Page 42 of Requiem & Reverie

“You talk like he’s still alive.”

“Because I believe he is. And you need to start believing it, too. What good is this shit? What good does it do your son to drink yourself to death? To give up?” I give another light shake, drawing her wandering eyes to mine. “Huh? This helping you? Is all this making it better for you?”

She shakes her head, eyes cast away from mine.

“Don’t you fucking give up. Not on Oliver, and not on yourself.”

Eyes saddened with grief, she reaches out for me and clambers to her knees, straddling my lap. Without a word, she leans in, kissing me, and I wrap my arms around the middle of her back, pulling her in. I could easily take her right here on this couch, but it’s not right.

“Nola …” I protest, but her lips feel right, and her body calls to me like a siren waiting to pull me under. “You don’t want this.”

At least, that’s what I assume, until she lifts herself up off me just enough to slide one leg out of her sweatpants and panties. At the sight of her bare sex, I’m gone. Fucking lost in outer space, and I seize the opportunity to push my slacks down over my hips to my thighs, while she lines herself up, coming down hard on my cock. We’re quick and hasty, clawing and scratching at each other, hungry for something we can’t quite pinpoint, because this sure as hell doesn’t feel like something we should be doing right now. Feels almost forbidden and wrong. So goddamn wrong. Yet, for the first time, it doesn’t feel staged.

As she wraps her arms around me, threading her fingers through my hair, and stares down at me with those weighted eyes, it hits me.

All of it. All of her.

I realize why I suddenly don’t know what the hell to do with her.

This whole scenario is something foreign to me. Something I’ve never felt in my life with another woman.

It isn’t fucking. It isn’t even sex. It’s a fusion of pain. She’s sharing her pain with me in every rise and fall of her hips. It’s the closeness of two human beings in a way that separates us from all other forms of life. An energy that burns inside of me, fueled by her own, blazing through me like it wants to consume me. As she circles and grinds against me, tears streaming down her cheeks, I realize she’s searching for something. Searching for the piece of me I’ve kept hidden, for fear of this moment.

The day when I’ll finally bleed myself for a woman. Not just any woman.

She is poetry and madness wrapped in fire. An unreachable paradise for a soulless bastard like me.

Pressing my thumbs against her skin, I wipe away the tears on her cheeks and draw her face to mine, kissing her as she uses my cock. Greedily feeding off of me. Her fingers scrape across my skull, and she moves faster, bouncing against my thighs, until she breaks the kiss, tipping her head back.

The sight of her is darkly beautiful. The agony etched on her face, a clash of sadness and pleasure, as she opens her mouth to a moan. It toys with my head, taking me to places I don’t want to visit. Not now.

Sex has always been my outlet for dominance, but tonight, I feel out of control. Reckless. I’ve given her the reins, and all I can do is watch in awe, as this woman owns me—every fiber of my being—as I remain at her command.

Her moans break into sobbing, nails scratching, tearing at my skin like she wants inside. The way her body jerks and tightens reminds me of demons fighting against an exorcism.

The sight of her winds my stomach, and I grip the couch, fighting off the furious pulses of blood hammering through my muscles and into my dick. Her back stiffens, mouth gapes, brows winged up as if she’s finally surrendered to something, and I let go.

The tension slams to a halt and explodes inside of me, as she cries out.

Her body goes limp and falls forward onto my chest.

Wrapping her up into my arms, I hold her tight to me, as I bang out the last of my climax, slamming my hips up into her with each vicious thrust.

My body shudders and trembles, the air rushing in and out of my lungs too fast. A wicked, blinding ecstasy that shouldn’t feel as good as it does.

I don’t bother to pull out of her, and she doesn’t bother to climb off my lap. Together we just breathe.

Whatever the hell just happened, it’s the most meaningful thing I’ve ever done in my life. If her scheme was to make me give a shit enough to hunt down her son, it worked.

I’d kill for this woman right now.

15

The Sandman

“You don’t have to do this.” The girl’s voice held the usual shaky quality of all The Sandman’s subjects, and yet somehow stronger than the others. It was almost a shame he couldn’t add her to his collection when it was over. She lay trapped in latex, squirming beneath the plastic, while he stood over her, fully garbed in his suit, most of his face hidden behind a mask.

He hadn’t said a word up until that point, and realized that was the problem with conversing too long. Took the fun out of remaining anonymous, when they couldn’t quite pinpoint where they’d met him before, which typically heightened the terror in most of his subjects.