Page 20 of 13 Nights

I hold the stillness for three more breaths. Hers, ragged and desperate. Mine, steady and measured. Then I begin to move, and the control I wield is absolute. Slow, deep strokes that I calibrate by reading her face, her sounds, the flex of her hips against mine. I learn what makes her gasp and what makes her whisper my name like a confession she didn't intend to make.

One hand grips her hip. The other finds her clit and works it with the same focused intensity I bring to everything else. She cries out, and I increase the pressure. Her fingers dig into my shoulders hard enough to leave marks of her own, reminding me she's capable of fighting.

"You said I had to ask," she says.

"Then ask."

"Harder."

"That isn't a request."

"Harder. Please."

I give her what she wants. I fuck her with full authority and without apology.

"Look at me," I tell her. "Don't close your eyes."

She obeys. Her eyes are wide, dark, and entirely present. She is here, aware of every decision I'm making with her body, and the look on her face says she chose this with her whole mind and would choose it again.

I see her build toward the edge. When she tries to retreat into silence, I stop moving and press my thumb harder against her clit until the sensation forces a sound from her she can't control.

"You're enjoying this," she manages.

"Yes."

"Arrogant bastard."

I drive deeper and hold. "Try again."

Her eyes flash even through the desperation. "Please you arrogant bastard."

I chuckle then give her what she asked for. I drive into her hard enough that her back arches off the table and the wine bottle finally topples, rolling unnoticed to the floor. Her legs lock around my waist. Her nails score my shoulders deep enough that a living man would bleed.

I feel her tighten around my cock, the clench building in waves that match the rhythm I'm setting. Her thighs tremble against my hips. Her head drops back, throat exposed, every muscle in her body drawn taut as a bowstring.

"Severin." My name comes out of her like something torn loose. "God. Severin."

She shatters around me, her pussy gripping me in hard, rhythmic contractions while her whole body shakes. She comes with my name in her mouth, the name Fritz tried to erase, spoken as if it has always belonged to her. I watch her face through every second of it, and the sight of Ashley Caldwell coming undone beneath me with my name on her lips reaches places the Veil has kept numb for centuries.

My own release hits like a fist. Muted, distant, arriving through the gauze that dulls everything the Veil gives me, but the force of it bows my spine and locks my hand on her hip hard enough to bruise. Her name is in my mouth when it crests, bitten out against her throat, and that part I feel with perfect, devastating clarity. She watches my control break.

I let her.

"Sit up."

She does. I pull her shirt from the floor and settle it around her shoulders, then bring her into my lap in the chair with one hand anchored at her hip.

"The last thought I had before the cannonball," I tell her, "was that I would die without anyone knowing my real name."

Her hand finds mine on her hip. She laces her fingers through mine and holds on.

The windows begin to lighten. Dawn arrives the way it always does in Sleepy Hollow, indifferent and exact.

I know what is coming. I've known for centuries.

I brace against it. My body locks. The pull reaches for me the way it always does, violent and absolute, dragging me toward the absence that waits on the other side of sunrise.

But something holds. The pull stretches. I grip the edge of the table. Ashley grips my hand. The mechanism that has governed my existence since the cannonball at White Plains fails to collect me on schedule. Seconds pass. I can feel each one in my bones, the pull clawing at me while the kitchen refuses to dissolve and Ashley's fingers stay locked around mine.