truth sounded coming from him.
“You mistake me for a fool, as though I were born the second you laid eyes on me. Begotten from fallen snow and morning tide.” He leaned in until my back was against the door, his gaze coasting across my mouth. “I wonder what would happen if you one day returned to this island, and I’m no longer here? What escape would you have then?”
A dark cloud smothered me.
Stone must’ve noticed because a pang of guilt moved across his face.
It drifted so subtly, not breaking his sculpted expression.
My eyes narrowed. “You won’t leave. You have no one else. Not anymore.” I pushed him away. “Your own mother tried to kill you. Not one soul has come looking for you.” What he’d said affected me. It made me so angry that the ugly spilled out of me as if he’d cracked some secret code to the other side. Stone did see me for what I was, and it was terrifying. “Look around, Stone. You have no place left to go. You’ve been abandoned, just like this island.” And I punctuated my words with a shove to his chest, a silent plea for him to never leave me.
Stone didn’t stumble. He stood solid like a statue.
There was a shift in his eyes, too. A mask sliding back on.
It was subtle. I didn’t even think he realized he’d done it.
And then, “You know how to cut me open.” He lifted his chin, eyes settling upon me. “It may not be with a knife, but you carve your initials inside me one way or the other, I see. It’s a miracle anything survives you.”
An hour later, my feet were balancing on the trellis outside the window of the Cantini manor.
I tapped the window lightly with my knuckle and peered inside.
Alice jumped to her feet and stared at me from the other side of the window with a ghastly expression. All the color had drained from her face.
She hurried to unlock the window and crank it open.
“Where have you been? I’ve been worried sick, thinking the absolute worst … and what was I supposed to tell Mrs. Cantini if she realized you weren’t here?” she continued to ramble as I hauled myself inside. “Adora! Is that … my gods, miss, you’re bleeding.”
“It’s not my blood.”
“What do you mean? What happened?”
Once back on solid ground, I sucked in a gulp of stale air and looked at her. “No questions. Please, Alice, not tonight.”
She noticed my hair and ripped dress, and her face fell into horror.
I grabbed the torn fabric in one hand and pinned the scraps to my chest to keep it in place.
“I’m okay,” I assured her. “I’m going to draw myself a bath. I just … I just need to be alone for a while.”
Minutes later, I was submerged in a clawfoot tub with one leg hanging over the rolled lip. Stone’s blood stained the water a pink hue—a virgin tongue licking my skin. I dunked my head below the water, pushed my hair back as I rose to the surface again, and inhaled a wet breath.
Black Persian lilies detached from my flesh and floated on the surface, reminding me of all I’d been through over the last few hours.
I had so many thoughts, starting with how he controlled the earth, the memory I could see, and ending with the look on his face before I left. But after a few moments wandering in my imagination, I was consumed by a sculpted face, heavily hooded lids embroidered with two drops of black ink, and the thick maimed cock that I missed thrusting inside me. My heart didn’t have rationality on its side, either. But it had a vicious throat and screamed to be close to him again.