Page 43 of Borrowed

Taut.

Thrilling.

Then I obeyed.

Fabric slid off my skin, pooling at my ankles like a discarded shell.I dipped a toe into the font.Cold as memory.I shivered.

“Good girl,” he said behind me.

Toby was already there before I sank in.He didn’t step—he appeared.He never played by the rules of others.

I lowered myself into the shallow basin, knees tucked, dark hair spilling over my shoulders.It looked like oil in the water.

Dark.

Corrupting.

The pool only reached my breasts, but it felt like it climbed my spine and dragged my heartbeat under.

Toby stepped in behind me, fully clothed, uncaring.His jeans soaked in seconds, his shirt clinging to his frame like skin on bone.I leaned into him.

“You think this is holy?”I said.

He pulled me back into his lap, my body cradled between his thighs, his chest against my back like a heartbeat that never stopped.

“It’s holy now.”His hands slid over my ribs, up to my throat.He tilted my head to the side and kissed just below my jaw.“Every time you touch water, you remember, don’t you?”

I whimpered.“I remember drowning.I remember burning.”

“You remember me.”

He pressed into me then.

Hips against the curve of my ass,

Grinding slow.

Patient.

Water lapped against the marble edge with every roll of his body.I arched into him, eyes fluttering.

“Tell me who you belong to,” he growled, hand cupping my breast now, thumb flicking across the peak like he owned it.

“You,” I gasped.“I belong to you, Toby.”

He bit my neck, not hard enough to bleed, just enough to bruise.

“Say it again.”

“I belong to you.There is no me without you,” I whispered, breath ragged.

His other hand slid between my thighs under the water.I jerked in his lap, legs twitching, toes curling against the basin floor.

“You’re shaking, Zusje.”

“I—I want more.”

He groaned against my skin.“I should fuck you right here.In this filthy little pond, they call sacred.”