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I curve my body against his, crush myself to him as if I could blend our two selves into one. I press him backward, and he lets me move us toward the shaded corner of the ruins. At my breathless instruction, he removes the greatcoat and spreads it there, over the grass.

Seating myself on the coat, I stare up at him, feeling small and melted and wild with joy all at once.

He’s advancing, looming over me, huge and beautiful…

and I think I might shatter into brilliant fragments if he touches me again, so I gasp out, “Take off your clothes,” in a voice as commanding as I can manage.

Heathcliff hesitates, then obeys me, divesting himself of his damp shirt first, then everything else.

His body is a work of art, crafted by years of hard labor, scarred by Hindley’s cruelty.

Between his thighs is the proof of his primal craving for me—a part of male anatomy that I’ve never seen up close or touched.

I rise on my knees, curious and eager, and I reach for him.

But he steps back.

“I will not fuck you simply because you crave something new.” His voice hitches in his throat, deep and ragged. “I will not be a toy for you to play with, Cathy.”

He knows me too well and yet not well enough.

Rising to my feet, I lunge for him, hooking both hands around the back of his neck and pulling him close. My mouth closes over his and I bite his lip hard, a vicious pinch that makes him snarl in response.

“How dare you?” I hiss. “When have you ever been a plaything to me? You are more than brother, more than blood, more than life. You are part of my soul, the truest piece of myself. Stop talking nonsense, Heathcliff, and consume me. Burn me to ashes, inhale me, suck me into your lungs. I will be your breath and your torment forever.”

At my words, he is unleashed. He tears the clothes from my body with large, shaking hands, every desperate movement clarifying how long and how deeply he has craved this.

I let him dismantle me down to my skin, and when he stands there, stunned, taking in the sight of me, I draw him close again, aligning my body with his.

The wind tears at our hair and swirls around us like an eldritch force winding us together, binding our bones in a fated circle of immortal lust.

Heathcliff lowers me down to the coat. His lips wander the plush softness of each breast, each tight nipple, the tender flatness of my stomach, the hollows of my hip bones. He releases a warm breath through the soft curls between my legs, then licks me.

I writhe at the explosion of delicate sensations. Never have I felt anything so delightfully wet and supple as his tongue teasing every secret part of me. It feels filthy, and wonderful, and deliciously wicked.

He’s uncertain at first, eager but untrained, like I am. I direct him with a few gasped words, and we learn together.

Heathcliff seems to relish the taste of me, the avid swirls of his tongue dispelling any of my lingering doubts or insecurities.

His tongue glides through my folds, then laps at my sensitive peak with a quick, torturous rhythm until I am quivering on the brink of a cataclysm—and then, only then, does he spread my legs apart, take himself in hand, and guide his length into my opening.

It hurts, and I tighten involuntarily. Heathcliff stops, strokes his hand along my side, and runs his thumb over my breast. The caress soothes me, and I let out a long breath, blinking away the tears. He waits until I nod, then eases in deeper.

A shuddering groan rolls from his throat, and his eyes close with utter bliss.

Seeing him react that way to the sensation of being inside me is the best balm I could ask for.

My muscles relax, my thighs turn liquid, and the tightening sweetness at my core returns.

I reach for Heathcliff, twine my arms around his neck, pull him closer, deeper.

“Never let me go,” I whisper fiercely. “Hold me, take me. Be in me, with me. We are the same, you and me. Don’t leave me, ever. Promise you won’t.”

“I swear it, my darling,” Heathcliff murmurs between bruising kisses. “We will never be apart, not in this life or the next.”

“Swear it with your body,” I plead, and with another moan, he begins to roll his hips…

long, slow thrusts into my slick center.

With each surging thrust, the sweet tension builds higher, higher.

I strain for the great cataclysm; I pray for it aloud, with Heathcliff’s name punctuating my gasps.

And at last, with a violent explosion of pure, bright bliss, my world cracks apart, rivers of ecstasy flowing through new chasms.

The rending of my body is more beautiful than I could have imagined because Heathcliff caused the exquisite ruin. He chokes out a ravaged cry, a groan of wild pleasure, and he holds me tight while he comes undone, while his body pulses into mine. A shiver of bliss runs over his skin.

Even when he slips out of me, we remain tangled together, broken and healing, naked on my father’s greatcoat in the ruins of the church.

For a long time, we make only the smallest of movements—a hand drifting to a new contour of warm flesh, lips pressing a tender place for the first time, bodies shifting to a slightly different angle.

But after a while, a tender desperation swells inside me, filling me up until I have to speak. I must let him know how deeply I felt this interlude between us—how vital our connection has always been to me.

“Years ago, I dreamed that I went to heaven,” I whisper, twisting my fingers through locks of Heathcliff’s dark hair.

“I hated it there, and I begged to leave. I sobbed and pleaded until the angels threw me back down to earth. I went to find you, but you were gone—you had died, too, and gone below, to hell.”

He hums a low assent, as if to confirm hell as his final destination.

“I couldn’t exist on earth without you,” I whisper, curling my fingers more tightly into his hair until I know it must hurt him, but he doesn’t flinch.

“So I summoned the Devil and told him I would commit my soul to hell if only it could exist beside yours. He agreed. And in that fiery torment, we were the happiest we’d ever been. ”

Heathcliff turns his face up to mine and kisses me. In the warm crush of our lips, there is relief, solace, escape. But like my flights on horseback, it is only temporary. We cannot stay here forever—eventually, we will have to return to Wuthering Heights.

“If Hindley finds out what we have done, he will kill you,” I whisper.

“Let him try,” Heathcliff mutters darkly.

“No, Heathcliff.” I sit up, panic icing my bones. “He will shoot you for defiling me. Even if I enjoyed being defiled…”

He smirks, his gaze heating again, his mouth seeking mine.

I push him back gently. “You must be serious now, Heathcliff. Promise that if he kills you, you will haunt me. I could not bear to exist in a huge, hollow world without you in it. Haunt me, or I swear I will kill myself and join you in whatever fate follows this life.”

“Much as I love the thought of haunting you, love, I have a better idea,” he replies.

“A less lethal one, perhaps. I have been taking money from Hindley for years now, a little at a time. He robbed me of the inheritance your father wanted me to receive, so this is fair recompense. We can take the money and the horses and go far away, somewhere they cannot find us.”

The idea makes my heart bolt like a restive colt. “How will we get the money? We cannot go back to the house.”

Heathcliff gives me a grin of malevolent satisfaction. “It so happens that I hid the money in this very place. We spent so many happy hours here as children, it felt appropriate. I have a small chest buried beneath one of the three slabs of the broken gravestone.”

“Truly?” I exclaim. “You brilliant bastard.”

He whistles low. “Such a naughty tongue for a well-bred lady.”

“I have never been well-bred,” I reply. “Perhaps I can feign good breeding as we travel, if needed, but in private, when it is just us two, I will show you how naughty my tongue can be.” Interest lights his eyes, and I smile.

“We have a little time before we begin our great adventure. Perhaps I should offer you a demonstration now?”

Heathcliff doesn’t respond, but his body answers for him. His eyes widen as I settle into a new position, open my mouth, and slide him inside, over the slippery surface of my wicked tongue.