She’s waiting for me, a dozen candles lit all around, the pillows neatly stacked. She’s dressed simply in a t-shirt, sneakers, and skirt, her hair pulled up in a loose ponytail, the spattered freckles on her cheeks already darkening from the spring sunshine.
She’s never looked more beautiful.
She seems strangely nervous, maybe because the last time we were up here, she tried to do something kind for me and I shouted at her.
“It’s good to be back,” I say.
“I’m not . . . expecting anything,” she tells me awkwardly. “If your back isn’t healed yet—”
“Don’t worry about my back,” I growl. “It would take a lot more than that to get me to keep my hands off you.”
She flushes, that mischievous smile tugging at her lips.
Still, there’s an invisible barrier between us, something we both have to navigate. I’m not in control of her and she’s not in control of me—we both stand here free and unencumbered, wondering what that looks like for both of us.
“I never thanked you,” Cat says. “For what you did for me.”
“I did what had to be done,” I tell her. “Just like you would.”
“I shouldn’t have made those sketches . . .”
“Cat, those drawings are what put the heart in me for everything that came after. The ones you drew of me . . . I saw them and I thought you must love me. Then I knew I could endure anything.”
Cat stares at me, eyes wide.
“Didn’t you already know that I loved you?”
I swallow hard, embarrassed.
“I just . . . I fucked up so bad . . .”
“Dean. You really don’t know how I feel?” she says, tears gathering in her eyes.
I clench my fists, not knowing how to tell her this thing that I can hardly admit even to myself.
“I don’t think . . . anyone could really love me.”
Cat stares at me, part tearful and part angry.
Then she runs at me, beating on my chest with both hands.
“Why can’t you see that I love you? I fucking love you! I don’t care what you do to me, I don’t care what you say to me. I don’t care if you lie or scream or try to run away. I don’t care if you’re filthy or soaked in bleach or set on fucking fire! Why can’t you understand I love you! Without limit or reason.”
I look at her furious face, those brilliant dark eyes, and finally after all this time, the key turns in my heart.
I believe her.
I fucking believe her.
She loves me.
She loves me the way I love her.
I seize her and kiss her, her arms around my neck, her legs around my waist. I taste the sweetness of her mouth and the salt of the tears running down her face. I bite her lips, I breathe in her breath.
“Cat,” I say. “You don’t know what a monster I can be, but I’ll be your monster. Everything I do will be for you. To protect you. To help you. To love you every day of my life. I’ll burn this whole fucking world down for you if that’s what you want.”
She presses her forehead against mine.
“I know exactly who you are, Dean. And I fucking love you.”
31
Cat
Hypnotic — Zella Day
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Dean kisses me like my lips are the only thing keeping him alive.
He slams me against the crumbling tower wall and gropes my body with both hands. Bits of mortar and stone rain down on our heads, covering us in soot and dust, but we don’t give a fuck, we barely even notice it.
I had planned to be careful of his injuries—now I can’t think of anything but how badly I need him.
It doesn’t matter. Nothing can dampen Dean’s fire for me, not heartbreak, or time apart, or even a whipping.
He’s tearing my clothes off and I’m ripping at his, desperate to put my hands all over him, to smell his sweat and his skin, to lick him and bite him and suck every place I can reach.
I tear off his dress shirt, buttons ricocheting off the huge bronze bell. Dean shoves my skirt up around my waist, shredding my panties with his fingers and yanking them aside.
I can’t stop kissing him. I thrust my tongue all the way in his mouth, wanting to taste every bit of him, obsessed with the fullness of his lips and the way his tongue feels against mine.
My hands are in his hair, gripping tight right at the scalp.
His hands are wrapped around my waist, lowering me down on his raging hard cock.
He thrusts into me in one motion, his cock tearing into me like we’ve never fucked before. His cock is a battering ram, his hands invading armies. I surrender to him, every bit of me, while still biting and clawing at him as if I want to fight.
We fall to the ground, dangerously close to the hole in the center of the floor, through which the rope to ring the bell once descended. Now the bell lays silent on its side, likewise straining the limits of the uneven, weakened floor. Dean’s and my combined weight crumbles the edge even more, knocking several more stones down into empty space. We have to roll away to avoid tumbling down ourselves.
Dean fucks me hard against the stone floor, scraping my back on the rough ground.
I roll over on top of him, mounting his cock, digging my nails into his chest as I ride him hard and fast.
I can’t get enough of him. It feels like years since we did this, it feels like I might have died if we were apart any longer.
We’ve knocked over several of the candles. I smell smoke and singed fabric—one of the pillows, most likely. I don’t give a fuck. I’m not stopping, not even slowing down, not for anything.
Dean flips me over and enters me from behind, his hips slamming into my ass. He grunts as he drives into me, a primal, animalistic sound. He’s a beast and I love it.
My left hand drops through a hole in the floor as another stone falls away.
This whole tower is going to collapse.
I must truly have lost my mind, because in this moment I don’t care. I don’t care if the whole thing crumbles around us, as long as I’m locked together with Dean, his arms around me, his cock inside me.
Dean picks me up again, scooping me up in his arms like I weigh nothing at all. He’s so phenomenally strong that he can fuck me at any angle, any position. He takes over my body, and all I can do is gaze in wonder at the slabs of muscle on his chest, the straining tendons running up and down his arms like cords.
The floor shifts and cracks under our feet. I hear more stones falling down.
That noise is distant compared to the pounding of my heart, and my relentless hunger for Dean.
With each stroke up and down on his cock, I feel my climax building. We’ve come too far now—I’m hurtling headlong into this raging pleasure. Nothing can pull me back now.
Dean’s hand clenches around the back of my neck, his other hand gripping my ass as he fucks me harder and harder. He slams me against the side of the bell, driving into me with all his might. Our impact against the bronze makes a dense, echoing clang. The whole bell shakes, sending a deep vibration across the floor. Dean lets out a roar at the same frequency, his cock twitching inside of me. I start to cum too, biting down hard on his shoulder.