Page 375 of Coal Hearts

He groaned as he broke my skin.

I flinched and cried out in pain.

Pain that morphed into mind-scrambling pleasure.

He snarled as he tasted my blood for the second time.

I was burning, burning.

I’d never been so hot, so tight, so needy.

The word for what we could be together shot into my head again.

A word full of could haves and maybes.

A word full of destiny and star-crossed fate.

He could’ve been my everything.

He could’ve been my only.

But not here.

Never here.

He lapped me, inhaled me.

I couldn’t stop him.

Kicking my ankle aside, he wedged himself between my thighs and hoisted me up the wall. My legs automatically wrapped around his hips. His throbbing hardness pressed against my core.

I couldn’t keep fighting anymore.

I felt faint and woozy and upside down.

W-What’s happening to me?

My hips rocked forward on their own accord, needing, needing, needing.

Cupping my cheek, his fingers shook as he pulled away from the wound he’d caused and licked at a ruby streak on his bottom lip. “Goddammit, little nightmare...”

My chin came up.

His tipped down.

He came so, so close to kissing me.

My heart burst wide open.

He hurt me worse than anyone.

He was driven by demons I could never exorcise.

Yet as he stood there, crazy-eyed and dripping in need, I saw him.

The real him.

The lonely boy. The tortured man. The feral monster.