Page 86 of Haunt Me, Maybe

Not just liked it. Needed it.

The realization hit me like a fist to the sternum. She didn’t want gentle. She didn’t want careful whispers and slow reassurances. She wanted me to decide. She wanted me to take. She wanted the weight of my control so she didn’t have to carry it herself.

My gaze locked on hers, knowing, and a slow, wicked smirk curled the corner of my mouth.

“You like it when I take control, remember?” I crooned, the words sinking into her like teeth. “When I decide how deep you take me…how hard you come.”

She didn’t answer with words, only a broken little sound, but her body answered for her. Her hips rolled again, sliding my cock along her navel, thick and hot and heavy between us.

“Fuck,” I hissed, hips jerking once before I forced myself to stop. “Be still,” I warned. “Or you’re going to make me slip lower.”

Too late.

Her next squirm nudged the head of my cock down, right between her lips, where she was wet and slippery and so fucking ready. I throbbed against her heat, the tip catching just inside, and it was intoxicating—her wetness coating me, her pulse fluttering around the very edge of where I wanted to be.

I stared down at her, jaw clenched so hard it might break. My free hand left her mouth to crumple the blankets by her head.

“I’m trying to go slow,” I said, almost feral. “Trying to be careful. But you keep looking at me like that—like you want me to break you in—and—” My chuckle was dark. “Trouble, I’m losing it.”

I froze again, every muscle locked, and breathed hard through my nose.

“Tell me to stop,” I said, voice wrecked. “Tell me right now. No questions. No anger. Say it.”

She shook her head, frantic and desperate. “Don’t stop,” she pleaded. “Please don’t stop.”

I exhaled and pressed my forehead against hers. “Then no more squirming,” I ordered softly. “No more wiggling. You stay right where I put you and let me take what’s mine. Understood?”

She nodded, so trusting, and her body finally stilled beneath me. Trembling but obedient.

“Good girl.”

I kissed her while my hand slid between us, thumb finding her clit in slow, firm circles. My cock jumped, trying to get my attention and remind me that he was right there. One push, one roll of my hips, and we’d be inside. I closed my eyes for a heartbeat, praying for the strength to be gentle.

The air turned sour.

A low, guttural caw wound through the clock room. Multiplied and wrong, it echoed off the brass gears like a warning siren. From the shadowed rafters near the bell rope, a flock of crows erupted. Except, they weren’t crows anymore. Feathers mottled black and oily, eyes glowing red, their beaks were elongated into cruel, hooked blades.

Wings beat with the sound of paper being ripped by hand, and the air filled with the stench of rot and wet iron. Aven tried to wriggle out from under me, panic spiking through the ribbon at my wrist.

“What the hell are those?” I snarled and shoved her flat once more.

“Those,” she grunted, fighting to free herself from my protection. “Are what happens when a bad omen stops being a warning and starts being execution. They don’t just watch. They come for you.”

They dove, dozens of them, shrieking black shadows blotting the sun with outstretched talons. I threw my body over Aven, shielding her as best a ghost could. My anger surged, cold and instinctive. The kind that had once frozen windows and cracked floorboards when I was still learning to be dead.

Frost raced across the cot, across the floor, crackling up the nearest gear in thin, glittering veins. The temperature dropped hard, and the warped crows recoiled mid-dive, wings stuttering in the sudden freeze.

“Stop moving,” I snarled at Aven, but of course, she didn’t listen.

Her hands shot up, and her own magic joined the fight. Violet light snapped into place around us in a shimmering dome laced with gold sparks. And not a moment too soon. The warped crows broke free of my ice, and their beaks screeched against the barrier. Their wings battered it like hail on tin.

They circled, testing again, the flock thickening until their stench choked the small space.

“Get ready to run,” I warned. “When I say⁠—”

Aven wasn’t listening. She cast a decoy pulse and flung it toward the far window. The flock’s heads snapped around as one, drawn to the flare like iron to a magnet. They hurtled after it, crashing through the glass like a storm of black feathers, shattered panes, and shrieking rage.

When we were sure they were gone, the shield dropped. I eased off her, my cock still half-hard and very confused. The both of us scrambled to drag clothes on with shaking hands, and I checked her over. Shirt, jeans, sweater—half buttoned, half zipped, but good enough.