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“Honey, please,” I begged, my voice unrecognizable. He stopped moving, and I whimpered, my eyes shooting open.

Our gazes locked, his dark and stormy as he licked me before sliding a finger inside. I dropped back to the bed as he played me like a fine-tuned instrument. His mouth and fingers were insistent, and I felt that tingle of something coming. Eliot added another finger, and the slight burn had me gasping as he grazed my clit with his teeth.

“Please. I need…” I needed him to never stop. I needed more. I needed everything from him.

“You gonna come for me, Angel?” he asked, his fingers sliding in and out of me in a painfully slow motion. I nodded, words escaping me.

“Fucking beautiful. Could spend all night looking at you. Drown in your taste.” The words sounded like they were ripped out of his throat, his voice deep and rumbling before he got back to business.

Curling his fingers up, he hit a spot inside of me that had me jumping. Clocking my reaction, Eliot repeated the motion as he put more pressure on my clit. With a final twist of his hands, I came hard, a gasp escaping me as the orgasm rolled through me.

My body was shivering, my breathing out of control. Eliot stayed where he was, murmuring soothing words as he made his way back up my body, fingers still inside me but moving slowly, as if trying to calm me down.

I was surprised to feel tears on my face, but the buzz in my body was so powerful that I couldn’t find it in me to care. I reached for Eliot’s pants, and he gently brushed my hand away, continuing his lazy exploration of my body.

“I want to touch you,” I pleaded. But he ignored me, his dark gaze focused on my naked body pressed against his mostly dressed one.

“Not yet,” he murmured, before distracting me with a kiss and wandering hands that brought my body back to life in a surprisingly short amount of time. This round was different, not as needy or sharp. Slow touches and deep caresses had me melting into a puddle, the orgasm washing over me like a gentle wave.

When I finally came back down to earth, I was a puddle. The last thing I remembered was falling asleep, Eliot’s hand stroking my hair and back as he watched me. Those dark eyes were unreadable but full of emotion.

That was my only complaint: Eliot always stopped things before it could get too far. It was all give and no take, and I had lots of plans for the things I wanted to give him. The way he made me feel when we were intimate…It was like I was his whole world. Like he was starving, and I was the only thing that could satiate him.

What he didn’t realize was that I felt the need, too, to memorize everything about him through touch and taste. I wanted to feel his body pressed against mine, to feel connected to him in every way possible. Body and soul, I was ready to claim Eliot as mine.

Chapter 19

Scythe

Those past few months with Lilah had been amazing. For once in my life, a different view of my future was forming. For so long, I had let myself wallow in the shadows, satisfied to hover on the edges of civilization, protecting those I deemed worthy. Memories of my childhood, of the actions that molded me, still hung like a weight around my shoulders. I was trying to break free from the future my father had promised me.

“You think you’re better than me? Think you’re a big man now?” My father’s voice rang through my head. That particular beating was the worst. I had come home from school to find him drunk and wailing on Mom. Her face was already bruised by the time I got in. She was crumpled on the floor in a pile of sprawled limbs and tears.

“Get away from her!” I roared. I was young, barely twelve, but had gone through a growth spurt. I didn’t have friends or hobbies; we couldn’t afford afterschool activities, so most of my time was running around gathering scrap metal to sell. It wasn’t glamorous, but no one was going to hire someone my age. Any daylight hours when I wasn’t in school, I was out digging through construction sites, recycling centers, and machine shops. Then, I hauled everything around in a dolly I had found outside a storage center.

“What, you want a turn?” he asked, turning his head to spit, the wad of tobacco-stained phlegm landing in a foamy puddle near Mom’s head.

“C’mon, son. What has this bitch done for you, anyway? You one of those little mama’s boys?” He nudged Mom with his foot. She let out a groan, her eyes closing as if it was too much work to keep them open.

“Floor’s all yours, my boy. Have at it,” my father said, his arms out like he was announcing the next round of a prize fight. He really thought I would take him up on his offer. That I would hurt an innocent woman to prove my strength. Anger flashed in me, and all I could think about was hurting him.

Ducking my head, I ran, catching him by surprise. My shoulder plowed into his gut, causing him to drop to the floor with a grunt, his head hitting the old linoleum tile with a thud.

“You fucking bastard!”

“Eliot! Run!” Mom’s broken voice reached my ears, but I was frozen.

“Shut the fuck up, Elizabeth. This is your fault, anyway.” That moment of hesitation was just enough for the old man to get a second wind. His hands were around my throat in the next instant, and I was slammed against the wall.

His face was dripping with sweat, and his breath reeked of stale alcohol and decay. Suffocating, no air entering my lungs, every instinct in my body wanted to act out. Instead, I kept my hands down by my side, refusing to let him see me struggle. It was the only way I could fight back at that point.

“Acting all tough, trying to play the hero. But don’t fool yourself. You’re MY son. It’s my blood that runs through those veins. You can pretend all you want, run as far as you need, but it won’t change a thing. Whatever you think I am? You’ll be ten times worse. Just wait.”

He dropped me to the ground, my left side slamming into the heavy wooden table. Dad kept the TV on. A pop in my shoulder registered before my body hit the ground. The wind was knocked out of me, my throat raw as I tried to get air in. My left arm hung limp by my side, the shoulder popping forward at a strange angle. Dad gave a weary sigh as he looked at Mom and me.

“Pathetic. The both of you. I’m going to the bar. Clean this shit up by the time I get home,” he said, stepping over my prone body without a second glance.

Not wanting to upset Mom, I didn’t mention my shoulder. It wasn’t until I passed out when I got home from school the following afternoon that she realized. The hospital trip was a blur. They reset my shoulder, but the combo of pain and medication they gave me had me in a weird in-between state.