Page 38 of Ravished By the Revenant

“Off.” She yanks at the button of her jeans while I hold her weight against the bark. “These are the enemy. These were invented specifically to ruin this moment.”

Between the two of us, we peel the cursed things down one leg, boot and all, leaving them dangling absurdly from her other ankle, and neither of us cares, because my fingers find her bare and soaked, and her head thumps back against the trunk.

“Already,” I growl against her throat. “You have been wet since the strawberry.”

“I’ve been wet since the chicken, don’t let it go to your—ah⁠—”

Two fingers inside her, and her insult dies on her tongue. I drink in the sound of it. She’s still swollen from last night, tender and fluttering, and I gentle my hand, slow strokes, until she’s grinding down onto my palm and cursing me in fragments.

“Aldric, I swear to god, if you tease me right now⁠—”

“Remember, little intruder? There is no god here.” I bite her earlobe. “Only me.”

“Then only-me had better get his pants open in the next five seconds or I’m finishing this myself.”

I free myself one-handed and hoist her up. She wraps both legs around my waist, jeans still flapping from one ankle like a defeated banner, and I brace her against the tree and notch myself at her entrance, and the heat of her against my cool flesh tears a groan out of my chest.

“Slow,” she breathes. “I’m—last night, I’m still⁠—”

“I know.” I press my forehead to hers. “I have you. Breathe.”

I sink into her by inches, and she takes me with little hitching gasps, her nails carving into my shoulders through the shirt, her body gripping me so tight and hot and alive that my knees nearly buckle. Bark bites into my forearms where I cage her. I do not feel it. I feel nothing in this world but her.

“Oh my god.” Her eyes flutter. “How is this—it’s worse standing up—it’s so much deeper, it’s⁠—”

“Worse?”

“Better. It’s better, shut up, move⁠—”

I move.

Slow at first, long rolling thrusts, the ladder of my piercings dragging across her inner walls while she whimpers into my collar. Then she starts meeting me, riding down onto each stroke, greedy, and slow stops being an option for either of us.

“Look at you.” I grip her thigh, hitch her higher, drive up into her hard enough that leaves shiver overhead. “Fucked in an orchard like a peasant girl at harvest. Where are your centuries of progress now, little intruder? Where is your dignity?”

“Left it—in the bathtub—yesterday.” She looks at my chest, and her fingers go to my buttons. “I want to see it.”

“Clara…”

“I want to see it.” And she doesn’t wait. She grabs the placket in both hands and rips, buttons flying into the grass, fabric spreading, and blue light meets the glow of the afternoon sun.

My heart. Bared. The parted ribs, the crystal pulsing in its cage of bone, glowing brighter with every thrust because of her.

I brace for her flinch.

She doesn’t flinch.

She flattens her palm against my sternum, just below the ruin, and stares into the glow while I move inside her. Her mouth falls open, and she clenches around me so hard I choke.

“It beats faster.” There’s wonder in her voice, ragged and breathless. “When you’re inside me. It’s beating faster.”

I slam into her, and she cries out. “It has beat for you since the night you screamed at me from that bathtub.”

Clara blinks. “That’s the most romantic—horrifying thing—anyone’s ever⁠—”

“Watch it, then.” I take her jaw in one hand, keep her eyes on my ruined chest, on the light pulsing blue between the bones. “Watch what you do to a dead man. Watch me come alive.”

She shatters.