Page 21

Or maybe I’m delirious. Drenched in the afterglow of survival, with alcohol still in my blood and the echoes of my screams in my head.

Maybe I’m in shock. I doubt it, though, because I’m warm all over now, gloriously flushed under the blankets, bathed in the heat rolling off his bare skin.

The long, silky length of his cock lies against my thigh, burning hard.

But he doesn’t move. Doesn’t try to rub against me or get inside me.

He hasn’t said a word since everything is you .

What does a person even say in response to that?

“Don’t do it again,” he says suddenly. “Run off like that and almost get yourself killed. Because I’ll follow, you know. And we might both end up dead. I can forgive you for causing my death, but I won’t forgive you for causing yours.”

I smack his chest with my hand. “How was I supposed to know there’d be an actual god out there in the sea? And one with a vendetta against banshees?”

He shifts restlessly. Doesn’t answer.

“Once we get back to your truck and have Wi-Fi access again, we need to do some research. I looked up a whole bunch of the gods a few years ago, but I don’t remember everything I read.

Manannán must be the god of the sea, but I don’t know why he hates banshees so much.

And what was all that about Cernunnos and the Morrigan? ”

Heathcliff exhales sharply through his teeth, the breath accompanied by a sharp bob of his cock against my leg, and I realize that I’ve been tracing his nipple with my fingernail without thinking about it.

“You keep doing that, and I’m going to come all over us both,” he says tightly.

I flick his nipple, then rub my fingertip around it in a slow circle.

A sharp moan cracks from his lips. “Cathy…”

Delight sizzles through me when he uses my first name again.

I adjust my position under the blankets, spreading my thighs so they’re splayed across his hips.

My torso is aligned with his now, my forearms braced against his chest. The blanket slides down, and he pulls it back up over my shoulders.

The blunt head of his dick brushes the lips of my pussy, and I gasp a little.

I shift my ass backward, feeling the nudge of his length against me.

Then I reach down and circle his shaft with my fingers, dragging the head through my wetness, spreading the slick.

“God, Cathy,” he grits out. Under the blankets, his hands find my waist, my sides, sliding up to my breasts. He squeezes them with a groan of satisfaction.

I keep teasing myself with him, rubbing his tip against my folds, against my clit, until he hisses another quick breath and his body tenses like he’s about to come.

“Don’t,” I order him. “Don’t you dare. Think about something else—think about dying. Think about the worst moments of your life. I don’t care as long as you give me more time with this.”

“Okay,” he gasps. “Okay.” I hear the rustle of his nod in the dark.

I give him a few seconds to control himself. Then I tuck the tip of him inside me and slide all the way down.

I sob when I do it—a sob that’s half-moan, half-cry, and all bliss as he fills me up.

The angle of my hips is perfect—I’m spread open across him, with my clit exposed and rubbing against his hard lower belly.

He keeps this area trimmed, which I like—there’s a soft scattering of dark curls across the hard muscle, teasing my sensitive bud as I grind on him.

He’s cursing, low and strained, over and over, with his hands clamped on my waist like he wants to move me, but he’s holding back.

Leaning forward, propped on his chest, I lift my hips and bob up, then back down.

He slides through me, thick and hot and perfect.

The blankets are slipping off, and the chilly air hits my shoulders, but I’m still warm enough, and this is more important right now.

Fucking him feels essential to myself, to my future wholeness and happiness.

I’ve never wanted someone as ferociously as I want him—whoever and whatever he is.

The secrets he’s keeping should bother me more, but I’m setting them aside, postponing my theories.

All I know is that when I need him, he’s there.

When I mourned, he followed me, carried me. When I nearly died, he saved me.

One of Heathcliff’s hands travels up my bare back, hooks around my neck, pulls my face down to his.

We fumble in the dark before we find each other’s mouths, and when we do, I want to scream with delight.

The kisses are rough, sloppy, punctuated by broken gasps, open-mouthed desperation, frantic bruising force.

I fit my lips to the edges of his, begging for his tongue, and he sweeps it inside me, raking across my teeth, lashing the hollows of my mouth.

I rock my hips while I kiss him, feeling the soft, wet suction of my body around his cock.

My feelings for the other guys I’ve slept with were flimsy, like a breeze in the sky, airy and inconsequential, changeful, gone in a breath.

What I feel for Heathcliff is like the roots of mighty trees, like bones under flesh, like the bedrock far beneath the ocean floor.

It’s not only erotic but necessary. I need him deeper inside.

I need to feel him wanting me, coming for me.

I need to unmake him so I can remake us both.

Most of the time I think of my banshee self as a separate part of me—an inner creature that I keep subdued and dormant—but she’s awake in this moment, an active part of this. Heathcliff is getting all of me: the wicked and the untamed.

I stop kissing him, and I focus on taking him deeper, faster.

His hands are in my hair, cupping my face, my skull.

I’m panting hoarsely against his gritted teeth, fucking myself on him with agonized need.

Our groans punctuate each other, primal, violent—I don’t know whether we’re two animals rutting or two souls blending, but it’s primal and it’s titanic and god, oh god —

I scream, and the banshee screams with me, and the house groans, timbers creaking over our heads, walls shaking, but I can’t stop because I’m coming.

I’m coming harder than I ever have in my life—waves of scintillating force rocketing through my body.

Heathcliff yells out, bucks beneath me—he’s soaring too, shuddering, swept up in a hurricane of pleasure so exquisite it’s like pain.

Heathcliff’s hips surge, his length pulsating inside me, his body shifting against my oversensitive clit. My scream rises to a shrill peak as I burst into bliss a second time, and a window near us cracks. Thankfully it doesn’t shatter.

“Oh god,” I gasp through my raw throat. I collapse on top of Heathcliff, shaking, and he drags the blankets over us again. His cock is still inside me, still flexing, and his chest buoys me up with every shuddering breath.

I close my eyes and yield to the warmth, to the glowing peace that spreads through my limbs, to the feeling of being held, cherished, and satisfied.

Heathcliff shifts beneath me.

“Did you have to break the window?” he says into my hair with a low chuckle I feel through all my bones.

“Sorry,” I whisper with a giggle.

“Damn.” A press of his lips into my hair. “If you’re warmed up now, we should take some of these blankets and go. I don’t trust the structure of this place anymore.”

“Yeah, I think you’re right.”

I’m quiet as we retrieve our swimsuits and shuffle out of the damaged cottage, clad in blankets. The explosive sex we just had worries me. I allowed myself too much freedom, and I can’t let loose like that again. I can’t be earthquaking houses whenever I fuck Heathcliff.

We pad down the beach in chilly silence, while the wind whips our hair and sneaks under our blankets to thrash our bare legs. By the time we reach the site of the campfire, it’s dark and dead. The church group has packed up and headed out.

Our flip-flops are where we left them, so we slip them on and head for Heathcliff’s truck, pulled up beside the empty house. My beach bag is lying on the hood. Edgar must have put it there. Maybe he felt bad about how things went down.

I don’t bother getting dressed in the extra clothes I brought. I just crawl into the passenger side of Heathcliff’s truck with my bag, tuck the blankets around me, buckle in, and wait.

He pulls on a dry T-shirt and gets in, too. Closes the door. Sits there with one palm braced on the wheel, fingers drumming lightly. “Is that going to happen every time? The earthquake thing?”

“I hope not. It hasn’t happened before.” I swallow, thinking of how I felt my banshee side right there, present with me, taking that moment to the extreme. If I repress her, I should be able to prevent any more glass-cracking orgasmic screams. “I can control it.”

“You shouldn’t have to.”

“I shouldn’t have to do a lot of things. But that’s life, right? You play the hand you’re dealt, even if it’s a shitty one.” I sneak a sidelong glance at his handsome profile, half-veiled by his shaggy black hair.

“I’ve never come that hard, or that long, with anyone,” he says.

“Same.”

He nods once, satisfied. Starts the truck, and we roll out of the driveway, bumping over potholes.

Once we’re back on a more traveled road, he says, “Motel? I’ll pay. I’m a little tired to drive all the way back.”

“I’ll have to text my dad.” My heart sinks. Dad doesn’t care if I’m gone all night on a crying spree, wandering in the forest, but he just might kill me if he knows I stayed overnight with a man. He’s sure to give me a backhanded slap or two at the very least.

Digging my hand into my bag, I find my phone and send him a text full of misspellings.

Banshe eprsode. Back tomorvo. Hopefully he’ll think I’m staggering around, barely able to text him in between wails and sobs.

He’ll still worry because he knows I was out with the church group, but at least he won’t guess the truth.

Hopefully Edgar won’t tell him anything about tonight’s events.

I doubt he’d want to admit how completely he lost control of his singles’ event.

I stuff the phone back in my bag. “We’re good. Motel it is. But no more sex.”

“Sleep,” Heathcliff agrees. “And then quiet sex in the morning.”

I can’t help laughing. “Maybe. I think I was just overwrought and tired, and my banshee side was stressed out from nearly dying. Some rest should settle everything down.”

“Cool.”

He taps his fingers on the wheel, and I study his profile. The god who attacked us had plenty to say, and I know Heathcliff is probably mulling it over. “Juventas” sounds Roman, which would back up Heathcliff’s theory that he’s got Italian ancestry.

“Sooo…are we going to talk about what that means?” I venture. “You being the ‘son of Juventas’?”

“Not tonight.”

He doesn’t say anything else, so I postpone my curiosity and stare out the window, remembering what it felt like—that concussive supernova between us.

It was fucking cosmic, and I don’t think it was just because I nearly died.

I think it was him . Heathcliff. I let myself be whole and wide-open to him like I’ve never been with anyone else. That was the difference.

And that is the danger.