Page 49 of Fuse

And my heart prays.

Holy God, if you have never heard any of this sinner’s prayers before, please hear this one. Let her live. If you have to take every drop of my life to do it, then fucking do it.

Let. Her. Live.

I’m so deep now. She’s meeting the sizzling fire of my head with her eager mewls, though the rest of her body is inert and frail beneath me—an acknowledgment that brings just enough sorrow to keep me from completely coming.

“Emmalina. Fuck. We’re almost there, Velvet. I…I need to pump.” As if my body has a will of its own, my hips start to roll. The friction of my girth against her lips is more incredible than I want to admit. “Need to…move, okay? Need to…fuck you. So good. So good…”

Her moans gain a new pitch. I have no idea if I’m helping or hurting at this point, but as soon as she lifts one weak hand, splaying her fingers against the front of my thigh, it’s all the encouragement I need. Every inch of my leg prickles and coils. My ass clenches and pushes.

Inside her mouth, I’m nothing but fire.

Inspiration.

Desperation.

And at last, explosion.

Lightning and lust. Rain and redemption. Sin and salvation. Oh fuck, how I hope—as I spill and flow and come and come and come, letting every searing drop tear through and up and out of me, every single burst taking a new prayer with it.

Fuck, fuck, fuck; please let this work; this has to work; this needs to work…

In the aftermath of the detonation, there’s eerie silence.

Too much silence.

With a long groan, I pull away from Emma.

Who’s joined the silence.

“Velvet?”

I slide down until I can frame her cheek with my palm.

Her still, cold cheek.

“Emmalina.”

Not an entreaty anymore. A demand. A refusal to accept what I’m seeing and feeling.

What I’m not seeing and feeling.

No more of that gorgeous flush across her face. No more of the steady thrum she always brings to the air, the vibrant life she brings to my world…

“Fucking Jesus. Emma.” Another command, this time at the full force of my roar. Like that helps. Like I’ve done a goddamned thing to help her except lose control like the filthy mutant I am. Instead of thinking rationally and considering a plan that made even half a thought of sense—a plan a normal person would have enacted—I believed the most bizarre solution had to be the right one.

Because that’s what I’ve become. A freak existing in a land of upside-down. Where demented bitches have control over my friends, and their final whispered words to me are a plea for their own death. Where the love of my life goes into cardiac arrest because of foreplay and then begs me for even more sex as the solution. Where I’m holding her lifeless body in the middle of a mud puddle, having fucked her to death in the mouth.

Where all of this leads to the only inevitable questions I should be asking myself.

“What the fuck have you done, Richards?” I roll back onto my haunches, pulling her close and rocking her against my chest. “What the fuck have you become?”

As fast as I’ve gritted them, I boot them up again on my lips—prepared to repeat them as many times as it takes for answers.

But the truth is, I already have them. Permanently stained on the walls of my soul—with the blood of my father, my friends…and now my woman.

“Ohhhhh!”