Page 146 of Phobia

I was lost for so long, barely understanding the world I was in, trying to fit in for the sake of society, for my mother, for all those who told me that being different meant being an outcast, shamed. But one look, one kiss from him, and I knew I had found what I was looking for.

My heart sang as he dragged his lips over my cheek, down my neck, and toward the corset I wore, his eyes feasting at the cleavage right in front of him.

“You look like a dream, baby girl,” he murmured. I had no idea if he was telling it to me or to himself. No one has ever looked at me the way he did—with so much passion, reverence, love and need.

My mother told me once that love was only a fool’s dream, designed by those who wanted to have a way to control the masses into thinking that they cared about someone that much. Love was for weak people. Love was for those who had nothing else left in their life, but the idea of love.

But being held by Lazarus, being kissed by Lazarus, told me that love wasn’t just a noun, or a dream only a few could reach. It wasn’t just the feeling or a state of mind. It was abandoning everything you knew for that one person who filled the little black hole in your heart, finally making you complete. Love was abandoning everything you thought you knew about feelings, because nothing had ever felt this right.

Nothing had ever made me this elated, this happy, if happiness was even something that I was capable of.

After the years in darkness, it was as if the first rays of sunshine finally broke through the dark clouds that hovered above my life, giving me a glimpse into something new, something bright and good. Something I could hold on to when life became too much to bear.

“Sometimes it feels like I’ve been waiting for you my entire life,” Lazarus mumbled, his fingers dragging over the ties that kept the corset together, pulling at the one on the very top, letting the corset fall open.

Goosebumps erupted all over my body as he slowly pushed the corset open, revealing my torso, hungrily staring at every bare inch of me. “Sometimes it felt as if I would have to go through this life all alone because no one could ever understand,” he continued as his palm landed on my exposed left breast, kneading the skin, while his thumb and forefinger pressed around my puckered nipple, bringing out another moan deep from my body. “But having you here…” His eyes connected with mine. “Seeing you like this…” That small smile started playing on his lips. “I know that nothing was in vain. I know that my soul always waited for you to come to me, even before I had met you. I’ve looked for you in a hundred different women, a hundred different souls, but none of them felt as good as you do, baby. None of them fit as well as you do, and none of them had enough insanity in their eyes to battle my own, as you do. I am all yours.” He spread his arms, holding them at shoulder level. “If you’ll have me.”

Words couldn’t describe how I felt about him. There were no known expressions in the English language that could even begin to express the way my heart squeezed tightly when I saw him last year, or when I saw him tonight. Words weren’t enough to tell him how much I craved his touch, his darkness, his ruinous world.

I wanted him to ruin me, to hold me and tell me that I would never belong to another because this was it. This was my new beginning and my final stop.

“From the moment I saw you,” I started, lifting myself up into a sitting position. “I knew that I wanted you. Even at that age, something in me recognized the darkness in you, and I wanted it. I craved it,” I murmured, pressing a soft kiss to his jaw. His shuddering breath spurred me on, telling me to continue. “I was never afraid of you, Lazarus. Even when I had no recollection of that night, I still wanted you near. I would’ve done everything if you had asked. I came to you last year. I came because of you. I don’t give a fuck about Judah, Gabriel, or any of them. I only care about you.”

An inhuman sound tore from his throat, and, within seconds, he had me pinned down on the ground, undressing me with the urgency of a man possessed, his eyes zeroing in on the dried blood on my thigh. “What do we have here?” he practically whispered, transfixed on the spot where I cut myself while running away from him.

His thumb pressed against the tiny wound, and like a shockwave to my system, I could feel that touch all the way to my core. My back lifted up from the ground the more he pressed, my teeth clamping down on my bottom lip. His dark chuckle was the only thing I heard before I felt the press of something cold and sharp on my other thigh. I looked down. I could see his body above mine and his hand wrapped around the handle of the knife.

“Oh, baby girl.” He grinned. “I know exactly what to do.”

The tip of the knife pressed into my flesh, tearing through the first layer of skin, then the second, until it reached the vessels that broke underneath the pressure, spilling crimson over my skin.

“Holy shit,” I whimpered, feeling every stroke, every new touch in my very soul. “Lazarus!”

He used me like a canvas, branding me, owning me in every way possible. “I’m gonna brand myself into your very soul, baby. Every time you look at this place, I want you to remember this day. I want you to remember the day when I finally made you mine.”

His thumb scooped up the spilled blood from my thigh, bringing it up to his lips. “You taste like my favorite candy.” The knife he held fell to the ground between my legs, and his other hand came down to my hip, caressing my bare skin with his thumb.

“Lazarus,” I murmured. “I need you.” I writhed on the ground, trying to get closer to him, but he held my hip with his right hand, keeping me in place. “Please.”

I wasn’t above begging at this point. I wasn’t above doing anything that was necessary to keep him with me. With the strength of sheer will, I lifted my left leg and wrapped it around his hips, pulling him closer to me. He fell over my body with a soft thump, grinning from ear to ear as he looked down at me. There was no mistaking the feral need reflecting back from his eyes. I thought I knew what passion and need felt like, but I was wrong. So fucking wrong.

“I need you to fuck me,” I ordered, pulling him down toward me with one hand around his neck and the other one unbuttoning the black shirt he had on. He didn’t need me to say it twice as he pressed his hips into mine, his hard cock grinding against my core, with only his pants and my underwear standing in the way. “Right fucking now,” I growled, needing a lot more than friction between us.

“Your wish,” he said, tearing his shirt open in one move, “is my command, baby girl.” His pants followed shortly after as he stood up to get rid of them. As I lifted myself up into a sitting position, holding my body with my elbows on the ground, my mouth became agape at the sight in front of me.

He wasn’t built like the models I saw in magazines, or the fitness freaks I saw on the streets of Seattle, but his body was a work of art. A soft V led toward his hard member, bobbing slowly between his legs, pointing at me. My mouth watered at the mere thought of having him inside me, of having him brand me from the inside out.

A dark patch of hair led the way from his belly button toward his shaft, and holy motherfucking shit—was that a piercing glinting from the head of his cock?

If Heaven existed, I was pretty sure that I had died and gone straight there.

Chapter 11

I was drunk on her.

The way she stared at me, eating me with her brilliant blue eyes, taking me in inch by inch, while her teeth nibbled on her bottom lip, taking her sweet time. Time stood still as we both gazed at one another, storing this memory in the part of our minds reserved only for the things we wanted to remember forever.

And me—I always wanted to remember her like this.