Page 109 of The Fire Went Wild

“I won’t do it again.” I go back to my slower strokes. “Unless you refuse to answer my questions.”

Charlotte rolls her hips against me. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

We fall into a rhythm, our slick flesh slapping together as I hold Charlotte by her gorgeous blood-red hair so she can look at all the gorgeous red blood we spilled. It’s a work of art, all our destruction. An art installation, the blood gleaming like rubies on the wall and the floor and across my dresser and the doorframe. Charlotte’s breaths quicken, and her moans turn deeper and throatier.

“Touch your clit,” I tell her, yanking on her hair to show her I mean business. “I want to feel you come again.”

She doesn’t even pretend to fight me, just drops her chest down and snakes her hand between her body and the bed. Her fingers flutter against my cock as I keep fucking her, my own pleasure building into a tight knot of heat at the base of my dick.

“Hurry,” I tell her. “I’m not gonna last long.” I let go of her hair so I can fall over her, cupping her tits and licking the sweat and blood off the back of her neck. How blood even got there, I don’t know, but I’m not going to question it.

“I’m so close,” she whispers back, and she’s still looking out at the corpses and the blood, her body twitching.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” I whisper, squeezing her tits even though they’re half crushed against the bed. “Just like you.”

Charlotte announces her second orgasm with a loud, keening moan, and her hand goes still against her clit as I keep fucking her through those endless rippling pulses because I’m on the fucking edge myself, and her tight, clenching orgasm is what tips me over. Right before I spill, I yank myself back up and bury myself as deep into her pussy as I can, roaring as my cum spurts into her, my orgasm rolling hot and intense up through my stomach and into the rest of me. Charlotte whimpers softly like she feels it too.

I ease myself out of her and then gather her up in my arms, pulling her against my chest and then collapsing both of us backward onto the bed. She nestles up against me, her cheek resting in the crook of my shoulder.

“Just as a warning,” I tell her, running my hand down her bare arm. “If you try to get up right now, I’m going to chain you to the bed again.”

Charlotte laughs. “Don’t be an asshole.”

“I’m just being honest.” I pull her in closer to me, breathing in her scent through her hair. I love how it blends with the scent of blood and death hanging in the room, how it adds notes of dark sweetness to the inevitable rot. “This is the best part,” I whisper, brushing kisses against her forehead. “Holding you afterward.”

But then Charlotte doesn’t say anything, and a hot, lurid embarrassment flushes through me. The fuck was I thinking, saying that kind of romantic shit? Just because I love her—like, really love—doesn’t mean she loves me. And I don’t blame her.

Her fingers crawl across my chest. “You don’t have to say stuff like that,” she says softly. “I’m a big girl.”

My embarrassment turns to confusion. “Wait, what? It’s true.”

Charlotte lifts her head, frowning as she studies my face like she’s looking for evidence of something. A lie. I panic a little and spit out the first thing I can think to say.

“I love you.”

I immediately regret it, and I squeeze my eyes shut so I don’t have to look at the reaction on Charlotte’s face. “Sorry,” I mutter. “You don’t have to—You’re notobligatedor anything. I just?—”

She touches my face, so gently that I immediately shut up.

“Open your eyes, Jaxon.”

I force myself to do it, eyes fluttering. Charlotte gazes down at me, her palm still cupping my cheek.

“Say it again,” she whispers, her eyes boring into mine.

My heart’s pounding. All the things I’ve done in my life and this scares me more than any of them.

“I love you,” I whisper.

Charlotte draws her brows together. “You mean it.”

“Well, yeah.” Hesitantly, I reach up to tuck her hair behind her ear. “You’re the kind of woman I always wanted but didn’t think I’d ever have.” I can feel the heat in my face and I wonder if she can feel it—her Hunter senses are finally waking up, that much was made clear earlier. “Beautiful and strong and kind of a smartass. Another artist?—”

“You’ve never even seen my art,” she interrupts. “That doesn’t count.” She tilts her head toward the bodies.

“First of all, it does.” I smile, still stroking her hair. “But I want to see your work. Your gouache paintings, I mean.”

She smiles. “You remembered.”