Page 124 of Petrify

“What?” My grip in her hair tightens. And the sound that comes from her mouth isn’t out of pain.She wants this.

“You took too long. I thought maybe you weren’t coming.” Her lips look perfectly bruisable. Her lashes flutter, her wide eyes darkening with desire.

“You ran from me.”

“I knew you would chase me.”

This game we’ve been playing since the beginning?—

She wants me crawling behind her like a dog, waiting with bated breath for every word out of her mouth.

These three months have been too long. Watching her from street corners, tracking her every move, wishing I could startle her awake again with my cock between her legs. My hand and the memory of her isn’t enough, not when it could’ve been so easy to disable the security systems and have my way with her. But I had to wait until Henri was gone. I had to get her alone. And now my blood is thrumming with the need to claim her again, to remind her just how good we are together.

Her lips part when my hand trails to her hip, my cock brushing against her stomach.

There are too many layers of clothing between us.

Without another thought, I’m turning her around, wrenching down the thin little shorts over her thighs. My belt is undone in a second, and then I’m thrusting forward, the head of my cock sliding through the wetness between her legs.

“You missed me.” I can’t hide the gratification it brings me—the groan erupts from me before I can stop it.

She’s braced against the mirror, looking me straight in the eyes, gasping at every glide of my cock against her clit, sensitive and eager.

“Didn’t you?”

“Yes,” she breathes.

“Did you touch yourself every night to the thought of me?”

The familiar smell of her, her shampoo, her perfume, is maddening. I nip at her shoulder, her throat. I want to bite down, pierce her skin with my teeth. Make a permanent mark, tattoo my imprint into her flesh.

Her face reddens.

“You did,” I whisper, “because no one can give you what I give you. No one knows you like I do.”

I grip her jaw and force her to watch us through the mirror. Her nipples are pebbled in the cool air, her limbs shaking, but I know it’s not fear. She wants this. She wantsme.

“You’ve thought about every single time I fucked you, haven’t you?” The flesh of her neck is warm. She is soft beneath my fingers skating across her throat. I get the sudden urge tosqueeze. But my thumb pressed against her pulse is reminder enough.

I would never hurt her this way, not really. Still her eyes flash with something wanton.

“I thought you might have died,” she whispers, almost too quiet to hear. “But I was too scared to ask anyone.”

I notch the head of my cock at her entrance. “Does this feel like I am dead?”

“No.”

She leans back against me, tilting her hips. She wants me deeper, she wants me to shove through to the hilt. How well I know her body, only after a few weeks. It’s like whatever deity has decided to curse me gave me this one consolation, this one concession for pleasure. This one creature for my own.

“Why did you wait so long?”

I hold her in place. “Why did you run?” I counter. “I said five minutes, Mallary.”

“I just—” But she’s gasping, moving her hips, her cunt chasing my cock.

“Not yet.” I’m unable to resist tracing my lips against her jaw, watching her struggle in the mirror. “Answer me.”

“You knew I couldn’t stay,” she says. “Not forever.”