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“Anything.” I’d sell my soul to stay in this moment.

“Never fall in love with me.” His voice crackles with pleasure.

“What? Why the fuck would I?”

“You have to promise—”

Strike.

“To never—”

Strike.

“Fall in love with me.”

I drop my legs from his shoulders, and he falls against me, chest to chest, a solid weight to keep me from floating away.

“Promise!” He stops, waiting and pulsing inside me.

I claw at his back, forcing him deeper, desperate for more, scratching until my hands slide freely over the fresh cuts I made, marking him with love he’ll never have from me.

“I promise. I fucking promise.” My cries bind my heart.

“All of it!” He pulls out, dripping with satisfaction, leaving me empty, so dark and empty.

“I promise I’ll never fall in love with you!”

And he fills me again.

He gives and takes with slippery jabs, faster and harder. His black blood smears between us, over my heart, seeping into me, sealing my promise with the bloody kiss of our chests a hundred times over. His hips knock into mine with each consuming entrance into me, our sticky skin smacking together. I close my eyes, feeling him so thoroughly and savoring the in, the out, the fullness, the ferocity.

He shifts his weight back, then his hand is snug on my throat. The other grabs a fistful of my hair. “Open your eyes and watch me fuck you, little Never.” My eyes fling open, catching his merciless gaze. “And when you come for me, I want every curse word you know rolling off that tongue, louder than all your screams combined.”

That’s it. I’m not going to make it much longer. Not when he talks like that. I dig my fingers into his back while rocking my hips. I’m tugged and bound and strangled from the inside out, my back a shadowy rainbow arching toward release, my hips the rolling rapids of a river, speeding toward the waterfall’s edge, teetering on the brink—all those terrible moments about to fall away for good as he fucks me into forgetting. My thighs convulse.

Him on top of me, his bare chest, every burying thrust—he’s a drug, the best escape. I want him over and over. In and out. Slick and hard. The angle spot-on. His nose scrunches up, his lip held captive by his teeth while looking down at my bouncingbreasts. And for a second, he glows, a product of my mind lost in euphoria. My fingernails gouge crescent shapes into his back, his hand still flexing on my throat. I cry out and grind up into him.

“Never…you’re killing me,” he pants.

“How long until you come back to life?”

His face screws up. An animal groan builds within him, low and threatening. He drives into me with a wicked fury, rubbing me just right with every blurry stroke, sending me plunging over the misty falls, beyond return, thrashing against his cursed hips. Heaving, moaning breaths rack my whole body, and I writhe beneath him, dizzy, my body jerking with torrents of tension.

And just as relief finds me, he releases that groan. That visceral sound of an ancient being—hissound—intensifies every sensation. Waves roll over my nerves, and I want him closer, deeper. I don’t want it to ever stop. I could stay here. I could spend an eternity like this—my mind free, my body raptured, death so, so, so far away.

He watches me, an intensity in his stare as though he could feel my raging pleasure. And I have no shame. No awkwardness. He’s seen my worst. My tears, my fury, my violence, my turbulent mind.

I don’t need to love him. No. I’ll hate him. I’ll hate him with every piece of my heart so it’s never without him.

“Don’t you close those eyes,” he demands, his fist pulling my hair tighter.

My walls clench and release around his cock, and he surrenders his final shred of restraint, unleashing himself on me, his hips bucking. He slams into me with unnatural force, as fast and urgent as his ragged breaths tear from him. The strength and savagery of a being forced to live on, death after death, sharing his mind with the many thousands who came before.

“Eli…” My eyes roll, threatening to close.

“Eyes on your guard,” he orders, his voice dangerous, deepening with the grip on my throat. I blink up at him, and he loosens his hold. His whole body is strung tight as he lifts my head by my hair and presses the softest kiss to my lips between thrusts. “My forever prisoner.”

I move my hands to his curls, threading them through my fingers. I look straight into those boundless eyes. “The only mistake you are is mine.”