Page 89 of Decimation

The realization hits me; we are the same. Two broken things, shattered by the people who should have protected us. Pieced back together with spite, rage, and a stubborn refusal to die. I looked at her and thought God had sent me a gift, a balm for my wounds, a woman to heal me. But that’s not it at all; God sent me a mirror. Someone who understands the darkness because she’s lived in it, someone who won’t flinch when she sees the monster I’ve become. Someone who might, impossibly, love me anyway.

I lean down and press my lips to the spiral scar on her shoulder blade.

She murmurs something in her sleep. Her name, maybe. Or mine. The sound goes straight to my cock, which is already half-hard from the simple fact of her proximity. I’ve been ignoring it for an hour, focusing on her scars, her story while the rage built in my chest. But now she shifts again, her legs parting slightly beneath the sheet, and I can smell her, the salt of her skin and something sweeter beneath that I’ve come to recognize as purely Leandra.

The clock is ticking, but the clock can fucking wait.

I move down her body with the patience of a man who has spent decades learning to control his impulses. My lips trace the path of her spine, pausing to press kisses to each scar I find. The runes. The lash marks. The places where Ezekiel carved his madness into her very flesh.

I’ll overwrite them. I’ll mark her with pleasure instead of pain, I’ll make her forget every hand that ever touched her except mine.

When I reach the small of her back, she stirs again. Her breathing changes, catching on an inhale. Her fingers curl into the sheets.

“Lazarus?”

“Shh.” I press my mouth to the dimple just above the swell of her ass. “Don’t wake up. Not yet. Let me do this.”

She makes a sound that might be a question, but it dissolves into a gasp when I pull the sheet away completely. She’s naked beneath, still flushed from last night, still bearing the faint marks of my mouth on her inner thighs. The sight of those bruises, purple and tender, evidence of my devotion sends a surge of possessive satisfaction through me.

I spread her legs gently, positioning myself between them. She’s already wet. I can see it, the way her labia glisten in the morning light, the way her body responds to me even in sleep. I lower my head and breathe her in.

“Lazarus, what…”

My tongue answers for me.

I lick into her with one long, slow stroke, parting her, tasting the essence of her. She cries out, her hips bucking against my face, and I grip her thighs to hold her steady. She’s so responsive, so very alive. Every flick of my tongue draws a new sound from her lips; a gasp, a moan, a broken version of my name that makes me harder than stone.

“Please,” she whimpers. “Please, I…”

I circle her clit with the tip of my tongue. Once. Twice. Three times. She’s writhing now, her hands fisting in my hair, her thighs clamping around my ears. I don’t stop, I don’t slow down. I lick, suck, and tease until she’s grinding against my face, taking her pleasure from me with an abandon that makes my chest ache.

“That’s it,” I murmur against her flesh. “Take what you need. Use me.”

She comes with a scream that echoes off the marble walls.

I feel every pulse of it against my tongue, every spasm of her inner muscles, every shudder that wracks her body. I keep licking her through it, gentler now, drawing out the aftershocks until she’s trembling, oversensitive, and pushing weakly at my head.

“Too much,” she gasps. “I can’t…”

I lift my head and look up at her. She’s propped on her elbows, her hair a wild tangle, her cheeks flushed, her eyes glazed with pleasure.

“Good morning,” I say.

She laughs. It’s breathless, surprised, and utterly beautiful. “Is that how you wake up all your guests?”

“Only the ones I’m in love with.”

The word hangs between us. I said it last night in the heat of passion, but this is different. This is morning light, clear eyes, and nowhere to hide. She looks at me for a long moment, her expression unreadable.

Then she reaches down and pulls me up to her.

Her mouth finds mine. She kisses me deeply, tasting herself on my lips, and I groan into her mouth. Her hand slides down my chest, over my stomach, wrapping around my cock with a confidence that makes my hips jerk.

“Fair is fair,” she murmurs against my lips. “You made me come. Now I want to taste you.”

“Leandra…”

“Lie back.”